Chicken and Biscuit Casserole

I love the Banquet Homestyle County Chicken, mashed potatoes, and biscuit meal. So when I saw a recipe for Chicken and Biscuit Casserole I wanted to try it to see if it was as good as Banquet's version.

1 pilsbury biscuit tube 

1 can condensed cream of chicken soup 

1/2 cup of Sour Cream

1/2 stick of butter, melted

1 can of peas 

2 cups cooked chicken (cubed or shredded)

1 cup mild cheddar cheese

3 TBS milk

Preheat oven to 375. Mix cream of chicken soup and sour cream together in small bowl. 

In larger bowl mix together the chicken, peas (drained), milk, melted butter and the sour cream mix.  Spread this in the bottom of a baking dish. 

Cover with cheese. 

Place your biscuits on top. Bake at 375 for 35 minutes. 

It was so good. I usually can't eat peas, but I didn't even taste them in here. And Marley ate all my extra peas too so it was a win win. Everyone really liked it! 

Mini Won Ton Lasagna

I saw these cute little lasagna's on pinterest and just wanted to make them because of their cuteness. 

Won ton wrappers

pasta sauce

ricotta cheese

mozzarella cheese

italian seasoning

Preheat oven to 375. Spray muffin tin with non-stick spray. Place one wrapper in each cup. 

Fill with sauce, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese. Place another wrapper on top and repeat layers. Sprinkle italian seasoning on top. 

Bake at 375 degrees for 18-20 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes. 

Overall, they were pretty good. The original recipe says you could also add meat, which I think would help make them even better. 

Baked Spaghetti Bread

Marley has been begging for spaghetti for a long time. I'm not a big fan of just spaghetti so when I saw this recipe for Baked Spaghetti Bread on Pinterest, I decided I would make the child happy. 

1 Loaf Rhodes Bread Dough, thawed to room temperature 

6 oz spaghetti, cooked 

1 cup thick spaghetti sauce 

8 oz mozzarella cheese 

1 egg white 

Parmesan cheese 

Parsley flakes

Roll bread out into a large square. Place spaghetti, sauce and cheese in the center.

Cut one inch strips into dough down the side and within 1/2 inch of the spaghetti.

Braid strips and fold up the ends. 

Brush with egg white and sprinkle with parmesan cheese and parsley. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before digging in. 

It was so good! 

Marley actually had two servings which doesn't happen very often. I think next time I will make the spaghetti like I do for my spaghetti pie recipe with the eggs and cheese mixed in with the spaghetti. 

Monthly Menu Prep

In order to not go over my $1,000 grocery budget I set for myself for this year, I needed to get majorly organized.  Here's how I organize my dinners and shopping trips.

I get 5 of each coupon insert each week. I then only clip the coupons for items that I know we will eat/need/use.  I will not buy something if we won't use it, however, if it is free, then I will get it and either give it away or at least try it to see if we like it. Nobody can pass up something that's free!  After clipping my coupons I put them in my binder which is divided by category just like the grocery store is. I have several websites that I check to look for sales and coupon match ups (which tell you what coupons to use and what paper they came in)  I don't dedicate a lot of time to this, maybe a few hours a week, if that.

My next step is to decide what we're going to eat. First, when I pin a recipe on Pinterest it goes onto my 'food' board. Then when I want to make it for dinner I move it to my 'on the menu' board. Once I make them and blog about them, I delete them from there and pin my recipe on my 'my stuff' board. (Yes, I organize my pinterest boards when I have nothing to do)

Next, I made up a monthly calendar with all the dinners on it. There are a few leftover nights, or nights where I'm taking the easy route and making hamburger helper or something frozen, but for the most part everything is "homemade"  Notice I didn't put down any nights of eating out? We probably will do that even though it's not marked down, and in that case the meal we were supposed to have will just get bumped to another night.

Finally, I went through each of the recipes on the calendar and wrote down every ingredient I need to make them. Even if I knew I already have it, I still wrote it down (you'll see why in my final prep step)  I have a column for each item and another column to mark how many of them I need. This may not work for you so just try something else to see what works best for your family.

Okay so now that everything is planned, I needed to go to the kitchen and see what I have on hand. This step will help me because I'll figure out what I have vs. what I need for dinner. This goes back to the coupons. If something is on sale for a good price and I know I'll need it later for a recipe or two, I can buy it when it's on sale instead of buying it when it's not. I again made a chart like the same one I used to write down what I need. Then I compared the two charts and marked off what I have on the ingredients list. Again, this will help me to make sure I have what I need when I need it. I also won't buy stuff that's not on the list so in turn I'm saving more money.

