Cream Cheese Chicken

We've made this recipe a few times in the last couple weeks, it's cheap and easy but most importantly, it hits the spot! It's very similar to Creamy Italian Chicken and Pasta but I like this version with rice better. We spoon the sauce onto the rice and it's so yummy!

We're putting our Christmas tree up on Wednesday and I can't wait! Christmas is our favorite time of year! The boys made a Christmas movie advent calendar, so this year we'll split up our 30 Christmas movies and watch 1 every day! We'll snuggle up, watch Christmas movies, with our fireplace blazing, and twinkle lights shining! There isn't anything better in the whole world! What's your favorite Christmas movie? Justin's favorite is Christmas Vacation, my favorite is Love Actually, Andrew's favorite is Elf, and Abbott's favorite is Home Alone! I can't wait!

Ingredients
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed (it's ok if they're still a little frozen)
1/4 cup butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 packet, Italian dressing mix (I use Good Seasons Brand)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
Serve with white rice

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
In a 9x13 glass casserole dish, warm the butter and cream cheese in a microwave. I put it in for 30 seconds, stir, and then 30 more seconds. When the butter and cream cheese are soft you'll stir in the package of Italian dressing mix and cream of chicken soup. Stir in the cubed chicken breasts, coating the chicken with the sauce. Cover with foil and bake for 60 minutes in the preheated oven. Serve chicken and sauce over white rice.

Savory Chicken Breasts

I found this recipe on Allrecipes, I've always liked that website and how guests rate recipes... this recipe was 4 1/2 stars (out of 5 stars) with 379 ratings, so I thought I would give it a try! It was super easy and turned out really good! I will definitely make it again! It's a great weeknight dinner!!
So, why am I posting so late at night? Because I took a nap, grr! Don't get my wrong, I LOVE naps... but taking just a quick nap when I get home from work will keep me up for hours past my bedtime. Thus, I try to avoid taking naps so I don't throw my sleep schedule off. Today I just couldn't resist napping! My wonderful friends took me out to lunch for my birthday (we went to Ingredient) and they brought chocolate cheesecake and strawberry shortcake for dessert! So, I came home, sprawled out on the couch (like a beached whale), and napped. Sigh...

Ingredients
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
4 slices Swiss cheese
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
1/4 cup milk
1 cup dry bread crumbs
3 tablespoons butter, melted
Pepper to taste

Directions
Place chicken breasts in a baking dish. Season with pepper and top each breast with a slice of cheese. Mix together the soup and milk and pour mixture over chicken. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top and drizzle with melted butter. It doesn't look like much right now but just you wait, it's magic in the making! Bake covered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for another 20 minutes or until golden brown. When you serve, spoon a little of the sauce from the pan onto the chicken!

Spaghetti a la Philly

I was glancing through Kraft's website because I had some extra Philadelphia Cream Cheese and saw this recipe! The concept is simple... adding cream cheese to your favorite spaghetti and meat sauce. However, the result is surprisingly good! It gives this creamy lasagna-like quality to the spaghetti. I am not a huge spaghetti lover but we eat lots of spaghetti at my house; it's cheap and easy so we end up eating it once a week. I LOVE this twist!

Ingredients
1 large jar spaghetti sauce
8 ounces spaghetti noodles
1 pound ground beef (I sprinkle some Italian seasonings and garlic in my beef)
8 ounces cream cheese
Sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, optional

Directions
Cook the beef in a skillet over medium-high heat until well browned, stirring often to separate meat. I like to season my meat with a teaspoon of Italian seasonings and garlic but you don't have to. Pour off any fat. Add the spaghetti sauce to the meat. Cut the cream cheese into chucks and add it to the red sauce. Stir the cream cheese into the red sauce over medium-low heat until it's completely incorporated. Add the spaghetti to the sauce and toss to coat.

