Cooking During Stolen Moments

BBQ Meatloaf And Caramelized Onion Pizza

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On Saturday night I wanted to make us a fun family dinner, but I also had some meatloaf cups (recipe coming later this week) in the freezer that I wanted to use up. I didn’t have enough meatloaf cups to just make those with a side dish though. So I decided it was time to creative. Here is what I came up with.

BBQ Meatloaf & Caramelized Onion Pizza
For Pizza Dough

  • 1 c. warm water
  • 2 T. yeast
  • 2 T. honey
  • 3 T. olive oil
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 3 1/2 c. flour

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water for 5 minutes. Stir in honey, olive oil and salt. Add the flour, 1/2 c. at a time, until dough is no longer sticky. (This can be done in a stand mixer also.) Knead for about 5 minutes.
2. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover and let rise for 30 minutes. Punch down dough, knead 1 minute, recover in greased bowl and let rise 1 – 1 1/2 hours.
3. Roll out pizza crust and place on a pizza stone, or press onto a cookie sheet sprinkled with corn meal. Prebake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool and top with pizza toppings.

For Pizza Toppings –
–BBQ Sauce

  • 1 c. ketchup (or, in a pinch like I was, 1 can tomato paste, 1 can water, 1 t. apple cider vinegar and 1/2 t. salt)
  • 2 T. worchestschire sauce
  • 2 T. brown sugar
  • 1 t. each; garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, black pepper
  • 1/2 t. crushed red pepper flakes

1. Stir all ingredients together until combined.

—Caramelized Onions

  • 1 large yellow onion, sliced
  • 2 T. butter
  • 2 t. honey

1. Melt butter in a skillet. Add onions and honey. Cook over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, until onions are tender and caramelized.

—6 meatloaf cups, leftover meatloaf or meatballs, cut into cubes

–2 c. shredded cheddar cheese

To put the pizza together:

  1. Spread BBQ sauce over pizza crust. Top with caramelized onions.
  2. Cover onions and sauce with chopped meatloaf.
  3. Cover all with shredded cheese.
  4. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees, until crust is done and cheese is melted.

We could not believe how delicious this pizza was. I will definitely be making it again soon!

I will post the full game plan for this dinner later on this week.

You can find more Tempt My Tummy Tuesday here and more Kitchen Tip Tuesday here.

White Veggie Lasagna Dinner

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The Game Plan

  • Breakfast – French toast
  • Lunch – Snackin’ Plate – cheese and pepperoni or ham slices, crackers, apple and banana slices, peanut butter
  • Dinner – White Veggie Lasagna, tossed salad
  • Snacks – Homemade Granola bars

The Plan In Action

  • 8:00am – Make French toast. While it is cooking, slice the meats and cheese for lunch. Put in a plastic baggie until lunchtime. Also, put a large pot of water on the stove to boil for the lasagna noodles.
  • 8:30am – Finish breakfast and chop veggies for lasagna. Heat olive oil in a skillet and start cooking the veggies. Put noodles in water to boil. Drain and rinse with cold water when done.
  • 8:50am – Put lasagna noodles and veggies in the fridge. Go do something fun (or productive…find a way to combine the two and that’s even better) for awhile. Or continue on this point and just finish the lasagna all at once.
  • 10:00 am – Stir together the ricotta filling at put bowl in fridge.
  • 10:05 – Make the white sauce for the lasagna.
  • 10:15 – Pull all of the already prepared ingredients out of the fridge and line up assembly line style on your counter. Start layering the lasagna in a 13 x 9 casserole dish.
  • 10:30 – Cover finished lasagna with tin foil and place in fridge. Wash all dishes.
  • 10:40 – Chop any ingredients you’d like to have in your tossed salad and store in individual baggies. (Confession time – our tossed salad is usually more like lettuce “salad.” Lettuce, dressing, and croutons or chickpeas if we have any on hand. I suppose this is because I do not like raw tomatoes or onions. My family doesn’t seem to mind though.)
  • 12:30 – Slice apples and bananas. Arrange crackers, meat, cheese, fruit slices and peanut butter for dipping on individual plates. Have fun with your arrangements. The kids will have a blast with this lunch, at least mine always do.
  • 12:45 – Eat lunch.
  • 3:30pm – Snacktime. We love this recipe from Mom Advice for our homemade granola bars. (I use honey in place of the corn syrup with no problem.) A tray of these usually lasts 2 or 3 days in our house.
  • 5:00pm – Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take the lasagna out of the refrigerator to bring to room temperature, but do not remove the foil.
  • 5:15pm – Put lasagna in oven.
  • 6:00pm – Remove foil from lasagna and continue cooking 10 – 15 minutes.
  • 6:15pm – Remove lasagna from oven. Let sit at least 5 minutes before cutting. Combine all of the prepped salad ingredients and toss together.
  • 6:25pm – Eat and enjoy!

