Enchilada Bake

I stumbled upon this recipe a few days ago and thought that it was too good to be true. It says that the casserole is microwaveable (which indeed, makes it too good to be true), so I decided to be ballsy and bake it instead. It was insane.

Here is the link to the original post, because I added a few extras. http://www.framedcooks.com/2012/01/beef-enchilada-casserole.html

So everyone knows I lovvvve spicy food. It's all I eat. I included these ingredients:

• 1 pd. ground beef
• 1/2 cup medium salsa
• 3 tbsp. hot taco seasoning
• 1 tbsp. hot sauce
• 1/4 ish cup of water (mine was really soupy, so you can decide how you like it)
• 1 can (10 oz.) enchilada sauce (I, of course, got the medium)
• 3 ish tortillas (some of mine ripped so I kind of made them into a tortilla quilt, if you will)
• 3 huge handfuls of cheese because I am no stickler for cheese

It says sour cream, but I DESPISE sour cream, so feel free to add your own!

First, cook the beef and drain the grease. Then, add the salsa, seasoning, hot sauce, water and enchilada sauce. I also added green peppers and onions at this point.

I then took a round pan and put a tortilla on the bottom and tried to fill the pan with a tortilla/tortilla pieces. Then I put the beef mixture, then some cheese, then a tortilla, etc. I only used about 4 tortillas total. I cut up some lettuce also to put on top when it was done.

I preheated the oven to 375 and baked it for 10 minutes and it was perfect.

My mouth was on fire and my heart was breaking at the same time because I could not stop eating it. It was so fantastic. Can't wait to make it again!

Bolognese Spaghetti!

When I was in Paris I had the best meal of my entire life. It was spaghetti bolognese. So I decided to make it! Here's the recipe... It is missing a little something, so if you have suggestions, let me know.

Ingredients:

1 small onion chopped

1/4 cup of zesty italian dressing

1 lb. of ground beef

1 can (15 oz.) of tomato sauce

1 can (14 oz. ) diced tomatoes, undrained

3/4 lb. Spaghetti

2 tbsp. cream cheese

Parmesan cheese for topping

Directions:

Cook the onions with the Italian dressing until they are crisp and caramelized. At the same time, brown the meat and then drain the grease. Stir those two together, and add in the tomatoes and sauce. Boil, then simmer for 15 min. stirring occasionally.

At the same time, cook the spaghetti.

When both are done cooking, remove from heat. Add in the cream cheese to the sauce and wait until mixed and melted. You will know it's melted because it will be significantly lighter than before. Add sauce and spaghetti and top with parmesan cheese.

:] Hope you like it!

Mexican Lasagna. AKA Heaven on Earth

The finished product minus the weird layer..

The nasty burnt tortilla layer... Not so attractive..

Right before cooking. This is a good time to point out how it would have helped to have a square pan. *Cough* Christmas Present. *Cough*

The salsa, seasoning and meat.

The ingredients! Minus the meat.. Because I always start cooking before I remember to take pictures.. sorry!

I lately have been getting so tired of eating the same foods. This happens to me about once a month and then I find a nifty recipe, like this one here. It was delicious and I am definitely going to make it instead of my usual tacos because it has more vegetables (thanks Dad!) and is a better switch up.

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef

3/4 cup thick and chunky salsa (I went with Medium and it was amazing)

Taco seasoning mix

Tortillas - either three big ones or six little ones

15 oz. of pinto beans - rinse these first

1.5 cups of Mexican cheese - mix in a bit of cream cheese and it's phenomenal. Just saying.

Direcciones!

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, pronto!

First, brown the hamburger and drain the grease (ewww). Then mix in the seasoning and the salsa. I also added green peppers and onions, but that's up to you. Simmer on low for dies minutos (that's 10 minutes for those of you that are not in the Spanish mood yet). Spray a square pan. I used a 9x13 and it was a hot mess, so use a square one unless you want burnt things stuck into your pan everywhere.

Next, put some tortillas into the bottom of the pan. This depends on size, but if you're using little ones, then use 2 per layer, and big ones would be one. Then, spread the meat, cheese and beans. Repeat this until all the ingredients are done. The recipe told me to put tortillas on top, but mine burnt and were gross and made the dish look weird. So... with that in mind, it contains and cooks the bottom layers that way by trapping the heat, but I luckily caught mine before they were crusted onto the top. All a matter of preference.

Pop that into the oven for thirty minutes and enjoy!

Sidenote: Mine was kind of delicious and amazing, but I felt like spanish rice would have gone really well on the side. Yes, Dad, I said rice. And I said I wanted to eat it. In the same sentence. Be proud.

Sidenote 2: I hate this website sometimes because it always uploads pictures backwards. So sorry for all the confusing pictures!

