1lb lean Ground Beef
4 handfulls Wide Egg Noodles (im guessing about a cup each lol)
16 oz frozen peas & carrots

“Cream of ______ soup”
3 cups milk
3 tbsp flour (i just scooped some out with a wooden spoon)
1/4 c butter… or was that margarine? i think it was margarine..
salt, pepper

So, I browned some ground beef in a pan while boiling noodles. When the beef was nearly done I turned the burner off and let it sit there. When the noodles were almost done I turned the heat off & grabbed a cookbook to see what kind of sauce I might add to this.  I looked up beef stroganoff to see if that’s what I was thinking of, it was, but I didn’t have canned cream of mushroom soup and I didn’t really want to add sour cream. I looked up cream of mushroom soup on a whim and discovered that it’s very simple. So… I drained the noodles & dumped them on top of the ground beef (I didnt strain the meat because there was no visible oil or fat in the bottom) Then I just made some soup without the mushrooms, or the celery, or the onions. Then I mixed the peas & carrots in after it had thickend up. Then I put the noodles & beef back in. It didn’t taste all that great. I was like o.o oops. So I added garlic, onion, basil, oregano… and maybe some other things to it. Then it still tasted weird and i went… there’s been like no salt in this. I added some and it tasted way better. Funny how that is. Oh, then cause I was waiting for ppl it started to cool off and thicken up a lot, so I put it back on the stove and dumped some more milk in, like half a cup im guessing is all that was in there, and stirred it in. People came around pretty quickly after that. I would NOT reccomend cooking this food in this order, but it worked. Everyone (even miss “EW ITS GRAVY”) loved it. I guess I do have a big of my mom in me after all

So here’s what I would probably do in the future: (i try to write it kind-of-like a cookie bookie)

Brown the ground meat & Cook the noodles according to package directions (I was going to put these at the same time as the sauce, but then i realized it needs more attention than that) 

Put the milk, margarine, flour, salt, pepper, and whatever spices you like in a pan, cook over medium heat until it boils and thickens, stirring well so it doesn’t burn.

Mix it all together adding any vegetables you want (fresh vegetables should probably be cooked before added to this all so liquids don’t dillute the sauce too much)

o.o lol can cooking be this easy?

Thank you so much Roni. I was browsing your recipes hoping to get an idea for dinner and I saw your Sweet Pork Stir Fry and thought “hmm that would be good with chicken too, and we have all the stuff.”

So, I put some frozen chicken in a bowl to thaw out, and started on dessert. I made the dough for Chewy Molasses-Ginger Cookies out of my mothers “Favorite Desserts Made Lighter” cookbook. Put it in the fridge, then started dinner.

I put 2 cups of uncooked Brown Rice and 5 cups of water in a pan, set it over medium-high heat (or 7 on our stove)  as per package instructions. Then I started cutting up chicken (6 large boneless skinless chicken breasts). When the chicken was all cut up, I put it in a skillet. I then went to get the orange juice. To my surprise, there wasn’t any. I decided, ok, lemon juice won’t be so bad. But I couldn’t find that either. At this point I didn’t know what I was going to do. So I started looking for lemon juice in the cupboard. and YES! I found one. Then I noticed it had turned to vinegar,like usual. Don’t store lemon juice very long in the cupboard, even unopened. Then, after I threw out the lemon juice, I found a can of Pineapple Bits in juice. I strained the juice off of them, just under a cup, I put it all in. While cooking the chicken I noticed the pan wasn’t quite big enough for that much so I got out another skillet and split it in two.  I was trading off cutting the peppers and stirring chicken when I noticed a pineapple bit managed to get into the skillet and I thought “MMMM PINEAPPLE” After this, when I came back to the computer to see what Roni put in her sauce, I saw that a commenter had mentioned they included the pineapple too which made me even more confident about my idea (thanks). I decided to leave the onion out of the sauce because I had cut up half of an onion with my peppers. For the sauce I used 1/2 c soy sauce, 1 tbsp ginger, about 2/3 c water with about 1tbsp cornstarch dissolved in it before mixing with other ingredients. Here are some photos of the skillets just before I put the peppers in, the Onions are already added. Also included are photos of  the peppers I was about to add, I didn’t measure them but I”m guessing it was like 8 cups.

