I have some easy lunch ideas here that you can draw inspiration from. I make all of our lunches & try to keep it fun. There's a fast dinner idea too that'll save you big bucks versus going out!

Quick Pies

You’ll need a roll of refrigerator crescent dough and any of the following:

• Sweet: apples*, berries, peaches, pears*, pudding (*If using raw, cook in microwave until soft 1st)
• Savory: Chicken, pasta, ham and cheese, mac n cheese, hamburger and cheese, etc

Press together the edges of 2 triangles of dough to form a square. Carefully press each square into a muffin pan, letting the corners poke out. Spoon in your mixture of choice into the dough & fold over edges. Bake at the temperature directed on roll package until the tops are brown. I used cherries & sprinkled the tops with rainbow sparkling sugar before baking.

White Bean Dip

You’ll need any white beans, olive oil, lemon juice, and spices

So cheap and healthy! You can use canned beans or dry. If using dry, cook them first, preferably in a crock pot. I let my dry beans soak in water overnight, then dump the water & cook on low for 6 hours. Then place beans (canned or cooked) in a food processor. Add a couple splashes olive oil, 2 tbsp lemon juice, seasoning*, then pulse until creamy. * For seasoning, I’ve seen ranch dip mix used, but salt & pepper would have been fine. I added some dill in this batch. Maybe some cayenne would have been nice too! Serve with chips warm or cold.

Easy Orange Chicken (baked, not fried)

You’ll need chicken, orange sauce, flour, and cooked rice

Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces. In a large bowl, place your chicken chunks and flour, stir to coat pieces in flour. Lay floured pieces on a baking sheet & bake at 400 until cooked through. Toss cooked chunks again in the orange sauce & serve with rice.

“Gourmet” Chicken salad

Last week I paid $8 a pound for this. It was delicious & fast, but now I’m making it for myself for cheaper!

You’ll need cooked chopped chicken, mayo, and grapes. Optional: poppy seed, chives, nuts

I chopped the grapes in half, but the expensive deli version left them whole. Add mayo last, just enough to hold it all together.

Breakfast / Lunch Mini Pizzas

You’ll need refrigerator biscuit dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings

Another way to use leftovers, wow your kids, or pull off a lunch when you’re out of bread, lol
Roll the dough flat; add your sauce, cheese and toppings. Here were a few of my creations:

• BBQ sauce, chopped chicken
• Basil pesto, sausage, scrambled eggs
• Ketchup & pepperoni (hey, I was out of red sauce!)

• Cheese sauce, sausage

Failures, Buffalo Chicken, Dumplings, and Pizza!

I was trying not to hog the blog, but poor Lacy hasn’t had an oven! Murphy’s Law – if you start a cooking blog, your over will die. Speaking of which, let me share a story of cooking encouragement:

I know, right??? My mother gave me what she called “Amish Friendship Bread Starter” and a sample of a sweet cakelike bread. She told me to follow the attached directions & I too could have this sweet bread. Last night my son and I suited up in our aprons to have a bake-fest but nooooooo….By the way, that picture was taken AFTER THE FIRE. I did some things as a teenager, so I guess she was getting revenge. Or perhaps I did something wrong with the recipe.

(The moral being,“Laugh it off, take pictures, and try, try again!”)

Then I went on to make the following delicious recipe:

Buffalo Chicken Sandwich

Pound a chicken breast to about an inch thick. I like to put it in a gallon freezer bag to avoid splatter while I beat it with a mallet. This is a good one for kids. Then sprinkle with chili powder and seasonings of your choice (I used chicken rub). Pan-fry in a skillet or bake until cooked through. Mix ¼ cup crumbled blue cheese with ½ cup Greek yogurt, a splash of lemon juice, and salt & pepper. You might have to cut the finished chicken breast in half to fit bread. Using sesame seed buns or 100-calorie sandwich rounds - layer chicken, spoonful of blue cheese mixture, lettuce, and a splash of sriacha or hot sauce. Under 350 calories and SO SO good!

Get you some of that for the game Sunday.

PIZZA!

We have this every week. Seriously. I will give you the bread machine recipe, but if you don’t have one you can buy premade crust, use sandwich rounds or biscuits, or buy dough from pizzerias!

