Golden Burger Spirals Recipe

This is a recipe I made a few times then I lost the recipe. I'm glad I just found it online! I'm hoping to make it for us again soon! Comfort food! Also, I might bring it for some friends who need meals. We don't like green peppers so I usually leave them out.

Golden Burger Spirals Recipe photo by Taste of Home

Golden Burger Spirals Recipe

• Prep: 15 min. Bake: 30 min.
• Yield: 4-6 Servings

15 30               45         Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef (or more if you'd like more!)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 medium green pepper, chopped (I usually leave these out)
• 1 can (10-3/4 ounces) condensed golden mushroom soup, undiluted
• 1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
• 1-1/2 cups (6 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 package (8 ounces) spiral pasta, cooked and drained

Directions

• In a large skillet, cook the beef, onion and green pepper over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Add the soup, tomato sauce, 1 cup cheese and salt. Stir in pasta.
• Transfer to a greased 2-1/2-qt. baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 30 minutes or until bubbly. Yield: 4-6 servings.

Nutritional Facts 1 serving (1 each) equals 416 calories, 17 g fat (10 g saturated fat), 69 mg cholesterol, 975 mg sodium, 39 g carbohydrate, 2 g fiber, 26 g protein.

King Ranch Chicken

We are in the process of moving so this week the crockpot has been a God send! It's been great to prep meals then not have to worry about dinner until much later in the day when I just have to work out what I'm serving with something. When we were packing the kitchen my husband asked what he could pack and I told him that he could pack all the pans except the one that I use every single day and that he needed to STAY AWAY FROM THE CROCK POTS! :)

Tonight we're trying King Ranch Chicken from the Crockin' Girls website. It was their featured recipe this week and I'm excited to see how it cooks up. The only modification that I made was that I did not use the diced tomatoes with the green chiles. I don't like spicy things that much so I just used plain diced tomatoes.

King Ranch Chicken

Ingredients:

Bag of corn chips
½ whole chicken cooked and de-boned or 3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked
1 can diced tomatoes with green chilies
1 can cream of chicken soup1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup chicken broth1 small onion, chopped
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Directions: Place a single layer of corn chips on bottom of the slow-cooker. In a bowl, combine chicken, diced tomatoes with green chilies, both soups, chicken broth, onion and mix until combined. Place half of the mixture on top of the chips. Then top with half of cheese. Repeat layers ending with cheese. Cover and cook on LOW for about 6 hours. This dish can cook faster on HIGH for 3 hours.

We'll see how it turns out!

Three-Cheese Pasta Bake

From Southern Living (I found it on Pinterest)

This delicious variation on traditional macaroni and cheese is easy to prepare and perfect for weeknight family dinners and weekend entertaining alike. Add cooked chicken, shrimp, or sausage (we added sausage) to the pasta bake and serve with a green salad and fresh vegetables for a hearty, well-rounded meal.

Yield:Makes 8 to 10 servings

Ingredients:
1 (16-ounce) package ziti
2 (10-ounce) containers refrigerated Alfredo sauce (Butoni- in the fresh pasta case)
1 (8-ounce) container sour cream
1 (15-ounce) container ricotta cheese
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese

Preparation:

Prepare ziti according to package directions; drain and return to pot.Stir together Alfredo sauce and sour cream; toss with ziti until evenly coated. Spoon half of mixture into a lightly greased 13- x 9-inch baking dish.Stir together ricotta cheese and next 3 ingredients; spread evenly over pasta mixture in baking dish. Spoon remaining pasta mixture evenly over ricotta cheese layer; sprinkle evenly with mozzarella cheese.Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until bubbly.

I bought two smaller disposable pans and instead of using a 13x9 pan used two small pans, one to cook tonight and one to freeze. This is something I've started doing to save time. :) I'm going to serve it with a spinach salad.

What's for Dinner: Bacon Ranch Chicken

Tonight I'm trying another recipe from the Crockin' Girls website. It sounds yummy and hopefully it will make dinnertime a little easier tonight. It only took a few minutes to put together and would have gone quicker if I wasn't juggling two kiddos and lunchtime all while doing it!

Bacon Ranch Chicken

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 tbsp real bacon bits
1tsp minced garlic
1pkg ranch dressing mix
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
egg noodles

Combine bacon, garlic, ranch dressing mix, soup, and sour cream; mix well. Pour over chicken in the crock pot. Cook on high 3-4 hours. Then shred the chicken and put back in the pot and add the egg noodles; mix together.

We'll see how it turns out!

Slow Cooker Potato Soup

Today I'm trying a recipe that a friend of mine put on her Facebook page, or maybe it was Twitter... it's a lot of prep, so next time I think I'll do that part the night before. However, the smell is unbelievable. Lots of people reviewed this as being delicious so we're looking forward to dinner!!

