Menu Planning Monday

Here is a look at what we will be eating this week-

Jen: Olive Garden Chicken and Gnocchi Soup/Breadsticks
Kile: Wontons and Ham Fried Rice
Kiley: Asian Lettuce Wraps
Madee: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Fruit Salad
Destrie: Meatballs with Noodles

Treats-Applebee's Blonde Brownies and Red Velvet  Cupcakes

Berry Smoothies

I had some Activia yogurt to use up, so we created this smoothie.

Ingredients:
2 light blueberry Activia yogurts
2 light strawberry Activia yogurts
1 cup frozen mixed berries
3/4 cup skim milk
5 scoops vanilla ice cream

Rate It!
Jen: 7
Kiley: 7
Destrie: good
*Kile and Madee were not home.

Toffee Apple Dip

Recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe
 Ingredients:
1 package cream cheese
1 cup packed brown sugar
½ cup English toffee bits
6-7 cored and sliced apples for dipping (tossed with a little lemon or pineapple juice to prevent browning)
 Directions:
In a small bowl, mix together the cream cheese and brown sugar until well combined. Stir in the toffee bits. Serve with sliced apples. Store the dip covered in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
Rate It!
Jen: 8
Kile: 8
Kiley: 7.5
Madee:8.5
Destrie: good

Lemon Cake Cookies

Cookies

• Lemon Cake Mix
• 1/2 Cup Oil
• 2 Eggs
• 2 Tbs. water

Mix together. Drop by spoon fulls onto a baking sheer and sprinkle with sugar. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.

Frosting

• 1 Package Cream Cheese
• 2 Cups Powder Sugar
• 2 Tbs. Milk
• 2 Tbs. Butter

Mix cream cheese until creamy and then add following ingredients.


*Recipe from Laura Bland*

Rate It!
Jen: 8
Kile: 8
Kiley: 8.5
Madee: 8
Destrie: good

Paula Deen's Croque Madame

Ingredients

• 8 slices sourdough bread
• 8 ounces Gruyere, very thinly sliced-(I used cheddar and mozzarella.)
• 12 ounces smoked ham, very thinly sliced
• 2 to 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 4 extra-large eggs
• Salt and pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Butter 1 side of each bread slice.
Set half of the slices of bread buttered side down in the griddle or cast iron skillet, and cover each with a slice of cheese. Place 3 or 4 slices of the ham over the cheese, and place the top slice of bread over the ham, buttered side up. Heat griddle or skillet over medium heat. Cook sandwiches until bottom is golden brown and cheese is melted, about 3 minutes per side. Remove sandwiches and place on a plate. Spread a thin layer of mayonnaise on the top of each sandwich, and then place a slice of cheese on top. Put the sandwiches back onto the griddle or skillet then place in oven, cooking until golden brown and cheese is melted, about 5 minutes.
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in skillet over high heat. Cook the eggs sunny side up.
Place 1 fried egg atop each sandwich. Season egg, to taste, with salt and pepper. Serve sandwich immediately.
*Can serve with hollandaise sauce- which I will try next time!
Rate It!
Jen: 8
Kile: 8
Kiley: 7
Madee: not home
Destrie: good

Menu Planning Monday

Here are the family's picks for the week, in no particular order because we have a busy week ahead of us.

Destrie: Sloppy Joes
Madee:  Pizza Soup and French Bread
Kiley: Chicken Cashew Wraps
Kile: Frito Chili Cheese Wraps
Jen: Paula Dean's Croque Madame

