Spinach Ricotta Bites

I found this recipe on Weelicious YEARS ago and I still make it regularly. It's one of my favorite breakfasts and snacks. My daughter will eat them too, which is a huge win. I get 24 minis but you can also make it in a regular muffin tin and have larger servings, just adjust cooking time accordingly.

Spinach Ricotta Bites

2 Tbsp Butter
1 Small Yellow Onion, chopped
1 Garlic Clove, minced
2 Large Eggs, Beaten
1 Cup Ricotta Cheese
1/2 Cup Mozzarella Cheese, shredded
1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese, Grated
1 10 Oz Pkg Frozen Chopped Spinach, defrosted and drained, or you can cook fresh spinach in with the butter and onions and then drain it
1/4 Tsp Salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat and cook the onions for 4 minutes until tender.
3. Add the garlic and cook an additional minute then set aside to cool.
4. Whisk eggs in a bowl and stir in ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.
5. Once combined, stir in spinach, salt and cooled onion and garlic mixture.
6. Pour the mixture into lightly greased mini muffin cups.
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the filling is set and golden on top.
8. Serve.

Easy Shredded Chicken

How many times do you want to make a recipe and realize one of the ingredients is cooked chicken? I used to sigh and toss those recipes aside, as I knew I didn't have time to do double cooking - who wants to cook chicken and then cook a whole meal? I also hated dicing or shredding the hot chicken. I always burned my fingers doing that, or if I waited until it was cool I could dice it but shredding it was a total pain.

Enter my kitchenaid mixer. I'll never forget the day I realized I could use the paddle attachment to shred my chicken for me. What a life saver! I can throw the hot cooked chicken breasts right in and the mixer shreds them up easily. The key is to do quick bursts of the mixer, don't just turn it on full blast or it'll throw the chicken right out of the bowl. Put a few breasts in, pulse it until you like the level of shredding, then dump it into a large bowl to the side and do the next few breasts. Repeat until it's all shredded.

SO for a while after this realization, I would boil boneless skinless chicken and then shred it in my mixer. Then I would do large batches in my crock pot, which was great, but it took all day to cook them. Still better than boiling, but not fast.

THEN I got my Instant Pot. Hello! Now I don't even have to deal with boiling chicken anymore! I can cook 5 lbs of chicken at once - I just throw it in the instant pot with some water, set it to pressure cook, and walk away.

I actually keep cooked, shredded chicken in my freezer now so I can use it in recipes as needed. I even keep some seasoned with taco seasoning. So convenient!

Whichever method you use to cook your chicken is fine. I highly recommend the Instant Pot for cooking chicken because it's so fast and easy but if you don't have one, go ahead and use the crock pot if you have time, or boil it on the stove if you are in a hurry.

Brandy Butter Waffles with Cinnamon Sugar

Sometimes leftovers just beg to be reinvented. Such was the case with the brandy butter in the fridge. I imagined it would be delicious on waffles and no one was disappointed! A sprinkling of cinnamon sugar on top was the perfect touch. This is really a dessert but if you don't mind a sugary breakfast, go for it!

Brandy Butter Waffles with Cinnamon Sugar

3/4 cup Milk or Water
2 large Eggs
1 1/2 cups Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix (I buy this in the bulk 25-lb bag)
2 tsp Cinnamon
1-2 tsp Chia Seeds, optional

Preheat waffle iron. Mix all ingredients well. Pour onto hot greased waffle iron and bake until done. Remove to serving plate, top with brandy butter sauce and a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar.

Stuffed Peppers with Ground Beef and Quinoa

This recipe makes a big batch of stuffed peppers. I threw it together when I accidentally bought more bell peppers, not realizing I already had some, so I wanted to use them up. You can halve the recipe if you want to make less, or freeze half of the filling for a quick dinner another day. My daughter likes the filling by itself so I regularly keep filling in the freezer for her.

Stuffed Peppers

6-8 Bell Peppers, prepped for stuffing. Remove the tops, rinse out the seeds, and remove the white bits from the inside. Arrange them in a baking dish so they will stand up.

1 1/4 cups Quinoa

2 cups Water

1/2 tsp Salt

1 lb Ground Beef

1 Onion, diced

3-4 Carrots, shredded or diced

2 14oz cans Tomato Sauce (or 1 28oz can)

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Pepper

2 tsp Oregano

2 tsp Basil

1 cup Cheese, shredded - you can use Cheddar, Colby Jack, Mexican Blend, whatever

Rinse quinoa, then add to water and 1/2 tsp salt in a pot with a lid. Bring to a boil uncovered, then turn the heat down to low and cover with lid. Let it simmer for 12-15 minutes until you don't see much liquid left. Turn off the heat and let it sit with the lid still on for another few minutes. 

While the quinoa is cooking, brown the ground beef. Add the onions and carrots, and saute until softened. 

When quinoa is done, add tomato sauce and seasoning, as well as the meat and veggie mixture. Mix well. 

For each pepper, put a pinch of cheese in first. Then layer in some of the meat/quinoa mixture. Then cheese, then meat. Pack it in so the pepper is totally stuffed. End with meat mixture on top.

Bake at 350* for about 20 minutes, until the pepper is tender. Top each pepper with additional cheese and serve.

Lasagna Roll-ups

Lasagna is such a crowd pleaser. It's a lot easier to make a huge pan of lasagna with the Oven-Ready noodles, or fixing a Crock-Pot full of lasagna, so if you are feeding a big family, I recommend going one of those routes.

