Taco Pie

You know that feeling when you find a recipe all of your kids like? All of your kids! And, it's a dinner recipe? Heaven, I tell you!

This one surprised me. I sort of threw it together knowing the 9 year old would approve, hoping the 4 year old would appease me, and a little scared of the 2 year olds reactions. Surprised, but pleasantly so.

It's a great recipe, and I usually have everything on hand, so it's a great standby when you're in a bind for time. Plus it's a great winter recipe...you know - warm, comfort food!

TACO PIE

1 lb. ground beef

1/2 medium onion, chopped

2 cans chili

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can sliced olives

~10 corn tortillas (I cut mine in 1/4's)

jack cheese

Brown meat with onion and drain. Add chili, soup and olives. In 9x13 in. baking dish place cut tortillas on bottom. Pour half of meat mixture over tortillas, layer with more tortillas, top with remaining meat mixture. Top with cheese and bake at 350° for 30 minutes.

Cookies...because who wants healthy food?

I was reminded by my blogging cohort that I've never posted the recipe for our heading picture. Sorry about that. There's a lot of recipes I haven't posted. And a lot of recipes I've posted without pictures.

Round 3 of our Christmas baking brought the waffle cookies around again, so I decided to post the recipe - finally - along with another favorite...the No-Bake Cookie.

Wonderful Waffle Cookies

1/2 cup melted butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 beaten eggs

6 tbsp. cocoa

1 1/2 cup flour

1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Mix wet ingredients, then add dry. Heat waffle iron. Drop 1 tbsp. per section. Cook 1 minute. Cool, frost and enjoy. My favorite frosting (and the one pictured) is a cream cheese/mint frosting. Make it a little runnier so it is almost a glaze consistency.

No Nonsense No-Bake Cookies

2 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter

4 Tbsp. cocoa

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 tsp. vanilla

3 cup oatmeal

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, milk, butter and cocoa. Cook on medium. Bring to a boil; boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Add peanut butter, vanilla and oatmeal. Stir and drop by spoonfuls on wax paper. Cool at room temperature.

Oatmeal: Day 4

Baked Oatmeal
3 cups quick-cooking oatmeal
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1/2 cup melted butter
2 eggs, beaten

Mix all ingredients together and pour into a greased 9 inch square pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes. Serve warm with milk.

Oatmeal: Day 3

Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup butter flavored Crisco

1 cup sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 Tbs. milk

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2 cups quick cooking oatmeal

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup raisins

1 cup chocolate or cinnamon chips

Cream shortening, sugars and eggs. Mix in milk, vanilla, cinnamon, soda and salt.

Add flour and stir by hand. Add oats and stir. Add raisins and chips, stir just until mixed in.

Roll into 1 1/2 inch balls. Place onto an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 9-10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Let cool 10 minutes on sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.

This is a recipe I came up with myself to ensure chewiness. I don't like a crunchy cookie. Be careful not to overbake, they cook a little longer on the pan.

My New Favorite Cooking Blogs...other than my own, of course

http://freezerdinner.blogspot.com/

Check it out. She's a mom of 4 just like me. She understands the stress of wanting to spend time with your kids, and needing to prepare healthy, yummy meals to feed them. Her short cuts on how to freeze meals will help a lot! I can't wait to start doing this - particularly because I have the extra freezer space to do it!

Another time saver is the crock pot. I've been using mine a lot lately while my afternoons have been overtaken with piano lessons. It's great to be able to drop everything into your crock pot and know that dinner will be hot and ready when you get back - without being burned! Check out these blogs for secrets to slow cooking!

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

http://www.thecrockpotblog.com/

http://365daysofcrockpot.blogspot.com/

http://crockpotadventures.blogspot.com/

Another "shortcut" for some people is Once a Month Cooking (OAMC). It takes a ton of preparation, but allows you to prepare a months worth of food in just a couple of days. It also requires a lot of freezer space, but frees up your afternoons by allowing you to just pop dinner in the oven!

http://onceamonthmom.com/

Oatmeal: Day 2

I found this at Daily Unadventures Cooking Blog and stole it. I love eggnog!

