Cabbage Roll Casserole

Wow!  I have been quite the slacker lately.  At least when it comes to blogging.  I have been super busy working on some other projects, so blogging, and even cooking/baking, have been on the back burner.  No pun intended.  The drought has hit especially hard in trying new main dishes.  But fortunately, I did carve out some late recently to try out this yummy cabbage roll casserole.

I have never had a cabbage roll, but the idea of it, and pictures of it, seemed pretty good.  Then I started seeing recipes on Pinterest for cabbage roll casserole.  They were described as being similar to cabbage rolls, but without the work of rolling.  Bingo!  I love anything that involves less work, especially these days!

Spicy Thai Beef

I have a culinary confession to make.  I honestly don't know much about Asian food.  We have a Chinese buffet in my little hometown, but we almost never went there when I was growing up.  It had a less than stellar reputation.  I'm talking about rumors of cats in freezers kind of reputation.  We would occasionally have Chinese food when we went out of town and my dad would pick where we ate.  And I never thought I liked Chinese food until I tried Panda Express, which I imagine is about as authentic Chinese as a Big Mac.  But who doesn't love that sweet and sticky orange chicken?

I didn't have Thai food until college, and I could probably count on one hand the number of times I have had it since.  Because of my lack of experience with Asian cuisine, I couldn't really tell Chinese food from Thai food from Vietnamese food from my elbow.  My understanding of Thai food is that it is spicy and it often has a peanut sauce.  That's it.  With that being said, I can't really tell you if this spicy Thai beef dish is actually good Thai food.  But I can tell you that it is good food!  It is easy and delicious with a little kick of spice and a little tang thanks to lime juice and ginger.  

Easy Beef Stir-Fry

We have had a reasonable summer thus far.  Until this week.  Hello, hot and humid.  I haven't missed you.  That means that my oven is officially out of commission.  I just can't make myself turn it on when my poor air conditioner is working its tail off just to keep it under 80 degrees in this old house.  So stove-top recipes are my friend right now.  

One of my favorite oven-free dinners is stir-fry.  It is fast, easy, and packed with yummy flavors.  I also love that you just need to add some brown rice and a side of fruit, and you have a great, healthy, well balanced meal in no time.  If you use instant brown rice, you can have this meal ready in about 15 minutes.  Yeah, I like that.

Honey BBQ Meatloaf

 Have you ever met a man who didn't like meatloaf?  I haven't.  I'm pretty sure such a specimen doesn't exist.  Stay tuned for a great recipe that will get you major brownie points with that special man in your life!  

Meatloaf is also one of the first dishes I made for my husband back when we were dating and I had my first apartment.  I was delighted at how great he thought such a simple meal was.  It made me feel like I was some kind of kitchen hero.  But at the same time, I felt guilty taking so much credit for something that took about 5 minutes to put together.  You see, for almost all of my life, I have made meatloaf from a seasoning packet.  And it has been good.  I have seen other recipes for meatloaf from scratch, but I figured that if it wasn't broken, there was no need to fix it.  

Then I came across this recipe for honey BBQ meatloaf.  It sounded delicious and didn't look like it would take much more time than my dirty-little-secret meatloaf.  My meatloaf wasn't broken, but it was about to get a whole lot better.  It kind of reminds me of the people with straight teeth on the Invisalign commercials.  What's that about??

Cheesy Tator Tot Casserole

Some things never get old.  Like Dolly Parton and tator tot casserole.  Who didn't get excited as a kid to find out that  tator tot casserole was on the dinner menu?  It's just a classic.  I bought a bag of tator tots a while ago because they were on sale, and I can't resist a good sale.  I decided that it would be way more awesome to make tator tot casserole than to just have plain old tator tots.

Unfortunately, I hadn't made tator tot casserole in years.  And by years, I mean not since my college days with my old roomie Stefanie.  Stefanie made a mean tator tot casserole (and her and her husband just had their first baby two days ago, so congratulations!!!).  I remembered the basics of tator tot casserole.  It is pretty simple, after all.  But I wasn't feeling overly confident in my ability to recreate Stefanie's yummy version which I had loved so much.  

So I went to my old-school cookbooks thinking that somewhere in those pages of good old comfort food and casserole recipes I was bound to find at least one tried-and-true tator tot casserole recipe.  I was wrong.  In all my cookbooks, I didn't have one tator tot casserole recipe.  I guess all those church ladies and farmer's wives assumed that anyone with a brain in their skull and an oven in their kitchen just knew how to make tator tot casserole.  The good news is that thanks to a little invention called the internet, I knew I could scrounge up a tasty recipe in no time.  So I got to searching.

