what’s cooking

I didn’t realize that I never posted a “What’s Cooking” last week so today’s post will be composed of two weeks worth of recipes.

Spasagna – Remember the banana pudding poke cake I made a few weeks ago… Yeah it was yummy!  I saw the same blogger had this recipe which seemed interesting and thought would make a nice spin for our italian night… Ironically we went to Cheddars the other day and my daughter got their version.. I’m proud to say she likes mommy’s better!

Sweet and Sour Chicken Bundles – Last year I was looking through the Family Fun magazine while waiting for my youngest to finish ballet and saw these things.  Now I took a picture of the magazine page so after doing hunting I found the recipe online here.  With me being a vegetarian mine were just veggies which was some coleslaw mix/peppers/pineapple and the girls had the chicken mixed in.  Oh these were SOOOOO yummy and went well with veggie fried rice… you have to try these!

Apple Dumplings – I saw this recipe on the Trisha Yearwood cooking show and had to try it.  This is SOOO easy all you need is canned biscuits, apples, sugar, and lemon.  The recipe calls for cinnamon BUT with my youngest having the allergic reaction to it I just added some brown sugar to it.  They tasted great and plan on making them again.  Great thing was we had some biscuits leftover which my girls like making sandwiches out of.

Toasted Ravioli – I’ve had these at a restaurant and thought hey let me make them at home.  I used this recipe from Plain Chicken as a guide.  I don’t purchase bread crumbs for I make them from scratch using the ends of a loaf of bread and mixing in some italian seasons.  These were okay but I want to try it again with refrigerated ravioli versus frozen ones.

Homemade French Toast Sticks – As a way to cut on costs I’m really trying to make more food from scratch rather than buying processed foods.  In addition to saving money we will have healthier food and not chance all the nasty preservatives.  So the first thing I tackled was french toast sticks..I knew I didn’t want to fry them and want to make enough to freeze for weekday breakfast.  Iowa Girl Eats is a blog I’ve been following since summer and she had the perfect recipe which was a success(didn’t have enough to freeze for the girls ate them all)!  Naturally I modified the recipe by not using cinnamon, but I sprinkled brown and white sugar on them for that extra sweet taste.

Slow Cooker Hoppin’ John – I can say I like using my slow cooker and want to try to make a recipe with it each week.  We had cans of black eye peas in the cupboard that I needed to cook so made this hoppin’ john.  I really deviated from the recipe for I put freshly diced roma tomatoes, chopped up bulb onions, and no bacon touched the crock pot.  I served this side with baked sweet potato slices, and for the girls some turkey sausage.  I always find it ironic that when I was a kid I couldn’t stand black eye peas and now I LOVE them.

I can honestly say I don’t know what I’m going to cook this coming week but hope to plan the meal later today…. What have you been cooking in your house?

Maranda