Sausage gravy & biscuits

If you asked my family if ever they thought they'd see the day where I not only willingly ate sausage gravy and biscuits, yet alone cooked it myself, they would call you crazy. For the longest time I was very against sausage in any form; ground, patties, links. Well, I'm living proof that tastes change over time. I had a can of biscuits in the fridge and sausage was on sale $3/pound at my farmer's market. I couldn't resist buying a nice, fresh ground pound and trying my hand at this artery-clogging breakfast favorite.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound sausage
1 can biscuits
2 cups milk
2 tbsp flour
Salt & pepper

 Step 1: Brown the sausage in a frying pan. Once fully cooked, remove the sausage, drain the fat and set aside.

 Step 2: Bake the biscuits in a 350 oven for 10-12 minutes.

 Step 3: Add the flour to the pan, slowly whisk in the milk. Add all the milk, and bring to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste.

 Step 4: Add the cooked sausage back in and mix well. Pour over warm biscuits and enjoy!

I can feel my taste buds cheering, and my arteries crying...

Cheeseburger Mac

This classic student-loved recipe is still delicious as an "adult", though you can fancy it up with different cheeses and noodle shapes if you want. Super simple to make yet very filling. It's like macaroni & cheese only beefier.

Ingredients:
1 pound of macaroni
2 cups of cheese (any kind, shredded or cubed)
1 pound of ground beef
1 cup of milk

Step 1: Boil the macaroni for about 7 minutes, until al dente. Meanwhile, brown the ground beef and drain the fat.

 Step 2: Drain the pasta, add it back to the pan. Add in the cheese and milk, heat until the cheese melts, stirring often so the cheese doesn't burn to the bottom of the pan. Add the beef back in, mix well.

I used half cheddar and half pepper jack cheese, so it was a little tangy. I'd recommend trying it. You can use any kind of cheese and noodle shape you want, and even add veggies if you're feeling crazy.

Crock pot: Creamy chicken & corn

Apparently this post is brought to you by the letter C. 

This is just something I came up with to continue using up things in the pantry and freezer, mixed with a love of Crock Pot cooking ease. If you've kept up on posts, you know I recently moved and have one huge box full of canned things as well as a shelf in the freezer I'm trying to eat my way through before I move to my next place in a few weeks... Anyways, so this recipe used up two cans and some chicken, as well as a box of rice. And it tasted great! (In case you're concerned about that...)

Ingredients:

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 cup milk

1 cup corn (or other frozen veggie)

1 box rice side or 1 cup rice cooked

Frozen chicken - I used drumsticks because that's what I found first. Thighs would work, as well as breasts or a whole chicken, just use another can of soup and extra milk for sauce if you use more than about 8 oz.

 Step 1: Spray the inner lining of the slow cooker. Add the soup and milk, mix together. Add the corn and chicken, cover and cook on low 6 hours or high 4+. I wouldn't recommend less than 4 hours on high for frozen chicken, you want to make sure its cooked through and not get Salmonella poisoning. And Crock pots nearly never burn so feel free to leave it on low for a good long while.

Step 2: Before serving, cook your rice. You could use any of those $1 rice sides that go on sale regularly, or plain rice cooked. Add spices or extra veggies, soy sauce, sriracha, whatever you like to flavor the rice. Then put the chicken on top and pour on a scoop of corn cream sauce. The sauce is thick and creamy and the sweetness of the corn went perfectly with the wild rice I chose to serve it over. Delightful.


(Disclaimer: My boyfriend actually did the crock pot cooking part! So any guys reading, take note! You can use this simple recipe to impress the heck out of a new flame or long-time love with next to no effort on your part. Crock pots are culinary wonders for the cooking impaired, busy and/or lazy person.)

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Simple and filling, tuna noodle casserole has been a mainstay throughout my childhood. With very few ingredients, it is a great fall-back weeknight dinner for when I don't feel like cooking something extravagant. And it also is a great dorm food, believe it or not. I used to make a super-poor version as an undergrad student all the time! You can use a microwave and a pack of Ramen noodles to make delicious tuna noodle casserole. Just heat the noodles in the microwave for 5 minutes, let cool a bit and drain. Add a can of drained tuna and a can of cream of mushroom, mix it up and enjoy! If you get the soup on sale it can cost less than a dollar. This is the grown-up version, bulked up with extra veggies and baked to a crispy finish!

Ingredients:
1/2 pack egg noodles
2 cans tuna, drained
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 celery rib, diced
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup peas & carrots
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
Garlic salt

Step 1: Open & drain the tuna, mix it in a bowl with the cream of mushroom soup.