White Veggie Lasagna

  • 12 lasagna noodles, cooked
  • vegetable filling
  • ricotta filling
  • white sauce
  • 1 1/2 c. shredded mozzarella cheese

For The Vegetable Filling

  • 1/2 large onion, finely diced
  • 1/2 large green pepper, diced
  • 2 stalks celery, diced
  • 1/2 pound mushrooms, diced
  • 1 zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced
  • 5 – 6 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 bag frozen spinach, thawed
  • 1/2 bag frozen broccoli cuts, thawed
  • 1/2 t. nutmeg
  • Salt & pepper, to taste

1. Warm 2 T. of olive oil in a large skillet. Add the onion, green pepper, and celery. Cook for 5 minutes over medium heat.
2. Add the mushrooms, zucchini, and garlic, and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the thawed spinach and broccoli.
3. Add the nutmeg, salt and pepper. Cook for yet another 5 minutes.

For The Ricotta Filling

  • 16 oz. ricotta cheese
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese

1. Combine and set aside.

For The White Sauce

  • 3 T. butter
  • 3 T. flour
  • 1 c. milk
  • 1/2 c. chicken stock or white wine
  • 3 oz. cream cheese
  • 1/3 c. grated or shredded Parmesan cheese
  • Salt & pepper, to taste

1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in flour and let cook 1-2 minutes. Whisk in milk and chicken stock. Cook until sauce just begins to thicken.
2. Add cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, and salt & pepper. Cook until all cheese is melted.

To Assemble The Lasagna
1. Spread 1/4 c. white sauce on the bottom of a 13 x 9 casserole dish. Top with 4 lasagna noodles. Top lasagna noodles with 1/3 of the ricotta filling, 1/3 of the veggie filling, and 1/3 of the remaining sauce. Repeat layers, ending with a final layer of white sauce. Sprinkle 1 1/2 c. mozzarella cheese over the top. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 10 – 15 minutes longer, until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbly. Remove from oven and let sit at least 5 minutes before slicing.

For just the lasagna recipe, go here.

**If you have about 20-30 extra minutes, and all of the necessary ingredients, why not make a second lasagna with red sauce to put in the freezer? (Note: Lasagna with white sauce does NOT freeze well, at least in my experience.) Go here on my other blog to get the full recipe and instructions for making both lasagnas at once.

Cheddar Potato & Ham Soup

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Cheddar Potato & Ham Soup

  • 1 T. extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • 2 celery stalks, diced
  • 2 carrots, diced
  • 1/2 lb. ham slices, cubed
  • 4 potatoes, cubed
  • salt, pepper & dill
  • 4 c. chicken stock
  • 1/4 c. butter
  • 1/4 c. flour
  • 2 c. milk
  • 1/2 lb. extra-sharp cheddar, cubed or shredded
  • 1/2 t. pepper
  • 1/2 t. garlic powder
  • 1/4 t. cayenne pepper

1. Heat olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add onions, celery and carrots. Cook until onions and celery are translucent. Add ham and potatoes. Season with salt, pepper & some dill. Add chicken stock, bring to a boil and cook until potatoes are tender.
2. Meanwhile, melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in flour and cook for 2 minutes. Whisk in milk, bring to a boil and cook until thickened. Remove from heat. Add cheese and stir until melted. Add seasonings.
3. When potatoes are tender, whisk the cheese sauce into the soup pot. Continue boiling slowly until soup is desired thickness, stirring frequently.

