Tasty Tuesday #2

Here we are for another edition of Tasty Tuesday. This week I'll share my recipe for Taco Casserole.

Here are the ingredients:



12 oz recipe crumbles (or 1 lb ground beef)
2 tsp. Onion Powder
1 c Taco Sauce (hot or mild, your choice)
3/4 c Water
1 can (4oz) Diced Green Chiles
1 Pkg. (1.25 oz) Taco Seasoning Mix
1 Pkg. of 12 Taco Shells (or about 1 to 1-1/2 c tortilla chips)
8 oz Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1 can refried beans.


Preheat oven to 375 and grease 11 x 7 baking dish.

Cook recipe crumbles in a little oil with onion powder (no oil needed if using beef).

Stir in taco sauce, chiles, water & seasoning.

Cook on low for 5 minutes.

Break taco shells or tortilla chips into pieces.

Sprinkle 1/2 of shells on bottom of dish.

Layer 1/2 crumble/meat mixture.

Cover with 1/2 the can of refried beans.

Sprinkle with 1/2 of the shredded cheese.

Repeat with remaining ingredients.

Bake 20-30 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

This is my recipe check out what other Mom bloggers are making this week here:

Vegetarian Salisbury Steak

Well, in case you haven't noticed that none of my food includes meat, I'm a vegetarian, just me, not my hubby, not my son, so I do cook meat, but not a lot. This is one thing that when I was not a vegetarian I loved when my Mom would make it, well she actually brought it home from the luncheonette that we owned.

Here are your ingredients:

4 veggie burgers, I like the Boca vegan but any kind will do.
1 onion sliced
1 small can mushrooms, drained (I really like mushrooms so I use the big can)
1 cup vegetable broth
1 teaspoon Kitchen Bouquet or Gravy Master (whatever you use to add color to your gravy)
1 Tablespoon cornstarch

Saute the sliced onion and mushrooms in some vegetable oil, until onion is translucent.
Add veggie burgers and cook for 4-5 minutes on each side.

This is the gravy, you add the Gravy Master or Kitchen Bouquet and cornstarch to the vegetable broth and whisk until smooth. Pour sauce over burgers, turn heat to medium. Gravy will thicken in a few minutes and the dish is done.

This is it all done, it is yummy!! Even good as leftovers. I served roasted potatoes (I had a little bit of a timing issue and they weren't done when the Salisbury Steak was done) and corn with this.

Crockpot Potato & Corn Chowder

I haven't cooked a whole lot this week because I now have my son's cold. I did however make this yummy soup.

Here are the ingredients:

2 1/4 c chopped onions

3 cans of vegetable broth (or one box and one can)

2 lbs potatoes (it sounds like a ton but it's about 6 medium, 10 or so small)

7 c frozen corn

2 1/4 tsp thyme

2 c milk

I know they add a lot of flavor, but man did my eyes burn after chopping all those onions.

Saute the onions over medium heat in a little bit of oil (I used Olive Oil, not extra virgin) until brown. Put onions in crock pot.

Deglaze the pan with vegetable broth (bring the broth to a boil and scrape the yummy brown bits off the bottom). Add this and the rest of the broth to the crock pot.



OK, this is the first time I ever made or ate a chowder (there aren't too many commercial vegetarian chowders out there), so I chopped the potatoes a little big, you really are supposed to chop these into pieces abour 1/2" big so basically bite size or a little smaller.

Add the potatoes to the crock pot, cover and cook on low for about 8 hours on low.

1 hour before serving, add corn, thyme and milk to crock pot, add salt and pepper to taste (I added this to my bowl instead of the crock, I try not to uses salt & pepper in cooking) and cook on high for said 1 hour.

This is the soup done in the pot.

Here's my dinner.

Verdict: Yummy, buttery taste the first night, the spice comes through a bit more as it sits, good as leftovers too. Oh, and this is supposed to serve 6, but I really think it would serve more than that, I had a ton leftover.

I would definitely recommend this soup!