Treat: Lemon Cake Cookies
          Tofee Apple Dip

Frito Candy

I found this recipe here-
brooke-cookiejar.blogspot.com
2 cups pretzels
1 cup Fritos
8 mini peanut butter cups (I used 4 regular-sized cups broken into pieces)
1 stick unsalted butter 
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a 13×9 inch pan with parchment paper or no-stick (Release) foil.
Place pretzels in food processor and pulse to break - don’t pulverize. Add Fritos to processor and break them up with pretzels. Dump into pan. Add peanut butter cups to the mix.
Place butter in a non-stick saucepan and melt over medium heat. When butter is melted, stir in brown sugar. Bring mixture to a full boil and boil for 1 minute, stirring once or twice. Pour over Frito mixture and bake for 8 minutes.
Remove pan from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over hot candy. Return to oven for 1 minute to soften chips. Spread softened chocolate chips over bars. Cool at room temperature until you feel the pan is cool enough to be transferred to your refrigerator, then transfer to refrigerator to set the chocolate. When chocolate is set, lift from pan and break the candy into pieces.
*Everyone agreed that we should add more Reeses candy bar chunks and maybe a little less chocolate chips on top.
Rate It!
Jen: 7
Kile:
Kiley: 7
Madee: 7.5
Destrie: good

Cheesy Chicken and Veggie Gnocchi Bake

Have you ever heard of Gnocchi?  I have seen a couple of recipes using this ingredient, and I had no idea what it was.  The other day at Sam's Club, I came across these...

Well, for those of you who don't know, it's pronounced "No-Kee" and Gnocchi are kind of a potato dumpling and they look like this...

I made up this recipe based on some ideas I read about, and it turned out pretty good.  Next week some time, I will be trying a Kopy Cat recipe called Olive Garden Gnocchi Soup using this ingredient.

 Cheesy Chicken and Veggie Gnocchi Bake

1/4 c minced onion flakes
3/4 c carrot, shredded
1 c. broccoli
1 t olive oil
2 c cooked chicken breasts, shredded
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t dried parsley
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken
17 1/2 oz gnocchi
1 c cheddar cheese, shredded

Bring water to boil in a large pot.  Add Gnocchi and cook according package directions.  Set aside.  Heat a nonstick pan and add the oil. Put the onion flakes and veggies with the oil and cook over a medium heat, stirring frequently,  until the veggies have softened.  Add the cooked chicken to the pan with the veggies and  stir to combine. Add the cans of soup to the pan along with the garlic powder and parsley. Put  the cooked and drained gnocchi  on the bottom of the 9x13 pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray.  Top with the chicken and veggie mixture. Sprinkle with cheese and put in a 350 degree oven until the cheese is melted.
Rate It!
Jen: 7.5
Kile: 7.5
Kiley: 7-he suggested serving with a dollop of sour cream
Madee: 7.5 they are very different and squishy i havent had anything like it before...
Destrie: he wouldn't try it

Menu Planning Monday

This week we are back on track after working through our many leftovers last week.  The family is excited to get to pick a meal again for the upcoming week, so here we go!

Monday-Madee: Spaghetti and Garlic Bread
Tuesday- Kile: Hamburgers and Fries
Wednesday-Kiley: Beef Stroganoff
Thursday- Jen: Applebee's Oriental Chicken Salad
Friday- Destrie: Pizza

Treat: Frito Candy

Destrie's 3 Cheese and Pasta Casserole

 Ingredients
1 cup Mozarella cheese
1 cup Cheddar cheese
1 cup Parmesan cheese
4 cups Rigatoni Pasta-cooked
1/4 cup Hormel Real Bacon Bits
2 Tbsp. minced onion flakes
1 pound ground beef
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon oregano
4 ounce can mushrooms
2 8 ounce cans tomato sauce
Directions:
Cook ground beef when browned, add minced onions.  To beef, add tomato sauce, seasonings, mushrooms and cooked macaroni.  Add bacon bits. Simmer 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Pour 1/2 of the mixture in a large greased 9x13 casserole dish. Cover with 1/2 of the cheeses. Add remaining macaroni mixture and add the rest of the cheese. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes at 375 degrees.
Rate It!
Jen: 8
Kile: 8
Kiley: 8
Madee: 7.5
Destrie: good

Hot Cocoa Bar

A blog I read-"Your Home Based Mom", shared this idea for  a Hot Cocoa Bar. My kids have been loving hot cocoa for years and one of our new favorite things to do is buy flavored creamer to add to our hot cocoa.There are so many flavors of creamer, that it is going to take us awhile to try all of them!  For those of you out there who may be trying to count calories, Swiss Miss makes a "Diet" hot cocoa powder that has only 25 calories when made with water.  Add a little creamer to this and it is delicious!
  I hosted Bunco at my house last week and I set up a Hot Cocoa Bar.  I had several creamers, marshmallows, whipping cream, kit kats, and candy canes for stirring.  I also set out glazed donuts and donut holes-(powdered and cinnamon and sugar) for dipping.  It turned out good and was very yummy. 

