Hawaiian Haystacks

Here are the ingredients needed (this is for a family of 4 eaters):

1. 2 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
2. 1 can cream of chicken soup
3. 1/2 cup of sour cream
4. 4 tblsp butter
5. 3/4 cup milk
6. 1 1/2 cups rice, cooked
7. assortment of toppings, including:

• shredded cheddar cheese
• mushrooms
• chinese noodles
• olives
• green onions
• pineapple chunks
• raisins
• mandarin oranges
• peanuts
• coconut
• whatever you like and want to add on top

Heat the butter in a saucepan. Add the cream of chicken soup, sour cream, and milk. Stir until all ingredients are mixed. Add shredded chicken. Stir until heated through. Each person puts rice and sauce on his or her plate, then he/she can add whatever toppings he or she might want.

Twice Baked Potatoes

Have you ever asked yourself how you can make a potato really unhealthy?

If so, look no further, you have found your answer!

Seriously, these are really good, but they might leave your arteries a teeny bit clogged. I have seen many people when blogging, give a warning with the recipe to run, not walk to their treadmill after eating whatever it was. I would have to say that these would fall under that category as well.

Thanks to my friend Christy for the pics. I forgot my camera when taking them to her house for Sunday dinner and she was nice enough not just to let me borrow hers, but to actually take the picture. She is an amazing photographer.

Twice Baked Potatoes

Found on allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 4 large baking potatoes
• 8 slices bacon (use one slice of bacon for each potato half if you are not worried about a heart attack)
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup milk
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
• 8 green onions, sliced, divided

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Bake potatoes in preheated oven for 1 hour. (Ok, I microwave the potatoes instead because it is way faster and they taste just as good. About three minutes per potato, just check for tenderness).

Meanwhile, place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside.

When potatoes are done allow them to cool for 10 minutes. Slice potatoes in half lengthwise and scoop the flesh into a large bowl(leave about 1/4 inch of flesh so the potato maintains it's shape); save skins. To the potato flesh add sour cream, milk, butter, salt, pepper, 1/2 cup cheese and 1/2 the green onions. Mix with a hand mixer until well blended and creamy. Spoon the mixture into the potato skins. Top each with remaining cheese, green onions and bacon.

Bake for another 15 minutes.

Week 1 - Monday - Sub Sandwiches & Pasta Salad

I feel like I'm always serving my family the same 10 meals, week in and week out. So, after seeing this idea on a friend's blog, I decided to follow suit and make up a 6 week meal schedule. I actually was able to extend it to a 7 week schedule (hopefully one of these days I'll make it 8) and I only repeated 2 of the meals twice! So, here is Week 1 - Monday's meal: Sub sandwiches, pasta salad, chips, and a pickle.

Later on, when I viewed this picture, I realized how unappetizing this view might look, so I promise to do better with the picture taking in the future.
The recipe for this particular pasta salad is already posted on this website. (And if you need a recipe for sub sandwiches, I hate to break it to you, but you're in serious trouble in the kitchen department.) You might not want to follow the same schedule as us but at least it will help keep me posting on a regular basis and you might just get a few new recipes!

Mix N Match Cookie Pizza

So, I know that everyone has a cookie pizza recipe. But I found this forever ago on Kraft foods and I really liked it because it gave you different options to choose from. I have made several of them and have liked some better than others but that is the beauty of cookie pizzas. You can mix and match depending on whatever you are craving at the moment.

Cookie Dessert

by Kraft Foods

1 pkg (18 oz.) refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough (I actually make my own dough)

1 pkg (8 oz.) cream cheese

2 cups thawed Cool Whip (or homemade whipped cream)

1/3 C sugar

Then mix and match as you would like from the following flavoring options, fruit choices, and topping possibilities:

Flavoring options:

1 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. grated orange peel

Fruit choices:

2 cups sliced strawberries

2 apples, very thinly sliced

2 bananas, thinly sliced

1 can (20 oz.) pineapple tidbits, drained; 1/4 c maraschino cherries

Topping Possibilities:

Semi-sweet chocolate chips

caramel flavored dessert topping

chocolate dessert topping

sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350. Press cookie dough into 12 inch pizza pan. Bake 20 min. or until golden brown. Cool in pan on wire rack.

Beat softened cream cheese, sugar, and flavoring in large bowl with electric mixer on high speed until well blended. Gently stir in whipped topping.

Spread cream cheese mixture over crust; top with fruit and 1/4 c topping. Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Cut into 16 wedges to serve. (or less if you are like my family and like our portions BIG!)

Note: I have always matched up according to order. For example: vanilla, bananas, and chocolate, or cinnamon, apples, and caramel. But really, whatever you want!!

Southwest Chipotle Burger

I am still dreaming about this burger. It seriously is one of the best burgers I have ever had. I ate it in like 3 bites. I wasn't going to take a picture at first so I just started eating it. After the first bite, I ran and got my camera, turned my plate so the partially eaten side would be hidden, and clicked right there at the table in the bad light and all. I could not be bothered to go and find good light and waste precious moments that could be used eating.

I got this off of Our Best Bites, which is one of my favorite food blog sites. Everything I have made from those two girls has been delicious.

This is their Southwest Chipotle Burger. It is a little hot so if you have kids, keep that in mind. One of my kids didn't like it but my 3 year old pounded it, almost as fast as me. In her little voice she announced that when her mouth got too spicy, she would just drink her water.

