Corn Dog Casserole (4/11/2017)

Corn Dog Casserole 
☆☆☆
14 wwp+

I'm not going to lie, this looked less than appetizing when it came out of the oven. It was plain gross looking, however I have learned that when it looks gross it isn't necessarily gross tasting. Even B looked at me like I had 2 heads, asking him to eat it ;)

C asked what we were having for dinner and when I told her she said "I love corn dogs! Thank you Mama for making this!" She hadn't even eaten any yet! She did however eat some, actually almost all of her serving, and said it was "yummy!" E was pointing at it and yelling for some and then she ate quite a bit of it. B ate his, I doubt he would intentionally ask for it again, but it wasn't horrible. I enjoyed the cocktail weenies more than the corn bread, but I'm not big on corn bread as it is. I think this is definitely something I would make in the future for the girls when we are having something else like steak which the girls won't want to eat.

I don't have any pictures right now, but we do have plenty of leftovers for the girls, so I'll try to get a picture and add it to this post later.

See you at dinner!
Moose

White Spaghetti Pizza Bake (4/10/2017)

White Spaghetti Pizza Bake 
☆☆☆☆
9 wwp+

I found this on pinterest under a pin labeled "Kids' most requested dinners" and thought I'd give it a try. After the last time I used alfredo sauce in a recipe I decided to skip that in this recipe and I used regular pasta sauce instead. I also halved the recipe since we don't need a lot of servings. I also didn't use chicken and bacon, that isn't my kind of spaghetti or pizza, so I used pepperoni instead.

C and E both ate theirs and wanted more. B said he was pleasantly surprised and he would definitely eat this again. He isn't always the biggest fan of baked pasta, but really enjoyed this one. I also really enjoyed it and the pepperoni was perfect. It was so easy to make. I loved it.

I remembered to grab a picture of this one! I'm thankful too, because it baked up really well and looks delicious!

See you at dinner!
Moose

Cornish Pasty (4/7/2017)

Cornish Pasty 
☆☆☆
18 wwp+

This was soo good! I am not sure B would say it was soo good, but he did at least eat it and said it was good. ;)  I had a Cornish Pasty at Mucky Duck Pub in Ames, IA while we were visiting family not so long ago and I enjoyed it so much I decided I needed to make it myself. I did some searching through recipes on pinterest and found this one, and liked how easy it seemed.

FYI: Minced meat equals Ground in America. I was thankful for this because I didn't want to figure out where to buy minced meat. I used frozen pie crust as my pastry dough and it worked pretty well. I have these dumpling/turnover molds from Pampered Chef that I used to seal and fold my pastys. C enjoyed helping me with this part, and I enjoyed teaching her. I didn't use frozen peas, and I used dried chopped onion instead of an onion. I also used already minced garlic as opposed to fresh cloves.

I was pleased with the flavors and the outcome of this dish. C ate some of hers and B ate all of his. E didn't really try any of it, but she did like the pastry crust that she tried off B's plate.

I didn't get any pictures of this either, I was hungry and dinner was sort of chaotic so they weren't a priority.

See you at dinner!
Moose

Asian Chicken Stir Fry (4/6/2017)

Asian Chicken Stir Fry 
Cambell's 20 meals in 20 minutes
☆
14 wwp+

To be honest, I was apprehensive of this recipe from the beginning, but I decided to just be brave and make it anyway. The frozen vegetables made me nervous (not that I don't eat frozen veggies, I do, just not typically as stir fry veggies). I didn't have any Golden Mushroom Soup so I did some googling and decided to sub in some hoisen sauce for the soup. I used a frozen blend of asian vegetables from Blue Bird, which I typically love. I also only used 1 chicken breast instead of more than one, since I knew we wouldn't need a LOT of food.

The outcome was not very pleasant. The veggies were limp, the chicken wasn't very flavorful, and for some reason my rice just wouldn't cook all the way and ended up mushy. 😕 B and I made our way through it and C tried some of hers, but we certainly won't be eating this again. I hope if you decide to make this, you have a better outcome than we did.

