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

BBQ Chicken and Cheddar Foil Packet Dinner (3/31/2017)

BBQ Chicken and Cheddar Foil Packet Dinner
Iowa Food and Family (HyVee)
🐔🐔🐔
10 wwp+

Its the last day of March and my last meal for Cluck Cluck March before moving into Pinspiration April on Monday.

I got tonight's recipe from the Iowa Food and Family cookbook distributed by HyVee. We got lucky with temps in the upper 50s today so B agreed to cook these on the grill. I was out of potatoes so I used sweet potato instead and I think it turned out pretty decent. The chicken had good flavor to it and the potatoes were just the right amount of tender.  I added some Lowry's seasoning salt as well as some garlic and I used dried chopped onion.

Overall, B and I agreed this was a good dinner, but not great and I'm not sure we'd eat it again. It also took around 40 minutes on the grill with one of the breasts needing another 10 minutes in the oven, so that didn't help.

C said it was yummy (dipped in ranch), except the potatoes which she did not enjoy. E didn't try any of it.

See you at dinner!
Moose

Grams' Baked Chicken (3/23/2017)

Baked Chicken

Grandma Georgie 

🐔🐔🐔🐔

I came across this recipe in the cookbook I have from my Grandma's church, and noticed this was one of her contributions.  I couldn't pass up making it.

I used 2 chicken breasts instead of 4 since there are only 3 adults today.  I also tenderized them and added some salt free chicken seasoning from my parents' pantry. Last week my mom made corned beef and we had some left over potatoes and carrots that were waiting to be eaten.  I put the chicken in my baking dish, put the slice of cheese on top of each breast as directed. I then piled on the potatoes and carrots before adding the soup and toppings.  I am one of the few who does not like stove top stuffing so I skipped it and used crushed ritz crackers instead.   The flavors were wonderful and we had leftovers which my mom is going to turn into dinner.  

Both of my parents liked theirs as and C ate a yummy sandwich and her required bites. E was not interested.  I will definitely be making this

I'd definitely recommend this one again.

See you at dinner!
Moose

Ham and Cheese Sliders (3/21/2017)

Hello! Sorry I've been quiet, but I'm off enjoying some time at my parents' house and therefore I haven't had to cook. 😁😉

I did however cook Tuesday night when my brother (T) and his family came for dinner.  I decided to make one of the favorites in our home, Ham and Cheese Sliders, affectionately known as Yummy Sandwiches.  You can find the review below.

Ham and Cheese sliders aka: yummy sandwiches
http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2010/04/ham-and-cheese-sliders.html
☆☆☆☆☆

I know these aren't a chicken dish, which is the theme for March, but they are so easy and so yummy they were perfect for family dinner with 5 adults, a 4 year old, 1 year old, and 10 month old. I actually have my friend D to thank for introducing me to these last summer at a birthday party.

I do skip the miracle whip and just use mayonnaise.  I'm not a miracle whip fan, so a jar of it would go unused in our house. Plus,  mayonnaise is better. 😉😉 This time I used store brand dinner rolls, they were butter flavored instead of sweet Hawaiian and they were just as good.

I have made these for big gatherings and often I prep the sandwiches early in the day so that all I have to do is poor the butter and poppyseed mixture on them and bake them.

The first time I made these I think B was skeptical about how good they were going to be, but was pleasantly surprised by the outcome.  C exclaimed "these are yummy" and requested a second sandwich. E has tried them since and mostly likes the bread. This week T and family also enjoyed them.

I hope you enjoy these as much as we do.  

See you at Dinner!
Moose

Chicken casserole (3/10/17)

Chicken Casserole
Family Recipe
🐔🐔🐔🐔

I LOVE this meal. It's a family recipe for Turkey casserole, most often used for thanksgiving leftovers, but today I used chicken. I've used chicken before and knew it would taste good.

B isn't a huge fan of turkey casserole, but he said he really liked this particular version and would definitely eat it again. C did not love it, but ate the rice and eggs. E loved it and could not get enough of it.

You'll see I've made changes in the recipe. The original uses crushed potato chips instead of Ritz crackers but I've found the buttery flavor of the crackers adds to the casserole. I also used celery salt instead of celery because we didn't have any.  To be honest, I didn't actually measure any of the ingredients this time, I just approximated. It turned out great.

I think my favorite part is the rice as opposed to noodles, it makes a much lighter casserole.

