Marsala Ranch Chicken

If this looks mysteriously like the Creamy Italian Chicken that I posted last week, there's a reason. The five year old asked for it for dinner. Since you never know what a preschooler is going to like from day to day, I jumped at the chance to make something he wanted. I normally have the ingredients to make the CIC because it is one of their favorites. Well, when I went to make it right at the last possible minute, I didn't have the dry Italian dressing mix, so I improvised and came up with this. The five year old liked it as did my hubby and baby (the three year old doesn't want to eat anything but candy and bread these days ... although he did eat an apple today and even requested more).

Back to the recipe, this may be a recipe of someone's, but I've never looked for it or seen it. Here's my "what I had on hand" version of Creamy Italian Chicken that I have named Marsala Ranch Chicken.

INGREDIENTS

4 Chicken Breast Halves
1 can of 98% FF cream of chicken soup
1 package of dry ranch dressing mix
1/2 tsp. of garlic powder
1/4 cup of marsala cooking wine (a white wine would work, too ... don't know what Marsala wine is classified as, but I had Marsala cooking wine in the pantry so that is what I used)
1 package of low fat cream cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the soup, cream cheese, garlic powder, ranch dressing mix and wine together. Spray a small casserole dish, place the chicken in the bottom and pour the soup/dressing mix over the chicken. Bake for about 30 to 45 minutes.

I served this over whole wheat pasta spirals with a broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots vegetable mix (from the frozen food section) and some WONDERFUL bread my husband's sister-in-law introduced me to ... you can get it at Sam's and have hot, fresh baked, crusty bread in on TEN minutes! It is in the frozen food section at Sam's and is Member's Mark Organic Tuscan Artisan Bread. I know I serve a lot of prepared, frozen stuff like the veggies and the bread ... I really can bake homemade bread (and sometimes do ... I'll post a recipe for that tomorrow) ... but with three preschool age boys, I do good to keep the laundry washed and put away and the floors relatively clean much less cooking a full meal from scratch! Anyway, hope you enjoy this version.

If you have a recipe to post on Wednesday, send an e-mail to the Fairy Blogmother at fairyblogmother@sympatico.ca and she'll link back to you for "What's Cooking Wednesday". She has a collection of lots of YUMMY looking recipes linked on her blog.

French Toast Waffles

This is one of my boys' favorite breakfasts. Since we had extra time this morning, I made it for them and they were thrilled! I like this recipe because it is easy, I can use high fiber bread for the dairy poster boy, and making it in the waffle iron makes the bread much less soggy than normal French toast. My husband and I are probably the only two people in the world who don't like the over night French toast casserole everyone makes. We just really hate soggy bread! Yuck! If you are like us, you'll like this recipe because it gives you the flavor of French toast without being soggy.

INGREDIENTS

Bread (as many slices as you want ... I guess I usually make around 8 pieces with this and like I said I use double fiber bread. A friend made this for her niece who doesn't like whole wheat bread and she loved it until she came back for a second piece and saw my friend using wheat bread ... kids ... and some big people, too! :o)

2 eggs

3/4 to 1 cup of milk (I use 1%)

Cinnamon and nutmeg to taste

3 kitchen tablespoons of sugar (sorry I didn't measure with a real measuring spoon ... I normally don't measure at all)

1 tsp. of vanilla (I forgot to add that today, but they were still really good without it)

Preheat your waffle iron. Mine is big enough that I can do 2 at a time, but many waffle irons will only be big enough to do one at time. Beat the eggs, milk, sugar, and cinnamon and nutmeg together. Dip your bread into the mixture to coat it. Open your waffle iron and spray it with cooking spray. Put your egg mixture coated bread on the iron, close it and cook it until desired doneness. If you like your bread soggy, don't cook it as long, if you like it crispier, cook it a little longer.

I top it with light butter and sugar free Mrs. Butterworth syrup. The sugar free Mrs. Butterworth brand is the BEST sugar free syrup I've ever eaten ... this is not an advertisement, I just really like this syrup. (There are several types of food that I have to have only one certain brand. I may list those one day.) This sugar free syrup is thick and doesn't have as bad of an artificial sweetener twang to it as some do. Being thick and not watery helps a bunch, too. Yummy! The kids don't know the difference and it cuts WAY down on their sugar consumption.

Creamy Italian Chicken

This is an old tried and true recipe that can be done in the crock pot or the oven. I did it in the oven Monday night, because I didn't have time to do it in the crock pot by the time I thought about getting dinner going. I'll give both versions. This is one of the few meals that EVERY kid in my family AND my husband likes. As some of you know, that's a HUGE deal!