Parmesan Crusted Chicken

The finished product! (you can see the water around it)

Yummmmy

I'll be honest that the only reason I made this was because 1) chicken was on sale at Target, 2) the Hellman's commercial made it look so damnnn good.

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts - thawed

1/2 cup mayo (I used Miracle Whip, but I would not advise that.. it was a weird flavor).

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

4 tsp of Italian dry bread crumb seasoning (I used pinches instead, but whatever floats your boat).

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Mix the mayo/cheese into a bowl. Lay the breasts out onto a cookie sheet. Follow this up by putting the mixture onto the chicken in dollops and then spreading. Then pinch as much seasoning as you want onto each chicken. Cook for 20 minutes or until the chicken is no longer pink.

Note: I noticed a lot of water in the pan, which kind of freaked me out so I left it in another ten minutes. Don't do this. It dries the chicken out and the water is from the cheese/mayo. It's done at 20 minutes if you put it on the middle rack of the oven.

Puppy Chow

Chocolate/Peanut butter goodness :]]]

All that you need to make your day a million times better.

Ugh. So good. It was hard not to eat the entire bowl instead of dinner.

So some people may be turned off by the name of this dish, but it has been one of my favorites since forever.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of peanut butter

5 blocks of semi-sweet baker's squares

1 box of chex (doesn't matter what kind)

Powdered sugar (the recipe calls for a tbsp but I for sure used about 1/2 a cup)

First melt the peanut butter and chocolate in the microwave until well blended.

Next, pour the cereal into a mixing bowl and put the chocolate/peanut butter deliciousness over it.

Allow it to cool. (I didn't do that, which is why the pictures don't show as much powdered sugar).

After it has cooled, pour the powdered sugar over the top and mix it all up.

Enjoy the deliciousness that is Puppy Chow.

Note: The recipe said to pour all the cereal out onto wax paper and make sure that none of them were overlapping. I guess you can do that if you happen to have a 36 hour day in your life, but I just mixed it all together because it's all the same to me. You can also put them in brown paper bags and shake it all up too. Also, the recipe says to use 2 boxes of cereal, and if you have a small army to feed, that's great. This recipe made about six or seven ziploc bags full of it (including the ones that I snuck here and there throughout the process).

Kerri's Chicken Casserole

This summer I've been living with my cousin, Robert. As a Campbell, he is notoriously known for eating large amounts of food based solely on his last name alone. Henceforth, we eat a casserole / meat product every night. I guess we can still say he's a growing boy...?

Anywho, he said that if I don't care about calories that he would make this dish for me. I care about calories to the extent of how much harder I have to work at the gym the next day in order to eat whatever I want the day before. That's the straight up truth. So he made me this dish and with the ingredients I'm sure you can see why he added a disclaimer.

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken breasts. Cook them and then slice them up into edible pieces
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• Mayonnaise - the same amount as there is in the soup can so that it is a 1:1 ratio
• Cooked broccoli or corn work to make this dish more than just meat and soup
• Cheese - feel free to add as much as you would like!
• Rice or egg noodles to put the casserole over

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the cooked chicken into a 9x13 pan and cover with the soup/mayo mixture. You can include broccoli/corn if you'd like, otherwise the casserole is fine without it. Cook for 20 minutes. Add cheese on top and cook until the cheese starts to bubble, which is about ten more minutes.

Let cool and then serve over rice/egg noodles.

This is what it looks like over rice without vegetables.

This is the finished product. I clearly made it to the photography part after everyone had served themselves. Whoops!

It's like warmmmm apple pie

So now that you've had a throwback to the 90's with that title, we'll move on. This is my new favorite dessert to make because I feel like a baby Betty Crocker when I make it.

Ingredients:

• 4 apples - I find that the red ones are better no matter the kind, but whatever your preference is up to you
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 Tbs flour
• 2 Tbs cinnamon (I wayyy overdo it so feel free to cut back or add more!)
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 Tbs. Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1 Pillsbury Pie crust (or you can make your own but as stated earlier I am not that fond of baking so I take the easy route with that)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Peel and core the apples, then slice into whatever size pieces you like. I like to cut them into fifths and they seem to be the perfect size. Put the apple pieces aside.

In another bowl mix the sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt and vinegar. After mixing those together, mix in the apples.

After adding the apples + delicious sugary concoction

Right before mixing together. It was too pretty not to photograph :]

In the meantime put the pie crust onto a pie pan. Next pour the apples. Try to keep the extra juices from getting in there, and when all the apples are gone, pour the extra juice over the top. Since the Pillsbury box comes with two pie crusts, you can either keep one for later and leave the top open or put the other crust over the top. Feel free to be creative!

Put in the oven for an hour or until it starts to get crispy.

Enjoy!