Baked Pork Chops

I had some pork chops defrosted. The really thick, boneless kind. I didn't want to fry them or use my electric grill. I was busy sewing and wanted something I could whip up and walk away from.  This is what I ended up doing and boy was it scrumpious!

What you need:
4-6 boneless pork loin chops
1 can mushroom soup
3/4 soup can of water
thyme
basil
salt
pepper
crushed, dried garlic
dried, minced onion
bread crumbs

(c) Keytee 2013

Pre-heat oven to 350*
1. Mix in a bowl all except pork chops & bread crumbs.  I didn't bother measuring the spices, sorry. I used just a pinch of basil, thyme and garlic. Three shakes of the onion and a shake or two of salt & pepper.
2.  Pour half  mixture in bottom of 9X13 baking dish.
3.  Dampen pork chops and coat with bread crumbs, set on top of soup mixture.
4.  Pour remaining soup mixture on top of chops
Cover with foil and bake 50-60 minutes

I had a can of sliced, new potatoes in the cabinet.  Dumped them in a pan with a glob of butter and a couple shakes of onion, salt & pepper and fried them bad boys up.

Cinnamon Crescent Rolls

I had a hankering for something sweet tonight.  I've had a craving for cinnamon rolls for days now, but I didn't want to go through all the mess of making the dough.  Then I remembered seeing  them made with crescent rolls on Pinterest so I went searching and found a quick and easy version by The Hungry Housewife. Oh My Heaven! They melt in your mouth!

What you need:

1 tube (8 count) crescent rolls, unrolled & separated.

Filling
5 T. butter, softened.
1/4 C. granulate sugar
2 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Glaze
2 T butter, melted
1/4 C. powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

(c)Keytee 2013
A little filling will ooze out, that's okay!

• Preheat oven to 375*  F.
• Place the unrolled and separated crescent rolls on an un-greased rimmed cookie sheet with sides.

• In a small bowl, mix together the filling ingredients.

• Evenly spread the cinnamon butter over crescent rolls and roll up tightly. 
• Place tip side down on cookie sheet
• Bake 10-12 minutes

• In a small bowl, mix together glaze ingredients until smooth.
• Place in small ziplock/sandwich bag and snip a tiny corner off.
• Drizzle glaze over warm cinnamon rolls.

I let my 4 1/2 year old help with the rolling and mixing the glaze.  Then she washed all the dishes we used!  She excited to try one at breakfast tomorrow.

Creamy Italian Chicken (crock pot)

4 year old didn't eat much of it. Can't blame her though, it's beautiful outside and she'd rather be outside playing.  Hubby and I really liked it though!

What you need:

2-4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
8 oz soft cream cheese (1 cup)
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 packet Italian dressing seasoning.

©Keytee 2013

-Place chicken in crock pot.
- Mix cream cheese, soup and seasoning together. Pour over chicken.

Cook on high 4-6 hours.
Serve over rice or noodles.  (We like this one over egg noodles.)


This is a great freezer meal.  I dump everything into a gallon size freezer bag and toss it in the freezer.  Just pull it out the night before to thaw in the fridge.  Hubby can handle emptying the bag into the crock pot and turning on when he gets home from work, so all I have to do is boil noodles when I get home and voila! A really tasty and filling dinner!

Chicken Rotini

I've cooked more new stuff these past two weeks that I feel like I'm spoiling anyone following this blog!  It makes me happy though.  Not just to be able to make new meals, but to have the time to actually make a meal.

Tonight was a "must use the chicken in the fridge before it goes bad" night.  And it was delicious!

What you need:
3-4 skinless, boneless chicken breast - cut into bite size chunks
24 oz (3 cups) pasta sauce of your choice ( I used tomato & basil)
2 1/2 C. rotini pasta, cooked al dente
4 oz  mozzarella cheese, shredded.  ( half a small bag of pre-shredded cheese)

(c)Keytee 2013

Pre-heat oven 450 degrees F.
Start a pot of water to boil.  (I used the pan in the picture, from stove top to oven)
Cut up chicken and carefully place in water.
Once boiling, use a large slotted spoon remove chicken  to a bowl, set aside.
Add rotini pasta and continue boil for approx 7 minutes. Drain and put back in pan.
Dump chicken in with pasta, add sauce and stir until all coated.
Top with cheese and bake 8 minutes or until cheese is lightly toasty looking.