Eggnog Oatmeal
(makes 2 lg servings)

1/2 c rolled oats
1/2 c eggnog
1/2 c water
1-2 sliced bananas
1 1/2 Tbs ground flaxseed
3 tsp brown sugar
whole nutmeg, for grating
1/4 t vanilla

In a pot over low heat combine oats, water, eggnog, half of the banana and the flax. Let warm on low heat for about five minutes. Turn up to medium and stir regularly. Add brown sugar and several healthy grates of nutmeg. Keep stirring until most of the liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat and put in bowls. Top with banana and a bit more nutmeg. Serve hot!

All About Oatmeal

I thought I could use a little detox from all the yummy food I've been eating since... well, Halloween sadly. Oatmeal is wonderful for you, just ask Mr Breakfast. I decided to go over the different ways you can buy oatmeal so you'll understand what's what in my next few post, in case you didn't already. So here is the boring stuff and in the next few posts you will find really good recipes! Here's to oatmeal!

Oat Flour:You can make this yourself by grinding rolled oats in a blender or food processor. Great for breads and cookies. Oat Bran: The outer casing of the oat, ground.

Instant Oats: They have been chopped into small pieces, precooked, dried and then rolled thin back out for very quick cooking.

Quick Cooking Oatmeal: These are cut and then rolled thin.

Old Fashioned or Rolled Oats: The groats are steamed and then flattened by a roller a little thicker than quick cooking.

Steel Cut or Irish or Scottish Oatmeal:
A coarse meal is produced by slowly grinding the kernel between two large mill stones. It contains all the health giving nutrients of the best quality oats from which it was ground--the germ, the oil and the fiber. Cooks faster (and taste better) than the whole groat. -There are my favorite to eat at Breakfast.

Groat Oats:Whole grain of the oat, only outer husk removed (like all edible oatmeal) and then toasted. Oat Florets: Where is all begins. Just because I was wondering.

Christmas Dinner

Nothin' says Christmas dinner to me like a ham. Yep, a big slab of pig - nicely sliced and glazed, of course. Thanksgiving gets it's turkey. Easter gets it's eggs. Independance day and Labor Day have hamburgers and St. Patrick's day gets corned beef and cabbage....well, not at our house, but it counts anyway.

But Christmas...it gets ham.

Where's the chicken in all of this? They apparently drew the long straw when it came to sacrificing themselves for holiday meals.

And, if you're a vegetarian sorry about this post, it's probably nauseating just reading those last few lines...

However, the recipes I'm posting today are actually vegetarian, so keep reading.

I'm not going to tell you how to cook the ham, that's easy. (You bake it in an oven until it's 160° inside...)

I'm going to tell you what goes really good with ham. And I'm not going to mention green eggs, because that's a St. Patrick's Day post, remember?

Yams (or sweet potatoes, since for all intents and purposes they're interchangeable), and apples and orange juice. Those go really, really good with ham. So, for the next time you decide to bake up a nice, juicy, smoked ham here are a couple of ideas for a side dish - vegetarian style...

Yams and Apples

Boil 3 to 4 large yams. Peel and core 6 apples. Slice in layers and place in greased 9x13 in. casserole dish.

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

3 tbsp. cornstarch

Sift together, then add 2 cups hot water. Heat until slightly thickened. Add 1 tbsp. butter. Pour over yams and apples. Bake at 325° for 1 hour.

Yams with Fresh Orange Sauce

6 medium size yams

1 cup orange juice

1 tbsp. cornstarch

3 tbsp. melted butter

1/3 cup brown sugar, packed

rind of 2 oranges, grated

2 tbsp. white corn syrup

Boil yams until tender, then skin and slice. Arrange yam slices in greased baking dish. Combine last 6 ingredients in saucepan and cook until thickened. Pour sauce over yam slices and bake 45 minutes at 350°.