BBQ Beef Pie

Because of my serious recipe addiction, I have a habit of making "one and done" recipes.  I have so many things I want to try that I frequently make things one time only, no matter how great they turn out.  And then it's on to the next new thing!  Not so with this recipe.  I have several times already since I discovered this amazing recipe!

Every other recipe can wait.  This is too good.  I'm talking about ground beef, cheese, and sauteed onion smothered in BBQ sauce and baked in a pie crust.  (Please excuse me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard.)  This is the kind of food that you eat and think, "I could eat this the rest of my life."  Those who really know me know that I love any excuse to eat BBQ sauce.  So this dish is right up my alley.  And my husband would probably eat roadkill if I served it on pie crust.  So it's right up his alley as well.  To say the least, we're both kind of into this recipe.

Crock Pot Cocktail Meatballs

The Madness has officially begun.  Last night the reigning NCAA basketball champs, the Kentucky Wildcats, saw their season go down in flames in the first round of, get this, the NIT.  They were defeated by Robert Morris (anyone ever heard of them?) whose fans then proceeded to storm the court.  Again, keep in mind we're talking about the first round of the NIT.  For those of you who don't follow basketball and have no idea what I'm talking about, let me compare this to Arnold Schwarzenegger losing to, let's say....me, in an arm wrestling competition.  Epic fail.

For those of you who are basketball fans, be jealous of me.  I am on Spring Break for the rest of the week, which means I get to watch those daytime tournament games from the comfort of my own couch, instead of clandestinely streaming games onto a smartphone while pretending work like the rest of you.  This includes my beloved K-State Wildcats on Friday afternoon.  Ah, I love my job!  

So anyway, I like watching sports.  I like eating good food while watching sports.  Crock Pot cocktail meatballs are good food, especially for watching sports.  

White Castle Slider Wannabes

March Madness is upon us.  It's yet another opportunity to gather 'round the couch with your friends and drink a few cold ones while eating junk, all in the name of sports.  I love America!  And what is more American than a cheeseburger?

While "bigger is better" is typically the American mindset, sliders have managed to find a nice, miniature, spot in our hearts.  And why not?  They're a fun change up from a standard burger, they can be eaten one handed, and you can eat multiple of them guilt-free.  Plus, they make great party food because your guests can enjoy a cheeseburger without filling up, allowing them to enjoy the rest of the delicious food you have worked so hard to prepare.  And one of the best things about this slider recipe is that these particular mini-burgers are the easiest burgers I have ever made!

Beef & Broccoli

 I have been holding on to this recipe for far too long.  So today is the day I share it with the world.  I have some yummy sugary treats on the back burner as well (not literally speaking, of course) but I thought with millions of Americans trying to stick to that ubiquitous New Year's resolution to eat healthier, I would save those for March, when everyone gives up.  Well, everyone but you.  I know you all will stick with it because you have read my post on "How to Stick to Your New Year's Resolution."  On a side note, I thought I would be all fancy and look up some statistics on how many people actually resolve to eat healthier or lose weight.  I didn't.  So I'm going with "millions."  That sounds about right.

Anyway, back to our main topic of interest, beef and broccoli.  I love it.  I never seem to think about making my own Chinese food.  I just head to the only Chinese restaurant in our town, which is a buffet.  And because it is a buffet, I eat too much and leave feeling miserable.  Yes, it happens to me too.  But one fateful day, I decided to try my hand at making my own beef and broccoli.  I found a recipe, whipped it up, and enjoyed!  This recipe is really easy to make, and it is absolutely delicious.  By delicious, I mean that I licked the bowl clean.  And I usually only do that with cookie dough or cake batter, so that's saying something!  

BBQ Meatballs

Today I am sharing a true oldie but goodie--BBQ meatballs.  Nothing fancy here.  Just good old-fashioned home-cooking like grandma used to make.  I got this recipe from a college roommate.  Shout out to you Stefanie!  We ate a lot of convenience food back in the day, if we even bothered to have full meals.  But Sunday nights we actually got together and made ourselves real food.  These meatballs were Stef's specialty.  And when she got married and moved out, I made sure to get the recipe from her.

This is one of those recipes that circulates around a small town through just about every church and business cookbook.  Who knows where it started!  These savory little balls of beef are baked with a generous amount of a sweet and smoky BBQ sauce.  This is one of my favorite main dishes and it is really simple, so I thought it was time for it to make its way to the rest of the world via the internet.