The Chipotle-Lime Mayo was A-MA-ZING! You have to add that when making this. And including the avocado, tomato, and lettuce really rounds it out nicely. Ryan said it was like a flavor explosion in his mouth.

Southwest Chipotle Burger

Our Best Bites

Burgers:
1 1/2 lb ground chuck or ground sirloin (I used 80/20 ground chuck. I mean if you are going to have a burger, you might as well make it from the good stuff!)
1-1/2 chipotle peppers canned in adobo sauce, cut up
1 1/2 T adobo sauce (from the chipotle chili can)
1/4 C grated onion
1 t garlic powder
1/2 t cumin
1 1/2 t kosher salt
1/4 t pepper

Chipotle-lime Mayo:
1/2 C Mayo
2 t lime juice
1 1/2 t adobo sauce (from the canned chipotle chilis)
2T chopped fresh cilantro

4-6 good quality buns
1 tomato
1-2 avocado
lettuce
optional: jack, cotija, or queso fresco cheese (I just added a little grated Monterey Jack)

To make the mayo, just put ingredients in a small bowl and mix together. Place in the fridge until ready to use. You can also make this ahead of time.

Gently crumble meat into a bowl. Add the other ingredients and gently work together. They give a great tip that if you overwork it, the meat gets a gross texture, so just mix until it is worked through.

Then divide into 4 patties (or 6 small patties) and place on your preferred cooking surface, be it grill, indoor grill, or skillet.

In the last few minutes of grilling, add your cheese. When done, remove from grill and let cool for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, toast your buns and lather the prepared mayo on both sides. Then place burger on bun, add avocado, tomato, and lettuce and eat away into bliss!

Salad....The Bulgarian Way

Have you ever met someone and they say their name and you say "What was that?" and then they say it again and you say "oh, ok" because you still have no idea what their name is but you don't want to be rude and ask again? My friend Krassimira is like that, and the above is pretty much how our first conversation went. I would listen closely every time she would tell other people what her name was until I had it down.

Now, keep in mind that I did not have the luxury of having it written down in front of me and she does have a slight accent. However, we got over my lack of knowing what her name was for the first few months of meeting one another and now are great friends.

Our families decided to go on a quick overnight campout and we were discussing the menu when she came out and said she was going to bring a salad. I am proud to say that I managed to keep a straight face. I then went home and told my husband and we both had a good laugh about bringing a salad camping.

So, there we were, surrounded by all of the normal camping fare; chips, soda, hot dogs, chilli, smores, and then there was the.... salad. And after the first bite, all I wanted to eat was the flippin' salad!!! (by the way, that did not prevent me from having one or two or seven smores)

This is apparently the salad that graces every table at any kind of dinner in Bulgaria. It is so easy but SOOOO good. She eyeballs everything which I yelled at her about, but I found as I made it that eyeballing isn't too bad.

Cucumber, Tomato, and Feta Salad(I don't think this is the name, I just made it up)

One European cucumber, peeled and cubed (this means seedless- the one I got was from Canada)

3-4 Grape vine tomatoes, cut into medium sized cubes (this can be any juicy tomato, but just not Roma)

1 bunch of green onions, cleaned and diced

package of feta cheese (she uses Bulgarian sheep's milk and yeah, I couldn't find that so I used just regular feta)

extra virgin olive oil

red wine vinegar

kosher salt to taste

Combine cucumber and tomato and onion. Add olive oil. I drizzled and counted to 5. Really, just however much you want. Add red wine vinegar, again to taste. I used like 12 splashes. Add salt to taste as well. Put in crumbled feta and mix well. Serve.

Wow, there were a lot of parentheses in this post!

Strawberry Bruschetta

Strawberries, Strawberries, everywhere! I know I just posted a strawberry recipe, but really, what says summer more than fresh, vibrant, juicy berries? Case in point, I went to a baby shower recently and almost every dish contained strawberries. Many people brought things and I guess strawberries were on everyone's minds.

I first had this recipe at Kelly's wedding shower. There was a great spread, including this recipe from Pampered Chef. I felt bad because when I made it this time, it was so hot outside that just bringing it from the car to the shower made the cream cheese mixture totally melt. Oh well, it still tasted pretty good. The picture just isn't the greatest. And I was in a huge rush so when I sprinkled the powdered sugar on the top right before walking out the door, it was totally clumped together. I know, excuses, excuses......

Strawberry Bruschetta

By Pampered Chef

20 slices French bread, cut 1/4 inch thick
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 lemon
1 container (8 ounces) cream cheese spread
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 1/2 cups strawberries, hulled and coarsely chopped
1/3 cup toasted sliced almonds
Additional powdered sugar (optional)


Preheat oven to 375°F. Brush butter over bread slices. Combine granulated sugar and cinnamon.  Sprinkle evenly over bread slices. Bake 12-14 minutes or until golden brown; remove and place onto cooling rack.  If you have a stone, you can use that to bake the bread.  Otherwise, just use a regular cookie sheet.

Meanwhile, zest lemon to measure 1 teaspoon zest. Juice lemon to get 2 teaspoons. In small bowl, whisk cream cheese, powdered sugar, lemon zest and juice until smooth using whisk. Hull strawberries; coarsely chop.

Scoop cream cheese mixture over bread slices; spread evenly. Top with strawberries. Sprinkle bruschetta with almonds and powdered sugar, if desired. Serve immediately.