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!

Super Soft Sour Cream Sugar Cookies & Powdered Sugar Glaze

Yet another Sisters Cafe hit.... It's really too bad that Jake doesn't like sugar cookies, too bad for HIM! (I make them anyway)

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
4 cups flour

Cream together softened butter with sugar, sour cream and eggs. Add vanilla, almond extract, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Slowly add flour, 1 cup at a time. Dough should be sticky. Refrigerate one hour. Knead dough on floured board. Roll out and cut with cookie cutters. Bake for 9 to 12 minutes at 350.

Powdered Sugar Glaze

This frosting will harden upon standing, giving cookies a glazed surface.
Ingredients
2½ cups powdered sugar
3 Tbsp milk
2 Tbsp butter, softened
½ tsp almond extract
Food coloring optional

Directions
In small mixer bowl, combine the powdered sugar, milk, butter, and extract. Beat at medium speed until smooth, adding additional milk, if necessary, to reach the desired spreading or "flooding" consistency. Color with food coloring, if desired.

Chicken Cream Cheese Enchiladas

I saw this recipe over at Sister's Cafe and knew I had to try it because Jake loves anything with cream cheese, and this was no exception. I believe his exact review was that this was "freakin' amazing". I love reviews like that. Makes the hard work worth it! What's even bette,r is that this makes a good freezer meal which I am slowly building up a supply of in preparation for baby #2 due in April. Gotta love freezer meals for those days when you just don't feel like cooking or have no idea what to make. It makes me SO glad for the nesting instinct that is in full force right now so I can get stuff like this done.

Ingredients:

1 c. diced bell pepper, whatever color you like or a mixture of what you may have on hand

¾ c. onion, chopped (can also add celery to complete the ¾ c.)

2 Tb butter

ENCHILADA SAUCE:

1 15-oz can tomato sauce

1 c. chicken stock (water and 1 tsp bouillon granules (or 1 cube) works great)

1-2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp each cumin, sugar, and salt

¼ tsp pepper

FILLING:

1/3 c. half and half (or milk, for a lighter version)

1 (8-oz) pkg cream cheese (I always use Neufchatel cheese)

3 c. cooked chicken, diced

½ tsp salt

1 c. grated cheese

8-12 flour tortillas (I use 10)

Sauté onion and pepper in butter. Remove to a bowl and set aside. Heat tomato sauce, chicken stock, chili powder, cumin, sugar, salt and pepper; simmer 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare filling: Add half and half & cream cheese to the cooked chicken, sautéed onion and bell pepper (and celery, if desired), and salt. Dip tortilla in enchilada sauce mixture and spoon ¼ c. chicken filling into each tortilla. Roll up and place seam side down in a lightly greased 9x13 pan. Cover with remaining tomato sauce. Cover with foil. At this point you may freeze the pan. Otherwise, bake at 350° for 20 minutes. Remove foil and sprinkle with 1 cup cheese. Bake 5 more minutes.

Would be really yummy with some guac on top too!

(Instead of putting all ten of the tortillas in a 9x13 dish, put five in a 8x8 pan and the other five in another 8x8 pan. Freeze one of them for a later dinner.

When baking a frozen pan of enchiladas, remove the pan from the freezer, leave one layer of foil on top, and place in the oven (no need to preheat). Set the oven to 350° and bake for about 40-45 minutes or so, or until it is hot in the middle. Then add cheese and bake until it is melted on top.)

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

Here is yet another one of the Sisters Cafe recipes. Whitney is getting to be such a fun age and she was so cute helping me make this today. Her favorite part about baking is adding the "eggies", so she was a little bummed that we didn't add any to this recipe, but she liked checking on the dough to watch how big it was getting.

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

1 cup warm milk
1 Tbsp of instant yeast
2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp shortening
1 cup warm water
Flour (approx 5 cups total)

2/3 cup raisins

Mix powdered milk, yeast, salt, sugar, and shortening in the bowl of a mixer. Add warm water. Add about 1.5 to 2 cups flour and beat until well mixed. Add flour slowly until dough comes away clean from the edge of the mixing bowl. Add one cup raisins. Allow to knead for 5 more minutes. Do not add too much flour. Cover with greased plastic and allow dough to rise. Once it has doubled in size, divide into 2 parts. Roll out each half of dough into a small rectangle and spray lightly with water (or get hands wet and lightly rub surface of dough - the idea is to barely moisten the dough.) Sprinkle with cinnamon - depending on how much you like! Roll up lengthwise, pinching together seam and tucking in the ends to form a log. Place each log into a greased loaf pan and raise until the size of a bread loaf. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 2 loaves.

Cornbread

Whenever I've attempted to make cornbread, it has always turned out really grainy/crumbly and not very flavorful. Growing up in Salt Lake, we would always go to the Cowboy Grub restaurant and they have the best corn bread I have ever tasted. Although this recipe isn't just like theirs, it's pretty darn close! I found it on one of my favorite recipe blogs, sisterscafe.blogspot.com. Most of the stuff they post is amazing so I thought I'd try it. I'm glad I did! I could've eaten the whole thing by myself. Whitney even liked it, and that is saying something!

CORNBREAD

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 cups buttermilk

2 cups flour

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup oil

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix together eggs, sugar, and buttermilk. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Pour in a greased 9x13 pan and bake for 20-22 minutes.