I put those in the skillet & mixed up my sauce & added that too. I put lids on the pans & after a few minutes I added the pineapple. I let those cook while I cleaned up the counter. Then I transfered them to bowls. I was about to cover the bowls with foil to stay warm when everyone came home! It was perfect timing

 

 After dinner I finished my cookies. Here’s a few pictures of them.

Chicken Casserole & Cheese Biscuits 

Ingredients: What’s in your Fridge, Freezer, & Cupboards? This recipe has a LOT of room for variation.

Prep time : 15 (?) min
Bake time : 1 hr
Serves : 8-10
Calories per serving : ?
Points per serving : ?

Casserole:

My Mom has the envious skill of making a casserole (or soup) out of whatever is handy. I tried to pay attention today as she cooked so I would know what was in my food. She dumped about 4 cups cut up chicken breast (leftover from chicken salad), A 16oz bag of frozen mixed veggies (on hand in the freezer) into a dark glass 9×13x2″ pan. In her big  measuring cup (10cup I think) she measured 4 cups of water and dissolved 1 packet Mushroom Gravy (calls for 1 cup water) 1 packet Chicken Gravy (calls for 1 cup water) and 1 packet Turkey Gravy (calls for 3cups water) She poured this over the veggies & meat. She then stirred in about 2 cups of uncooked white rice. Then she put it all in a 350 oven and started some biscuits.

I wasn’t in the room for the full duration of the biscuits but I know they were Bisquick mix, milk, garlic, some green spices, and cheddar cheese.  When she put these in the oven she moved the casserole to the bottom shelf. The casserole was in for an hour. Not sure on the biscuits, they came out at the same time though.

Biscuits:

Bisquick
Garlic w/ Parsley (”California blend”)
Chives
& something else green… i forgot… Basil? =/
Milk - we usually have 2% from the store & whole farm-fresh that gets delivered from a local dairy. I think mom used the 2%

My mom just scoops & pours when she cooks so I have no idea the ratio on this. It was about 5-8 cups Bisquick mix (i know this is a huge range but hey, I was just watching) and then she sprinkled (dumped :P) garlic over the top, I didn’t even see her put the other herbs in, she just told me they were in there, some shredded cheddar cheese, and then enough milkto make it the right consistency for drop biscuits. Each biscuit was made from approximately 1/8 -1/4 c mix. Drop evenly on a baking sheet (OK if they almost touch) and put in with your casserole!

Notes:
Initially she was going to put a few cans of Cream of _____ soup in, but we didn’t have anything of the sort, so she pulled out gravy packets.
1/8 cup = 2 tbsp

1/3 c dry Original Bisquick contains 160 calories, 5g fat, 1g fiber, 3g protein

I just found a website that counts calories on recipes based on your input.

Here’s a recipe for bran muffins hyperlinked to the website.

These muffins are appx 127 calories each and can be made in the microwave.

Bran Muffins - 10 min prep, 20 min bake

1 1/2  cups wheat bran cereal (Kellogs brand selected for use in calculation)
1/2 cup boiling water
1 large egg, beaten
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400*F. Coat 12 muffin cups with cooking spray
Combine cereal and boiling water in large bowl. Stir and let stand 1 minute.
Stir in egg, flour, oil,  baking soda, and salt until blended.
Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, dividing equally.
Bake muffins until golden brown, 18-22 minutes. Remove from pans immediately and cool on wire racks.

Batter can be stored in refrigerator for up to 4 weeks. Muffins can be ‘baked’ one at a time in the microwave by filling a paper liner 2/3 full of batter and microwaving on high 45-60 seconds. Microwaves vary, you may need to adjust power and/or time.

 I really liked these muffins when I made them, I’ve never tried doing them in the microwave, the recipe just says that they can be.

I’ll have to find the recipe for the dressing later but I really wanted to write this recipe in here while I was thinking about it.  I’ll add more exact quantities later too

Shredded Green Cabbage
Matchstick or finely chopped carrots - grated doesn’t work too well, they get all soft and yucky
Some stores sell a “Cole Slaw Mix” that works well for this
Shredded or pulled chicken. I used Boneless Skinless chicken breasts.

umm and then theres the dressing… I’ll have to get that for you all. This salad is oh so yummy… I know the dressing has a little oil in it, and i think it might have sugar too. I have it all written down someplace, I’ll add it in later. When I add the rest of the ingredients if someone would be so kind as to give me an estimate on calories and/or WW points so I can provide it fore everyone else that would be really nice !!