Serve with garlic bread and dig in!

Tender Italian Tenders

Or T.I.Ts for short, (Well, We thought it was hysterical) are an easy-quick dinner for those busy evenings.

What you need:
8-10  trimmed, raw chicken tender cuts
3/4 C. real mayonnaise
1/2 C. grated parmesan cheese
1/2 T. garlic powder
3/4 C. bread crumbs  (or use italian seasoned bread crumbs and skip the next ingredient)
3 T. italian seasoning   (I keep a premixed bottle of italian seasoning.)

(c) Keytee 2013

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees.
In one bowl, mix mayo, parmesan and garlic powder.
Put bread crumbs and seasoning in a second bowl.
Dip chicken in mayo mixture, then coat with bread crumbs.
Arrange chicken in baking sheet or pan (I use a 9 x 13 cake pan)
Bake 20 minutes.

I love these because the chicken is NOT dried out at all, so there's no reason to cover the wonderful taste with dipping sauce of any kind.

Tater tot casserole

Yeah, I know there are a ton of places you can find the tater tot casserole recipe.  But this is MY version and it was delicious!

What you need:
1 pound ground beef
1 T dried, chopped onion
1 (10 oz) can cream of chicken soup, undiluted.  (I would have used cream of celery but our grocery store is ALWAYS out of it!)
1 (16 oz) bag tater tots (I used the crowns)
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (I used sharp)
1 (10 oz) can Veg-all  (mixed veggies)
Salt & pepper to taste

(c) Keytee 2013

What to do:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Brown ground beef with onion, salt & pepper. Drain.
Mix in cream soup and veggies.
Cover bottom of casserole dish.
Top with 1 cup cheese.
Cover with tater tots and top that with remaining cup of cheese.
Bake uncovered 30-40 minutes until bubbly and golden brown.

This was a freezer meal and it took 40 minutes to reheat it perfectly!  The pan I used was a rectangle, deep casserole foil pan and was a bit big for this recipe. A square or 2 quart round dish might have been better.

A method of madness.

Earlier this week, during a conversation about grocery shopping, the question was raised how I put together my list.  I do my shopping every other weekend after my paycheck is deposited and bills are paid.  But before that I plan for my shopping trip.  You would think I would be smart and makes notes through out the week when the thought of "Hey, that sounds good, I should make that next time around!".  But alas I do not.

What I end up doing, every single time is staying up late the night before I shop.

I start out in the kitchen making two messy lists. One of what I have in my kitchen to cook with, and one of things we regularly need.  Then I shuffle back to my desk to put together a menu.  I thumb through my recipe binder, the recipe box, and pinterest for anything that just screams "MAKE ME!".

(c)Keytee2 2013

We don't necessarily follow it by the days, sometimes we really don't follow it much at all.  It all depends on how busy we are. But it's there, on the fridge so we don't have to think about what to make if we don't want to.  There are days where I throw a bag of burger in the fridge in the morning to defrost, and by the time I get home I'm all "fook it, it's pizza night".

As I put a recipe on the menu I cross reference the 'have' list and make a note next to an item that's to be used.  (example, list has 3 pounds of hamburger, I'm using 1 pound for tater tot casserole so I'd write "tt cass" next to it and change the amount to 2).  Anything in the recipe not on my 'have' list gets written in the 'need' list.

Once I've got my 'need' list scratched out I turn to my organize shopping list.  I visualize my grocery store and transfer items from the messy list in the order that I would find them in the store.  I used to just use my scribbled list, but would always miss and forget things.  With my list organized I rarely do that anymore.

For me, it's worth the time to do all this.  Essentially it's a huge time saver when I don't have to back track in the store to find something or return to the store because I forgot something.   Of course it would take half the time to complete my task if I didn't get easily distracted by pinterest and watching television.

Keytee's Menu Planner (pdf)
Keytee's shopping list (pdf)