Category: Food

At most family functions, someone in the family makes Tuna Pasta Salad. I love this stuff! But I never make it. Last weekend, Maddie and I went to a baby shower for my cousin’s wife and without fail, the salad was there! So my next trip to the store, I decided to pick up the ingredients!

Cook some ring pasta. It’s supposed to be the large rings, but I used the small ones.

Then I chopped up some celery, red onion, added some canned peas, Miracle Whip, salt, pepper and garlic salt.….

I mixed it all together, adding more Miracle Whip as I went, to make it the right consistency. Then I threw in some tuna. (You are supposed to add hard boiled egg in there, too, but I don’t like it, so I left it out.)

It might not look that tasty in this picture, but I couldn’t wait to eat it. It is supposed to be refrigerated for at least an hour before eating it. I was snacking the whole time I was making it. (I had to taste test, you know!) Then Maddie and I had it for dinner! Yum!

Here’s the recipe in case you feel like whipping up some deliciousness for your next event….or lunch, or snack, or dinner!

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Tuna Pasta Salad

1 box large ring pasta

2 envelopes tuna (packed in water)

1/2 or more medium onion

3-4 stalks celery

1 small can peas (drained)

3-4 hard boiled eggs

¼ tsp garlic salt

Miracle Whip (enough to make your salad moist)

Salt and pepper to taste

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Cook pasta according to directions. Drain. Put into your container. Empty contents of tuna to the pasta (use the envelopes so you can use the “juice” this adds extra tuna fish flavor.) Chop onions, celery, and eggs. Add all ingredients to bowl. Mix Miracle Whip with a little milk, add it to your salad and mix gently. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Well, since my last couple food posts were meals that didn’t really turn out (the Egg Bake and the Spinach Lasagna Roll-Ups)…I thought I should post a meal that turned out better. And this meal is a new go-to for me. I just love it! It’s so simple and turns out great every time!

HERE is the recipe that I came across and followed.

First mix the cans of soup with the minute rice. The first few times I made it, I used Cream of Mushroom and Broccoli Cheddar soups. This time (when I remembered to take pictures) I used Cream of Chicken and Cheddar Cheese soups.

The you put it into a greased baking dish and top with half a packet of onion soup mix.

Top with chicken breasts. And then cover the chicken with the rest of the onion soup mix.

Cover and put into the oven and bake for about and hour. It comes out looking like this!

It is so yummy! I am sure there are endless soup combinations you could do with this meal. The next time I make it, I am going to use brown rice instead of white rice. Oh man, I get hungry looking at this picture! I need to put it on my food menu rotation again soon!

My friend Trisha was looking for an egg bake recipe to make in a muffin pan for her daughter. I thought this was a brilliant idea. I gave her an egg bake recipe I had from my aunt. Then decided to try to whip up a batch for Maddie.

First, you preheat the oven and grease the muffin pan.

Then I added some bread.

Then you add some meat, cheese, and green peppers (or whatever you feel like adding into the egg bake).

Then I mixed up some eggs, milk, salt, pepper and a little mustard and poured it into the muffin pan.

Then I baked them….admittedly a little too long.

Here is where everything went bad. I had to literally scrape these puppies out of the muffin pan. It was horrible. The just fell apart when I tried to take them out.

Chuck said they still tasted good even though I thought they looked terrible. (I also don’t like eggs very much, so I wasn’t very interested in them from the beginning.)

I tried making another batch a week or so after I made these. They turned out a little better. I used more cooking spray when I greased the pan, I cooked them slightly less, used more eggs and tried to let them cool a little more before trying to remove them. They were a little better, but I still wasn’t that pleased with them. I decided I would at least freeze them for Maddie to eat. She doesn’t seem to care what they look like, but I still hope I will get them to turn out some day.

I have never been very good at cooking eggs or egg bakes. Maybe I subconsciously screw them up because I don’t like eggs. Who knows. Oh well. Two food posts in a row that didn’t turn out. I guess I’ll have to post something more delicious next!

I tried another new recipe. And I was so excited about it. Sadly, it was not a hit around here. After making Spicy Chicken Lasagna Roll Ups, I thought these would be really yummy.

You mix the spinach and cheeses together.

You cook the lasagna noodles and lay them out so you can fill them.

Then spread the mixture onto the noodles and roll them up, seams down, and put them into a pan with some sauce on the bottom.

Then top them with the remaining sauce and cheese.

Then you bake it up and eat it.

Well, I thought this was going to be delicious. But there was way too much spinach in there. Maybe it would have been good with half the amount of spinach, but the flavor was so overpowering, neither of us liked it very much. Maybe it’s because the spinach was frozen. If you LOVE spinach, you might like this. But I would rather stick to the chicken roll ups and maybe add in just a touch of spinach to that one.

Oh well, live and learn. I won’t like everything I cook.

I came across a recipe recently for General Tso Chicken and it looked simple enough. No fancy ingredients and something I could make any night of the week without too much trouble…my kind of meal!

Beware….photos of raw meat ahead. scroll quickly if you don’t like looking at it.

First I cut up some chicken into bite-sized pieces.

Then you dredge the chicken in flour and put it in a pan with oil and fry it up until it’s cooked through and crispy.

In a saucepan, mix together sauce ingredients.

After the sauce is done, add some green onions to the chicken.

Then add the sauce to the chicken. I decided not to fully thicken my sauce in the saucepan. So when I added it to the chicken, it thickened up in there after just a minute or two of being in the pan with the chicken.

Then I made some Rice-a-Roni Fried Rice. I added an egg to it to make it more like fried rice.  

