Ham

This is a quick and easy way to make ham.

Buy ham that is already cut up (like John Morrell or the like). Or buy some cut thicker from the deli. Either way it is already cooked and cut up, you just have to warm it. You can do this same process for a chunk of ham (not sliced) but sliced is easier.

Spread the ham out in a pan.

Make a sauce one of the following two ways:

Option #1) Mix brown sugar and water. Make it thicker than you think (it will get thinner as it cooks). Pour over the ham. Sprinkle the top of ham with whole cloves. (Remove cloves before eating).

Option #2) Brown sugar, water, mustard, ketchup. Make it thicker than you think (it will get thinner as it cooks). Pour over the ham. Sprinkle the top of ham with whole cloves. (Remove cloves before eating).

You can also put pineapple chunks or rings on top before baking.

Cover with foil and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

You really cannot mess this up...it turns out no matter how you make it and what proportions of ingredients you use.

I used 1 pkg of John Morrell and it was about $7.99 at Smiths. I could have split it and made two meals from it for my family of 5 eaters.

Mexican Rice Bake

This isn't my picture but one from the internet, I change a few things from original recipe here! I doubled the recipe and it was awesome!

• 2 whole Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
• 4 cups Cooked White Rice
• ¾ cups Frozen Corn (if you like corn, add 1 can instead)
• 15 ounces, fluid Can Black Beans, Drained And Rinsed
• 1 cup Sour Cream
• 4 ounces, fluid Can Green Chilis
• 1 cups Salsa
• 1 cup Cheddar Cheese, Plus More For Topping
• 1 Tbsp Taco Seasoning

Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly to combine. Make sure the sour cream and cheese are stirred in throughout the entire bowl. Season with salt and pepper if desired. Transfer to an oven-safe dish and top with extra cheese if you would like. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until heated through. 

To make this process easier, I always have cooked chicken on hand, and use Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice. If you have those two things, this can be throw together in a matter of minutes! It can also easily be made ahead of time and reheated.

Press and Seal

Can I just say how much I love press and seal! Any of you still using Saran...throw it out and get press and seal. I have never tried the generic press and seal so I don't know about it. But the real thing...AWESOME. I never buy saran anymore...there is no need.

This ad brought to you by Press and Seal

(Just kidding...this is my honest to goodness opinion!)

Moldy Cheese

If your block of cheese goes moldy...just cut that part off. It is perfectly fine underneath

Same with apples and bananas. If you only want to eat half...cut it in half before eating, that edge will go brown...but then just cut off the brown part and the rest has been preserved.

Cheese Enchiladas or Casita Burritos

My favorite mexican restaurant was Casa Melinda's in Bountiful. Painfully it no longer exists. We would always order their cheese enchiladas. After years of experimenting this is the closest we can come to their delightful cheese enchiladas. And they are pretty close.

6" Corn Tortillas (not flour)

Shortening

1 can mild red enchilada sauce (soup can size)

2 T. flour

Colby Jack cheese shredded or monterey Jack and Colby Jack

Sauce

Take 1 can enchilada sauce and add 1 can water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. In a separate bowl combine 1 C. water and 2 T. flour. Stir until not lumpy. Once red sauce has boiled, add a little red sauce to your flour mixture to heat it up a bit. Whisk flour mix into red sauce and cook on Medium-High heat until gravy consistency. (I didn't have enough time tonight because Jason had a mtg...so in my pic the sauce is runnier than normal).

Cooking the tortillas

In a frying pan melt some crisco. Cook a corn tortilla for a few seconds on each side, do not let them get crispy. Set aside tortillas on a plate covered with paper towels until you have cooked enough tortillas as you need.

Assembling the enchilada

Take a tortilla and fill with cheese. It is best if you use 3/4 monterey jack and 1/4 colby. But often I just use colby because I don't want to buy two kinds of cheese. Roll the tortilla and place it seam side down on an oven safe plate. Top with enchilada sauce and then sprinkle more cheese on top. We usually do 2 enchiladas per plate.

Baking

Place our plates (oven-safe ones only) with the prepared enchiladas in the oven at 350 degrees for 8-10 min. Remove from oven with a hot-pad. Plates and food will be VERY VERY hot.

Serving

Serve with sliced lettuce, sour cream, salsa and corn. If you wanted to you could put refried beans topped with cheese on your plate before baking (my family doesn't care for them).

When Casa Melinda would bring you your plate they would say "The plate is hot". So as our family joke we always say that too. (and the plate is VERY hot.)

Okay, so that is Cheese Enchiladas. Now on to Taco-Time's Casita Burrito's...

Casita Burritos

Make the same sauce as above.

Put refried beans and taco meat inside a flour tortilla (only a little bit of beans and meat...not very much). Roll up. Place on oven-safe plate seam side down. Top with sauce. Cheese on top. Bake in oven (on plate) at 350 degrees for 8-10 min. Remove plates with hot-pad.

GOOD TO KNOWS!

SO many cool ideas I found! I have not tried them all so I can not vouch for all of them! 

• Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster. 
• Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold. 
• Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.
• Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat. 
• To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.
• For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints in double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a minty frosting.
• Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic, and at the end of the recipe if you want a stronger taste of garlic. 
• Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simply chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream.
• Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. 
• Easy Deviled Eggs: Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up. 
• Expanding Frosting: When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving. 
• Reheating refrigerated bread: To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster. 
• Newspaper weeds away: Plant your plants in the ground, work the nutrients in your soil. Then wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go, cover with mulch, and forget about weeds. 
• Broken Glass: Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can't see easily. 
• No More Mosquitoes: Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away. 
• To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it. 
• Flexible vacuum: To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings. 
• Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip to eliminate static cling. It works; you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks. 
• Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out. 
• De-fog your windshield: Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car When the windows fog, rub with the eraser. 
• Re-opening envelopes: If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. It unseals easily. 
• Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair. 
• Goodbye Fruit Flies: To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2' with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. flies are drawn to the cup and gone forever. 
• Wash your dryer filter: dryer sheets cause a film over filter that will burn out the heating unit. You can't SEE the film, but it's there. It builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. The best way to keep your dryer working for a long time (and to keep your electric bill lower) is to take the filter out and wash it with hot soapy water and an old toothbrush at least every six months.

Tortilla Soup

Okay I LOVE this soup! It is snowing out my window at the moment so soup sounds good to me! It is also a great way to use zucchini and banana squash which around here is quite handy! If you cook and cube your chicken in advance then this is an easy dump, dump recipe which I also love! ALSO, this would work for meatless Monday, just drop out the chicken, the black beans are full of protein!

3 C. chicken broth (from the can or from cooking your chicken)

2 chicken breasts, cubed

2 cloves garlic, diced (I usually just use 1 tsp garlic powder cause I don't always have garlic on hand)

Salt (to taste- I am pretty sure I have never salted it)

1 15 oz can diced tomatoes

1 14 oz can whole corn, drained

1 can black beans (optional but makes it more hardy)

1 TBL chili powder

zucchini and squash if you have it

Serve with *Avocado sliced

*grated cheese

*lime juice

*tortilla chips

*sour cream

*when I first had this soup it had none of these toppers with it and I LOVED it!

(If you are using fresh garlic then saute in oil for 30 seconds. Add chicken and cook until completely done.)

Put in large pot with chicken broth. Add all ingredients except toppers. Simmer for 20-30 minutes. If you have added the vegetables cook until they are soft.

Totally optional, to serve in individual bowl, place a layer of broken tortilla chips and top with sliced avocado, squeeze lime juice over avocados and sprinkle with grated cheese. Spoon the hot chicken soup into each bowl and garnish with anything else you want. (sour cream, salsa, cheese).

SOUPER Yummy! Would go great with Loretta's biscuits! :) (obviously not necessary though. :))

Becca :)

Granny's Biscuits

A while ago, I made some homemade chicken noodle soup (for the first time!) in the crock pot and while perusing online for a good recipe, everyone said that you have to have biscuits with chicken noodle soup.  I’m pretty decent at rolls, but I’ve never made a biscuit in my life. 

I researched and compared and researched some more and found, what I think, is an amazing recipe.  And easy!  Which we all know I’m a big fan of.  :)

Granny’s Homemade Biscuits

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder (aluminum free if you have it)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup milk

Combine all dry ingredients and blend well with a whisk. Cut in butter (if you don’t know how to do this, click here) until resembles coarse bread crumbs. Stir in milk until all comes together to form a dough ball. Turn out dough ball onto a well floured surface. Let set for a couple of minutes and pat out to about 1/2″ thick. Cut biscuits with floured biscuit cutter and place into ungreased baking pan. Form remaining dough into ball and repeat until all dough made into biscuits. This recipe will make approximately 12 biscuits. Bake in 425-450 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. 

Note: This recipe freeze well too. Just place your cut biscuits onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper or parchment paper and place cookie sheet into freeze making sure to keep level. Once frozen remove and place into a freezer bag and place into freezer. When ready to use just follow baking directions and bake only the amount that you need, you do not have to bake all of them at one time. 

Some personal notes from experience:
It says to use a floured biscuit cutter-I didn't.  I used a metal, fondant cutter I have and I never floured it.  Worked like a charm.  You could also use a metal canning lid or anything you have laying around!  Also, a lot of different women said that, with biscuits, the less you handle the dough the better.  Just FYI.  A few sites said to use aluminum free baking powder, others didn't specify.  I happened to have it on hand so that's what I have been using the last couple of months that I've been making these.  And lastly, it really does only make about 12-14 biscuits.  You will think that sounds like plenty...until you taste them.  If you have a big family (meaning more than two people) you'll want to double the recipe.  Just know that it does take a lot longer to cut the biscuits out with double the dough.





Oh!  And one more thing - another blogger said that the biscuits should always have their sides touching while baking.  She said that it helps them rise better...don't ask me why.  This pic is from the first time I made the recipe and since then I have tried it with ALL of the sides touching and it works great.  So, make sure they're all connected.  :)  Enjoy!