Sundays are for Sleeping In! Not! Sunday Egg Bake and BBQ Pizza

We are off to a great start for Easter vacation. My first Sunday off and I wanted to sleep in. Around 7 I find my 5 year old crawling over me and making her way into the living room. She turned on the T.V. and was watching some cartoon. I then proceeded to drag myself out of bed. There would be no sleeping in for me! My hubby hadn't come home from work yet so I decided to throw together a egg bake for breakfast.

9 eggs
1/2 of Jimmy Dean sausage log
3/4 c milk
8 oz cheese (I used Swiss and Cheddar)
1/2 bag hash browns or potatoes O' Brien
PAM

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown the sausage and break into chunks.  In a 9x13 baking dish spray some PAM and scatter one half bag of hash browns on bottom of the dish. Spray the potatoes with PAM and bake for 15 minutes. While that is baking stir 3/4 c. milk into 9 beaten eggs. Remove hash browns form oven. First lay the sausage over the potatoes and then the cheese. Pour the eggs over the sausage. Bake and start checking for doneness at the 45 minute mark. You are looking for the eggs to be set. This is a recipe you can make the night before and put in the fridge. Just allow 15 extra minutes because the ingredients will be cold.

Dinner tonight was semi-homemade BBQ chicken pizza. It is very easy to make and one of our favorites.

Pillsbury thin pizza crust

BBQ sauce (We love Sweet Baby Rays)

2 chicken breasts grilled

veggies of your choice (I had green pepper on hand)

2 TBSP olive oil

Heat oven to 400 as per container directions. Pour the 2 TBSP of olive oil on the cookie sheet. Spread out pizza crust stretching it to the ends of the pan. Cut veggies into small pieces. Cut chicken on a bias and cover with 2 TBSPS of BBQ sauce. Pour 1/4 c BBQ sauce over pizza crust. Add veggies of your choice and bake for 10 minutes or until dough is brown and cooked. Enjoy! Feeds a family of 4.



Tamale and Double Double Coupon Day

I started making my tamale meat and broth yesterday. I found this really informative website on how to make them. http://www.sonofthesouth.net/tamales/Gather_Tamale_Ingredients.htm
I have always wanted to try and do it myself. If you go and buy them at the store you can pay up to $10.00 for a dozen. I got all my ingredients and a whole fresh chicken and a pork roast at a local Hispanic store. It's named El Rey. The store has been around for a long time and is in the heart of the Hispanic community. I love going there! I did have to buy a lot of spices so my bill was about $30.00 for the meat, MaSeCa, and spices.

Last night I started making the meat. While I was a work I threw the pork roast into the crock pot. Then when I got home I threw the chicken in boiling water for about 2 hours. I removed the chicken from the stock and cooled down the stock. Once the chicken and pork were cooled I shreded them and added the spices and oil. I let that sit over night.

Today I soaked the corn husks when I was at the grocery store. I spent $48.31 and saved $46.01. I also got a free Kellogg's Honey Smacks bag.

Now back to the tamale making! I had the husks soaking when I went to the store. I came home and drained them on paper towels.

Then came the fun part mixing the Masa and filling the tamales!

a ton of masa

 It took me about a hour and half. I lost track of how many I made. But let's just say it's a lot!

The bad news is the steamer wouldn't fit in my stock pot. So I had to improvise and wrap everything with tin foil and place on top of the stock pot. The tamales are cooking now. I will post a pic later of how they look.

some of the 4 dozen tamales

the finished product

No Cook Banana Pudding Pie and Disney ADR's

For those of you that aren't Disney obsessed like I am ADR's are advanced dining resservations for the Walt Disney World Resort. When you stay on their property you are allowed to book your dining ressies 180 days in advance. My window opened today. OMG! I have never been so frustrated in my life! It used to be you could go on at midnight of your window and make your ressies. That's not the case anymore. So I get up at 6am. The system was still saying the wrong number of days. Then it would let me in and show me the ressie times but ask for me to sign in and kick me out. Then I choose the time at CRT and it was asking for me to pay even though we have the dining plan. It wasn't asking for a card to hold it. It was asking for payment. Then I get this note: Error 500 - Server Error. I have never been more frustrated in my life. I called WDW and the cast member was very nice considering I am so crabby!

So here's my dining ressies for our October trip:
October 12th QS at Kona Island for Sushi
October 13th  BBB 12pm for my DD's birthday(princess makeover) Wolfgang Pucks lunch QS MNSSHP Cinderella's Royal Table  5:20pm
Ocotber 14th  Sci Fi 12:20 PM Cape May 5:50PM
October 15th Tusker House 9:05AM Flame Tree for Dinner
October 16th QS at POP and off to the Dream

On to the food! Last night we had popcorn shrimp and sweet potato fries. It was part of a dinner deal at our grocery store. I bought two bags of fish or shrimp and got free tartar sauce and sweet potato fries. For dessert I made my no bake banana pie.

No Bake Banana Pudding Pie

1 Nilla Wafer ready made pie crust
1 container Fat Free Cool Whip
1 small box Jello instant banana pudding
2 bananas
2 cups fat free milk

Make the pudding per box directions. It's two cups of milk to one small box of pudding. Chop two bananas and place in bottom of pie crust. Pour the pudding over and put in the fridge for 5 minutes til set. Once set top with Cool whip. May garnish with additional bananas but dip them in lemon juice first so they won't turn brown.

Denver Omelet in a Mug and Tamale Casserole for Dinner

I am love with this new show on the Cooking Channel called Hungry Girl! The host Lisa Lillen is a genius! She makes low fat fast recipes. Her fudge brownies are awesome and easy. I will post that one later. Yesterday I made her Denver Omelet in a mug.