Mom's Chicken Tetrazzini

Chicken Tetrazzini is my ultimate comfort food. It is creamy, cheesy, chicken spaghetti... it really is a fabulous casserole! I grew up eating it, for my Birthday I always asked for Grandma's Chicken and Noodles or Mom's Chicken Tetrazzini. It’s my favorite! When the chicken is boiling your house fills with the smell of bay and celery, it’s amazing... I wish they sold bay leaf and celery candles! This is also the perfect dinner if you need to make a casserole for someone because a whole chicken usually yields 4 cups of shredded meat, so you can easily make two casseroles (one for you and one for a friend in need)!

Ingredients
1 whole chicken
1 pound spaghetti noodles, broken into pieces
6 celery stalks, cut in half
1 bay leaf
3 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of mushroom soup
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1 cup crushed Saltine crackers

Directions
Put the celery, chicken, bay leaf, and chicken in a large pot. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Fill the pot with water until the chicken is completely submerged. Boil on medium-high heat for a 1 hour (or until the chicken is cooked through). After cooking remove the chicken and celery from the pot. LEAVE THE BROTH AND BAY LEAF (your going to cook your spaghetti noodles in this broth)! Break the spaghetti into 2-inch pieces you'll have around 2-3 cups. Turn the heat to high and cook the spaghetti in your chicken broth for around 10 minutes or until the noodles are soft. I know this picture just looks like broth but the spaghetti noodles are in there, promise! While the noodles are cooking shred your chicken and discard the bones and celery. You only need two cups of chicken for this casserole so you can save the extra chicken for another recipe or make a 2nd Chicken Tetrazzini casserole (this is what I suggest... but in all honesty myself and the boys have immediately gobbled up the extra chicken- true story)! When the spaghetti is done dip a measuring cup into the pot and retrieve 2 cups of broth. (Don’t burn yourself!) and strain the rest of the broth out and discard it along with the bay leaf. In a bowl (or your pot) dump the spaghetti noodles, 3 cans cream of mushroom soup, 2 cups of cheese, and chicken. Stir it all together. Now start adding the chicken broth, beginning with 1 cup. Stir it up, then add a little more. You want the mixture to be stirrable, but definitely not soupy. I usually stop just short of using the full two cups. Place mixture into a 9x13 casserole pan and top with crushed saltines. Yum, yum! At this point, you can cover it well and freeze it, unbaked. Or you can cover it and refrigerate it, unbaked, for up to two days before baking. Or, go ahead and bake it at 350 degrees for 35 to 45 minutes until hot & bubbly. And here’s what you’ll have:

Roasted Chicken and Gravy

This dinner is absolutely amazing! The chicken is literally fall off the bone tender (Abbott laughed when his chicken leg fell off the meat and onto the table) and the gravy is so flavorful! It does require marinating overnight and 4 hours of cooking, but it is worth the wait! I suggest serving this with Creamy Mashed Potatoes, we call them Abbott's potatoes but they're everyone's favorite! The chicken/gravy only serves 4 people so if you have a bigger family you will need a 2nd chicken ,-)

Chicken Ingredients
1 (4 pound) whole chicken
4 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 onion, cut into 4 pieces
5 cloves garlic

Gravy Ingredients
Chicken drippings
2 tablespoons flour
1 can chicken broth (or 1 cup water and a chicken bouillon cube)