This soup is also delicious without the ham.

Head over to BooMama’s for the Souptacular Crockpotalooza.

Quick & Easy Pancakes

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Whenever I’m able to steal away to the kitchen for about 15 minutes, I usually can find something that needs to be done. If our meals for the day are done, if I’m not in the middle of freezer cooking, and if I don’t have any other baking to do, I usually make pancakes.

Pancakes are one of my favorite things to have on hand in the freezer for quick breakfasts. (Muffins and French toast are my other favorites.) They freeze wonderfully and reheat quickly. They’re also versatile enough that we can eat them for lunch.

They also make a quick snack. We like to cut them into strips, warm in skillet with some butter, and then sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon while still warm. This is a favorite treat with the kids.

Here is the recipe I use for our freezer pancakes. When I’m making special breakfasts I sometimes use a more elaborate recipe, but this one is perfect for everyday.

Pancakes

  • 4 t. baking powder
  • 1 1/2 c. white flour
  • 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
  • 1/4 t. salt
  • 1/4 c. sugar
  • 2/3 c. dry milk powder
  • 1/2 t. cinnamon, optional
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 3/4 c. water
  • 2 T. oil, melted butter, or applesauce
  • 1 t. vanilla

1. Whisk together baking powder, flours, salt, sugar, dry milk powder and optional cinnamon.
2. Whisk in eggs, water, oil, butter, or applesauce, and vanilla.
3. Pour about 1/4 c. of batter on a hot, greased griddle for each pancake. Makes about 2 dozen pancakes.

The nice thing about this recipe is that it is easily halved, doubled or tripled. Also, after step 1, you can put the mix in jar or container and keep on hand for last minute preparation.

This mix is also friendly to add-in ingredients. I’ve successfully added chocolate chips, bananas or blueberries to the pancakes.

To freeze them, I stack as many as we’ll need for breakfast in a plastic freezer bag. If you want to be able to use just a few at a time, freeze the pancakes on a cookie sheet before putting in the bag so that they don’t stick together.

To reheat, I usually just defrost and warm them in the microwave. You could also thaw the pancakes in the freezer over night then warm for a few seconds on each side in a skillet, or on a cookie sheet in the oven for a few minutes.

If this is your first time to my new blog – welcome! I hope you’ll spend a few minutes looking around. (You may be familiar with my two other blogs – A Simple Walk and Happy To Be At Home.) I’m still getting things settled here and trying to keep up with the posting. I hope to have it all fixed up and working like clockwork, with a new recipe daily and at least 3 full game plans weekly, within the next week or two.

You can find more Frugal Friday over at Crystal’s blog.

Sticking With Store Brands

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One of the easiest ways I am able to stretch our grocery budget and stick to our $350/month limit is to buy store brands. The quality of store brand products has increased so much over the years that my family doesn’t even notice a difference. In fact, there have been times when I’ve purchased major label products because of coupons and they comment that it tastes different, and not always a “good different.”

We do not buy many packaged or convenience food items, but what we do is always store brand only. Dairy, grains, and meats are also store brand only. I can’t even think of a product that we buy regularly that does not have a store brand equivalent.

I’ve noticed lately that the store brand labels are starting to expand. There seems to be four common options to store brands: Organic (not much different from premium label organic, at least in my experience), Select (most expensive), Regular (moderately priced) and Value (least expensive). When available, I am always willing to give the value items a shot. If my family likes them we’ll stick with that option. If not, I go back to the regular store label.

We do try to incorporate organic food into our diet as much as possible, although it is getting harder and harder with the rising food prices. There are certain items I will only buy organic versions of. I have done a fair amount of research on organic items and have realized that organic junk food is still just junk food.

Needless to say, I carefully weigh all my options when it comes to buying food, both for health and cost reasons. And the store brands definitely work for me!

How have your experiences been with store brands? Do you find that it helps you keep your grocery bills down to buy store brand products?

Find more WFMW over at Shannon’s blog.

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