See you at dinner!
Moose

Mexican Chicken (3/9/17)

Mexican Chicken
Spirit of the Redeemer Catholic Church
🐔🐔🐔
18 wwp+

Overall we enjoyed this recipe. I got it from the cookbook my grandmother's church published a few years ago.  I wasn't really sure how it would turn out but I thought it was worth the risk.

The Doritos held up pretty well. I didn't crush them, I just layered them. I used a single chicken breast, about a pound total. I also used corn instead of jalapenos, I'm feeding children after all. B said he'd eat it again.

C liked the chips and cheese but didn't love the chicken.  E ate some of the chicken, but preferred the mangoes I gave her.

This also wasn't very hard to make. Cooking the chicken was the most tedious part.

See you at dinner!
Moose

Easy Italian Chicken (3/8/17)

Easy Italian Chicken 

Big Book of Italian Recipes 

🐔🐔.5

7 wwp+

Hello crock pot! Turns out this meal is a crock pot meal. I haven't used my crock pot since I made chicken tacos last week.  I really do enjoy how easy it is to make a crock pot meal. I also enjoy that dinner is ready by 5 and I'm not having to cook it at 4 😉😉. I did sautee some carrots and French cut green beans to go with this meal, but it was easy. 

This was a chicken dish my mom would be proud of. It had cabbage, which is basically a staple in my parents' home.  I only used two chicken thighs, but other than that I followed the recipe exactly (except I used onion powder). I only cut my cabbage into two wedges since I used my small crock pot. 

I thought it was delicious and I'd definitely eat it again. I enjoyed the flavors from the way it all blended together and the cabbage was yummy. B isn't a fan of mushrooms (despite telling C they're yummy tonight) and he's not huge on cabbage. Plus I think he prefers chicken breast. C ate her chicken, she liked it with the sauce from the crock pot, but still requested ranch. But, hey, she's eating! E ate her chicken with a side of pears. Neither of them liked the green beans I made on the side. 

I would eat this again, but I'd probably have to feed B something else 😉

See you at dinner! 

Moose 

Orange Chinese Chicken WW (3/7/17)

Orange Chinese Chicken
http://pin.it/MhJbEwn
🐔🐔
WW Smart Food

So, this wasn't the dish originally scheduled for tonight. We were supposed to have Italian chicken, but, it cooks all day and I hadn't been grocery shopping yet this week and didn't have everything I needed. So, I was going to do crunchy chicken nuggets from a recipe I've tried before (http://m.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipe/crunchy-homemade-chicken-nuggets). But, I haven't made them in a while, and in reviewing the recipe realized I didn't have the time to marinate them. Instead, I yanked this recipe out of the Pinned on Pinterest hat, as a last ditch effort.

This recipe was not a popular one in this house. To quote B "I'd give it 2 🐔, but I'm going to finish it." I wanted to dip it in ranch like C. E ate a little bit of it, but it took warming up to.  I'm not really sure what went wrong either. It had a super weird flavor that I couldn't pin point.

If you're brave and you try it yourself, let me know how it turns out for you.

See you at dinner!
Moose

Parmesan crusted chicken cutlets (3/6/17)

Parmesan crusted chicken cutlets
Big Book of Italian Recipes
🐔🐔🐔
Aprox. 6 wwp+

This was super simple to bake and I used one chicken breast cut in half long way and then split between us.  It didn't take very much time and I sauteed some red bell pepper and cut green beans with garlic for the side. I think next time I'd add a like Moore parmesean cheese to enhance the flavor.  I did add garlic to the crumb mixture of ritz crackers and parmesean.  I'd probably use a little less rosemary also.

Overall it wasn't bad and B said he'd eat it again. E didn't like the chicken, but C ate hers with ranch.

See you at dinner!
Moose

Chicken and penne with roasted red peppers (3/3/17)

Chicken and penne with roasted red peppers
Big Book of Italian Recipes

This dish was a huge success. We really enjoyed it and the chicken had a lot of flavor.  I used ritz crackers because I didn't have any bread crumbs and I skipped the egg wash.  I used minced garlic instead of cloves of garlic and red bell pepper instead of roasted peppers. I also used diced tomatoes from a can.  Next time I would probably cook my noodles almost last because the noodles got cold waiting for everything else to be finished.  I'd also bake my chicken for a little bit after searing it in the skillet.