• 3 cups all-purpose flour (or go 1 ½ white flour & 1 ½ wheat flour)
• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (or canola or olive)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar (or honey)
• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F)

Always keep salt away from your yeast. Add salt first if you have to. Throw it all in bread machine & press Dough button. Walk away. Check it after it mixes dough – if the dough is sticking to sides of pan, add a couple of tablespoons of flour as its mixing. If its dry and not balling up, add a spoonful of water.

Dump it out on a clean counter & flour OR oil. I used to flour, but it was so messy I started using nonstick cooking spray right on the counter. Easier to clean up & it doesn’t stick. Dump the dough out of the bread machine bucket & cut it into equally sized pieces. You can make 6 personal pizzas or 5 small ones. Or you want make breadsticks by leaving the dough thicker and slicing into strips. Whatever. Roll each piece into whatever shape and thickness you prefer*. Add toppings below. Kids love this or I’ve also had a party & let people make their own pizzas. Place on a baking sheet or in a pizza pan and bake at 475 until cheese is melted and crust has browned.

• Sauce – red, white, pesto, cheese
• Cheese - mozzarella, cheddar, goat, parm, etc
• Veggies - artichokes, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, olives, etc
• Meats – beef, chicken, turkey pepperoni, ham, bacon, etc….
*The dough can be frozen at this stage. Layer the rolled dough between sheets of waxed appear. Bake from frozen. Haven’t tried breadsticks from frozen.

Easy Chicken & Dumplings

Add a few chicken breasts to a crock pot, add enough water to cover chicken. Season if you want with pepper, chicken bouillon, and poultry seasoning. Turn it on low & cook for 6-8 hours. Once the chicken is fall-apart tender, remove the chicken meat and pour the water/broth into a saucepan. Bring liquid to a boil. Open a package of refrigerator biscuits (the small 10 in a tube kind – never the layer kind!) Or make a batch of Bisquick biscuit dough. Drop the biscuits, a few at a time, into the liquid, then boil for 5 minutes each side. To serve, spoon chicken, soup, and a dumpling or two in a bowl. Or combine all & Freeze for later!

Enjoy!

Chicken Tortilla Soup, just like Loca Luna's!

For those of you in the Little Rock area, you're probably very familiar with the Loca Luna chicken tortilla soup!  It's a huge bowl of soup that comes with a huge plate of "fixins"...cilantro, purple onion, lime, avocado (my favorite!) and of course tortilla strips!  Now, I'm not promising that this is the exact same soup but I will tell you that it is just as tasty! I found this at BacktotheCountingBoard.com.  I pretty much followed this recipe but didn't add the carrots and instead of grape tomatoes, I used Rotel (makes it good and spicy!).  It even says this is a healthy chicken tortilla soup...BONUS!  :)  Really it's the lime, cilantro, and tortilla strips that make this absolutely fantastic!

• 16 oz. cherry/grape tomatoes (or 1 can of diced tomatoes, with chilies if like things spicier)
• 2 med. carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, diced*
• 3 tsp. olive oil
• 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed
• 1 large onion
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tbsp. chili powder
• 1/2 tsp. paprika
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp. onion powder
• 1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/4 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp. tumeric
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. pepper
• 4 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup water (plus more if needed)
• 12 oz. frozen corn
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 3/4 cup fresh cilantro, divided
• 1 cup 2% milk shredded Mexican cheese blend
• 4 whole wheat tortillas
• 1 lime, cut into wedges

1. Add tomatoes, carrots and green pepper to a blender or food processor and mix until blended, but still chunky. Set aside.
2. Heat 2 tsp. olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add in the cubed chicken and cook until it’s completely cooked through, about 8-10 minutes.
3. Shred the chicken using a fork.
4. Meanwhile, heat another tsp. of oil in the same pan you cooked the chicken in (wiped out, but doesn’t need to be washed) over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook until translucent, about 5-8 minutes. Remove from heat.
5. Put the onions, garlic and chicken in a large stock pot or dutch oven (at least 4-5 quarts). Add in all the spices and cook over medium heat for one minute.
6. Add in the tomato mixture, chicken broth, water, corn and beans and 1/2 cup cilantro.  I just put into the crock pot and let it simmer all afternoon! 
7. When the soup is ready, place tortillas on a baking sheet (you may need to do two at a time) and put under your broiler for a few minutes until browned and crispy, then turn over and toast the other side. Watch closely so you don’t burn them. Cool for a few minutes and then break into strips.
8. Ladle soup into a bowl and top with a handful of tortillas and a couple of tablespoons of cheese. Sprinkle with the remaining cilantro., (and any other garnish that you might like!) Squeeze a wedge of lime over it just before eating.