Chicken Directions
The night before... In a small bowl, mix together salt, paprika, onion powder, thyme, pepper, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder. Remove and discard giblets from chicken. Rinse chicken cavity, and pat dry with paper towel. Rub chicken inside and out with spice mixture (use all of the spice mixture). Stuff the pieces of onion and garlic cloves into the cavity of the chicken. Place the chickens in a resealable bag or double wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight, or at least 4 to 6 hours. After marinading... Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Place chicken in a roasting pan (I just used my 9x13 pan). Bake uncovered for 4 hours, to a minimum internal temperature of 180 degrees (I don't have a meat thermometer, but 4 hours was the perfect time for my 4 pound chicken). Let the chicken stand for 10 minutes before carving. While carving the chicken discard onion and garlic. Gravy Directions
Take the chicken out of the pan when it's done cooking. Now pour all the drippings into a glass measuring cup. Leave any browned bits on the bottom of the roasting pan (these are actually quite tasty and help give the gravy its flavor.) Let the drippings stand for a minute or two until the fat rises to the top of the measuring cup. Set the roasting pan over medium-low heat (you may need to use two burners at once.) Spoon out 4 tablespoons fat from the top of the measuring cup and put it back in the roasting pan.
Sprinkle the flour over the fat and whisk. Whisk flour and fat for 1 to 2 minutes until the flour turns a nice golden-brown color.
Pour the measuring cup drippings and can of chicken broth into the roasting pan. Whisking and scraping off the encrusted bits on the bottom of the pan. Simmer mixture for 2 to 3 minutes while whisking. Adjust the thickness of the gravy. If it is too thin, simmer, whisking often until the gravy is as thick as you want it. If it is too thick, whisk in a little more chicken broth. Taste the gravy and season it with salt and pepper if needed but with the rub of the chicken mine didn't need any salt/pepper. Serve the gravy over mashed potatoes with the roasted chicken. Enjoy!

Pizza Pockets

The Taco Pockets were such a hit I thought I would try making the pockets again but with pizza flavors! The boys all loved the pepperoni and cheese pockets, they dunked them in marinara sauce. The options for filling these pockets are so endless, I love using the thin crust pizza dough! Now, I didn't eat these pizza pockets. I don't like pepperoni, but lets just say it's because I was making good decisions on my diet. So hows the diet going you ask? I've lost zero pounds and Justin's lost 5... I swear he just thinks of losing weight and it falls off him. Don't feel sorry for me though, I spent the last 4 days at the lake eating out every day and gorging myself on omelets and muffins :-)

Ingredients
1 (11-ounce) can refrigerated thin-crust pizza dough
Mozzarella cheese, sliced or shredded
Pepperoni, slided
Optional Ingredients
Sprinkling of Salt, Parmesan cheese, and Italian seasoning
Marinara sauce for dipping

Directions
Roll the pizza dough out onto your pan with non-stick foil or cooking spray. With a pizza cutter divide the dough into four sections. Layer the pepperoni and cheese. I did as many layers that I could fit when I folded the dough up in the middle, it turned out to be 3 layers of pepperoni and cheese. Fold the ends of the dough over the pepperoni and cheese. Use a fork to crimp the sides together. When they are all filled, folded, and crimped. Sprinkle with some salt, Parmesan cheese, and Italian seasoning. Bake at 425 degrees for 12 minutes or until browned.

Spicy Chicken Pasta

This is a great weeknight dinner! I like that there's a little green leafy vegetable slipped in, Justin said that he liked the bites with spinach better than the bites without! Wow! I also like that everything cooks in one large skillet, it makes clean up a cinch! Which meant we had plenty of time to see Night at the Museum 2 (great family movie) and watch Jon & Kate Plus 8 announce their divorce (which made Abbott cry). Making this pasta reminded me of an awesome stop-motion animation video!

PES gives his unique vision of cooking a spaghetti dinner. He transposes various household items into their humorous counterparts in the kitchen (a clove of garlic becomes a Rubik's cube, dry spaghetti become pick-up sticks). I love watching it!

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
Cajun seasoning
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 can of tomatoes with green chilies, pulsed in a blender to break up the large chunks
A big handful of fresh spinach
1 box of Gemelli pasta(or whatever is you prefer)

Directions
Prepare pasta according to package directions. Sprinkle lots of Cajun seasoning on the chicken breasts and cook them in a large skillet. When the chicken is done take it out of the pan, shred the breasts, and set aside for later. Now pour the olive oil into the same large skillet. Add the minced garlic. Cook over medium-low heat until tender. Add the can of tomatoes with green chilies (remember to mince or pulse it, you want the consistency of salsa). Let the juice cook and reduce. Add butter and flour to the skillet to make a roux. Add milk and stir continuously until it starts to thicken up, if it gets too thick add a little more milk. Add the shredded chicken, Parmesan cheese, and salt to the sauce. Now shake on some more Cajun seasoning, taste the sauce, and shake on some more! If I were to guess I think I used 3-4 teaspoons of Cajun seasoning. When the cheese is melted add the spinach and pasta, cook just until spinach starts to wilt.

