Easy Veggie Pot Pie

Ingredients

• 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of potato soup

• 1/2 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup

• 1 (15 ounce) can mixed vegetables, drained *

• 1 (7 ounce) can corn

• ½ cup milk **

• ½ teaspoon dried thyme

• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper

• 2 (9 inch) frozen prepared pie crusts, thawed

• 2 Morning Star Farms Buffalo Chicken Patties cut up

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Steps

1.  Line your 9" pie dish with one of the pie crusts

2.  Microwave the buffalo patties for a minute, enough to cut into chunks

3.  In a bowl mix all of the ingredients

4.  Add mixture to the pie crust

5.  Add the top pie crust and fork edges around the rim and cut off excess

6.  Bake at 375F for 40 minutes

Notes

     You can heat up the other half of the cream of mushroom to pour over afterward.

*   Del Monte makes a mixed vegetable with celery

** I used heavy cream and will try a variation with plain almond milk

• Here's the original source the above recipe includes my variations

Cheddar Vegetable Squares

 Ingredients

• 1 onion
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 lb. mixed frozen vegetables, about 4 cups
• 1/2 tsp. dried marjoram
• Salt and pepper
• 6 oz. cheddar cheese, about 1 1/2 cups grated
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup Bisquick

Directions

• Heat oven to 350 degrees F
• Butter a 1 1/2-qt. baking dish
• Chop onion
• In a large frying pan, heat the oil over medium heat
• Add onion, cover and cook until tender (about 5 min)
• Add frozen vegetables, marjoram, 3/4 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper
• Cook until tender, stirring occasionally (about 5 min)
• Meanwhile, grate cheese and beat eggs with salt
• Transfer vegetable misture to a bowl
• Stir in Bisquick, 1 cup of the cheese, and the egg mixture until well combined
• Transfer to the prepared backing dish
• Sprinkle top with remaining 1/2 cup of cheese
• Bake until puffed and set (about 25 min)

Nutrition and details

Work time:  25 min

Total time:  50 min

Serves 6

Per serving: 

Calories  -  375 

Protein  -  15 g

Fat  -  25 g

Sodium  -  944 g

Carb  -  25 g

Cholesterol  -  171 mg

Austin Date-Nut Bread

Ingredients: 

1 cup dates finely chopped
2 tsp baking soda
2 cups boiling water
2 Tbsp butter creamed
2  cups sugar
2 eggs
4 cups flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts
Pam

Directions: 

Put chopped dates in a bowl, sprinkle baking soda over dates, pour boiling water over dates and baking soda. Set aside and let cool.

Mix together butter, eggs, vanilla and sugar.

In a large bowl put flour, add date mixture, add sugar mixture. Mix thoroughly. Add nuts and mix thoroughly again.

Spray tins with Pam

Divide evenly into 3 tins.

Bake at 325 degrees for 1hour and 15 minutes to an 1 hour and a half.

Check at 1 hour and 15 min to see if done. If not continue for a few more minutes.

I usually turn oven on just before I put the mixture in the tins. By the time I finished the oven is heated up.

Tins:

7 1/2 tall
3  5/8 across
As close as you can get. A little narrower will not matter. It does rise so you have to allow room for that.

Mexican Dip

16 oz cream cheese
24 oz sour cream
1-16 oz jar of salsa
Sliced Green onions (scallions)
Sliced Black olives
Chopped Green Pepper
Chopped Tomato
Grated cheddar cheese

Mix cream cheese and sour cream
Spread in 9x12 serving dish
Pour salsa over cream cheese/sour cream mixture
Layer:
  Green Onion, Olives, Green pepper, and Tomato
Top with grated cheddar

Serve with crackers or tortilla chips

Saucy Cocktail Franks

2 Cans cranberry sauce
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1/3 cup Dijon
1 pack of cocktail franks

Heat in crock pot for 1 hr

Marshmallow Christmas Wreaths

1 Stick of Butter
6 cups of corn flakes
1 bag of marshmallows
green food coloring
cinnamon red hots
paper plates

This recipe is a fun-filled holiday recipe that is similar to Rice Crispy Treats substituting corn flakes for the Rice Krispies.  The corn flakes replicate leaves in a wreath.  The green also replicates the festive green holly leaves for the holiday theme.  The red hots represent the holly buds.

• Melt the stick of butter on low - be sure let the butter get halfway up the sides of the pot to avoid sticking.  
• Melt the marshmallows until smooth.
• Add food coloring to desired tint (I used about 40-50 drops to get a darker color)
• Add corn flakes and stir thoroughly so the green marshmallow gets spread over as much of the corn flakes as possible.  
• If you are making larger wreaths, this makes 3-4 wreaths on larger paper plates.  If using smaller paper plates is should make about 10-12.
• Form the cornflake marshmallow mixture in wreath shapes on the paper plates.
• If your simmer burner won't burn the marshmallow mixture it is good to add the red hots while the marshmallow mixture is still sticky.  You can always microwave a wreath for 20 seconds to soften and allow it to get sticky again.
• Place red hots around the wreath to the desired density.
• Wrap in cling wrap or zip lock bags to store.

Great holiday treats for party or gifts.

Steps along the way:

Creamy Pasta Jumbalaya

Ingredients

Meat choices:

Andouille Sausage

Shrimp

Chicken

As a vegetarian: 

There is no substitute for the Andouille Sausage, but try to get a spicy veggie sausage.

For the chicken you can find many substitutes.

As for the shrimp, sorry there just isn't an option that I've found.

Pasta:

Fettuccine or linguine

Sauce:

1 qt. Cream

1/4 pound (1 stick) Butter (you can use garlic butter or olive oil as an alternative)

1 Tbsp minced Garlic (alternatively you can use just garlic powder) 

Garlic powder (even with the minced garlic, yes... wait you'll see)

1 tsp Cayenne Pepper

1 tsp Paprika

Salt (to taste)

Black Pepper (to taste)

Steps

Pasta

Boil water for pasta 

Cook pasta according to box directions

Prepare the meats

Cut chicken into small 1/2 x 1 inch pieces

Cook chicken (we seasoned with salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder)

Cut sausage into 1/4 inch disks

Brown sausage

Shrimp thaw and season (we used pre-cooked shrimp & seasoned to taste) we still heat up the shrimp with the seasonings in the pan before adding it to the sauce

Creamy Sauce

Put butter in sauce pan and sauté garlic

Add cream and stir

Add dry seasons and stir

Bring sauce on medium heat to a boil (stir often)

Adjust seasoning to taste (this is where the garlic powder comes in... once you've sautéed the garlic you it isn't the same to just add more minced garlic if you want a stronger, spicier flavor - the garlic powder does just that)

Simmer sauce and add meat for the time it takes the pasta to cook (about 10-15 minutes)

If you feel the sauce needs to cook down more, do so.

When pasta is ready ladle meat sauce over pasta.

Enjoy!

Nutritional information... don't ask.  If you knew, you probably wouldn't eat it. :)

Great with bread to dip in sauce - as if there weren't enough calories in this to begin with. :)