I am writing this recipe according to memory so please forgive me. I also added the veggies I wanted. I had green pepper, mushroom, onion, and cheese, and turkey(out of ham). My hubby had grape tomatoes, green pepper, and cheese. Both turned out yummy!

Denver Omelet in a Mug

1/4 c cheese she used FF cheese (I only used a pinch)
1/4 pepper diced
1/4 onion diced
5 mushrooms diced (optional)
1/4 c egg beaters or egg substitute
2 slices ham or meat of your choice
PAM for spraying
a mug

In the mug spray PAM and place veggies in. I sprayed them with PAM on the top. Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Remove from microwave. Blot the veggies with a paper towel so you won't have excess liquid in the bottom of your omelet. Add the egg substitute. Microwave for a minute. Stir the eggs and add the cheese and meat. Give a stir and microwave for 60 seconds more and Voila! You have a omelet in a mug! It was very filling and I didn't have my normal grumbly tummy.

Last night I tried out a recipe from myrecipes.com for tamale casserole. I make something similar by Rachael Ray that is a Mexican type cornbread pizza. I scratched this down on a piece of paper so I will try my best to relate this to you. The only thing I didn't like is the cornbread was kind of mushy. There is a step that asked me to poke holes in my cornbread and pour enchilada sauce onto it. I think you could just pour the sauce over it and not poke the holes in it saving the cornbread from going mushy.

You'll also notice I have a side of black beans. I made them in the crock pot after soaking them overnight. I drained the two cups of black beans and covered them with clean water plus about 3 inches in the crock pot. I let them cook on low for 8 hours or until they were just tooth tender. I then let them cool and was able to divide them into 3 1 cup bags. I then froze the left overs and cooked the remaining on the stove with some cumin and chili powder adding a bit of water.

1 cup cheese divided
1/3 c fat free milk
1/4 cup egg substitute
1 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp pepper
1 14oz creamed corn
1 box corn muffin mix (I used Jiffy)
14 oz can of green chillies
2 c shredded chicken
1 can enchilada sauce (I used McCormick seasoning)

Preheat the oven to 400. Earlier in the day I boiled three skinless boneless chicken breasts in water for 35 minutes from frozen. I let them cool and chilled them for when I got home from work. In a medium sized bowl mix all ingredients through the chilies just until combined. Spray a 9x13 baking dish with PAM and add the cornbread mixture. Bake for 15 minutes or until it is set. The instructions say to poke with holes here but I think I may omit that step next time. I did however reserve some of the enchilada sauce and coat the chicken with it. Add the chicken on top of the corn bread and top with the remaining cheese. Bake for another 15-20 minutes and serve. It will be really hot!



Easy Steak Sandwiches

This is a favorite around here. I wait for the sale on sandwich steak and make these delicious steak sandwiches. If you don't have sandwich steak you can use round steak. Usually I will purchase a twin loaf of french bread but I found these mini-hoggie rolls to use. You can also very the kind of cheese you use. I used Provolone. I added mushrooms but you can also add green pepper and onion if you like. I serve this with my French Onion Soup I can easily pull out of the freezer and microwave.

2 lbs sandwich steak or round steak
6 hoggie buns or a loaf of french bread
2 TBSP oil
salt and pepper
Provolone cheese
6 mushrooms sliced

This comes together very quickly. Cut the steak against the grain into 2 inch pieces. Oil a frying pan and throw the steak in for 3 minutes adding seasoning and giving it a stir. Add the mushrooms and cook for another 3 minutes. Serve in hoggie buns with the provolone cheese on top.

Shopping Day and Menu for the Week

I once again went shopping before double coupon day. It is really killing me I couldn't double my coupons but it is my hubbys week on work so I have to go shopping when I can. I picked up some good deals today. They were clearing out the Mexican foods section. I picked up some lard  $1.27 normally over $5.00. Split peas (for the left over hambone on Easter) for under a buck, and a huge 4 lb bag of black beans for $1.45. I love black beans refried, in the crock pot, ontop of salads. I also might make a soup with them. I also plan on making some tamales on my week off in our turkey fryer outside.

Here is my plan for meals this week:
salad night with marinated grilled chicken (Sunday)
meatloaf muffins and a potato (last night)
steak and mushroom French Onion dip sandwiches
chicken tamale casserole with black beans
egg bake casserole for dinner
BBQ chicken pizza
taco salad bowls with ground beef

Easy is Sometimes Better

I remember seeing this on Giada on the foodnetwork a few years back but when I searched her recipes I couldn't find it. It's for a easy dessert involving Nutella and wonton wrappers. I made this from memory. I had egg roll wrappers from when I made peanut butter egg rolls. They keep in the fridge for a long time as long as you keep them sealed in a plastic bag. If using the egg roll wrappers divide each one into four squares. I used the rest of the left over peanut oil from Thanksgiving to fry these up. Later on in the night I also made fried mozzarella in egg roll wrappers for my daughter and I.

1/2 c Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread
1 pack of wonton wrappers or egg roll wrappers
peanut oil for frying or canola oil about 3 inches
powdered sugar for topping
1 egg and a drop of water for egg wash
paper towels and paper plates for draining
slotted spoon

It is very easy to put together. If using egg roll wrappers divide into four squares using a pizza cutter. In the middle spoon one tsp. of the Nutella. Be sure not to get the Nutella near the edges or it won't seal. Place the egg wash around the corners.  Fold the square into a triangle sealing the edges with your fingers. Make as many as you like. Fry in the oil for about 1 minute each side. They fry very quickly. You are looking for a light golden brown. We had 4 per person. They are very rich. Drain on paper towels and top with powdered sugar. Let cool for about 3 minutes. The filling will be very hot. Enjoy!