Alice Springs Chicken

This is a copycat recipe from Outback Steakhouse. The chicken is marinated in honey mustard then smothered with bacon and cheese. Justin loves honey mustard almost as much as he loves peanut butter and chocolate, so I thought this would make the perfect Father's Day dinner!

Ingredients
1/4 cup spicy brown (or Grey Poupon) mustard
1/4 cup regular yellow mustard
1/2 cup honey
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
8 slices bacon, cooked
1 cup shredded cheese (I've used Cheddar and Colby Jack, both work great)
Salt and Pepper

Directions
Flatten the chicken breasts, to do this I place the chicken between waxed paper and beat it with my rolling pin (yes, it is as much fun as it sounds). In a large Ziploc bag combine the spicy brown mustard, regular mustard, and honey; mix it around in the bag until well combines. Add the flattened chicken breasts to the bag and place in the refrigerator to marinade for 6-24 hours. After marinading the chicken place it in a skillet on medium-high heat to cook. When the chicken is done lay the bacon over it and sprinkle with cheese. Once the cheese is melted you can serve it!

Duggar's Tater Tot Casserole

Every now and then I slip into a TLC coma, I don't even know I'm in it until I look at the clock and realize the day is over. Damn you TLC and your all day TV show marathons!! I love Little People Big World, I like Jon and Kate plus 8, and I am bewildered by 18 Kids and Counting... it's about the Duggar family and their 18 kids (she bore everyone of them)! I slip into a trance and can't stop watching the Duggars! I find their meals most fascinating, can you imagine feeding 20 people breakfast, lunch (she home-schools), and dinner?! Their favorite dinner is Tater Tot Casserole, and the recipe is available on their website which has lots of great money saving recipes (I am ashamed I visited their website, I've fallen and I can't get up, lol)! The only thing worse than watching TLC tv shows all day long are the TLC nightmares all night long! I have dreams that I suddenly give birth to sextuplets or that I am in the honeymoon suite of the oldest Duggar child who just got married through an arranged marriage on the show, yikes! The casserole was actually pretty good! I am not usually a casserole fan, but I will make it again!

Ingredients
1 pound ground turkey
1 2-pound bag of tater tots
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can of evaporated milk (I omitted this because I didn't have it)
1 can of cream of chicken soup

Directions
Brown the ground turkey. Drain the meat and add to a medium sized bowl (or leave it in your pan if it's large enough for the added ingredients) stir in the soups and evaporated milk. Pour the mixture into a 9x13 pan. Now line the top of the casserole with tater tots (don't sprinkle the tater tots on, actually line them up in a single layer row fitting as many as you can). Shake on some salt and pepper and bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Chicken Parmesan

Today was a wake up call that the cozy days of winter are over and summer is almost here. In class my students reminded me that there are only 4 weeks left in school, which doesn’t work very well with the 6 weeks worth of activities I have planned, yikes! It’s amazing how quickly time passes as I get older, a month will fly by in what I could have sworn was a week. Even scarier is that a year seems to go by as fast as a month used to seem. I feel like I just got to know my students and now it’s time for them to leave me, it’s sad! So we needed some comfort food and this chicken parmesan didn’t disappoint. There’s nothing like a dinner full of carbohydrates and tryptophan to sooth away stress, hehe!

Ingredients
4 Boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 egg beaten
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
1 jar marinara sauce
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Spaghetti noodles (boil them while the chicken is cooking and serve them with the chicken parmesan)

Directions
Mix bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, garlic powder and Italian seasoning in a bowl. Rinse chicken breasts and dunk in the beaten egg, then cover with bread crumb mixture. Cook for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Top with marinara sauce and put back in the oven for another 10 minutes, then add the Mozzarella and cook for five more minutes.