Time is running out on the giveaway!  There's only 24 hours left to comment on any of the past posts and you'll be entered into the drawing for the Cooking Know-How cookbook!  Don't forget, if you share a link of facebook you can get two entries, all you have to do is comment on any of the posts and say, I shared on facebook. 

Easy stuff for weeknights / leftover uses

Sometimes the best recipes are the easiest!

Today I am going to share 3 that I do that are quick & everyone loves them. If you are looking for fast AND easy, try this: Buy family packs of meat & cook it in a crock pot all day. Then you will have cooked meat to use all week long, in all kinds of recipes.  Also these recipes make enough to freeze & really save time later. Don’t bother measuring – it doesn’t really matter!

#1: Stuffed shells or manicotti

Boil water & cook pasta as directed on package. Be sure not to overcook! In the meantime, Combine 1 container of ricotta and 2 cups cooked shredded chicken (or any meat). From there you can go to next step, or you can get creative. Sometimes I’ll throw in a handful of any of the following:

cheese

spinach (fresh - cut up, frozen - thaw & squeeze)

herbs, either dry or fresh

veggies

Whatever you want to do. Make use of leftovers or trick the kids into eating veggies! Speaking of kids, they like to help with this next part.

Then you can use your hands (especially if you’re making shells) or fill a Ziploc baggie with the mixture, snip off a corner & pipe it into manicotti. Lay these in a greased baking dish as you fill them. After you get them all filled, crack open any jar sauce you like (marinara, alfredo, pizza, cheese) and pour over the stuffed pasta. Sprinkle with some more cheese if you want. Then heat until warm, about 20 minutes at 400⁰. (If baking from frozen, it will take longer to heat, but since the meat was previously cooked, just watch for the cheese to melt and it’s done.) Sometimes I end up with more filling than I have pasta – in this case, just freeze it for later.

#2 Chicken Pot Pie

I know, 2 chickens in a row…but any meat really would work here.

You need two pie shells. If using homemade or refrigerated, just put one in a pie pan. If using frozen shells, just thaw both.         In a bowl, combine your choice of the following:

Shredded chicken, turkey, pork, beef, sausage, or hamburger meat (cooked)

Any “Cream of ____” condensed soup, like cream of chicken, mushroom, or celery

Veggies, such as carrots*, celery, peas, potatoes*, mushrooms (canned or frozen), etc

(*Tip: pre-cook hard stuff like raw taters or carrots for a few minutes in microwave.)

Once you mix your filings, pour into one of the pie shells. If using frozen pie shells, loosen the edges of the un-filled pie shell before the next step. Wet the filled pie’s edges with water. Flip the other pie shell on top of the filled pie. Don’t worry about it if it breaks. If it didn’t break, poke some holes in the top anyway to vent. Press the two shells together at the edges by pressing with your fingers. Bake it until the top shell is nice and brown. 350⁰, about 30 minutes.

#3 Enchiladas

DEEElicious! In a greased baking dish, set up your tortillas. Flour or corn torts can be used. Bend them in half “taco style” so they are open for fillings, but kind of support each other. Now fill with any of the following (I like to do it assembly-line style):

Spanish rice or any cooked rice

Beans, either black, pinto, or refried

Cheese, especially a little strip of Velveeta, or use some leftover cheese dip! Even shredded is good

Meat, like cooked ground beef or turkey, chicken, pork, brisket, or deer, or crumbled sausage

Onions, bell peppers, corn

Now fold the tops down so that the fillings are covered. (Sometimes you have to use toothpicks to curb fly aways – just remember to remove before eating!) Now pour enchilada sauce over them, and sprinkle with cheese if you want. When you serve them, you can top with black olives, sour cream, and jalapenos.  Then heat until warm, about 20 minutes at 400⁰. (If baking from frozen, it will take longer to heat, but since the meat was previously cooked, just watch for the cheese to melt and its done.)