Inside Out BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger

I swear I can smell a burger grilling from a mile away.  The aroma of succulent ground beef cooking on the grill on a summer day is intoxicating.  And nothing tops off a delicious burger quite like bacon, cheese, and BBQ sauce.  I think the BBQ bacon cheeseburger is one of America's crowning achievements.  It's right up there with Super Bowl Sunday and the internet.  You're welcome, world.

But what if the BBQ, bacon, and cheese weren't on top of the burger, but inside it?  Well, then you would have what I like to call an inside out BBQ bacon cheeseburger.  And you would be in meat heaven.  I am pretty sure the seed for this was planted long ago by seeing something similar on the internet.  But a while back I was planning to make burgers.  I considered making regular BBQ bacon cheeseburgers, but, honestly, I am too lazy to cook up bacon to put on top of my burger.  So I decided to just put Bacon Bits in my burgers while I was forming the patties.  And I thought while I was at it, I might as well put the cheese in the burger.  And the BBQ sauce.  And some spices.  Before I knew it, I had this amazing concoction on the grill.  And you could definitely smell this from a mile away!

Makeover Monday: Lighter Cheesy Pastitsio

I love all things pasta.  I could probably eat it every day and never get tired of it!  But I rarely make cheesy pastas because cheesy pasta is just code for fatty pasta (as is creamy, or alfredo!).  So this recipe for lighter cheesy pastitsio instantly piqued my interested.  I had never heard of pastitsio, but it had cheese and pasta so I thought I would give it a try.

This recipe was already made-over for me so I can't take credit for that.  Basically this dish is just made with skim milk and reduced fat cream cheese and mozzarella.  I did make a few changes to increase the flavor.  I added some pepper because I need a little spice in my life.   I used Italian-style diced tomatoes as an easy way to up the flavor, and I topped it off with a sprinkling of Italian seasonings.  The sauce was pleasantly creamy and delicious.  I certainly didn't miss the extra fat!

Makeover Monday: Reduced Fat Sloppy Joe Cornbread Bake

This recipe is a bit of a Frankenstein.  Gather 'round and I'll tell you its tale!  Shortly after getting married, I bought some hamburger buns, a packet of seasonings, and made Sloppy Joes.  My husband politely told me that although Sloppy Joes are okay, if we are having beef on a hamburger bun, he would just prefer that we have cheeseburgers.  So I consented to not making Sloppy Joes anymore.  I like them, but I could live without them.  

Then about a year ago, I found a recipe for Sloppy Joe cornbread bake.  This recipe for a Sloppy Joe base topped with cornbread seemed to solve my dilemma.  I could have the goodness of Sloppy Joe, but it wasn't on a bun, so it wasn't competing with cheeseburgers for my husband's affection.  Before I had a chance to make it, I saw a recipe for Sloppy Joes that included a can of beans.  I am always trying to get more beans in my diet, and this sounded like a great way to do so.  

So I combined those two ideas and added beans to the Sloppy Joe cornbread bake.  I made it a few times using a packet of Sloppy Joe seasonings, and I never had any complaints.  I was satisfied with my Sloppy Joe situation.  Then I found a recipe for reduced fat Sloppy Joes in Cook's Country that was made from scratch.  This kept getting better and better!  So I combined the three recipes together into one reduced fat Sloppy Joe cornbread bake.  It's alive!

Cavatini

There are so many foods my mom us growing up that I loved.  I don't know that I could pick one favorite, but if I had to make a list of my top 10 favorites, cavatini would definitely be up there.  It's not something she made all the time, but it was always a treat when she did.  If you aren't familiar with cavatini, it is a delicious Italian-style casserole with noodles (of course!), beef, tomatoes, green peppers, onion, olives, and mushrooms, and topped with melted mozzarella cheese.  Who could resist that?

I have bummed a lot of my favorite recipes off my mom, but for some reason I never thought to request her recipe for cavatini.  Then a few years ago I inherited some of my grandma's cookbooks.  While going through a collection of recipes from a local bank, I found a recipe for cavatini.  It sounded just like my mom's.  Recipes like this frequently get passed around in a small town, and I was excited to take this one and make it my own.  After making it with a few minor tweaks, my only regret is that I lost so many years without my beloved cavatini.

Beef Stew

There's nothing particularly fancy about beef stew.  It's not all the rage.  It's not gourmet.  I'm pretty sure it's what peasants used to eat.  But it is simple, hearty, and it makes a chilly day feel a little warmer.  So every winter beef stew is on my list of of winter foods to make.

