quick & easy stroganoff

I made a basic beef stroganoff for dinner tonight. It wasn't as yummy as the kind Mom used to make (sadly I don't have that recipe) but it fit the bill of beef and hearty. I used the base of this recipe from all recipes, Simple Hamburger Stroganoff, and tweaked it to what I had on hand. Overall impression is "meh", needs more flavor, even more than what I added to it. I had to add more garlic pepper and was tempted to add salt too while I was eating it (though I crave salt lately so its probably fine). Won't go out of my way to make it again but for a quick hearty dinner it was good. And I have leftovers for a few more meals since my hubby and Dad are both out of town this week.

Simple Beef Stroganoff
6 servings

Ingredients
1 (16 ounce) package egg noodles
1 pound lean ground beef (I used 96/4 and it turned out well)
1 (.75 ounce) packet dry brown gravy mix
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
2 ounces water
1/2 cup milk
1 (8 ounce) container sour cream
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed golden mushroom soup
minced onion & garlic pepper
Directions
1.Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add egg noodles and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.
2.In a skillet over medium heat, brown the ground beef until no pink shows; drain.
3.Mix brown gravy, cream cheese and mushrooms with hamburger until cream cheese has given the mixture a whitish look. Add milk and mushroom soup to beef mixture, season with garlic pepper and minced onion. Add sour cream to noodles and mix. Toss hamburger mixture with pasta until combined.

Pot Roast

This is how my Mom made pot roast. It's yummy, and pretty easy. My sister got the recipe from me at Christmas and then dropped the card behind her gas stove. I e-mailed her a copy but figured yet another place to store it would save me from copying it for her a 3rd time. You need an electric fry pan like this to make this, or you can attempt it with a large dutch oven or covered dish in the oven.

Pot Roast
Serves 4-8 (depending on roast size)

Ingredients:
Round bone pot roast or larger boneless roast
Garlic pepper
Minced onion
Parsley
Basil
Chives
Pinch of salt
1 tsp kitchen bouquet
Baby carrots
Red potatoes quartered/diced
4Tbsp flour
1 cup water

Directions:
Pam electric fry pan, set to 350*
Place meat in pan, season with spices. Brown. Flip and season again. Brown meat.
Turn heat down to 200-225* (slow simmer). Add at least 3 cups of water to pan (surround meat with water) and cover it. Keep an eye on water level and let it simmer a few hours. Add kitchen bouquet to water, add baby carrots. 30 min later add potatoes. Simmer about an hour. Take out veggies and put in bowl, remove meat. Tent both with tinfoil.
Make gravy in a gravy shaker or a jar. Add flour to cup of water, garlic pepper & basil to taste. Shake so that flour & water mix. Slowly add to base in pan until it thickens (slow boil). May need to turn up heat to thicken.

Alternate oven directions: Brown meat as directed. Place in dutch oven and cook at 325* for 2-3 hours. Add carrots & potatoes (watch liquid level) during the last hour in the oven.

If we have leftovers we usually toss in some peas & corn with the gravy, cut up meat, and leftover veggies and eat it as beef stew. It freezes well.

in the cupboard chicken & veggie soup

Tonight I had zero motivation to make dinner. But my Dad was feeling really crappy yesterday so I needed to cook him something. I was thinking along the lines of soup, my husband wanted baked mac & cheese (as the meal, nothing else). When I'm sick I don't really want a bunch of mac & cheese. So soup it is. While standing in front of my stash of canned goods in the storage room in the basement I saw the alphabet pasta I'd bought at Meijer awhile ago. On the back of the box was a basic recipe for alphabet soup.



I tweaked it to what I had on hand.

Chicken & Veggie Alphabet Soup

8oz Meijer Alphabets (or other similar small pasta)
~1 lb cooked chicken breast, diced into bite sized pieces (Costco has frozen grilled chicken strips i like to buy & freeze for soups & casseroles)
46oz bottle reduced sodium V8
14oz can chicken broth
3-4 cups water
2 chicken bouillons
1 tsp basil leaves
1/2 tsp marjoram
1 tsp garlic pepper
1 tsp minced onion
1 tsp celery flakes

Threw everything but the pasta in the pot and brought to a boil and am now doing the simmer for 30 min bit. Then will do the cook pasta for about 10 minutes and may throw some parm cheese on, jury is still out there :)

So far it smells good :)

It's a two-fer

You get another recipe, in the same day!

