Tonight's A Soup Night!

It's cold and wet outside. Which means Fall has truely kicked in! I love fall...for many reasons! The colors, smells, and feel are a few of my favorite reasons. I love to see all the trees changing colors, and luckily where I live all 4 seasons are very clear. And fall is beautiful! Especially now that we live at the base of the mountains...all those beautiful colors are right out our front door! I love the smell of fall. There is just something in the air...not to mention all the baking that goes on during this wonderful season. Pumpkin Pies, Cookies, Bread. And the feel of Autumn is great! Aside from days like today when it's so cold outside there is actually a dust of snow on the lawn, I love the feel of Autumn afternoons. It's nice and cool, a little breezy. Perfect for a stroll! It's finally soup season! I'll be looking for and posting lots of soup recipes this Fall/Winter. My favorite thing on a cool evening is some soup....followed by some hot cocoa and cookies! So first soup of the season is: Taco Soup

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1 can kidney beans
1 can corn
1 packet taco seasoning
1-1 1/2 cups of water
1 can tomato sauce
1 can stewed tomatoes

Directions:
-Brown ground beef
-In a medium sauce pan combine all ingredients
-Either simmer on low for 20-30 minutes OR throw it all in the crock-pot & cook on low for a few hours.

I serve mine with shredded cheddar cheese on top and some Fritos corn chips. The scoops are good to eat the soup with, or just the regular Fritos are good thrown on top. I made this soup VERY often last year. It's one of my favorites. One little tip: If you like milder soup-add more water...if you like spicier soup stick with the 1 cup. I put in 1-1/2 cups and it seems perfect. It's not too spicy for my 3 year old, and spicy enough for my husband and I.

Remember to e-mail your favorite recipes to me!
megcancook@yahoo.com

Home-Made Sloppy Joes

A girl at work and I swap recipes probably once a week. This week...neither of us had any good recipes. I had been craving Sloppy Joes, and my husband REFUSES to eat Manwich LoL! So I sat down and made up my own Sloppy Joe recipe. And it is DEE-LISH!!! I didn't really measure anything but here's an estimate of what I did use:

1 lb ground beef
1/2 a small onion-chopped
1 green bell pepper-chopped
1/2 bottle Honey BBQ sauce
1/4-1/2 cup brown sugar
1 can tomato paste
1 can tomato sauce


-Brown the ground beef, saute the onion and bell pepper with the ground beef
-Pour the BBQ sauce, tomato paste and brown sugar in a crock pot and let it warm
-Add the tomato sauce to the ground beef
-Mix the ground beef mixture into the brown sugar/BBQ sauce mixure
-cook on low all day!

It was soooo yummy! I planned on having left overs the next day but, my husband ate most of it and took the rest to work! So next time I'm doubling the amount so we'll have leftovers the next day! I was amazed at how well it turned out! I didn't even know what I was doing! Hahahaha! Ya'll should try it! It's super yummy!!!!!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are my son's favorite cookie!

1 cup shortening
2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin
4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

-Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease cookie sheets
-In large bowl, cream together shortening and sugar until smooth
-Beat in eggs, one at a time
-Stir in vanilla and pumpkin until well blended
-In another bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, & nutmeg. Then stir into the pumpkin mixture
-Mix in chocolate chips
-Drop by teaspoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheets
-Bake 12-15 minutes, until edges begin to brown
-Cool on wire racks

These cookies are really yummy! I think this recipe calls for a few less spices than most of the other pumpkin chocolate chip cookie recipes I've seen, so they may not have as much spice. But they still make your house smell super yummy and they're very tasty! Enjoy!

Cranberry Pork Chops

These were the best Pork Chops I have EVER made! My Hubby made them for me for mother's day I think earlier this year. I stuffed the recipe in my cook book and ran across it today. When hubby made them he made them in the crock pot and they were really yummy...but we both agreed they tasted much better tonight when I baked them!!! They had much more flavor! Here's the recipe:

1 can Jellied Cranberry Sauce
1 packet Onion Soup Mix
3-4 Boneless Pork Chops

-Put the Cranberry Sauce in a baking dish, and heat in the oven at 375 for about 15 minutes. This is just to kind of melt the sauce, so it is easier to spread on the chops. (You may even be able to do it in the microwave)
-Add 3/4 of the packet of Onion Soup Mix
-Nestle the Pork Chops in the sauce (I even spooned some sauce on top, which I think totally made all the flavor!)
-Bake covered at 375 for 30 minutes
-Uncover Chops and bake for about 5-7 more minutes

I served Roasted Red Potatoes with them and it was the best meal I've made in a long time! Here's my easy recipe for roasted potatoes. I've never actually made them in the oven, I haven't figured out how to bake potatoes at 450 degrees for 30 minutes, and bake meat at 375 for 30 minutes and have them be done at the same time...so the microwave works for this and they still taste great!!! Here's tonights recipe for potatoes:

4 Red Potatoes
2 TBS Olive Oil
The leftover Onion Soup Mix

-Quarter your potatoes
-Put the Olive Oil & Onion Soup Mix in a zip lock bag, add the quartered potatoes, seal and shake until the potatoes are well coated.
-Lay potatoes on a microwave safe plate and microwave on high for 10-12 minutes!

