Category Archives: Recipes

Recipe: Really awesome dip that has no official name

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If you’re in the market for a new BBQ/pot-luck/football game friendly crowd-pleasing appetizer you have come to the right place! My mother in law is pretty much famous for this Mexican Dip and is pretty much shunned if she doesn’t bring two pans of it to the annual 4th of July Bash we attend every year. It’s that good. She shared the recipe with me a few years ago, and ever since Andy and I have been taking it to pretty much any BBQ we attend!
Now, before I go sharing this recipe, you have to promise me one thing…just because you have this little piece of awesome, you still have to invite us over for BBQ’s. Deal? Seriously…not joking. Andy wanted me to make sure and point this out. Ok?
Ok, now that we’ve got that out of the way…
Officially, we have no idea what the name of it is.
Unofficially, we call it “Mom’s Mexican Dip”.
Seriously…try it. You will love it. And you will thank me.
Ingredients:
1- 28 oz Can Refried Beans (or 2 regular size cans. Whatev.)
1 lb Ground Beef
1 Pack Taco Seasoning
1- 7 oz Green Taco Sauce (or ½ the 14 oz jar if you’re like us)
16 oz Sour Cream
Cheese, shredded
Olives, sliced
Brown ground beef, and prepare as instructed on taco seasoning packet. While the meat is cooking, spread beans in the bottom of a 9×13 pan. In a medium bowl, mix together sour cream and taco sauce. Once meat is ready, spread evenly over the top of the beans. After that, spread the sour cream mix. Then top GENEROUSLY with cheese. Seriously…error on the side of A LOT. Sprinkle with sliced olives. Cover with aluminum foil (remember to spray the foil w/ non-stick spray!). Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.
Serve with tortilla chips and enjoy. BOOM.
Ok it’s your turn…what’s your favorite go-to dish for BBQs?

The one that solidified the Type-A CRAZY {Keeping a Working Mama Sane}

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I don’t claim to be the master of anything. I’m ok at crafting and scrapbooking. Gardening? Ehh…questionable. I handle my own in the kitchen. But there’s one thing that I like to think I do pretty well. Ummm…most of the time anyway.

As a working mama/ double career family, I think we’ve got our routine down pretty well. We get home and I made dinner. This happens nearly every night. If I’m not the one making dinner, it’s Andy. We rarely eat out. Maybe…m a y b e once a month.

I’ve had some discussions with some other working mamas wondering how I come up with dinner ideas. How do I find time to make dinner every.single.night. So I thought I’d share some of my tips, tricks and go-to recipes.

First off I’m not going to lie…we eat tacos once a week and sometimes? we just eat hotdogs. There I said it.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way…

By the end of the month my calendar
looks like this…and yes it’s color coded.
Type-A…remember?
  1. Every Saturday morning while Rylee is eating breakfast, I sit down with the weekly food ads to my left, the calendar to my right and start my weekly meal planning. I figure out what we we’re going to eat each night the rest of the weekend through to Friday. Once I’ve got that figured out, I make a grocery list accordingly. Having it actually written up on the calendar reminds me what I need to take out of the freezer so it’s actually defrosted and ready to cook…amazing concept, I know. 
  2. I go grocery shopping once a week. Occasionally, if we’re having spaghetti on a Wednesday, I’ll have Andy swing in to grab some garlic bread, but that’s about it. 
  3. There are certain things we always have on hand. Like a jar or two of spaghetti sauce. Or a box of pasta. Or canned green beans. Or tortillas, cheese and black beans. We eat tacos a lot. And in a pinch? Cooking up frozen ground beef always seems to be the easiest thing to do.
  4. I buy things when they’re on sale and I buy a lot of it. I’m not any kind of super-couponer or anything, but if boneless, skinless chicken breast is on sale for anything less that $2 per lb, I buy at least 10 lbs of it, then vacuum seal it in 2 breast packs. I do the same thing with pork chops. And bacon. And we buy beef a 1/2 cow at a time so I always have a freezer full of meat. (that’s what she said)
  5. I try to plan on leftovers and what I’m going to do with them. For example: I know that Andy and I can never finish a whole roasted chicken. Since they normally take way too long to make on a week night, I will make it on a Sunday, then after our meal, debone the rest of it and then I’ll use the leftover chicken to make homemade fettucini Alfredo on Monday!
  6. Kraft Foods has some really great, easy recipes.  Like…
    Caribbean Jerk Chicken It’s also great for broiling or baking. I serve it with jasmine rice and salad.
    Cheeseburger Joes I use real cheese as opposed to the Kraft singles stuff.
    You can even type in ingredients you have on hand and it will give you suggestions. However, while browsing, be prepared for a lot of dressed up Kraft mac-n-cheese. A lot. Oh and also casseroles. Ew.