B said he'd definitely eat this again, plus the house smelled good. C ate her chicken with ranch dressing and ate her noodles without protest. E enjoyed some of the noodles, but not the chicken. 

Gotta love how it plated up too!

See you see dinner!
Moose

Tuscan Chicken (3/2/17)

Tuscan Chicken
Big Book of Italian Recipes
🐔🐔.5
6 wwp+

Well, today I tested my limits with a pretty straight forward chicken dish. I ate it, but I didn't love it. I did like the pesto flavor and I used chicken broth instead of white wine. I skipped the olives since B isn't a fan. B liked the entire thing. I just thought it had a little too much chicken flavor to it... I prefer chicken that tastes less like chicken.  B said he would eat it again but not all the time.

C tried it and did not like it and E refused to eat hers.

I served this with a side of steamfresh green beans and rice.  It wasn't too complicated to make either.

I only have one picture of the food as we decided to go to Disney on Ice at the last minute and plowed through dinner.

See you at dinner!
Moose

Hello March--- Cluck Cluck / Ridiculously Easy Chicken Tacos (3/1/17)

Hello friends!

I can't believe it's already March! For the month of March I'll be cooking dishes with chicken as the main ingredient.  Not all of these dishes will be in the crock pot, in fact I think only one or two will. This month will really be a challenge for me, as chicken is not my favorite food. In fact, I tend to avoid eating chicken if possible. 😉 We decided to rate our meals in clucks this month, which will be connotated by the chicken emoji. 🐔 I won't be doing much cooking in the middle of the month as I have some family time planned.

Now, onto the review.

Ridiculously Easy Chicken Tacos
http://www.familyfriendlyfrugality.com/ridiculously-easy-chicken-taco-crockpot-recipe/
🐔🐔🐔
10 wwp+

This meal is so easy, I don't even look at the recipe any more. It's basically the dump cake of crock pot meals, you just dump in all your ingredients, give it a stir, and let it cook. I also add in a can of corn and a can of black beans (today we used kidney beans). I only used 1 chicken breast today, but it was still more than enough food. I shred the chicken with a fork with 1.5-2 hours left in cook time so that the chicken soaks up all the yummy flavor.

B and I eat this pretty often and the flavors are fabulous. C typically eats some of it in quesadilla set up and E likes it too. The leftovers can be frozen for the next time you want chicken tacos.

The recipe is in the description today.

 

This is what happens when the can of peanuts sits on your taco shells... taco salad. 

See you at dinner!
Moose

Cinnamon Roll Pancake (2/28/2017)

Crock pot meal #20
Cinnamon Roll Pancake
http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/slow-cooker-cinnamon-roll-pancake/b72f7f2d-61b7-448a-908c-3704128ae9c4?nicam4=SocialMedia&nichn4=Facebook&niseg4=Bisquick&nicreatID4=Post%3Fnicam4%3DSocialMedia&nichn4=Pinterest&niseg4=Bisquick&nicreatID4=Post&crlt.pid=camp.sQDpAjXARPM9
☆☆☆☆
11 wwp+

As today is Shrove Tuesday and pancakes for dinner is common, I decided to try a crockpot pancake. This was one of those recipes that was either going to be great or really bad.  Luckily, it was great. I cooked the pancake for 1.5 hours on high.  It was fluffy like a cinnamon roll with some pancake flavor.  B said it was really good.  I enjoyed it as well.

C ate all of hers without prompting and even said "this is delicious. I wasn't so sure by how it looks" followed by "we should eat this again"

This would be a really easy Sunday morning meal in our house, or when we have guests. I'd definitely recommend it.

Recipe is in the description.

This was the final day of crock pot February. To follow along during Cluck Cluck March, join me on the blog.  Link in comments.

See you at dinner!
Moose

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork (2/27/17)

Crock pot meal #19
Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
http://www.laurengreutman.com/crockpot-pulled-pork/
☆☆☆
7 wwp+

This is a meal we've eaten before so I knew we'd like it, well at least B and I. I only made a 1.3 pound pork loin since we don't need a lot for the two of us.  I cooked this for 8.5 hours on low. We enjoyed dinner tonight.

I was hungry so I forgot to take a picture of my food assembled,  so here's the left overs 😉

C refused to eat it and finally took 1 bite begrudgingly.  E didn't try any.

Recipe is in the description today.

See you at dinner!
Moose