Chicken Bundles

This recipe came from a ward cookbook.  There were several, similar recipes for Chicken Bundles, so I put this recipe together combining ideas from a few of the recipes.

Ingredients:
1 pkg. cream cheese
4 green onions, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
2 tubes crescent roll dough
1-2 cups cooked, chopped chicken (I used rotisserie chicken.)
3/4 c. shredded Mozzarella cheese
melted butter
bread crumbs

Directions:
Separate dough triangles.  Mix together cream cheese, onions, salt, pepper, chicken, and mozzarella cheese.  Place a tablespoon of mixture on a dough triangle.  Fold ends in and roll up.  Seal edges.  Dip in melted butter and roll in bread crumbs.  Bake at 375 for 18-20 minutes, until golden brown.

Serve hot, with the following sauce.

Sauce
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
Combine ingredients in a sauce pan and heat until combined and hot.

Rate It!
Jen: 8.5
Kile: 8
Kiley: 8.5
Madee: 8.5
Destrie: good

Menu Planning Monday

Have you  ever had a time when you had an excess of food that you needed to get rid of?  Well, that is currently the situation here at our house this week.  So really, our Menu Planning this week is going to be a whole lot of leftovers.  The chicken bundles from last week were delightful and we still have ingredients to make them again-the girls are going to be sooo happy!  I will be posting that recipe later today.  I highly recommend making this...it's Yummy!  I will still be cooking a little bit this week, so check back to see what delicious recipes I can find! 

Ricotta Cheese Pizza with Chicken, Broccoli, and Mushrooms

 

Recipe from Allrecipes

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 1/2 cups rotisserie chicken-shredded
• 1 (8 ounce) container ricotta cheese
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 1 (12 inch) pre-baked pizza crust
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh broccoli
• 1 (3 ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 325 degrees
2. Combine the ricotta cheese, 1 tablespoon butter, garlic powder, oregano, salt, and pepper in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat in microwave for 1 minute; stir to combine. Spread the mixture over the pizza crust. Scatter the mozzarella cheese evenly over the pizza. Arrange the cooked chicken, broccoli, and mushrooms evenly on top of the pizza.

Bake in the preheated oven until the cheese is melted, about 20 minutes 


Rate It!
Jen: 6.5
Kile: 7
Kiley: 6.5-didn't like the broccoli on there.
Madee: 8
Destrie: didn't have any

Menu Planning Monday

As anyone who knows me understands, I love to try new recipes.  It's one of my favorite things to do.  My family has done quite well putting up with this obsession of mine.  However, I am sensing that lately they are becoming slightly tired of always having a "new" recipe for dinner.  So, for the month of January,  I am going to try something a bit different.  Since there are 5 weekdays each week and 5 people in our family- each person will take a turn each week planning a dinner menu.  Don't worry though, things won't get boring around here.  I will still be searching out new recipes to share.  One thing I am planning on doing this year is learning how to make bread- something I have never done.  Rhodes Bake and Serve is pretty much the staple here at our house.  Here's to looking forward to an exciting new year of fun with lots of yummy eats!!!

Monday: Madison- Baked Chicken Taquitos with Ranch Dipping Sauce

Tuesday: Kile- Rice topped with Sirloin Burger Soup

Wednesday: Kiley- Chicken Bundles/Veggies

Thursday: Jen- Ricotta Cheese Pizza with Mushrooms, Broccoli, and Chicken

Friday: Destrie-Ramen Stir Fry