Green Bean Casserole

I know that green bean casserole is a pretty common dish, so you all may already have a recipe... But this one has water chestnuts in it, my whole family enjoys this one, even the little ones!

Creamy and Crunchy Green Bean Casserole

1/4 cup butter
1 large onion, chopped
2 (10 oz.) cans cream of mushroom soup
2 (16 oz.) packages of frozen, french cut grean beans; thawed
1 (14 oz.) can bean sprouts; rinsed and drained
2 (8 oz.) cans diced water chestnuts; drained
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2 (2.8 oz.) cans french fried onions

1. Melt butter in large frying pan over medium heat; add onion and saute about 7-8 minutes or until tender.
2. Stir in soup and bring it to a boil.
3. Stir in beans and next 3 ingredients. (sprouts, chestnuts, and salt)
4. Spoon into lightly greased 13x9 baking dish. Top evenly with cheddar cheese.
5. Bake covered at 375 degrees for 25 mins. Uncover and sprinkle evenly with french fried onions. Bake 10 more minutes or until bubbly.

Enjoy!!

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER!!

I usually make the worst cookies. But I've discovered why. Here are two tips to live by when making cookies.



1. Don't melt the butter!! I always thought you were supposed to

2. After making the dough just cook 1 or two to see how they turn out. My cookies have always fallen flat making them hard and crispy. The trick is to ADD MORE FLOUR if they fall. Keep trying it until it turns out right.



These were my first successful cookies in a long time:

Rachel Potts Chocolate Chip Cookies:

2/3 cup Crisco (Shortening) DO NOT MELT

2/3 cup butter (or margarine) DO NOT MELT

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Vanilla

3 1/4 cup flour ( I think I ended up using a total of 4 cups of flour but test for yourself)

1 package chocolate chips


Mix all ingredients together in mixer. spoon onto cookie sheet. Bake @ 375 for 10 minutes. Makes about 4-5 dozen cookies.

Homemade Pizza

Pizza

Dough:

1 1/8 cup Warm Water
3 TBS Oil
3 Cups Flour
3/4 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Sugar
1 Tablespoon Yeast

Mix together and let raise 1 hour. This will make one Crust. Double or Triple for more pizza

Roll out onto pizza pan or cookie sheet. Cover with pizza sauce or canned spaghetti sauce and desired tppings. Bake 12 min @ 425

We usually put on pepperoni, suasage, pineapple and cheese. But add what you want or try this:

Barbecue Chicken Pizza:
Cook chicken on grill & cut up into cubes. Spread barbecue sauce on crust instead of spaghetti sauce. Top with chicken and cheese.

Lasagne

Here's my husband's favorite meal that I make. Homemade lasagne is actually super easy and really delicious. If you saw my earlier post about it falling you'll understand why this picture isn't a beautiful laid out lasagne. I took a picture only what was left of it so that you could get a general idea. It still makes my mouth water. The great thing about this is making the suace early in the day or whenever you have time. Then it only takes a few minutes to actually put it in the oven!!

Homemade Lasagne with Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

Sauce:

1 lb. Hamburger

1 med onion, chopped

2-3 bottles of tomatoes (you could use stewed, diced, or tomato puree. I use 1 diced and 1 puree but if you want, double the sauce, freeze it and use the other half for spaghetti later)

1 tsp Salt

1 Tablespoon Oregano

1 Tablespoon Sugar

1 tsp Garlic powder

2 Tablespoons Parsley

Brown hambuger with onion. Drain grease. Mix remaining ingredients in large pot with meat. If you have time let simmer all day. If not it'll be fine if you make it 10 minutes before too!!

Chesse Mixture:

2-3 Cups of Mozzarella Cheese (Hold aside one handful)

1/2 Cup Cheddar cheese (Hold aside one handful)

1 Tablespoon Parsley

1 egg

2 cups of Cottage cheese (but for me the cottage cheese is the best part so the more the better!)

To Make:

Use 9X 13 pan.