My family LOVED this meal! There were no leftovers whatsoever! It's a recipe I'll be keeping in the front of my cook book now for sure!!! I'm surprised I hadn't made it since my hubby made it for me! I was so excited when I found it!!! ENJOY!!!

Cream Of Chicken Soup Recipes

I bought a case of Cream Of Chicken Soup because it was a killer deal...now I need some recipes to use it in! I can only think of a few...so email me any and every recipe you have that calls for Cream of Chicken Soup! (Even recipes for Cream of Mushroom...no harm in substituting!) megcancook@yahoo.com
Thanks!!!

Quick Dinner Idea

I know its been a while...we've been crazy busy with moving and trying to settle in our new home =) our internet isn't connected here yet so forgive me...I'm posting this from my phone

Tonights Dinner: Baked Chicken & Potatoes
I rolled some chicken breasts in milk & eggs
Then rolled them in seasoned bread crumbs
Bake @ 375 degrees for about 35 mins.

I threw some baking potatoes in the microwave
And some canned corn on the stove.

Quick, Easy, & Tasty! Mission Accomplished

I'm A Slacker!

We have been SO BUSY lately...but I promise to post some more recipes when I get a chance! Keep checking back!

Super Yummy, Super Moist, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

I was craving this bread SO BAD last week! So I randomly pulled a recipe from allrecipes.com and wallah! It turned out GREAT! I made a few of my own adjustments, and I have never tasted or baked anything so moist in my life! Here's the recipe: (for 1 loaf of bread)

1/2 cup Butter (softened)
1 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
1 1/4 cups Pumpkin
2 cups Flour
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. Nutmeg
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/4 cup Chocolate Chips

-In large mixing bowl, cream butter. Gradually add sugar, eggs & pumpkin.
-Combine dry ingredients, then stir into creamed mixture and blend well.
-Stir in Chocolate Chips and Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes

This was a great recipe! The only things I changed was I used Apple Sauce instead of Butter (the exact same measurement) and of course ya have to double up on the chocolate chips! Using Apple Sauce sounds weird right? A lady at work told me a long time ago to use apple sauce instead of oil or butter when your baking, it cuts out a TON of fat and makes all your baked goods much more moist! And boy was she right!!!! I haven't tried this little trick with anything else, but I'm thinking I may try some cookies or something with it soon! We'll see how that goes!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

Does anyone have a good recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread? A lady at work brought some the other night, and left before I could even ask for the recipe. But it was really good! If you have one e-mail it to me please!
megcancook@yahoo.com

Chicken & Rice Casserole

I stirred up the idea from a dish my mother-in-law made for Father's day. I didn't really measure anything, and I made it a lot differently than I had planned. We cheated on Friday and ended up eating Pizza for dinner after a long, busy day. Which means I didn't have Casserole Saturday for my husband and I to take to work. I ended up taking some soup, and my husband went to subway. Anyway so Saturday when I came home from work at 4:00 a.m. the last thing I wanted to do was think of something, let alone try and make something easy for dinner on Sunday. But I knew if I didn't start something I wouldn't even come close to waking up in time to shower, get dressed, and make something decent for dinner. So when I came home I decided I'd try this casserole, crock pot style! And it was really good! Here's my recipe...or at least the ingredients hahaha!

1 container (16 oz.?) sour cream
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 cups cooked white rice
1 can green beans
Cheese (I used Cheddar-Jack)

I put some (2 table spoons?) sour cream on the bottom of the crockpot, seasoned my chicken with some garlic salt and pepper. Put the chicken in the crock pot and covered with about 1/3 of the sour cream and about 1/2 the can of soup. Then let it cook for 6-8 hours on low. When I woke up I made my 2 cups of rice. I added a little bit of the left over sour cream, and soup to the rice so it would stick together and stay moist, then I added the rest of the sour cream and soup to the chicken, shredded the chicken up and placed it over the rice in a casserole dish. Top that with some green beans & cheese and bake at 375 for about 15-20 minutes or until it's heated through and the cheese is melted!
This was a pretty tasty dish, it was a little bland though, I think next time I'd add some green onion to the top, and maybe cook the chicken with some onion & green pepper or something. But it was pretty good. My husband and son both ate it all up!