There aren't any pictures, as I wasn't focused on taking pictures. :(

See you at dinner!
Moose

Sausage Chowder (4/5/2017)

Sausage Chowder
Iowa Food & Family
☆☆☆☆
13 wwP+

So, I planned this menu well before I knew that it was going to be a bit dreary out and not terribly warm today. (You never know with April, what the weather will be like). Thankfully, I didn't have this planned for a 70° day because that would have been poor planning for sure.

I told B when I made this, that it was a dish his Grandmother would be proud of. It is a true Iowa Farm meal, it has corn, carrots, potatoes, and sausage (hog). B checked out the recipe and said "It really does have all the food from the farm". ;) I tend to tease B when I make "Iowa" food, since he's an Iowa boy whose grandparents lived on a farm. We tried to grow corn in our front yard garden in Missouri once, and while the corn was beautiful when it was growing, the super humid and hot Missouri weather did not produce good corn, it was sooooo bland! (See picture of corn stalks).

This didn't take long to prep, which was good since we ran some errands before I made dinner, and it was 6 before I started cooking. I only used a half pound of sausage and half of all the other ingredients as well, we don't need 10 servings of chowder! We still had enough for left overs which I plan to freeze and reheat when we need a warm meal again. I also used whole milk instead of evaporated milk (see dietitian's note). I made this decision because I felt like the evaporated milk would make the chowder a little sweeter than I'd like. I would maybe add some green vegetables next time or some cabbage and just give it a little umph.

I also used my soup pot for the first time. We don't have a dutch oven, but my calphalon soup pot worked just as well. I was actually pretty impressed with how quick it all cooked in the soup pot and can definitely see myself using it more. I have really enjoyed the perk of trying new cooking tools, methods, and foods during this cooking journey.

B enjoyed it and said he'd definitely eat it again. C liked it, despite thinking she wouldn't, and ate just enough 😉 I think the velveeta helped encourage C to eat hers. E didn't really try any, it was a little warm to feed her, and so she enjoyed some chopped mango, applesauce, and crackers.

Tomorrow we're having Asian Chicken Stir Fry.... we'll see how it turns out. It's a SUPER simple recipe from Cambell's 20 meals in 20 minutes free cookbook. 😮

See you at Dinner!
Moose

Corn in SWMO 2012

Hot Pizza Dip (4/4/2017)

Hot Pizza Dip
Iowa Food and Family Cookbook
☆☆☆☆
3 wwp+

This was delicious! I used Town House Flatbread Crackers with an Italian flavor to use with the Dip and it was perfect.  C enjoyed it, B enjoyed it, and E enjoyed the crackers.  This was super simple to make and really yummy. I skipped the green onions and added in pepperoni.  I would probably use mini pepperoni next time as the full size pepperoni made the dip kinda difficult. This is definitely something I would make again and it would be really great for a Super Bowl Party or pot luck.

I would definitely recommend this.

See you at Dinner!
Moose

Chicken Tortilla Soup (4/3/2017)

Hello April! So, before I jump into pinterest recipes I have a few I had originally planned for March that I didn't end up making.  Tonight's dinner was one of those.

Chicken Tortilla Soup: MOPS recipe
⭐⭐⭐⭐

I got this recipe from a collection of recipes put together by my MOPS group a few years ago. I didn't follow it exactly as I already had some frozen left over chicken tacos and I decided to add that to this recipe. Because my version of chicken tacos already has chicken, taco seasoning, black beans, and corn the only thing I added from the recipe was the ranch dip mix, the sour cream, and water.  I cooked this in a crock pot on low for about 6 hours and I made the mistake of adding the sour cream when I first combined everything, but it turned out really good anyway.

The "soup" was more of a chowder or dip, but it was DELICIOUS! C ate hers as a dip with chips and B ate his both with a spoon and chips. I ate mine like a soup with chips broken up into it. C gave it 2 thumbs up and B said he'd definitely eat it again. I was pleased because it's the perfect way to use up left over chicken taco mix.

I didn't get a picture of the final product (just too good to think about pictures), but I do have the original recipe.

See you at Dinner,
Moose