Denver Potato Bake

How pretty are those flowers??  Yellow is one of my favorite colors, and I absolutely love the yellow and pink flowers together.  Makes me happy just looking at them.  My sweet husband bought those for me the other day, and I am once again reminded of what a lucky girl I am.  How many husbands regularly go about surprising their wives with flowers?? 

And if you look to the left there, you’ll see my rosemary making a comeback after the long winter.  My chives are coming back to life too, and I get so excited over every new green sprout I see 🙂

I’m excited about sharing this recipe today too because it’s delicious!  It’s like those Western breakfast scrambles you can find on restaurant menus except this one is baked in the oven.  Great for a breakfast for dinner night (love those!) or for a special weekend breakfast.

You can also get creative and add other vegetables and ingredients you like.  I love playing around with recipes!

I fried up some sliced apples and pears in a little butter and brown sugar to go along with.  It made for a great breakfast for dinner meal that I will definitely make again!

Until next time, happy cooking 🙂

Denver Potato Bake

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp black pepper
• 3 cups frozen hash brown potatoes
• 4 oz. (1 cup) shredded Swiss cheese
• 1/2 cup diced ham
• 1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9×9 inch baking dish.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, onion powder, thyme, and salt and pepper.  Stir in remaining ingredients.

Pour into the prepared baking dish.  Bake for 40-45 minutes or until set.

Junior League Mac & Cheese

Dear Readers,

Beginning with this post, I endeavor to return to giving my little blog the love and attention it has been sorely missing lately.  I’ve barely even checked up on it or any other of my favorite blogs.  So unlike me!

Things have been a little topsy turvy in the Berner household.  In addition to us both getting sick, we also acquired a kitten that Jay found alongside the highway one morning.  Someone had obviously dumped him during the night.  Who would do such a thing to a kitten??  It boggles my mind.

The little kitten, aka the little orange terror, is going to a new home today on an acreage where he will happily run around chasing mice and where a little 5-year old girl will give him lots and lots of love.  I’ll be sad to see him go but it’ll be a more suitable home for him. 

So now that I’ve shared my news, let’s move on to talking about food, shall we? 🙂

This is another recipe from The Southern Junior League Cookbook.  I would not be exaggerating if I said this is quite possibly the best mac & cheese I’ve ever made.  Which would make me a horrible food blogger if I didn’t share it with y’all, wouldn’t it??

This one is made a little more special with the addition of bell pepper, boiled eggs, and pimientos, none of which I’ve ever had in mac & cheese before.  After making this recipe, I can now say that they are mighty fine additions, indeed! 

I highly recommend giving this recipe a try! 

Until next time, happy cooking 🙂

Junior League Mac & Cheese

Ingredients:

• 3 Tb butter
• 4 Tb flour
• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped pimientos
• 3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
• 1 cup macaroni, cooked and drained

Directions:

Melt butter in a saucepan.  Stir in flour to make a roux.  Gradually stir in milk and cook, stirring, until sauce is thickened.  Stir in half the cheese. 

Mix sauce with remaining ingredients, except reserved cheese.  Spoon into a greased casserole dish.  Sprinkle with reserved cheese.  Bake at 325 degrees for 35 minutes or until bubbly and lightly browned on top.

I’m sharing this recipe with:

• Potluck Sunday
• Mouthwatering Monday
• Tempt My Tummy Tuesday
• Tuesdays at the Table
• Tuesday Night Supper Club

Poor Man’s Lasagna Rolls

Yesterday I stopped by the store to pick up a gallon of milk and was horrified (and appalled and disgusted) to find that the price of milk has increased again and I’m now paying a grand total of $4.69 for milk.  Is that not madness??   I’d never have imagined that I’d one day pay that much for a gallon of milk.

But milk is kinda one of those necessities, ya know?  Especially for those of us who belong to the fairer sex and need our calcium.  All there is to do is suck it up.  And gripe and complain about it once in a while 😉

It just makes me nervous wondering if other things are going to go up in price again too.  Am I going to end up paying $2.50-$3.00 for eggs soon? 

What all this leads me to (yes, I have a point!) is that now, more than ever, I’m focusing on making recipes that are economical and won’t require ingredients that’ll blow my budget.

This lasagna roll recipe I found in a very old Pillsbury cookbooklet, and I’m calling it Poor Man’s Lasagna Rolls because the ingredients are mainly just a meat sauce, mozzarella cheese, and noodles.  There’s not even any cottage or ricotta cheese or any other fancy ingredients.

Sure, you could just mix together your sauce and noodles, sprinkle it all with cheese and it would taste the same.  But it wouldn’t be as interesting or pretty, now would it?  It would be downright boring.  Even with the most basic ingredients, we can still turn them into something a bit fancy now and then, something a little more gourmet, can’t we? 🙂

So for those of you, like me, who would like to make something a little special sometimes but don’t have much money to spare, this recipe is for you. 

How yummy does this look??

One little thing I want to mention about the ingredients is that I didn’t have any mushrooms so instead I used about 1/2 cup of finely chopped zucchini.  Turned out great, and I would use the zucchini again instead of mushrooms.

Poor Man’s Lasagna Rolls

Ingredients:

• 8 lasagna noodles
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 20 ounces pasta sauce (I used a can of Hunt’s Thick & Rich and it was the perfect amount)
• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2.5-oz. jar sliced mushrooms, drained
• 1 egg, slightly beaten

Directions:

Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions.  Drain and set aside.

Brown ground beef along with onion in skillet.  Drain grease.  Transfer to a bowl and add 1/4 cup of the pasta sauce, 1/2 cup of the cheese, mushrooms, and egg.  Mix together.