From the web:

Slow Cooker Potato Soup

Prep Time 20 Minutes (or longer if you're a slow potato peeler like me)
Cook Time 8 Hours-10 Hours on Low

Recipe Description

This is a souped up (ha!) version of a slow cooker potato soup recipe that I had. I felt like it could use a bit more lovin’ – so I added more to it! It’s a fave in our house (and friends LOVE it too!) Serve it with some of Pioneer Woman’s The Bread (on her site) – and for an added bonus, sprinkle a bit of parmesan on top of the bread before baking and it’s DIVINE with the soup!

Ingredients

8 cups Diced Potatoes (peeled) I bought a 5 lb bag of yukon gold and used about 80% of the bag
½ cups Diced Carrots
½ cups Diced Celery
3 cans Chicken Broth, 14 1/2 Oz Each
1 can Cream Of Chicken Soup (10 Oz. Can)
1 Tablespoon Parsley
2 teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon Pepper
1 clove Garlic, Minced
½ pounds Bacon, cooked and crumbled
5 Tablespoons Flour
1 package Cream Cheese (8 Oz. Package)

Preparation Instructions

In a large slow cooker/crock pot, combine all above ingredients, minus the flour and cream cheese. Salt and pepper to taste. (You can opt to add the bacon at the end as a “garnish”, but I always just throw it in at the beginning.)

Cook on low for 8-10 hours, or until potatoes are done.About an hour before you serve the soup, add the cream cheese. Stir until blended. (The cream cheese adds a whole ‘nother dimension to this soup…so wonderful!)We always like our soup thick, so you can scoop out about a cup or two of the soup into a separate bowl. Add the flour, whisking constantly to avoid any lumps. Then as you are stirring the soup, add flour/soup mixture back into the slow cooker. Replace lid and allow the soup to cook for another 20-30 minutes (or until you’re ready to serve).

You can repeat the last step of the flour/soup if needed to get the thickness desired.

Verdict:

This was DELICIOUS! It made a lot and we loved the way that it made the house smell all day long. Next time I'd add a little less pepper and then add it when served as needed. The only thing that this was missing was a blizzard outside (and I'm not sad about that!). It's the perfect winter soup. I highly recommend making this!!

Bacon-Wrapped Apple BBQ Chicken

This Christmas I got a new, and much bigger crockpot so I'm excited to try some new recipes and post about them! Last year I started blogging about what I was cooking and then got pregnant and NOTHING seemed appealing so I certainly didn't want to write about food (I couldn't even stand the smell of most food!) I recently came across a website through Facebook called The Crockin' Girls or www.crockingirls.com and this came from there. I made it with a few modifications:

1. no lemon juice (I have a severe lemon allergy, I hope excluding this doesn't ruin it)
2. I cooked it for 4 hours on high (I only had 4 hours before dinner)
3. I used precooked bacon (It was all we had in the house)

We will see how it turns out! I'll post a verdict later.

Bacon-Wrapped Apple BBQ Chicken
3-4 chicken breasts
1/2 cup BBQ sauce
1-2 apples, peeled and grated
1 lemon, juiced
6-8 slices bacon

Directions:
1. In small bowl, combine BBQ sauce with grated apple and lemon juice.
2. Place chicken breasts in base of crock pot, pour BBQ/apple mixture over the chicken. Wrap 2 pieces of bacon around each chicken breast. Set to low and cook for 8 hours.


The website says to serve with sweet potatoes, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes or rice. I think that we'll probably opt for rice because that's what we have in the house but I'd love some sweet potatoes!

Verdict:

This was not my favorite but we might try it again. I made a LOT of modifications on this one because I wasn't planning on making it and so I had to use what I had in the house. In the future I think I'd use a sweeter BBQ sauce than I had on hand and also use raw bacon (I used precooked for the recipe). Also, a honey crisp apple would probably bring a lot of flavor. We'll see. It was super easy! One thing that I learned was that I hate using a manual grater. I never use it but I thought it would be faster than using the food processor (when you consider the cleaning). WRONG! I should have just used the food processor to grate the apple. Oh well! Live and learn!

Macaroni Taco Bake

Since I've been pregnant, I've really neglected this blog, mostly because at the beginning of the pregnancy I was so turned off by all food and so I got out of the habit. However, now that we're almost done, I'm trying to freeze some things we can make easily after baby GIRL comes! This magazine has had a bunch of stuff I'm going to try.

Tonight we tried this recipe from the Taste of Home: Church Suppers magazine tonight. Believe it or not, I found the magazine at the Lowes' checkout! It was good, and my husband said to cook it again. I liked it enough to make again, especially because my 2 year old gobbled it up!


Macaroni Taco Bake

2 packages of Macaroni and cheese dinner mix
1 lb ground beef
1 cup chunky salsa
2 cups crushed tortilla chips
1 can 2 1/4 oz ripe olives drained (we skipped these)
2 cups shredded mexican cheese blend
Sour Cream, optional

1. Prepare mac and cheese according to the package directions. Meanwhile in a large skillet cook beef until no longer pink; drain. Stir in salsa and set aside.

2. Spread macaroni into greased 13x9 baking dish. Layer with beef mixture, chips and olives; sprinkle with cheese/

3. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until heated through. Serve with sour cream if desired.