1 package of lasagne noodles (Buy the oven ready noodles, they're the same price and you don't have to spend the time cooking them. But if you buy the uncooked noodles just make sure you cook them first before putting this together.)

Cheese mixture

Spaghetti Sauce

Put one light layer of sauce, then noodles, then cheese mixture, then sauce. REPEAT. Do as many layers as you have stuff for (I can usually get in about 2-3 layers) Top with reserved handfuls of cheese!

Bake @ 350 for 30 minutes.

Ever Have a Day Like This??!!!?

I was trying to make dinner for a neighbor who had just had a baby. I decided to make it in an aluminum container so she wouldn't have to bring any dishes back to me. But when I went to take it out of the oven the pan collapsed and lasagne went everywhere!!? Luckily my husband laughed first so I was able to find a chuckle out of it. And my sweet husband even cleaned up the entire mess while I took a different dinner over to the neighbor's!!

Chicken Shish-Kebabs

First off, I would like to say hello and thank you for adding me to your club! I too have been wanting to do something like this, you ladies just beat me to it! :-) My family is big on camping, and I wanted to do something a little different from the hamburger and hot dog scene for our campfire dinners. I was going to post this before the weekend, but then thought that it would probably be a better idea if I tried it out on the family first, haha! This one was so simple, there aren't even any measurements to do really, and my 5 and 3 year old girls loved helping me put together their own dinner...

Chicken Shish-kebabs

Package of chicken breast; cut into bite-size pieces
3 Green Bell Peppers; cut into bite-size pieces
Pineapple Chunks and Pineapple Juice; fresh or canned
Brown Sugar
Garlic Salt
Bamboo shish-kebab sticks soaked in water

In a saucepan, heat pineapple juice and add brown sugar so that they blend together well, I didn't measure, I just went with what looked right and then did a taste test. Add the garlic salt. Then I put the chicken chunks into a baggie with the marinade and let it set in the refridgerator for about 8 hours from the time that I prepared it to the time I was putting it on the skewers. You could even put a thickening agent into the sauce and make it a glaze instead of a marinade, too. The sticks don't have to soak long, just a few minutes... Then just string on the bits of chicken, pineapple, and peppers randomly. We cooked it over a campfire, which I think made it extra tastey! But over a bbq or whatever would be great too! My kids ate them so fast and had about 3 sticks, and didn't even complain about the 'green.' Hope you all enjoy, too!!

Best Darn Cake Ever!

This is our family's go-to cake. We make it for almost every birthday, and sometimes even just for fun! It's the perfect chocolate fix. It's even famous lately. I made it for a funeral in our ward recently, and was informed later that the kitchen help saved it to eat themselves! I've been approached by several ladies since, telling me how much they loved it. You wanna try it? Here you go.

Chocolate Sour Cream Cake

2 c. all purpose flour
2 c. sugar
1 1/4 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1/2 t. baking powder
1 c. water
3/4 c. dairy sour cream
1/4 c. shortening
1 t. vanilla
2 eggs
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease, (with real shortening, not Pam spray) two 8 or 9 inch round cake pans. Dust with flour, (or cocoa powder) and shake off the excess. Line the bottom of the pans with waxed paper.

Combine dry ingredients and blend well. In a separate bowl combine the wet ingredients and add all at once to the dry ingredients. Blend at low speed until moistened, then on high speed for 3 minutes. Pour into pans.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes; remove, and cool completely.

Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting
3 c. powdered sugar
1/4 c. dairy sour cream
1/4 c. butter, softened
3 Tbsp. milk
1 t. vanilla
3 oz. unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled.

Combine all ingredients. Blend at low speed until moistened. Beat at high speed until smooth and creamy.

To assemble cake, place first layer, top side down on cake plate; spread with 1/4 of the frosting. Top with second layer, top side up. Spread sides and top of cake with remaining frosting. ENJOY!! This cake recipe came from the Pillsbury Complete Book of Baking.