I don't alter this recipe at all, except to change what kind of Prego I use or if I make the sauce (and often don't use provolone since we have mozzarella). It's great as is, and you don't have to turn on the oven for the chicken :)

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=549982

Or in case it is ever taken down:

Herbed Chicken Parmesan
This lighter version of an Italian favorite loses some of the fat but none of the taste. We recommend rice-shaped orzo pasta with this saucy chicken entrée, but you can serve spaghetti or angel hair pasta instead.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients
1/3 cup (1 1/2 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese, divided
1/4 cup dry breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon salt, divided
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
1 pound chicken breast tenders
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/2 cups bottled fat-free tomato-basil pasta sauce (such as Muir Glen Organic)
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/3 cup (1 1/2 ounces) shredded provolone cheese

Preparation
Preheat broiler.

Combine 2 tablespoons of Parmesan, breadcrumbs, parsley, basil, and 1/8 teaspoon salt in a shallow dish. Place egg white in a shallow dish. Dip each chicken tender in egg white; dredge in the breadcrumb mixture. Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook 3 minutes on each side or until done. Set aside.

Combine 1/8 teaspoon salt, pasta sauce, vinegar, and pepper in a microwave-safe bowl. Cover with plastic wrap; vent. Microwave sauce mixture at HIGH 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Pour the sauce over chicken in pan. Sprinkle evenly with the remaining Parmesan and provolone cheese. Wrap handle of pan with foil, and broil 2 minutes or until the cheese melts.

Nutritional Information
Calories:308 (30% from fat)
Fat:10.4g (sat 5.7g,mono 3g,poly 0.6g)
Protein:35.9g
Carbohydrate:16.2g
Fiber:1.8g
Cholesterol:88mg
Iron:2.3mg
Sodium:808mg
Calcium:249mg
Ann Taylor Pittman, Cooking Light, NOVEMBER 2003

New favorite salad.

I took my inspiration from this salad on allrecipes: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Strawberry-Spinach-Salad-I/Detail.aspx

But I added a whole bunch of stuff :)
(Mark it down folks, I actually have a picture of something)

Summer Spinach salad

Ingredients
dressing:
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon minced onion

salad:
10 ounces fresh spinach - rinsed, dried and torn into bite-size pieces
1 quart strawberries - cleaned, hulled and sliced
1 pint raspberries - cleaned, I cut the big ones in half
1 can mandarin oranges - drained and big ones cut in half
1 cup cooked chicken, diced (or dino nuggets cut up - yes I've done this)
1 cucumber, cleaned & diced
couple handfuls of matchstick carrots
1/3 cup almond accents butter toffee glazed almonds
crumbled Gorgonzola cheese, to taste

Directions
In a liquid shaker (like this Tupperware one I love), shake together the sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sugar, olive oil, vinegar, paprika, Worcestershire sauce and onion. Chill for one hour.

In a large bowl or gladware container, toss the salad ingredients.

If serving right away: toss dressing with salad
If making for multiple servings (what I do when Chris is out of town), just add the dressing with your portion. Hence that wonderful shaker with a spout.

Spaghetti Casserole

This is a weightwatchers friendly recipe I used last time I did WW back in 2005. My husband liked it a lot, so I'm breaking it out again this go around.

Ingredients:
8oz cooked whole wheat spaghetti
6 slices Kraft 2% singles
3 cups boca meat or about 1 lb ground turkey, cooked/crumbled
jar of favorite marinara (5 or 6 1/2c servings)
1 cup reduced fat 4 cheese italian
most of a pack of a turkey pepperoni "pillow pack"

Preheat oven to 350, cook spaghetti, pam a 9x13 pan.
layer starting on bottom:
spaghetti
american cheese
crumbled meat (boca or turkey)
pepperoni
sauce
shredded cheese

bake @ 350 for 30 minutes

vodka sauce

Tonight for dinner we had tomato vodka sauce with cheese tortellini, Abby's Chicken Rollantini, Easy Focaccia, and steamed zucchini/summer squash.