Ok, so for those of you dyeing to know what our magical meal plan is, I went ahead to put it all into iCal for you. You can click on the image to make it larger. Before you do that though, I think it’s only fair I am able to note a couple of things first: 1. We do NOT normally eat tacos that often in a month…I swear. 2. We actually had more family dinners away from home this month than normal. My sis was in town from Chicago for Mother’s Day! 3. It’s really not that exciting. But it meets my requirements: mostly healthy. affordable. fast.

What kind of tips and tricks do you use? What’s your favorite go-to weeknight recipe? I’d love to hear!

Recipe: Shredded Beef Enchiladas (Homemade, from scratch)

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Have you guys noticed that all of my recipes so far have been Mexican food? We kind of eat that a lot. I was watching America’s test kitchen one Sunday morning and they were making shredded beef enchiladas. I thought it looked really good so I figured I try them out. I couldn’t find the actual recipe, so I went off of memory, and combined a couple of other pieces from other recipes I found. This is what I ended up with and you guys? It’s de-lish!

It’s pretty hands on in the very beginning and at the end and overall it takes about 3 1/2 hours, so keep that in mind! If you try it, you have to tell me what you think!


Ingredients:


For the sauce/filling:
2 lbs Beef {I use a 3 lb chuck roast and trim fat/cut out the bone}
1 Large onion, chopped
3 Tbl chili powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp corriander
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
8 oz can tomato sauce
4 oz water
4 oz heavy cream
Cilantro

For Enchilada Assembly:
12 corn tortillas
More Cilantro
Cheese…lots of cheese

How this magic all goes down:

Heat up olive oil in a heavy bottomed ducth oven over med-high heat until shimmering. Brown the beef approx. 4 minutes on both sides. Remove meat and set aside.

Sauté onion in beef drippings until just softened. Then add in all of your spices. Cook until fragrant. Only about a minute.


Stir in tomato sauce, water and cream.

Stir in chopped cilantro. Bring just to a boil.

Return the beef to the sauce. Cover, reduce heat to low and let simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

After 2 hours or so, remove meat from sauce and set aside. Using a colander, sift the sauce into a bowl. Keep all the onion and cilantro goodies. Place the goodies and the meat into a bowl and shred using 2 forks. Mix well.

Pour enough sauce to just cover the bottom of a 13×9 baking dish. Then, heat 2 to 3 tortillas at a time in the microwave, using wet paper towels in between and on top so they do not try out.

Assemble the enchiladas with meat, cheese and more chopped cilantro until all the meat mix is used.

Top with the remaining sauce and cheese…lots of cheese. Cover as much of the tortillas as you can so they do not dry out in the oven. Cover with tin foil {make sure you spray your tin foil w/ non stick spray before!!}. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 5 minutes…just long enough for the cheese to brown a bit.

