Chicken Florentine

I had a bunch of bacon and spinach left over from this recipe so I was happy to find this recipe from You Got Served. After reading the ingredients it sounded pretty tasty! Something that I learned that I love are things that come pre-prepared, like minced garlic, bacon bits, shredded cheese. All were things used in this recipe which saved tons of time. I'm not a fan of mincing garlic, it seems like it takes me forever. And I really don't like cooking bacon, the smell is way too overpowering. It's pretty much the best when it's grilled outside, at Bear Lake. This would be a great recipe to use if you have left over grilled chicken, saving you about 20-30 minutes. Anyway, here is my take on this recipe.

2 large chicken breasts, cut into 3rds or 4ths

1 big bag of fresh spinach

4 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced

1/4 c butter

1 T Italian Seasoning

1/2 c half-and-half

3 t minced garlic

1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese

1 T lemon juice

1 can cream of mushroom soup (can also use cream of chicken or cream of roasted garlic)

1 c shredded mozzarella cheese

2/3 c bacon, crumbled

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the chicken breast halves on a baking sheet; bake 20 to 30 minutes, until no longer pink and juices run clear.

While chicken is baking, sautee spinach and mushrooms in 1 1/2 T olive oil, until it becomes fragrant and spinach withers. Set aside. Then, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stirring constantly, mix the garlic, lemon juice, cream of mushroom soup, Italian seasoning, half-and-half, and Parmesan cheese in with the melted butter. Be careful not to let mixture bubble or it will thicken, just heat long enough to melt cheese.

When chicken is through baking, increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees.

Arrange the sauteed spinach and mushrooms over the bottom of a 9x13 inch (or 2- 8x8, baking 1 now, freezing the other for later) baking dish. Pour half the mixture from the saucepan over the spinach and mushrooms. Arrange chicken breasts in the dish, and cover with the remaining sauce mixture. Sprinkle with bacon bits, and top with mozzarella cheese. Bake 20 to 25 minutes in the 400 degree oven, until bubbly and lightly browned. Serve over pasta.

Serves 4.

Spinach Stuffed Shells

Only 17 more days until baby boy is here! It's hard to find motivation to cook when all I want to do is lie down and rest when Whitney is sleeping, but when I know I can get a freezer meal out of a recipe (meaning, I can slack off later when #2 gets here) it's not so bad! This recipe was found on Sister's Cafe, surprise surprise!

1 pkg jumbo pasta shells

1 jar favorite spaghetti sauce

1 pkg chopped spinach, thawed

2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded

1/2 cup parmesan cheese, shredded

1 lg carton cottage cheese

1 egg white

Thaw spinach and drain well. Cook shells according to package directions (I always slightly undercook them by a minute). Mix in a large bowl; cottage cheese, mozzarella, parmesan, spinach and egg white. Stuff mixture into shells and place in 9x13 baking dish Or use 2 smaller sized ones, baking one and freezing the other one for later. Spray the baking dish with cooking spray and pour a little bit of sauce in the bottom. Stuff mixture into shells and place into prepared dish (or dishes). Pour spaghetti sauce over shells. Cover and freeze or you can bake it at 350 for 30-45 minutes until heated thru. If you freeze it, plan on adding an additional hour to your baking time.This is also a great recipe to make earlier in the day and keep in the fridge. Then all you have to do it throw it in the oven for dinner.

*I just read one of the comments from this post on Sister's Cafe, and someone recommended adding sausage. Sounds yummy that way and what a good way to use left over meat!

Shredded Beef Taquitos

This recipe was inspired by Mel the beloved's baked chicken taquitos.  I had cooked a two pound roast in the crockpot (I believe it was tri-tip roast, though I don't know that it would really matter), and we ALWAYS have a ton of left overs when I make a roast.  The night after the roast (which was cooked with cream of mushroom soup and dry onion soup mix and was perfectly wonderful and tender), I reheated the meat with a packet of taco seasonings and we ate tacos.  And we still had at least 2 cups of perfectly taco-tasty shredded beef.  I thought...."self, I wonder if mel has a beef taquito recipe?" Oh no she didn't!  But, she DID have baked CHICKEN taquitos and that's where our story continues....anyway here's the recipe.  It was SO GOOD.  I never EVER have used corn tortillas, but this was absolutely delicious and made me think, hey, I should find more recipes that call for corn tortillas.  AND I LOVE that this recipe was made from left over meat!  I love when you can make something new from something that would probably be thrown out in a couple of days!