Spread each lasagna noodle with 1/3 cup or so of the meat mixture.  Carefully roll up and place seam side down in an ungreased 12×8 baking dish.  Pour remaining pasta sauce over top.

Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  Sprinkle with remaining cheese.  Bake, uncovered, for 5-10 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

I’m sharing this recipe with:

• Full Plate Thursday
• Friday Potluck

Spinach-Swiss Quiche, and kids who say the darndest things

Here’s a little tidbit about myself-I am an introvert.  However, my big sis is most definitely not.  And my niece and nephew take right after her, especially my niece, Harlee, who is quite a little spitfire.  I wish that I didn’t live so far away because I’d like her to rub a little of her spunk off on me!  If ever there was a kid who said the darndest things, it would be her.  I wanted to share some of them because we could all use a good laugh, right? 🙂

I was talking to my mom the other day, and she had me practically in tears relating her most recent conversations with Harlee.

Now, my parents live in Florida, and my sister and her kids live in Tennessee.  A little while back, Harlee had mailed some comics that she had thought were funny and had cut out of the paper.  Well, next time she talked to my mom she asked if she had gotten them, and my mom said that yes, she had.

Then Harlee said very seriously, “Grandmaw, I sent you something and you didn’t say something to me…”. 

 My mom thought, What in the world is she talking about??

Then Harlee said, “You forgot to say thank you!”

Well, she just taught Grandmaw, who’s an elementary school teacher, a thing or two about manners, didn’t she?  😀  Admittedly, though, my mom did get her back after she sent Harlee a Valentine’s card and stickers and Harlee forgot to say thank you! 

Which brings me to the next darndest thing Harlee said that had me laughing out loud .  She was telling Grandmaw about how she liked the stickers and had put them up on her mirror.  Then she asked why David (my nephew) hadn’t gotten anything. 

My mom said that well, she didn’t think he would have wanted anything for Valentine’s, him being a boy and all.

So Harlee said,  “Well, you could have just sent him a dollar or two!”

Goodness, but that little girl sure has a mind of her own!  She probably runs her teacher ragged in school too.  Though she did explain to my mom that a lot of the other kids in her class get upside-down faces, but she never does, she just gets mostly straight faces.  Which we agreed were at least better than upside-down faces!

Sometimes it just feels so good to laugh until you cry, doesn’t it? 🙂

Okay now, let’s discuss this recipe I’m sharing today, shall we?  I found it in this cookbook:

Which I have to tell y’all I was so excited when I saw it on the shelf at Goodwill because, as far as I can tell, Gooseberry Patch isn’t sold here in Canada.  So when I saw it I snatched it up!  This recipe was in the Meatless Mains section and it was delicious.  I had the spinach thawed and drained ahead of time, the onion chopped, and the cheese shredded so that when I got home from work it took me literally 5 minutes to throw together and pop into the oven.  Not too shabby!

I made salads and served some of my homemade applesauce on the side.  It was a super easy and delicious meal to make.  I can’t wait to try more recipes from this cookbook!

Until next time, happy cooking! 🙂

Spinach-Swiss Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 box frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• 1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
• 2 Tb chopped onion (I used green onion)
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup Bisquick baking mix
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg

Mix together the spinach, cheese, and onion.  Spread in the bottom of a greased pie plate.  Whisk together remaining ingredients, and pour over the top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown.

I’m sharing this recipe with:

• Recipe Swap Thursday
• Full Plate Thursday

Baked Blueberry French Toast

Rarely does a week go by in my house where we don’t have some sort of breakfast for dinner.  Breakfast foods are just plain yummy!  And when you think about it, most are them are very economical too.  Pancakes, french toast, and omelettes don’t exactly require any outrageously expensive ingredients.  Well, I guess that depends on what you add to them.  We keep things simple here 🙂

This recipe takes things up a notch from just plain french toast and I think you’ll love it!  I especially love the addition of nutmeg, which is my favorite spice. While the recipe calls for blueberries, you can really use any fruit that you’d like or have on hand.  Strawberries would be nice.  Or peaches.  Ahh yummy, juicy peaches…

Why, oh why,can’t it be summer already??  I don’t know about y’all, but I am just sick and tired of winter.  Back home in south Florida, we get so excited when the weather gets cool enough that we actually have to wear a jacket.  And now here, in Canada’s most northerly major city (I read that little fact in a book recently), what I wouldn’t give for just one day of gloriously warm, sunny weather!  I think just to lift up my face and feel that warm sun on my skin would be heaven right about now. 

These last few months of winter are a tough time of year for this Southern gal.  Sometimes I get so cranky and mopey I just have to have a good cry.  But y’all won’t make fun, right?  I knew you wouldn’t 🙂  With the crazy weather everyone has been getting this winter, I’m sure many of you feel the same as me!

But we’ll get through it, won’t we?  This darned ol’ winter can’t last forever!

I hope y’all enjoy this recipe, and until next time, happy cooking 🙂

Baked Blueberry French Toast

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups milk
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 loaf French bread, cut into 1/2 inch thick slices
• 4 cups blueberries
• 4 Tb butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup sugar

Directions:

Whisk together the eggs, vanilla, milk, and nutmeg.  Place the bread slices in a large baking dish and pour the egg mixture over.  Let it sit while you make up the berry sauce.

In a saucepan, melt the butter.  Add the blueberries, cinnamon, and sugar.  Cook over medium heat for a few minutes, until the sugar is dissolved and the berries have softened.

Pour into a greased 13×9 baking dish.  Take the bread slices, which should have soaked up all the egg mixture by now, and place them on top of the berries.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown.  Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

This recipe is being shared with:

• Friday Potluck
• Recipe Swap Thursday