Ingredients

1 Pkg of Good Seasonings Dry Italian Dressing Mix
1/2 cup of water (or white wine)
8 boneless, skinless chicken breast pieces (halves) - enough for 8 people
1 package of 1/3 less fat cream cheese
1 can of 98% fat free cream of chicken soup
1 small cooked package of noodles of your choice (I used whole wheat spiral pasta on this night)

TO DO IN OVEN:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 pan with cooking spray. Lay the chicken in the bottom of the pan. Mix together the cream cheese (may want to soften it in the microwave for a few seconds to soften it up to make it easier to stir in), soup, dressing mix, and water or wine (as I've said, we don't have wine around the house so I just pick up some cooking wine that can usually be found near the salad dressing mixes, condiments, croutons, etc. ... I'm sure a good drinking wine would taste even better). Pour the soup and cream cheese mixture over the chicken and bake for about an hour. Serve over cooked noodles.

TO DO IN CROCKPOT:
Plan to put this in about 4 hours before you need it. Spray the crock with cooking spray. Place the chicken in the bottom. Mix together the dressing mix and the water or wine. Pour it over the chicken. Let it cook on high for about 3 hours. Mix the soup and cream cheese together. Pour it over the chicken and let it cook for another hour. Serve over cooked noodles.

Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

Here is an easy way to make chocolate cupcakes even MORE special ... as if chocolate cupcakes are not special enough. I got this recipe out of the Cake Mix Bible.

Ingredients

• Chocolate Cake Mix
• 1/2 C. of peanut butter
• 1 tub of creamy vanilla frosting (I've used the cream cheese frosting before and it works, too)
• Miniature Peanut Butter Cups, cut in half (enough for 1 half per cupcake)

Make your favorite chocolate cupcake mix according to package directions. Let them cool. Mix together the frosting and the peanut butter. Frost the cupcakes and top with one half of a peanut butter cup.

Tip: Put the peanut butter cups in the refrigerator while the cupcakes are baking. When you are ready to cut the peanut butter cups, they'll cut more cleanly and easily.

Whole Wheat Banana Bread

Do you ever have bananas that end up looking like this to the left? Don't throw them away, make them into something beautiful and yummy, like this loaf of bread. You can even freeze them until you are ready to make some bread. I wish you could smell how WONDERFUL my house smells right now.

My kids love bananas, so they rarely stick around long enough to get to this state, but this bunch did. I have a GREAT recipe for Whole Wheat Banana Bread that I got from the Recipe Zaar website. A funny thing about this recipe is that I've been making this since last summer when I found it. When I looked today on the page to see where it came from, I noticed that the recipe was submitted by Kelly Vaughn. I have a friend named Kelly Vaughn. I don't know if this is the same Kelly, but it would certainly show what a small world we live in if it was! Is this you, Kelly? Anyway, here is the yummy recipe the way I make it. Of course, I've done my own thing to it! :o)

Ingredients

1/2 cup of butter melted (one stick)
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
3 medium extra ripe bananas (about 1 to 2 cups mashed)
1 tsp. of vanilla (I forgot to put this in my original post!)
1 cup of all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. of salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of whole wheat flour
1/3 cup of hot water
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Put the melted butter, sugar, bananas, vanilla and eggs in a blender. Blend until smooth. In a separate bowl, stir together the flours, salt and baking soda with a wire whisk. Pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture and mix until moistened. Add the hot water and stir. Stir in chopped nuts if you are using them. Spray a loaf pan well with cooking spray. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake it in the 325 degree oven for and hour and 10 minutes. If the top starts getting too brown before the middle is done, cover it with foil.

Here's another tip if you have and old gas oven like I do (I love cooking on the stove top with gas and won't do it any other way ... don't like cooking in a gas oven). I have to really watch my oven or it gets too hot. I suggest everyone, whether they have a gas or electric oven, get an oven thermometer. I noticed that the top and sides were getting extra brown but when I stuck a knife in the middle, it was still batter-y. So, I just turned the oven off with 24 minutes to go and put the loaf back in. By the time the timer went off, it was done in the middle and not over cooked on the outside. That is just a little trick for my oven ... don't know about yours, but if you often burn stuff, you might try that ... and ALWAYS set the timer for 5 minutes earlier than a recipe says it will take to be done. I've saved many a dish by doing this.

Frozen Pot Roast

I'm sure many of you may have known this, but for those of you who don't, here's a super easy recipe. The other day I was planning to cook a roast for dinner, and I usually do it frozen in my crock pot and let it cook all day. I have a BIG crock pot, but the frozen 4 and 1/2 pound brisket/roast was too big for my crock pot. So, I found a recipe and then put my spin on it. It was easy, quick to get ready to go in the oven and was DELICIOUS!!!