But if you want to have smaller portions available, for just 1 or 2 dinners or even lunches, these are fantastic. They are a little more work on the front end, but the convenience of the portions is worth it. Plus you are guaranteed to get the right proportion of noodles and cheese, which is really important to me. I don't like noodle hogs leaving me with too much ricotta. ;)

This is also a fantastic dish to make ahead and freeze. See directions below!  The pictures below show a double batch of roll-ups.

Lasagna Roll-ups

Ingredient List for a single batch:

1 box regular Lasagna Noodles

24 oz (1.5 lbs) Ricotta Cheese 

2 Eggs

3/4 cup Parmesan Cheese, grated

3/4 cup Mozarella Cheese, shredded

1 Tbsp Basil

1 Tbsp Parsley

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Pepper

Marinara Sauce - you can use jars of sauce, or make it from scratch. Here is my "super easy" recipe that starts with a pizza sauce base. I have been adding lots of veggies to it lately though (diced onion, bell pepper, shredded carrots, shredded zucchini, etc.)

Step 1. Boil Lasagna Noodles according to package directions. I use my giant stock pot for this job, so the noodles have plenty of room to move around in the boiling water. If you are using a regular pot, you may need to cook the noodles in smaller batches. I was able to cook 20 noodles (the whole box) in my big 12 qt stock pot.

While the noodles are cooking, lay out aluminum foil and give it a quick spray with oil to keep the noodles from sticking to it. When the noodles are done, lay them out on the foil. Be careful, they will be hot!

Step 2: Combine all filling ingredients. I use my Kitchenaid Mixer for this. Spread filling over each noodle. 

Step 3: Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll up the noodles and place them seam-side down on the tray. It's ok if they are close but you don't want them to be touching. Freeze.

Step 4: Once frozen, package the rollups into freezer bags. I just put them all in one gallon-size ziploc and pull out however many I want to cook at a time. Freeze.

To cook, just put them in your baking dish, top with marinara sauce, and bake at 350° until bubbly, about 30 minutes. Top with mozarella cheese and bake for an extra 5 minutes until melted. You can make 1 or 2 in a small dish, or cook a larger batch for the whole family.

Optional: Put in your family's serving size in a ziploc, add 2 cups of marinara sauce to each bag and freeze. For my family I would put in 6 rollups, since we make 2 for each adult and one for each child. When ready to cook, cut away the bag, put the contents into a baking dish, cover with foil and bake at 350° until bubbly. It will take close to an hour this way. Top with mozzarella and bake an extra 5 minutes, then serve.

Lemon Cupcakes

This year for her birthday party, Alexa wanted to have lemon cupcakes in addition to vanilla. She ended up not loving them, but I sure did and I think all of the other adults did too. My mom loved them so much she decided to make them for her birthday, too. :)

Lemon Cupcakes

1 cup white Sugar
1/2 cup Butter
2 Eggs
2 tsp Vanilla
1.5 cups Flour
1 3/4 tsp Baking Powder
Zest and Juice of 2 Lemons
1/2 cup Milk

Preheat oven to 350*. Line cupcake pan with paper liners.

In mixing bowl, cream sugar and butter. Add eggs one at a time, and then vanilla. 

Add flour and baking powder, mixing until combined. Add lemon zest and juice, then stir in the milk until it makes a smooth batter.

Spoon into muffin cups and then bake for about 20 minutes or until done. The tops will be golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake should come out clean.

Let cupcakes cool.

We frosted them with vanilla whipped cream - Whip heavy whipping cream in mixer with whisk attachment, or in vitamix. Add sweetener (I sometimes use liquid stevia but this time I used powdered sugar) and a splash of vanilla.

To enhance the lemon flavor, add a tablespoon of lemon juice and the zest of another lemon to the whipped cream. You may need to add sweetener - just taste it and add some if needed.

Easy Homemade Garlic Knots

I don't know what took me so long to try this. We are in trouble now.

I stole some pizza dough and made garlic knots out of it, before rolling out the rest into pizza crusts. They were amazing and I'll have to triple my recipe forever now so I have enough extra dough to make garlic knots.

Garlic Knots

Make pizza dough as usual. I'll include the recipe below, and here is the link for the full directions in case you haven't read them before. The preheated pizza stone is the key to the pizza crust.

Preheat oven (I used a toaster oven) to 350*. 

When the dough has risen, pull off bits and roll into a snake between your hands until it's about 6 inches long. Then tie into a knot and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Brush with Garlic Herb Butter and bake for about 20 minutes or until light brown on the bottoms. The tops of mine did not brown much at all. Brush with additional butter, if desired, and serve.

Garlic Herb Butter

1/4 cup Butter
1/4 tsp Salt
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Parsley
2 cloves Garlic, minced

Mix all ingredients well. I recommend making extra for dipping your garlic knots, and your pizza crust, and really you can just put it on top of your pizza....


Pizza Dough

1 tsp Active Dry Yeast
2/3 cup Warm Water (not hot)
2 cups Flour (white, whole wheat, or combo - if 100% WW I recommend whole wheat pastry flour)
1 tsp Salt
2 Tbsp Olive Oil

If you like a thicker crust, just double the recipe.  My pictures show a double batch.

Combine ingredients in mixer with dough hook, lock it down if your mixer has a locking mechanism, and let it go at low speed for 15 minutes.   Spray with olive oil and cover with a towel.  

Let rise for 1 hour in a warm area.  If your house is cold, go ahead and heat your oven, and set the bowl on the stovetop.  If you have laundry drying in the dryer, that's another place you could let it rise. I usually just leave mine in the kitchen but I'm in Florida and it's rarely cold in there.