Then serve and enjoy!!!
Also? Happy Cinco De Mayo! 
{I actually had this whole post planned for today before I realized that today was in fact May 5.}
 

Super Easy, Really Tasty Tortilla Soup

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When I put it out there to the Facebook world that I was looking for a tortilla soup recipe, I wasn’t sure what kind of response I would get. First of all…thank you to everyone who sent me their recipes! Secondly…holy moly there are lots of different ways to make tortilla soup! I decided to take bits and pieces from different recipes and make one up myself. Daring, I know. Since this was a new kind of adventure, I thought I’d share it with you, no matter how it turned out.

Tortilla Soup
Yields: 6 servings
Total Time: approx. 1/2 hour, start to finish

Ingredients:
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken, cooked
6 Corn Tortillas
2 Cans Chicken Broth
1 Can Black Beans, drained and rinsed
1 Cup Frozen Corn
1-1/2 Cups Salsa
1/4 Cup Sour Cream

Serve With:
Shredded Cheese
Sour Cream

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 425 Degrees. Take 2 of the tortillas and slice them in thin strips, place on a baking stone or cookie sheet and toss with olive oil. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, checking and tossing again and salting if desired halfway through. 
While you’re at it, chop up the remaining 4 tortillas into bite size pieces, set aside.
In a large dutch oven or stock pot, sauté the chicken on medium heat in a little bit of olive oil. 
(I did this mostly to break up the chicken)
Add the chicken broth, black beans corn and tortilla pieces. Stir well.
In a food processor, or a blender if you’re lazy like me, combine the salsa and sour cream.

Add it to your soup. Stir well. 
At this point, you may wish to season it with different spices. I used some red pepper flakes and a touch of salt.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and let it simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. 
Dish it up and top with the crispy tortilla strips.

I also served it up with some shredded cheese, sour cream and sliced avocado along with a nice, big salad.

I got so caught up in my excitement to eat it that I forgot to take a photo of the soup all dished up and topped with cheese and sour cream.

Andy really enjoyed the soup (WIN!) and you know it’s good when he goes back for a second HUGE bowl AND takes some for lunch the next day. My husband? Not a leftover guy.

And for the double win? One serving of this soup, including cheese and sour cream on top was only 350 calories!

Things I will try next time: chopped onion sauteed with the chicken. And maybe some garlic, because really, garlic makes nearly everything better.

The Best Creamy Chicken Enchiladas Ever.

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Yep, I said ever. And I mean it.

You know what else? They’re easy to boot!

You know what else, what else? There’s pictures of my cute kid involved.

You’re welcome in advance.

Ingredients:

  • 1- pound Shredded Chicken
  • 2- 14.5 oz cans of Cream of Chicken Soup
  • 1- 16 oz tub of Sour Cream
  • 1- 4 oz can of Diced Green Chiles
  • 1/2- Cup Chopped Onions – Option {I say optional because I hate raw onions thrown in my food.  I only use the onions if I have to cook the chicken before hand. In which case, I sauté the onions with the chicken.}
  • 10-12- Flour Tortillas {Depends on the size of your tortillas here. We use the GIANT burrito size tortillas. Go big or go home folks. That’s our motto}
  • 2- Cups Shredded Cheese {Or more if you fancy. Cheese makes everything better.}
  • 1- 4 oz can Sliced Olives – Optional

{Ry showing off her Vanna skills, while pointing to what she feels is the most important ingredient. CHEESE.}
Step One: 
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Mix the chicken, cream of chicken soup, sour cream and diced chiles together in a bowl.
{Please disregard the dirty dishes in the background. They all got washed after the enchiladas went in the oven. Promise}
Step Two:
Spoon some mix into the center of a tortilla. Add cheese. Roll and place in a 13×9 baking dish. 
Continue until all the mix is used. Then top all the enchiladas with the remaining cheese and optional sliced olives.

{Rylee and Daddy admiring her cheese spreading skills}



Step Three:
Cover the enchiladas with tin foil. **Make sure you spray your foil with Pam or you’ll lose your cheese!** Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. I like to remove the foil after about 20 minutes of baking…it makes the edges enchiladas nice and crispy.

Step Four:
Serve with your favorite mexican side dishes and enjoy!!