Recently I was looking through some Cook's Illustrated recipes and I came across one entitled "Best Beef Stew."  The writer of the article was raving about how deep the flavors were and how beefy this stew was.  I was intrigued.  Usually when I make beef stew I start with pre-packaged beef stew meat, turn to a handy-dandy packet of beef stew seasonings, and follow their directions.  It is always good, but not knock-your-socks-off delicious.  Could beef stew made from scratch be that much better?  There's only one way to find out!

Red Wine Pot Roast

I confess.  I am a promiscuous pot roast maker.  I don't have one "go-to" pot roast recipe.  I have previously shared a few of my pot roast suitors, rosemary thyme pot roast, and a newbie to my recipe collection, pot roast with cider-maple gravy.  Today I have another one to introduce.  Everybody, I'd like you to meet red wine pot roast. 

I made my first red wine pot roast several years ago.  I'm no wine sommelier, but I do know that red wine and red meat go together like a hand in a glove (I wanted to say meatball and tuna fish, but I wasn't sure everyone would get the Adam Sandler reference).  So it seemed like it would be a good idea to cook red meat in red wine.  And it is a great idea!  Not only do the tastes complement each other, but wine helps tenderize tougher cuts of beef, which roasts typically are.  That's why you roast them!

Baked Eggplant Parmesan

Happy Valentine's Day to all those out there in internet land!   V-Day is a great excuse for those of us in relationship bliss to enjoy a nice romantic dinner together.  And for whatever reason, when I think of a romantic dinner, my mind goes straight to Italian food.  But every brother and their mother takes their significant other (what a rhyme!) out to eat for Valentine's Day, and dealing with a crowded restaurants can be a nightmare. 

So if you find yourself at your favorite Italian restaurant with a 2 hour wait, head home and make some delicious Italian food with your sweetheart!  Cooking together can actually be a really great date.  One of my favorite Valentine's Day dinners with my husband was when we stayed at home and leisurely prepared ourselves an amazing three course meal.  I thought about which dinner I wanted to share today and I settled on something that is quick, easy, delicious, and nutritious: Baked Eggplant Parmesan. 

Homemade Beef and Black Bean Tacos

Until a few years ago, I didn't make anything from scratch.  I mean anything.  Everything I ate was either from a box, can, or a pouch.  Then I found myself out of school, working 8-5, and with a precious little thing known as free time.  So I started dabbling in making food from scratch.  And I will never go back!  It turns out that food made from scratch usually isn't that time consuming, it tastes better, and it comes without a list of chemicals! 

One of my from-a-pouch meals used to be tacos.  I have always loved tacos, but since I started making my own seasoning mix, I love tacos even more!  I developed my recipe by picking and choosing things I liked from other recipes, and some experimenting.  I just make a batch of this seasoning, store it in an old chili powder bottle with the recipe written on it, and when I get that taco craving, I just whip some up.  Easy!  

Easy Empanada Casserole

PLEASE READ THIS!!  If you are like me, when you see a post that interests you, you scroll to the bottom to check out the ingredients to see if there is a chance you would ever make it.  If you do that with this post you will think to yourself, "Why the heck would I make something with ground beef, eggs, green olives, and raisins?"  Well, because I told you to.

I was first introduced to empanadas in college during a food production class.  Our big class project was to plan, prepare, and host a dinner with cuisine from an assigned country.  My group was assigned Argentina.  Apparently empanadas are like cheeseburgers there.  When I first saw what these were made of I thought there was no way they would be any good and I couldn't believe we were going to make these to feed people who were paying good money for our dinner.  But we tested them, and it turns out they are surprisingly delicious.

Pot Roast with Cider-Maple Gravy

Ah, pot roast.  How comforting you are.  Gravy, how I loathe thee.  Gravy in general grosses me out.  It's thickened fat.  I don't think so.  But I had a roast that needed to be eaten, and I wanted to try something new.  I found this recipe in a handout from the Kansas Beef Council.  Although I don't usually touch gravy with a 10 foot pole, cider-maple gravy sparked my curiosity.  I like cider.  I like maple.  Maybe I would like cider-maple gravy. 

It was actually pretty good.  Don't tell anyone I said that.  I was a little afraid it would be too sweet, but it had the perfect hint of maple.  And it was super easy to make.  Like all pot roasts, it took some time, but almost no effort.  Don't tell anyone.