The verdict? Delicious! We all loved it. I will definitely make this again. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Nothing replaces the yummy deep-fried stuff you get when you order take-out, but if you want something a little healthier, give this a try!

One of Chuck’s favorite snacks is “Chex Mix”. But it’s the best when you make it yourself and don’t buy it premade.

So I picked up the ingredients and whipped some up for our Christmas celebration we had recently.

HERE is the recipe.

Mix the cereal, pretzels and peanuts (and bagel chips if you have them) together.

Mix the other ingredients together. Mix together. Then you cook everything in the microwave for a few minutes. Then you spread everything out on paper towels to cool. I actually had two trays full.

Then you EAT! And hopefully you make this when people are over because holy cow…it’s yummy and hard not to eat it all in one sitting!

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Since I had a ton of cereal leftover from the Chex Mix, I thought I would try one of the other recipes on the box. I was surprised I had everything I needed in the house. That never happens.

I made Chex Lemon Buddies. Oh man were they good. I saved most of them, but I had to snack on them when they were done. You make these very similar to Muddy Buddies or “Puppy Chow”.

They were so lemon-y and delicious. I love lemon flavored things. This is definitely going to be out at the next party I have!

If you are in the need for some little snacks to bring to an event or just want to take something with to work for a snack, either of these would be great options!

Last Saturday, I decided to make some fruit leather. Fruit leather, also known as fruit roll-ups, are delicious! I had a bag of frozen strawberries and bananas and thought I would give it a try.

I used this link as a guide to make them.

First, I blended the frozen fruit with some strawberry banana v8 fusion I had in the fridge. I also threw in some applesauce and some lemon juice. I decided not to use an sugar to sweeten it. I didn’t want to feel guilty when I ate these!

Then I pureed the heck out of it, adding a little more juice as I went to make it smooth enough.

Then I lined a sheet pan (actually I ended up using 4 pans for the amount of puree I had) with plastic wrap. This was, by far, the hardest part of this project. Getting it not to stick to itself and get it smooth wasn’t the easiest.

Then I poured some puree on the plastic wrapped pan and smoothed it out.

Then I stuck it in the oven as low as my oven would go (I ended up using both of my ovens) and let it cook for hours! The house smelled so good while it was cooking!

But, sadly, I think I made it too thin. After only a couple hours, one of the trays had dried already. It was crispy and TART. I guess I should have added some sugar after all! You can see how it broke into sharp pieces at the corner.

After I saw the first one was done too quickly, I took the other ones out and brushed some water on the stuff that had already dried to rehydrate it while the centered dried out.

Those three were crispy on the outsides, but they were soft in the middle and I could roll them up. They were still too tart to eat, but they did roll.

Overall, it was a learning experience. Next time I will add some sugar, make the mixture thicker and make less of the mixture so I don’t waste so much if it doesn’t turn out.

So there was my failed attempt at fruit leather. Better luck to you if you try it.  

The other night I tried out a new meal. Here is the recipe. I used half as many noodles and not quite as much chicken, but used the whole amount of sauce. Chuck likes it saucy!

I cooked the chicken (and shredded it) and lasagna noodles. Then I mixed the pasta sauce and seasonings together.

Then layered some in the bottom of a baking dish.

Then I mixed the cheeses, chicken and some sauce together. This is the stuffing to the lasagna noodles.

Then I set out my lasagna noodles.

Then added the chicken/cheese/sauce filling. I added it to most of the noodle, leaving some space at the top for when I rolled them up.

Then I rolled them up and placed them seam side down in the pan.

Then I added on the rest of the sauce and more cheese.

After baking, I served it up and we chowed down!

It was really good and pretty spicy. I think the next time I will make it, I won’t make it so spicy. Mostly because Maddie LVOED it….until she stopped shoveling! Then her mouth hurt because it was spicy and started crying and touching her tongue. It was both sad and funny. (I’m such a terrible mom!) I wasn’t sure how she would handle them, but they were a little too spicy for her. Live and learn. It was the first time I made this meal.

And I think I will always make this many noodles. It would be pretty dry with more noodles and the same amount of sauce…even for my liking.

Also, I think I would do this with leftover chicken the next time. Or after I get a rotisserie chicken or something. It was kind of a pain to cook the chicken as part of the preparation process. I am glad I started this meal during nap time and put it in the fridge until it was time to cook it. I don’t think I would have been pleased with how long it took had I not done it ahead of time.

Overall, great meal. I’ll change it a little next time (less spice for Maddie and leftover chicken). Definitely going to stay on my list of meals, though! You should give it a try!

I made a pot roast the other day and it was so yummy! I always forget how easy these are to make. But I forget how much food they make! I really need to make it on a night I am having people over to dinner because I have so much leftover!

It’s really simple, though. Put in some carrots, onions and potatoes into the crockpot.

Brown the meat on all sides. It gives it a nice crunchy outside and makes some yummy flavors. This was a huge piece of meat (it was the smallest one they had at the store). I continued browning it more after I took this picture.

The add the meat to the crockpot on top of the carrots/onions/potatoes.

In the same pan you browned the meat, add some water and a packet of onion soup mix. This gets all the tasty bits off the bottom of the pan. (Great picture, huh?)

Then you pour the soup mix over the meat in the crock pot.

Then you cover it and cook for hours! Then the meat just falls apart and everything is soft and yummy!

I didn’t take any pictures after it was dished up because I was too hungry and just needed to eat it after smelling it all day!

I used THIS recipe to make this, in case you are interested.