Low Maintenance Lasagna

It's been forever since I has a Recipe Wednesday post but I'll just have to say that life got in the way and I reverted back to tried-and-true recipes to save time rather than making something new. But with all this snow I tried a few recipes that I had pulled from magazines and this one turned out to be a hit!


I've only made real lasagna a couple times (one being the Pioneer Woman's which was wonderful but took a sweet forever) and so when I saw this crock-pot version I figured I'd try it because there's nothing that Jason likes better than lasagna. This recipe was really easy and quick and turned out great. I'll probably add beef next time but the beauty of it is that you could add anything -- spinach, meat, different cheeses -- and it would still be really easy and good! The recipe does call for carrots which I liked and I cut them up really small to try and sneak them past Charlotte. She ate everything for a little while but by the end of the meal she was putting bites into her mouth, eating everything but the carrot pieces, and then spitting the carrot pieces out. You can definitely feel the texture of the carrots -- they don't go completely limp in the crock pot -- so if that's something that weirds you out you might want to try it without it. You could also double the recipe to make it taller if you need to feed more people, that way a serving could be smaller but have the same amount of food.

Low Maintenance Lasagna
From Jan 2011 issue of Parents magazine
Nonstick cooking spray
1 26 oz jar pasta sauce
3/4 cup water
1 15 oz carton part skim Ricotta Cheese
1/2 c Shredded Carrot
6 regular lasagna noodles
1 1/2 cups part-skim Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
1. Coat a slow cooker with cooking spray. In a large microwave-safe bowl, stir together the pasta sauce and water. Cover with wax paper and microwave on high for about 3 minutes. In the meantime, in a medium bowl, stir together ricotta cheese and carrots; set aside.
2. Spook 1/2 cup of the sauce mixture into the bottom of the slow cooker. Break half of the noodles and arrange over the sauce. Spoon half of the ricotta mixture over the noodles. Continue layering in the following order: 1/2 c mozzarella, half of the remaining sauce, remaining noodles (breaking them to fit), the remaining ricotta mixture, 1/2 c mozzarella, the rest of the sauce, and the rest of the mozzarella.
3. Cover; cook on low heat for about 3 hours, until the noodles are tender. Remove slow cooker from liner; let stand, covered, for about 20 minutes so lasagna is easier to slice.

Halloween Treats

For playgroup last week I put together a few desserts that I had seen a few weeks ago. They turned out really cute and tasted good too! I might make up another batch of ghosts to give out to special trick or treaters this weekend! Both of the recipes were from Parenting.

Marshmellow Ghosts

Makes 6 ghosts

* 8 large marshmallows

* 6 wooden skewers (points cut off)

* 1 cup white-chocolate chips

* 1 Tbs vegetable shortening

* 12 cinnamon Red Hots (I used M&M's)

* Black decorating gel

1. For each ghost, push three marshmallows onto end of skewer; set aside.

2. Microwave white-chocolate and shortening in a microwave-safe dish on medium-high for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave in 10-second intervals until smooth.

3. Holding the skewer, spoon the melted mixture over marshmallows until covered; place on wax-paper-lined cookie sheet. Use two Red Hots for eyes and decorating gel for a mouth.

4. Refrigerate until chocolate has hardened; serve.

**I just mixed the chocolate in 1 cup of chip increments and it worked great!

 

Witch on a Stick

1. Cut off the tops of pretzel rods and set aside.

2. Melt 1 cup white-chocolate chips, 1 Tbs shortening, and a few drops of green food coloring; stir until smooth.

3. Dip the cut end of the pretzels into the chocolate, covering the top 2 inches. Place on wax paper and sprinkle the sides of each with coconut flakes to form hair.

4. Top each with a Hershey's Kiss and refrigerate until the chocolate has hardened. Draw on eyes, nose, and mouth with black decorating icing; finish by covering the Kiss, too.

Apple Dumplings

Last weekend I was in charge of putting together the food so I went in search of some new recipes. I found a recipe for Apple Dumplings in the breakfast section of my Alabama Rich in Flavor cookbook and decided to try it out for breakfast on Saturday. I omitted the Mountain Dew that the recipe calls for because I figured we'd get enough caffeine the rest of the day and even without it they were great! I would highly recommend making this for breakfast or topped with ice cream for dessert.


Apple Dumplings
Serves 8

2 10 oz cans Crescent Rolls
2 or 3 Granny Smith apples, peeled and chopped
2 sticks butter, melted
1 c Sugar
1 t Cinnamon
Place two crescent rolls together to make a rectangle. Fill with apples and fold up like a package. Repeat with remaining crescent rolls and apples. Place, seam side down, in a 9x13 baking dish. Combine butter, sugar, and cinnamon; pour over rolls. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

Sweet Potato Fries

Grow Alabama has started delivering sweet potatos again and not being a big fan of sweet potatoes I've been at a loss at what to do with them. So this week I set out to make something other than sweet potato casserole and so I searched Tasty Kitchen and came up with this recipe for Sweet Potato Fries. I made them last night and they were even tasty for me! Charlotte thought they were too spicy though so tomorrow when I make some more since we have sweet potatoes coming out of our ears I will omit the seasoning on a few for her. But this was a really easy recipe that didn't require a lot of work and the fries came out really great. And one of the best parts was that they were baked so they were a relatively good way to eat veggies.