Yummy Pizza

I made this wonderful pizza, I got the recipe several years ago online somewhere, you make the dough in the bread machine on the dough cycle. It's a garlic pizza crust. Anyway, I made this a week ago this past Thursday. Keep in mind I haven't cooked a lot with my son keeping me running this past week with being sick. I didn't take a lot of pictures b/c this was a last minute idea and I needed to get everything going in the machine so we could eat.

Here's what you need:

1-1/3 c tepid water (90 degrees)
1/3 c oil
2 cloves crushed garlic
4 cups flour
2/3 tsp. salt
1-1/3 Tbsp Sugar
1-1/3 Tbsp yeast

Put ingredients in your bread machine in order and run on dough cycle.

This is the dough in the machine before it rose.

Oil a pan (I made 6-9" personal pizzas). This will make 12 small personal snack-size pizzas, 6 9" pizzas and 2 full size pizzas. Use your finger tips to press out dough. Let it rise a bit and top according to your taste. Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes.

And they come out like this:

The Verdict: Yummy! Even my hubby who doesn't eat carbs ate one.

Black Bean Enchilada Casserole

I made this last Wednesday.

I absolutely love this crock pot recipe. Here are the ingredients:


1/2 can enchilada sauce, 1 c salsa, garlic powder, cumin, 2 cans black beans, 6-10 corn tortillas, 2 c mexican cheese. Cut the tortillas into triangles (for layering) - this step can be skipped if you use a crockpot that is the same size as the tortilla.


Mix together enchilada sauce, salsa, cumin & garlic powder and warm it until it bubbles.

Drain & Rinse your Black Beans.

Spray crockpot. Put enchilada mix on bottom just to cover, layer tortillas, black beans, cheese, then repeat. Top with remaining cheese.

Cook on low 6-8 hours. This is it done.

On a plate. It is yummy.

Definitely something to try.

My Friday Adventure and what's kept me from here

Friday I made Mac and Cheese, you know the good stuff, the stuff that you make the sauce, bake it in the oven and it's full of gooey goodness.

Well, here are my ingredients

Whole wheat elbow noodles (cavatappi is good too), 3 Tbsp each butter and flour, 4 c soy milk, about a pound of cheese, now I usually use extra sharp cheddar, swiss, and some parmesan or provolone but I didn't have any so I used the Mexican shredded and parmesan that I had on hand.

The first thing you do is put water on for the noodles, you can actually put them in too, but I have a 4 yo who didn't want to leave his friend's house so I started the cheese sauce while the water was boiling.

For the sauce, the first thing is to make a roux, if you don't know what that is, you just melt the butter and flour together until it comes to a boil, you can let it cook until it's brown for a gumbo, but for something light like mac & cheese you just let it go until it starts to smell nutty.

I forgot to take a picture of the roux before I added the milk so this is what it looks like when I first put it in the pan. Next, you add the milk and bring it up to temperature, or if you're like me and realized you needed to switch burners for the water for the noodles, you turn the burner back on and hope for the best. Once the milk starts to bubble you add your cheese.

Once that melts, hopefully your noodles are cooked and you pour it over top of the noodles in a casserole dish, I think mine is 3 qts.

You bake it for about 20-25 minutes and ...

The verdict as usual was yummy for all, though the cheesy flavor was a little lacking since I used milder cheeses.

So, you may ask, if I did this on Friday why am I posting today, Tuesday? Well, my son started preschool yesterday and our preschool didn't tell you what you needed, but they sent out this cute little book that tells about a little girl starting school there, and in it she needs to bring a smock and a change of clothes, so I decided to pull out my sewing machine (which I have been itching to do) and make this...

This is what it looks like on...

So on Saturday and Sunday everyone had to fend for themselves, well we had leftover mac and cheese and nuggets (none for me) and yesterday we went to Chuck E Cheese after school and the little guy had nuggets, the big guy had a wrap, and I couldn't tell you what I had, I just went to bed at 9:00 and am still exhausted today, but that may have to do with having to run around Dick's today to get a soccer setup for this Saturday. I did bake some chocolate chip cookies today and will post that tonight.