Everything was pretty good, I overdid the garlic a bit on the chicken, and even though there's only about 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes in the sauce it has some kick. Will see how the tortellini is leftover tomorrow ;)

Orange Sauced Chicken

I made this the other night for dinner. It was again another weightwatchers board recipe, though I changed the breading method for the chicken to make it at little tastier (though not quite so guiltless). I also doubled the sauce because I was making 3 chicken boobs and the recipe called for 2 tiny ones. I like sauce, so sue me.

Orange Sauced Chicken

1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 Tbsp of orange marmalade
2 tsp lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp dried crushed rosemary
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
1 tsp ground pepper (or to taste)
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 cup flour
2-4 boneless skinles chicken breasts, pounded to a uniform thickness.
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups italian style bread crumbs
Pam
spray butter

Add salt, pepper, paprika, and flour to a quart or larger zip lock bag, seal and shake to combine. Whisk egg with milk in a bowl large enough for chicken dunking. Place breadcrumbs on a dinner plate (spread out).

Pam a skillet large enough for your chicken breasts, heat on medium to prepare pan.

Put chicken one breast at a time in the flour bag, seal/shake, then dip in egg mixture and roll in breadcrumbs. Place breasts in the heated skillet as you finish. I then spray buttered them on the side not on the skillet.

Cook the chicken 3-5 minutes per side, until lightly browned on each side. While chicken is cooking, combine the OJ, marmalade, broth, lemon juice, rosemary, cornstarch, and some fresh ground pepper and salt (to taste). Whisk well until combined.

Once the chicken is browned reduce heat, add liquid, and simmer, stirring/flipping chicken occasionally. I let mine simmer for about 20 minutes while I cooked the sides, I had large chicken breasts and wanted to be sure they were done. The original recipe said 5-6 minutes or until chicken is done.

I had enough sauce that I plated the chicken and drizzled sauce over top. Was very good with some these baked potatoes and carrots.

Mexican Lasagna

This was dinner last night, I am calling it Mexican Lasagna. I originally found something similar on the weightwatchers online boards back in 2005 the first time i was on it, I think they called it easy enchilada casserole. I haven't run it thru the points calculator with the changes I've made.

The original recipe called for it to be made in a 7x11 pan, I used the 2.5 quart oval corningware I have and it was just the right size.

Mexican Lasagna

soft tortilla shells (I used the mission large ones so only needed 4, will need more for smaller shells)
1 lb lean ground beef
1 can reduced fat cream of chicken soup
1 can (15oz) Hunt's fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 small cooking onion diced (or can use 1 - 2 Tbsp dehydrated onion)
1 heaping Tbsp minced garlic
10 pickled jalapeno slices, diced (I buy the old el paso ones)
2 Tbsp Chili powder (or less if you don't spice)
1 Tbsp cumin powder
cilantro to taste (some people don't like it, I love it. can substitute parsley if you're not a fan or omit all together)
Pam
8 oz velveeta light, cubed
1 can fat free refried beans (I added this, I love refried beans).
1/3 cup sargento mexican blend shredded cheese

brown the meat in a large skillet, drain, wipe pan clean then return meat to the pan. Add tomatoes, jalapenos, spices, garlic, onion, and soup. Stir until combined, I let it simmer a few minutes while I prepped the casserole dish.

Pam the casserole dish well. Tear up tortillas and layer on bottom of casserole in large pieces covering the bottom. I double layered it (2 tortillas thick). Spread entire can of refried beans on top of tortillas. Top with 1/2 of the meat/tomato mixture. Sprinkle 1/2 of the cubed velveeta over top. Place another layer (2 tortillas thick) of the torn tortillas. Add the remaining meat mixture, the remaining velveeta, sprinkle mexican blend cheese over top.

Bake @ 350 for 30 minutes