2 C shredded beef previously taco seasoned
1/4 C green salsa
4 ounces softened cream cheese
1 T fresh lime juice
1 green onion finely sliced
1 C grated monterey jack cheese
small yellow or white corn tortillas
sea salt
cooking spray

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly coat with cooking spray.
In a medium-sized bowl, mix softened cream cheese, green salsa and lime juice. Stir to combine and then add green onions. Add beef and cheese and combine well.
<You can prepare this step ahead of time. Just keep the mixture in the fridge.>
Working with a few tortillas at a time, place 3-4 between two damp paper towels and microwave for 30-45 seconds, until tortillas are soft and pliable and don’t crack while rolling. Place 2-3 tablespoons of the chicken mixture on the lower third of a soft tortilla, keeping it about 1/2 inch from the edges. Then roll it up as tight as you can. It totally makes a difference when you microwave them with the damp paper towels.  Don't skip that step. 
Place filled taquitos seam side down on the baking sheet, making sure they don’t touch each other. When ready to bake, spray the tops lightly with cooking spray and lightly sprinkle some sea (coarse) salt on top.
Place pan in oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until crisp and the ends start to get golden brown. Serve immediately. Taquitos can be dipped in anything you like.  I mixed some of the left over green salsa with sour cream and it was dreamy.  Brian tried it dipped in regular salsa and liked that too!  It made plenty for a delicious lunch the next day too!

If you want, you can bake them for about ten minutes, take them out and cool them, then freeze them on a baking sheet for an hour, bag them, and you have insta-taquitos at your fingertips!

Sarah's Salad

I was craving this salad for a while so luckily I was assigned to bring a salad to my nephew Ben's blessing today! I knew just what I wanted to do, AND I already had the precooked bacon from the wraps over the weekend :) This recipe was taken from the Nelson Family Cookbook.

1 head iceberg lettuce

3 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled

5 oz frozen peas

1/4 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 cup shredded swiss cheese

2/3 c chopped green onion

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup miracle whip

Wash and drain lettuce. DRY THOUROUGHLY. Run hot water over frozen peas and drain. Tear lettuce into bite sized pieces into salad bowl. Sprinkle with sugar, salt and pepper. Add peas, cheese, onion, mayonnaise and miracle whip in layers. Cover tightly and refrigerate overnight. Toss when ready to serve and garnish with bacon. Serves 8

Sweet and Salty Salad Wraps

This is the meal that Lara and I were in charge of. We had the lunch for Saturday and this was a really quick and light meal, which was perfect as we were all in the middle of our projects so no one really wanted to stop for a big lunch. Here is the original link from Our Best Bites:

Spinach

Cooked Chicken

Craisins

Crumbled bacon (Sam's and Costco both sell big bags of precooked bacon that keep for about 6-9 months in the fridge once opened. Saves SO much prep time, I'm sold.)

Cheese

Poppyseed dressing

Curly Italian Pasta

We had our Webster girl's Weekend this last weekend and had a blast. There are enough of us that go so we split up meal preparations. I like doing it this way because we get to try something new to add to our recipes. For dinner Friday night, Laura made this Curly Italian Pasta from a new blog she found, Missygrub.blogspot.com. It was so yummy and I liked all the tasty extras in it. It looked pretty easy and made PLENTY for all 11 of us.

Cavatappi pasta (I usually cook half the box for my family of 5)
1 package Italian Ground Sausage
1/3 cup diced green bell pepper
1/3 cup diced onion
1-2 cloves garlic
1 can of Italian diced tomatoes
1-1 1/2 cups of Heavy Whipping Cream
Salt and Pepper to taste
Fresh grated Parmesan and Romano Cheese (I use Sargentos shredded cheese)

Bring water to boil for noodles. Cook sausage until cooked through, drain, return to pan and add green bell pepper, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Continue browning meat, and cooking veggies. Add Pasta to water, and cook according to package. Add tomatoes to meat mixture, continue cooking for 5 more minutes. Then add Heavy Whipping Cream to meat mixture, low-mid heat. Drain pasta, return to pan. Add about a cup of cheese in the meat mixture and stir till combined, then add to pasta. Top with more cheese.

Yogurt Parmesan Baked Chicken

Combine and set aside:

2 cups Ritz crackers, crushed

3 tablespoons parmesan cheese

2 teaspoons garlic salt

1 teaspoon seasoned salt

8 chicken breasts

Plain yogurt

Cut chicken in half, lengthwise. Cover each piece with yogurt and coat in crumb mixture. Arrange in a buttered 9x13-inch dish. Drizzle with ¼ cup melted butter. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.