Step 2: Boil the noodles for ~8 minutes. Add the diced celery in the last 5 minutes of cooking. Drain the noodles and celery.

Step 3: Mix the noodles into the tuna mush, and add the peas & carrots.

Step 4: Spray an 8x8 casserole dish and pour the mixture into it. Add the 1/2 cup milk and let it sink in.

Step 5: Sprinkle the breadcrumbs and garlic salt on top.

Step 6: Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, or until bubbly and golden brown on top.

Makes roughly 4 1 1/2 cup servings. Warm and homey, this is a great easy dinner. You can add whatever veggies you feel like, or dried onion and other spices.

Applesauce oatmeal breakfast muffins

Most mornings I enjoy waking up early enough to make myself a big warm breakfast. But some days I'm just too tired to wake up early. So over the weekend I decided to make myself some muffins that I can freeze and reheat any time. I found a recipe for Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins, and changed it a bit. I added nuts and dried fruit to add a little crunch and flavor. This recipe made 18 muffins, and I would probably eat 2 at a time because they were small. But at just over 50 calories each, that's an indulgence I don't have to feel guilty about!

Ingredients:
1 cup old fashion rolled oats (not instant)
1 cup non-fat milk
1 cup flour
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 egg whites
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. sugar
1 oz chopped mixed nuts
3 diced dried prunes

Step 1: Mix the milk, oats, egg whites and applesauce. Spray a muffin tin and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

 Step 2: In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients, fruit and nuts of choice.

 Step 3: Mix the wet & dry ingredients, and spoon into the muffin tins.

 Step 4: Bake at 400 for 20 minutes, until dry all the way through and brown on top.

Step 5: Cool and enjoy! Adding 1 cup sugar or brown sugar would likely make them taste even better, but would add more calories.

Extra Creamy Ham & Scalloped Potatoes

So I had bought a small chunk of ham for sandwiches, and still had a few slices left. I wanted to use them up, and I also had some potatoes, of course my first thought was ham & scalloped potatoes! It's one of my favorite baked dishes, and sounded like a good idea. In order to get my boyfriend to eat it, I added his favorite ingredient: sour cream. To rationalize it to myself as healthy, I added veggies: green onion and corn.

Ingrdients:

2 small potatoes, peeled and sliced thin

1/4 cup flour

1 cup ham, cubed

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup cheddar cheese

1/2 container sour cream

1/2 cup corn

1/4 cup sliced green onion

Natures Seasoning, or salt & pepper to taste

Step 1: Peel the potatoes and slice as thinly as possible. Lay half in the bottom of a greased 8x8 dish. Sprinkle the flour and seasoning over them.

 Step 2: Layer on the diced ham. Spread a thin layer of sour cream, sprinkle in some green onion and corn kernels.

 Step 3: Repeat potato, ham, sour cream and veggie layers.

 Step 4: Cover with the rest of the sour cream & cheddar cheese. Pour in the milk.

 Step 5: Cover with aluminum foil, bake at 350 for 1 1/2 hours. Uncover, bake another 15-20 minutes, until browned and bubbly.

 Step 6: Serve and enjoy!

This is a perfect hot & hearty full meal for cold fall/winter days. Great for after major holidays too, when ham goes on sale!

Coconut cream pie

Well, since I had almost a whole can of cream of coconut leftover from my Indian curry, I didn't want to waste it. So I looked online forever trying to find a recipe for which I had all the ingredients. With some creativity, I could doctor this recipe for coconut cream pie and make a dessert to go with the curry.

Ingredients:

1 can cream of coconut

1/2 cup flour

3 cups skim milk

4 egg yolks (I saved the whites to make breakfast omelettes the next day!)

1 tbsp vanilla flavoring

1 tsp almond flavoring

3 tbsp butter

1 package Jiffy pie crust mix

4 tbsp cold water

 Step 1: Mix coconut, milk and flour in a pan and bring to a boil. Simmer on low heat until mixture gets nice and thick.

 Step 2: While boiling milk mixture, add water to Jiffy mix, and roll flat. Bake the crust in the oven at 350-400 for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

 Step 3: Slowly stir the hot milk mixture into the beaten egg yolks, then put back into the pan and simmer 5 more minutes.

 Step 4: Pour the whole thing into the pie crust, and let it cool. Once cool enough to touch, you can refrigerate until ready to eat.

I added a sprinkle of cinnamon on top, but if I had whipped cream you better believe I would put that on it too! This is perfect for me because I like the flavor of coconut, but absolutely hate the texture of shredded coconut. Win-win.