Ingredients

Frozen roast/brisket

1 can of Golden Mushroom Soup

1 packet of dry onion soup mix

1/2 cup of red cooking wine (or if you drink wine, I'm sure a good red wine would be even better, but since we don't drink wine I just use the cooking wine you can pick up near the salad dressing in the grocery store)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Spray a 9x13 roasting pan with cooking spray and put the roast in there fat side up. I put a little ground black pepper on top. Mix the soup, the soup mix and the wine together and pour it over the roast. Put a large piece of foil over the top of it with enough foil to make a tent. Cook it all day. I put it in about 10 AM and it was wonderful by 6 PM. It was actually ready to eat when I checked it at about 4:30, but I put it back in the oven until it was time to eat. I served it with Do Ahead Mashed Potatoes that I made using butter gold potatoes and some California Medley vegetables. The meal was a HUGE hit and so easy!

Mexican Breakfast

Can you tell I'm from Texas with all of this Tex Mex food!? :o) I love Mexican food the way it is done in Texas. Anyway, I got this recipe from Amy Landry who got it from her mom and I don't know where she got it, but it is WONDERFUL! I've made it a couple of times when we have had overnight guests, and it is ALWAYS a big hit!

Ingredients

1 cup of sour cream
1 can cream of mushroom soup
4 oz. can of chopped green chilies
2 T. LaVictoria green chili salsa (I've used other brands of green chili salsa and it works fine ... LaVictoria brand is hard to find around here)
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
Combine the above for sauce

1 pound Jimmy Dean hot sausage (can do half bacon and half sausage)
2 T. butter
7 eggs beaten
1/4 c. cottage cheese
1 T. chopped parsley
1/4 C. chopped green onions
12 buttered flour tortillas
2 C. shredded Mexican cheese blend

Brown and crumble the sausage. Drain on paper towels. Melt butter in the same skillet, add eggs and cottage cheese. Add parsley and green onion. Cook until lightly set (the eggs should be pretty gooey). Add sausage and 2 T. of the sauce to the egg mixture. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spread a small amount of the sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Divide filling and roll into buttered tortillas (the number of tortillas you use depends on how fat you stuff them :o) but you can probably get about 12 out of this). Arrange rolled tortillas in a single layer. Top with the rest of the sauce. Cover with grated cheese and bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

You can prepare this dish the night before and refrigerate it. Cover it with foil and bake for 30 minutes and then uncover and bake for another 15 minutes. It won't take as long to cook if it hasn't been in the refrigerator. You can also use 1/2 bacon and half sausage.

Fajita Taco Salad

Sorry for not posting in a while. I've been busy painting and getting ready for a festival.

This recipe is one of our family favorites. It is super easy and quick, because I use mainly store bought prepared food. It is also really low fat. Depending what you put on it, it is usually only 6 points for Weight Watchers.

Ingredients for 1 Serving

15 baked tortilla chips (I usually put a handful of regular chips in my husband's)

Handful of Shredded Lettuce (I buy this in the produce section)

1/2 C. of Fat Free Refried Beans (Taco Bell's brand tastes the best to me but any fat free refried beans would do - here's a tip: I add a little bit of water to thin it up a bit otherwise I find it too thick)

3 oz of Pilgrim's Pride Frozen Fajita Breast Strips Fully Cooked (you could brown some hamburger meat and add taco seasoning to do beef taco salads)

1/4 C. of 2% cheese

2 T. of lite sour cream

1/4 to 1/2 cup of salsa (I use homemade salsa and will post that recipe ... that's one I'm always asked for)

Heat the fajita strips in the microwave according to directions (I usually add some fajita seasoning to it ... I like Fiesta brand). Add a little water to the beans and heat those. To me, it is very important the way you put something together ... the order. So, this is the order I ALWAYS put my taco salads together (which does no good for my husband because he then proceeds to mix it all together ... but I like the separate tastes.)

1. Put chips in bowl or on plate
2. put lettuce on chips
3. pour beans over lettuce
4. put meat on top of lettuce
5. add cheese
6. put a couple of dollops of sour cream on top of that
7. drizzle the salsa around the sour cream (but not on top)

If I have pico de gallo in the fridge, I put some of that on for zero points. You could add a couple of dollops of guacamole, too ... I can't remember the point value for that. Anyway, that's our super easy fajita taco salads that I make when I'm in a pinch for time. I like it, also, because it doesn't heat up the kitchen.