So there ya have it. That's how I prepare. Next up is shopping!

My 2013 grocery challenge

I have decided to challenge myself to something for the year. My goal is to spend no more than $1000 on groceries for the entire year!

Few things first before I dive into the challenge. I am starting the year with a full fridge, deep freezer and cabinet of canned foods. I have at least 15 dinners in there already so I have a head start.

My family has 4 people in it, but Mason doesn't eat yet, and Marley eats small portions. We only eat cereal for breakfast and Mike isn't home for lunch so that will help me out a lot because we'll be able to eat left overs or "kid" food for lunch.

Okay, enough blabbing. My first grocery stop of 2013 was to Target. I spent $52.11 and got $10 back in gift cards to use on my next purchase. My next stop was our local grocery store to get the remaining items for our month of dinners, spending $20.40 (more on that tomorrow)

I will try to include a picture of each trip so you all can see what I'm getting and see that I'm not just feeding my family chicken nuggets and mac & cheese for dinner each night. And I will continue to post my dinner recipes that will now be made using what I buy as part of my "challenge"

$1000-$52.11-$20.40= $927.49 left.

This is my first trip. I ended up getting 40 items and spending $52.11

Italian Chicken

Marley was away at my sister's house for a few nights so I made this for dinner because I knew if I made it when she was home she wouldn't like it. (She's gotten very picky lately)

Chicken breasts

Stuffing mix 

1/2 -1 cup Shredded Parmesean cheese

diced tomatoes

Garlic salt

 pepper

Italian dressing

Shredded Mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix can of tomatoes (with juice), stuffing, and parmesan cheese until stuffing is moist. 

Place chicken in baking dish. Add garlic salt and pepper. Drizzle italian dressing over top 

(save some for later) 

Spread the stuffing mix over top of the chicken.  Pour remaining italian dressing over top of stuffing. 

Cover with mozzarella cheese.  Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes. 

Mike loved this!! I believe this was also the night when he asked why everything I've made lately is so good, then he proceeded to tell me that I shouldn't of even tried cooking before- How rude!! 

Baked Penne

I had some of the Philadelphia cooking cream in the 'fridge that I got cheap with a coupon that was about to expire so I headed to pinterest to find a recipe to use it in. Of course, it didn't take me long to find this recipe for baked penne. 

1/2 lb. ground beef 

1/2 cup chopped onions 

1 jar(24 oz.) spaghetti sauce

1 tub(10 oz.) Philadelphia Italian Cheese and Herb Cooking Creme

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

3 cups cooked penne pasta

Preheat oven to 350. Brown ground beef and onions. Drain grease. 

Pour in spaghetti sauce, 3/4 cup cooking creme and 1/2 cup mozzarella

Cook for 2-3 minutes until mozzarella cheese is melted. 

Mix in the pasta and stir until mixed well. 

Pour into baking dish and put remaining cooking cream and mozzarella on top. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes

Mike's exact words after eating it was "this is like Olive Garden" I guess he really liked it! It was so good. I usually don't like a lot of pasta sauce but this was perfect because it had the cooking cream mixed in. I will definitely be making this again soon! 

Pepperoni Pizza Rolls

I was originally going to make these for a party we had. But since I wasn't feeling well, I didn't make them. Instead I made them for lunch for me and Marley.

Biscuit dough

cheese cubes

pepperoni

1 egg

parmesan cheese

garlic powder

Flatten out a biscuit and place pepperoni and cheese in center. 

Fold up the biscuit around cheese & pepperoni to make a little ball

Place seam side down in baking dish. In separate bowl beat egg and pour over top. Sprinkle with garlic powder and parmesan cheese.  

Bake at 425 degrees for 18-20 minutes.

Marley only liked the pepperoni. Weird kid! 

Warm Bean Dip

I went to a family friend's candle party a few weeks ago. While there I had the most amazing chip dip ever! Of course when I got home I looked online for the recipe, just to make sure I was making it right. 

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1 cup sour cream

2 cans (16 ounces, each) refried beans

1 packet taco seasoning

2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

Spread beans on bottom of baking dish. 

Mix cream cheese, sour cream and taco seasoning until smooth. 

(I heated it in the microwave to help it mix better)

Layer cheese mix on top of beans. Layer shredded cheddar cheese on top of that. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until cheese is melted.

I think for next time, I wouldn't add the whole packet of the taco seasoning, it was just a little too much for me. And I would probably stir my cream cheese/sour cream more to make it really smooth because there were big chunks of cream cheese still, and I didn't care for that either. Other than that, it was delicious!