Meal Planning with Connie

Register for our cookbook giveaway below!! Bubble Up Pizza We had another of our favorites tonight, Bubble Up Pizza! Larry likes this better with the biscuits baked a bit before adding them to the sauce. I baked the biscuit quarters for about 10 minutes, added them to the sauce and stirred one cup of the cheese into the sauce to "hold things together", since our biscuits won't do this as well since I've baked them a bit. This is a very versatile little dish. You can use sausage, just beef or just pepperonis, or even no meat. You could also throw in some peppers, onions and mushrooms with the meat. This dish can be in the oven in under 10 minutes, if you have pre-cooked your meat. It takes less than 2 minutes to cut the biscuits into quarters using my kitchen shears, another one of my favorite Pampered Chef products! I threw the frozen meat in the microwave for 2 minutes while I cut the biscuits directly into my sprayed baking dish. I opened the sauce, mixed it wi...

Chicken Lasagna, Caesar Salad, Garlic bread Tonight’s entrée is one of our favorites. If your filling is a bit thick, thin with a little chicken broth or milk to make it more spreadable. For a variation, you can add a 10 oz. box of thawed, chopped broccoli to the filling. Ways I saved money: I bought the chicken on sale. I used store brand ricotta, mozzarella, and cream cheeses. I used broth from when I cooked chicken. I bought the garlic bread and salad dressing on sale and used coupons on both. I made homemade croutons from some bread that needed using. Ways I saved calories: I used light versions of the cream cheese, ricotta cheese and soup. I used light salad dressing.

Bisquick Cream Cheese Pound Cake Bisquick Cream Cheese Pound Cake This is a Bisquick recipe that I’ve tweaked to our liking. 3 cups Bisquick 2 cups granulated sugar, plus sugar to dust Bundt pan ½ cup all-purpose flour ¾ cup butter or margarine 1 teaspoon vanilla or lemon or almond extract (your choice) 1/4 teaspoon salt 6 eggs 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened 1.Heat oven to 350°F. Generously spray Bundt pan with cooking spray. Dust Bundt pan with sugar. Set aside. 2.Beat all ingredients on low speed 30 seconds, scraping bowl frequently. Beat on medium speed 4 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into prepared pan. 3.Bake 55 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes; turn pan upside down onto wire rack or heatproof serving plate. Remove pan; cool. This is a light pound cake - not "packy" as some pound cakes can be. I use reduced-fat Bisquick and cream cheese. This is a great cake to take ...

Peanut Butter Coffee Cake I made this Peanut Butter Coffee Cake for Sunday School this morning, and we all thought it was really good! This recipe is from the our cookbook giveaway, Better Homes and Gardens New Baking Book . I doubled the ingredients and baked it in a 9x13 inch pan. I also just chopped some Hershey’s Milk Chocolate chips in the food processor in place of the miniature semisweet chocolate pieces. Besides great baking tips, great photos and recipes, this cookbook contains interesting tidbits of information. Here’s the recipe I used today: The Peanut’s Progress For more than a century before this country was colonized, African cooks were using peanuts (or groundnuts) in many ways in their creative cooking: as a vegetable fresh from the garden, as the base for a creamy soup, and in a chicken dish served with a peanut sauce. Southerners (and eventually the whole country) adopted the peanut as a staple in its myriad forms: raw, baked, roasted, or boiled; in pea...

I'm not making the meatloaf tonight, because we have leftovers we need to eat. One of the reasons I often choose to use fresh beef recipes (meatloaf, hamburgers, chopped steaks, etc.) on Thursday nights is that I don’t always need to cook. Many times we have leftovers that need eating. If we don’t have leftovers, one of us runs to the store for the fresh ground meat. This plan works well for us. I know lots of people freeze whole packages of hamburger meat for these types of dishes. For some reason, I’ve never been good at using frozen raw meats. Many thanks to Aunt Jean for cooking a turkey breast for us today! I have chopped and bagged the meat and have it in the freezer! I use it in place of the chicken called for in recipes. AJ often asks if she can cook something (meaning a ham, roast, pork loin, or turkey breast) for us. We just about always choose the turkey breast, because we can use it in so many ways - sandwiches, casseroles, salads, etc. I suspect she thinks we're go...

Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Casserole and Mexican Salad Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Casserole We all like Sour Cream and Chicken Enchilada Casserole and Mexican Salad. They're favorites! Kitchen shears make quick work of cutting the tortillas. 2 cans cream of chicken soup 1 can chopped green chilies 2 cups sour cream, OR 1 cup sour cream and 1 cup chunky salsa 2 c. cooked chicken 6 flour tortillas, torn into pieces (6-8 inch size) 2 cups Co-jack cheese, shredded Mix together first 4 ingredients. Cover bottom of pan with a thin layer of chicken and sauce mixture. Layer ingredients in casserole dish in this order: Top thin layer of sauce with ½ of the tortilla pieces. Spread ½ of remaining chicken and sauce mixture over tortilla pieces. Sprinkle with ½ of cheese. Repeat layers. Bake at 350 degrees until hot and bubbly - usually about 20 minutes.  

My sweet friend, Donna S., treated all the moms in our Sunday School class (We let the dads have some, too!) to this delicious breakfast casserole on Mother's Day morning! Donna has such a sweet and gentle spirit. I appreciate her ministry! Of course, we all wanted the recipe! Donna not only shared it, but she puts in a big thumbs-up for the cookbook it came from. I don't have this, but Donna says it's great. After listening to her and reading the Amazon review, I want one! From the What Can I Bring? Cookbook by Anne Byrn, The Cake Mix Doctor "For all of you busy worker bees--you know who you are, working all day and staying up until midnight catching up on housework and getting a head start on a party dish you're toting the next day--well, this dish is for you. It should be made the night before and tucked in your refrigerator so you can go snooze. The next day it will bake up puffed and golden, like some precious souffle'. The only secret is...