Sweet Potato Fries
Serves 2

2 whole sweet potatoes
3 T Olive Oil
1 t Salt
1 t Pepper
1/2 t Smoked Paprika (couldn't find this at the grocery store so just used paprika, use less than 1/2 teaspoon!)
2 T Brown Sugar
- Preheat oven to 425
- Peel potatoes (if desired). Cut into wedges until you get the size fry that you want.
- Put potatoes in a bowl. Combine with other ingredients and mix thoroughly with your hands so that every wedge is covered.
- Set a wire rack on a baking sheet and spray with non-stick spray. Lay wedges on the wire rack. Bake for 25 minutes. Rotate pan and put back in for 20 minutes. (Time is approximate, cook them to whatever your desired doneness level is.)

Baked Parmesan Fish

When I was reading my friend Catherine's blog a few weeks ago I saw this recipe and thought I'd give it a try. Jason and I are always up for a fish recipe. I took Catherine's advice and added a small jar of Bruschetta sauce to the recipe and it was fantastic. Jason picked most of the mushrooms out (of course) but Charlotte and I loved them. And it was really easy! Great meal for when you only have a little bit of prep time. I also used salmon like Catherine did and I was worried about getting the skin off once I had cooked the fish, but the skin sticks to the roating pan (which is the kind of pan that I used) and so it wasn't a problem at all! Catherine got this recipe from the Nestle Cookbook.
Baked Parmesan Fish with Pasta
1/3 cup grated fat free Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon all purpose flour
3 thyme springs, leaves removed and crushed (I used regular thyme in the bottle)
4 white fish fillets (6 oz each) (I used Salmon and it was great)
1 package (9 oz) Buitoni Refrigerated Angel Hair Pasta
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup halved mushroom caps (I used sliced mushrooms)
1/2 cup finely sliced green onions
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small jar of Bruschetta sauce (I added this to the recipe)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350
Place cheese, flour, and thyme in paper bag (I used ziploc). Individually coat fish by gently shaking in bag; discard coating ingredients. Place fish in baking pan with rack.
Bake for 20 minutes or until fish flakes easily.
Prepare pasta according to package directions.
Heat large, nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add onion, mushrooms, green onions, and garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, until onions are tender. Season with salt and ground black pepper.
Place past on oven-warmed plates. Attractively arrange fish over pasta. Serve with mushroom medly over fish and pasta. Garnish with thyme, if desired.

TIP: you can use most firm, white fish fillets, including swordfish, sole, halibut, or red snapper.
Prep: 15 min
Cooking: 25 min

Prairie Pork Chop Bake

We hadn't had pork chops in a while so I went back to Tasty Kitchen to look for a pork chop recipe and found this recipe that looked SO SIMPLE! So I tried it and it was really good. Just as simple to assemble as it looks in the instructions (cutting the fat off the pork was the most time intensive part!) and tasted great. It has a little bit of a sweet taste but I'm not sure if that was the kind of mustard I used (Boar's Head Deli Mustard) or just all the brown sugar. But regardless this is definitely a recipe I will be using frequently. It would probably be great over chicken also if you don't like cooking pork.

PS One thing I love about Tasty Kitchen is that you can change the servings online for whatever the recipe is and it will do all the math for you. If you haven't checked it out make sure you look at it next time you're looking for a recipe!

Prairie Pork Chop Bake
Serves 4

4 whole Pork Chops
1/4 c Prepared Mustard
1/4 c Brown Sugar
1/2 box Stove Top Stuffing (6 oz box)
1/2 can 15 oz Niblet Corn
1/2 c Water

1. Mix brown sugar and mustard together. Cover each side of each pork chop evenly.
2. Then combine stuffing, corn, and water. Top each chop with 2-3 spoonfuls of stuffing mixture.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Simple Spanish Rice

I made this rice a few weeks ago as a side to chicken and it was really good.  The rice tasted like the rice that you get at a good Mexican restaurant.  I will definitely be making this again!

Simple Spanish Rice

1 tablespoon Olive Oil

½ whole Onion, Chopped
1 cup Long Grain White Rice
1 pint Chicken Broth
¼ pounds Tomato Sauce

1. In a medium-sized pot, heat the olive oil (or your oil of choice). When hot, add the onion and rice. Cook, stirring frequently, until rice is light golden brown.
2. Add chicken broth and tomato sauce to the rice; stir to combine (this is the only time you’ll stir it). Bring just to the boiling point and immediately reduce heat to low. Cover and cook on low for about 20 minutes, or until all liquid is absorbed and rice is tender.
3. Remove from heat. Fluff with a fork before serving.