Meal Planning with Connie

  Weighing in... I lost 1 pound this week!  Recipes like the one below aren't helping me to make a lot of progress!! It's Finger-lickin' Good Recipes Friday!  Here's my submission:  White Cheddar Mac and Cheese! It's a family favorite! White Cheddar Mac and Cheese My gang loves macaroni and cheese. Like many other Southerners, they consider mac & cheese a vegetable! This is a really good recipe. I love the flavor of the white cheddar, but you can use regular, if you prefer. A mixture of the two is nice, also!  This recipe makes a large (9x13-inch) panful and is great for serving a crowd. You can half the recipe for a smaller group and bake it in an 8x8-inch pan. It does heat over well! Since I was serving baked beans with bacon the day I made this, I didn't add the bacon garnish to this batch of mac and cheese, but the dish is really tasty with the bacon crumbles. But then, what savory recipe isn't usually improved upon by adding a bit of ba...

 Peanut Butter Sheet Cake with Broiled Peanut Butter Icing I made this for the Lost crew. They gave it a thumbs up!  This cake has a soft, smooth, moist texture. The icing is very flavorful! A great combination! Peanut Butter Sheet Cake with Broiled Peanut Butter Icing 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda ¼ cup butter, softened ¼ cup peanut butter 1½  cups brown sugar 2 eggs ½ cup warm water 1 cup buttermilk* Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9x13-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Whisk together flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside. Cream butter and peanut butter until smooth with an electric mixer. Add brown sugar; mix until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time. Add warm water and buttermilk, mixing until smooth. Gradually add flour, combining until just mixed. Pour mixture into prepared baking pan. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until it tests done with a toothpick. Icing: 6 tablespoons butter, softened 1 cup dark brown sugar ...

 Smoked Sausage and Texas Toast Breakfast Bake This recipe was another result of my freezer clean out. The Sunday school class gave it a thumbs up!     Smoked Sausage and Texas Toast Breakfast Bake 1 (13.5 oz.) box frozen Texas toast with cheese, thawed (I used New York Brand's Five Cheese Texas Toast) 1 pound smoked sausage, chopped 1 chopped onion 1 cup chopped green peppers 4 cups shredded Mexican blend cheese, divided 8 eggs 2 cups milk 1 teaspoon dry mustard 1 teaspoon salt Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cook spray. Sauté chopped smoked sausage, onions and peppers, until sausage is lightly browned and veggies are tender. Cut thawed bread slices into cubes. Layer half of cubes into prepared dish. Top bread cubes with half of sausage mixture. Sprinkle two cup of the cheese over the sausage. Repeat layers. In a mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk, mustard and salt; pour over layers. Cover with foil and refrigerate for several hours, or overnight. Place c...

Well, I lost 1 pound this week. It's a start!  Let me know if you'd like to join us!  Susieloulou, Felicia and I would love to have you!

My friend Judy gave me this recipe many years. It was a recipe George’s aunt, Jesca, had shared with her. It was the first Cornbread Salad I had ever eaten. Although, I’ve had many versions since, this is still by far my favorite and the only one I personally make. I love having my recipes on my computer, mainly because it makes them so easy to share with others. There are few recipes though that I’ve purposefully never added to my computerized recipe file. This recipe is one of them. I just love taking out this old 5x7-inch ruled index card with Judy’s handwriting; love seeing her notation that the recipe was from Jesca; and love being reminded of that sweet, long-ago day in her kitchen on Poyner Street, where I took my first bite of Aunt Jesca’s Cornbread Salad. Great food! Great memories!   Aunt Jesca’s Cornbread Salad Fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes are best in this! Don’t go using low-fat mayo here! Cut calories elsewhere! Full-octane Hellman’s is the ticket for this parti...

 Creamy Crawfish Pasta We had been craving crawfish since we watched an episode of Alton Brown's Good Eats the other night. This dish satisfied our yearning! We love Alton Brown and always learn so much from his shows! On his crawfish episode, this brainy Marietta, Georgia resident gave validity to our calling this little crustacean - "craw" fish and not "cray" fish, as some would have us believe it should be called. We all know it's "craw"fish, right?!   Alton's Wikipedia bio says he's a Christian! I thought some of you might be interested in that! He genuinely seems like a really nice guy! I picked up a package of frozen, fully-cooked crawfish tails the other day and just sort of just threw this pasta dish together with things I had on hand. I thought it turned out really well. The family all raved, which is always a good sign! I didn't have any parsley in the fridge, but it would surely have added a nice touch of color to our p...

My sweet and hilariously funny blogging buddy, Mub , asked about Ro*tel tomatoes in the comment section under Cornbread Tomatoes . I thought I'd answer her question in a post, since some others might not be familiar with Ro*tel Tomatoes. Hey, Mub! Ro*tel Tomates are just canned stewed tomatoes that have been kicked-up with some green chillies. If you can't get Ro*tel tomatoes in the Netherlands, just throw in some canned green chillies or chopped jalapeno peppers with a can of stewed tomatoes. I'm not sure about the rest of the country (USA), but in the South, we do love us some Ro*tel tomatoes. We actually just call it Ro*tel. As in - "I added a can of Ro*tel, and it was just what that recipe needed!" I doubt there's hardly a pantry in my town without at least one can of Ro*tel. Most of us don't like to cut it that close though, so we keep several cans on hand. We put it in dips, stews, casseroles - whatever we're cookin' that we think needs...