If you’d like me to keep posting about easy meals, please let me know!

Don't forget!

Quick reminder to comment on the Giveaway post to be registered to win the cookbook!   You've got until Friday night!

Sorry no new posts recently BUT my stinkin oven went out...how can you have a food blog with no oven?  Luckily I've still got a couple things to tell you about from last week.    We had terriyaki scallops that were delicious.  The highlight of my culinary weekend this time were the petite vanilla bean scones that I made!  Brandon took them to work yesterday and they were gone soon after he put them out!  In fact, someone even asked if SHE could marry me.  HA, I thought they were pretty tasty myself! 

mmmMMMMM!

Ooooo Lacy! I'm going to get started on some tamales ASAP. Great link! I also like to get a big thing of meat & use it fr several meals. Its usually chicken.

I dedicate today's post to my sister because she told me I make "weird food". Today she said she was scared of anything I make. Whateva, Doo. Enjoy your canned spaghetti-Os.

Ok so here's another use for that leftover pulled pork (or chicken):

Pulled Pork Sandwich, Page 154.

And my husband's super greasy hand...I dont remember why he thought we needed to see that :) Ok so I usually don't eat coleslaw, but this recipe isn't all mayo-laden & heavy - it was good!  Try this:

Easy Cole Slaw
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp (olive-oil kind if you can find it)
2 tbsp vinegar, any flavor
2 tbsp canola or olive oil
1/2 head each red and green cabbage
3 carrots, shredded

I only made a half batch & it was PLENTY! And I didn't have any red cabbage. Whatever!

Then I had a bunch of cabbage left so I made this:

Chinese Chicken Salad, page 114

Crunchy, tangy, sweet - a nice salad. Shredded cabbage, chopped chicken, asian vinaigrette, cilantro leaves, almonds, and mandarin oranges. Boo-ya.

Finally, I couldn't get my husband (aka "Big Sexy") to try this one, but I assure you that it IS delicious:

Grilled cheese with apples & bacon.

Pretty simple - thinly sliced granny smith apple adds crunch to an old friend, the grilled cheese sandwich. Add melted cheddar and crunchy bacon & you get salty-sweet goodness! Get you some.

I haven't noticed any weight loss yet, but I sure am enjoying these new recipes. I have only had chicken once!

The weekend is near, I can almost smell what's cooking!

I don't know about you but this snow has my routine all out of whack!  The good thing about that is that tomorrow is Friday...(can i get a WOOHOO!?)  Usually it's around Thursday when I start making a list of all the things I want to cook on the upcoming weekend.  This week's no different! 

This weekend I really want to try out some homemade flour tortillas.  I can almost taste the fresh guacamole slathered on the warm, fluffy tortilla.  Please stop me! 

Also, I've got my scallops in the refrigerator for Terriyaki Scallops.  I've been dreaming of these all week!

I just got a batch of vanilla beans in so I've got to try some things with those fragrant beauties too this weekend!

Last time I was at the grocery store, I picked up a package of pork chops.  Usually I do the same ol' thing with them, pop in a skillet to cook, smother in bbq sauce, add sliced carrots, simmer for a few, slap it on rice and bam, it's dinner.  And while it is delicious everytime, really you can only have so much!  So this time I had just seen Paula Deen making something new...cranberry dijon porkchops.  It was actually just as easy and a totally different taste.  Basically all you do is make a cranberry sauce by adding 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar and about 6 oz of fresh cranberries.  Cook this down until all the berries have bursted.  Add 2 tablespoons of a hot dijon mustard.  Brush it on the porkchops and just put them in the skillet and brown them on both sides (making sure they're cooked through)  I know cranberries are really "holiday food" but they're just so pretty! 

Just so you know too, LOTS more pictures will begin to appear.  My camera batteries have been down and so all of these pictures have been with my phone, but we're gonna get serious this weekend!

Also, DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE GIVEAWAY!  Deadline was originally tomorrow evening but I realized I may be a tad overzealous, considering this is my 4th of blogging!  So we're going to extend it.  The drawing will now be NEXT FRIDAY January 21 at 10 pm CST.