Baked Pasta

This baked pasta is so easy, you can't mess it up! It's one of the few recipes I make with different ingredients each time depending on what I have in my pantry. I am frugal... hmm, I don't know if I'm frugal or thrifty. What's the difference? I think a thrifty shopper buys cheap things they don't need and a frugal shopper buys items they need at a good price. So according to my definition I qualify as frugal. I fight poor Justin kicking and screaming when he wants to purchase something, I even made him go without a TV for a few months when ours died in a lightening storm. So I LOVE when we skip our grocery store trip and live off what we have in our pantry/fridge. It's like an Iron Chef challenge trying to figure out how to use the food we already have! So if you make this baked pasta all you really need is pasta and sauce, try looking around your pantry/refrigerator to find other ingredients (veggies? cheese? meat?), it's fun! Here's what I used...

Ingredients
1 bag of pasta
1 large jar of spagetti sauce
1 package of shredded mozzarella cheese
1 pound ground beef
Italian seasoning
Minced garlic

Directions
Boil the pasta while you brown the ground beef. I added around a tablespoon of Italian seasoning and minced garlic to my ground beef while it cooked. I would have added an onion or some spinach too but we didn't ave any. When the beef is brown add the spagetti sauce and turn the heat off. Drain the pasta and stir in the spagetti meat sauce. Put it all in a 9x13 casserole dish, stir in the cheese, cover with foil, and bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

Easy Chili

Their predicting a couple inches of snow today so we needed some chili! Have you ever looked at chili recipes before? Good grief, I couldn't find one that was less that 10 ingredients. It's crazy! So I made this basic chili recipe, it isn't spicy man chili but we liked it. It was wonderful with our sweet cornbread! I am bummed that it's snowing over the weekend, I am a teacher so I wish I could have gotten a snow day out of it!

Ingredients
2 pounds ground beef
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons Lawry's seasoning salt
4 (14.5 ounce) cans stewed tomatoes
1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans with liquid

Directions
Combine the ground beef, onion, and garlic in large stockpot. Cook and stir over medium heat until beef is brown and drain. Stir in chili powder, seasoning salt, tomatoes, and tomato sauce; break up tomatoes while stirring. Heat to boiling, reduce heat to simmer medium-low, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour. Stir in beans and simmer for another 20 minutes.

Chad's Steak

I've tried making steak before but it always turns out tough and chewy, I had no idea how to grill it correctly so I invited Chad over to teach us! Chad is my brother-in-law/ builder/ carnivore... if anyone knows how to cook a steak it's Chad! My goodness we weren't disappointed, he made some awesome steaks! I am so glad he taught us how to do it because when we grill we get it really hot and our meat cooks fast but Chad showed us how to cook the steaks slowly so they are tender and juicy... Mmm, they were fantastic! Thanks Chad!!!

Ingredients
KC Strip Steak (Chad said New York Strip or T-Bone would also work)
Lawry's Seasoning Salt
BBQ Spice Rub (Chad used Stubb's)
Jack Daniels wood smoking chips (soaked in water for at least 10 minutes)
Optional- Heinz 57 Steak Sauce

Directions
Shake Lawry's and BBQ seasonings on both sides of the steak. Chad used our Weber charcoal grill, stacking approximately 35 pieces of charcoal on one side. He lets the fire burn for fifteen to twenty minutes, until the coals turn about halfway white; so the grill was hot on one side and cool on the other. Place the meat on the coolest part of the grill (so they can slowly cook).

We were cooking so many steaks Chad couldn't fit them all on the cool side so he kept some on the hot side and rotated them (cool side to hot side) every 5 minutes. Chad never slid the steaks across the grill; he gently picked them up with tongs.

When the steaks were cooked rare, Chad took the grill rack off and sprinkled the wood smoking chips on top of the charcoal. He then replaced the grill rack and let the steaks cook until they were medium-well (which is what we requested). All in all he cooked our steaks for probably 30 minutes total.

Right before he plated the steaks he poured the steak sauce over half of them... the steaks were cooked so perfectly though they really didn't need any sauce!