Enchiladas and Italian Chicken & Rice Bake

I have made two new recipes this week. YAY! David has tried two new foods this week. Another yay! If you know David, you know he is one of the pickiest eaters - probably worse than a kid. Well, since we have gotten together, he has tried so many more foods. I am so thankful for his mind opening and trying foods. He tried both of these, surprisingly, and one of the two was a flop (in his eyes) the other a HUGE success.
I made enchiladas on Tuesday night. David took one bite and pushed his plate away. I honestly didn't expect him to even want to try them but he was the one that said I should make them and he would try them. Ok, cool. I got the recipe from the label on the Old El Paso Enchilada Sauce and modified it a little.

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground beef
1 (19 oz.) or 2 (10 oz.) cans Old El Paso Enchilada Sauce
6 oz. (1 1/2 cups) shredded cheese
1 (12-ct.) pkg. Old El Paso Flour Tortillas for Soft Tacos

Heat oven to 400°F. Brown ground beef over medium-high heat until thoroughly cooked; drain. Stir in 3/4 cup enchilada sauce and 1 cup cheese. Spoon enchilada filling onto tortillas; roll up and place seam-side down in lightly greased 13X9X2" baking dish. Pour remaining enchilada sauce over top; sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup cheese. Bake at 400°F for 15 to 20 minutes.

I used cut-up chicken instead of ground beef. I also used probably a significant more amount of cheese! I didn't measure the amount of sauce to use, I just judged how much would be good to us (which turned out to be only half the can, so I could have bought one small can instead) I also didn't make 12, I only made 4.
I thought they were really good and am finding they reheat pretty well, too! This is one that will stay in rotation for myself and I could probably even freeze some.

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Last night I made Italian Chicken & Rice Bake. David liked this one A LOT!! WE even started talking about how it could be made even better. I found the recipe here while browsing for kid-friendly recipes. Graycen liked it!


Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. skinless and boneless chicken breast
Salt and pepper
1 cup white rice
One 14 oz. can tomatoes
1 small onion, diced
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
2 tsp. Oregano
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Dice the chicken, season the pieces with salt and pepper and set aside. In a shallow baking dish sprayed with cooking spray, put the rice, tomatoes, onion, mozzarella, oregano, garlic and 1 cup water. Stir in the chicken pieces and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake in a 325 degree oven, covered loosely with foil, for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake 10 to 15 minutes longer, until rice and chicken are cooked. Makes 4 servings.

The only things I did different were cook the chicken beforehand. I get so weird about chicken cooking in stuff in the oven and am always afraid it won't be done, so I precooked it. I also used more cheese than it called for. I also added the juice/water from the tomatoes can (since it didn't say one way or the other)
What we decided we would do next time was: add green peppers, fresh mushrooms, more cheese and some tomato sauce in addition to the water.
We both really liked this recipe and David said it's really good reheated. He's already had it 2 more times since last night's dinner! YAY for a new recipe that will stay in rotation.


***I have no idea why the pictures are showing up side ways. No matter what I do, that's how they upload! Stupid pictures!

Go ahead, call me Domestic Goddess!

I have spent hours in the kitchen today and I made quite a bit of things that I am pretty darn proud of to show for it!!

Brownies

I wouldn't have used a recipe from the Kraft Foods website for brownies, but I only had semi-sweet baking squares and most recipes call for either unsweetened baking squares or cocoa powder.

All in all, they turned out pretty well. They definitely don't have the distinct brownie texture or taste that I prefer, but they were still nummy!

Ingredients

1 pkg. (8 squares) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, divided
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour
1/3 cup chopped Planters Pecans, toasted (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Place 6 of the chocolate squares and the butter in large microwaveable bowl. Microwave on high 2 min. or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Add sugar; mix well. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour and pecans until well blended.
Spread into greased 8- or 9-inch square baking pan.
Bake 22 to 25 min. or until toothpick inserted in center comes out with fudgy crumbs. (Do not over bake.) Cool in pan on wire rack. Melt remaining 2 chocolate squares as directed on package. Drizzle over dessert**; let stand until firm. Cut and serve.
**I chose to spread the chocolate like a frosting rather than drizzle it since it tasted more like a cake anyways. Besides...who doesn't like frosted brownies?

The original recipe can be found here.

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Egg Salad

I made the egg salad while the brownies were baking. (I have never made this before so I had to go online and get a recipe)

Ingredients

1/3 cup Kraft Mayonnaise
3 Tbsp. yellow mustard
1/2 tsp. paprika
12 hard-cooked eggs, coarsely chopped
1 cup green onion slices
Mix mayo, mustard and paprika in medium bowl until well blended.
Add eggs and green onion; mix lightly. Cover. Refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving.

Well, I didn't have any mayo, only Miracle Whip in this house, so I used that. I think next time - it would definitely taste better with mayo and also - far less mustard!

The original recipe can be found here.

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Dropped an egg on the floor and wondered how to clean it up without making an even bigger mess. I asked David what he thought. Said he remembered reading/hearing somewhere to put something on it, thought it was flour, so he googled it (like we always do!) and it is actually salt. So, if you ever drop an egg on the floor or counter, cover it with lots of table salt and wipe it right up. It works wonders!


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French Toast Sticks

Ingredients
Any kind of thick bread (I used a loaf of Lakeland Texas Toast - can be found in the bread aisle)

1 & 1/2 c of whatever milk you normally drink **
1 egg
cinnamon (to taste)
powdered sugar or brown sugar (to taste)
vanilla (optional)

* This ingredient can be substituted for the flavored liquid coffee creamers (or plain, if you'd rather add the spices) I used french vanilla coffee creamer and it worked out great since it was already flavored I didn't have to add anything but an egg.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mx all of the liquid and dry ingredients together in a bowl. Spray a 9x13 baking dish (works best if you are using a clear glass dish so you can see the bottoms of the sticks) with cooking spray. Cut the bread into strips. In a large bowl (large enough to hold all of the bread and liquid) place bread sticks. Pour the mixture over the bread sticks. Shuffle the sticks around with your hands until well coated. Line the sticks, side by side on the baking dish. At that point the sticks can be sprinkled with additional cinnamon if you want.
Bake on one side for 10 minutes or until you can pull them easily off of the pan and they are toasting. Flip all sticks (they should be brown and toasty not wet and mushy) bake on the opposite side for 5-10 minutes or until they are also toasting.

These can also be frozen for later. Just heat in the oven for 20 minutes if frozen 10 minutes if thawed.

The original recipe can be found here.

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While the french toast sticks were baking, I made a dinner of Swedish meatballs.

Followed by another 2 batches of french toast sticks.

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Oatmeal Strawberry Bars

So, these were supposed to be raspberry but I discovered when I popped open the jar, that I had bought strawberry preserves not raspberry. Still super nummy but would be better with raspberry preserves or maybe even peach! Next time I will use unsalted butter instead of the salted variety.

Ingredients
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 & 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
10 ounces raspberry preserves (I actually stretched it to about 14-16oz rather than 10oz)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Beat butter with a mixer until smooth and creamy. Add brown sugar and mix well. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and oats. Add this to the butter mixture, and mix well. Press half of the mixture into the bottom of a greased/sprayed 9″ x 13″ pan. Spread raspberry preserves on top of crust. Sprinkle the rest of the crust mixture on top of the preserves. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes. Cool on a rack; then cut into bars.

The original recipe can be found here.