Brown Rice and Broccoli with Mushrooms ~ page 92

This is a fresh, light tasting version of the old classic broccoli and cheese casserole. I (Janice) have been making this for 35 years. The recipe calls for frozen broccoli, but we eat fresh broccoli so often at my house, that I just steam extra the day before I want to put together this recipe. Over the years, I changed the grated sharp cheddar cheese to 1/4-inch cubes of cheese instead.

Here is the assembled casserole just before baking.  The reason for the cubes of cheese, is that they stay partially intact, so you get a nice bite of cheese with each forkful, but the other ingredients stay a little bit separate from the cheese, which makes their flavors stand out more. This is a wonderful healthy dish for enjoying brown rice.

Slow Cooker Lasagna ~ page 163

When you are in a hurry, this is a convenient way to have a quick lasagna--and it tastes as good as the real thing. This is a good dish to fix before church to have ready as soon as you get home. It only takes 2 to 4 hours in the slow cooker.

After you brown the ground beef and onions, and boil whatever kind of pasta you want to use (I used 2 types, a whole wheat shell pasta, and a white twisted pasta), then just layer the meat, pasta, spaghetti sauce, and the sour cream and cheeses into the slow cooker.

I fixed this for my grandsons, and there was not a word spoken as they ate it, which must mean they loved it!

Cinnamon Yogurt Muffins ~ page 311

These were a yummy treat on a very rainy morning this morning. I made them in a mini muffin tin so I could get smaller portions for kiddos. Lillian did my measuring....yes that is a headband with pink butterfly wings attached!

Then it was Evelyn's turn to sprinkle the cinnamon sugar on top! We had some VERY cinnamon-y muffins by the time she was done with them!

They puffed up quite a bit even though they were mini muffins, so they felt bigger! The batter for these was a little thicker than I was used to using, at first I thought Lillian must have measured the yogurt wrong...which is a strong possibility, but it came out just fine in the end. YUM! ~Carissa

Crispy Baked Chicken Breasts ~ page 140

Carissa blogged about this wonderful chicken a few months ago..but I thought I would add my two bits, plus a few more pictures. Remember that you can look at the archives or the search box on the blog to find recipes that have been blogged about to get all the tips and pictures that aren't in the cookbook!

I made this for my grandsons, thinking that anything with rice crispy's would be loved by kids--and this was, although it is really a very sophisticated tasting chicken dish. Your are supposed to slightly crush the cereal, but I forgot to..I spread the crispy's along with the flour and seasonings on a tray to mix and coat my raw chicken it.

I only made half the recipe because my chicken breasts were quite large. The combination of the rice crispy's and butter make for a luscious crunchy coating. Don't overcook the chicken, so that when you cut into them they are juicy and moist. These were perfect!

I served this chicken with the Cheesy Scalloped Potato Sticks (pg. 93), and some steamed broccoli. The combination made for an outstanding and fast meal for kids and adults.

Leftovers from Black Bean Salsa (pg 15) and BBQ Meatballs (pg 151)

This dinner was the result of various "gatherings" over the weekend and what was left once the guests left.
I had three meatballs and a couple of cups of the salsa left and that spelled "soup" to me. I sliced the meatballs and added a can of crushed tomatoes with chipolte and mixed that with the left over salsa. Add some cornbread muffins and dinner is complete! ~ Lorrie

Healthy Peanut Butter Pancakes ~ page 319

These healthy pancakes were eaten so fast this morning, I barely got a picture of them! Here is Elias and Evelyn eating their pancakes and dipping them into applesauce.

When mixing up the dry ingredients, I used ground flax seed instead of the wheat germ called for.  The peanut butter is kind of lumpy to mix into the batter, but the taste is hearty and kids love it.

And why am I feeding breakfast to 4 grandchildren? Because Carissa had her third baby girl in the middle of the night! Little Sylvia Ann made a fast entrance into the world (or as Lillian says, she finally came down to earth!) and is happily hanging out with her mommy in the hospital, while Grandmother and Grandpops are taking care of a boatload of kids on the home-front!

Cheesy Scalloped Potato Sticks ~ page 93

I fixed this cheesy potato side dish tonight for my two little grandsons, Gabe and Elias (I am taking care of them for a week while their parents are on a trip). Let me tell you--this is a VERY kid friendly dish. They loved it! Both boys gobbled it up and asked for seconds. (I did make them eat their steamed broccoli before they got more of this yummy dish though.)

The raw potatoes are cut into French fry-size pieces.

Just barely cover with water, bring to a boil and simmer just 3 minutes.

I like to drain the potatoes in a colander and shake them to dry--this will help the creamy sauce to cling to them.

A white sauce flavored with dry mustard is poured over the blanched potatoes, then a sprinkling of sharp cheddar cheese...and just 30 minutes in the oven, and this dish is ready for the dinner table. ~Janice

Chewy Chocolate Cookies with Peanut Butter Chips ~ page 207

These are so yummy with a glass of milk! Even people that don't like the whole peanut butter and chocolate combo have got to like these! When I had my cookie business I made 700 of these for a Law Firm's Christmas Party one year. They were a huge hit. They are great with white chocolate chips and even with dark chocolate chips, so if you can't find peanut butter chips you can still make these yummy morsels.
Above is how I have always stored my raw dough whether in the fridge or freezer, it makes it easy for stacking, and fast for thawing out. Just wrap in plastic wrap until you are ready. Chilling dough before baking just helps keep the cookies from spreading too much in the oven.
Here are the before and after baking pics so you can see how they spread. For those bakers out there that like to weigh your flour, I used 365 grams of flour and I thought it was perfect. I know weighing flour sounds a bit on the perfectionist side, but it really does help you produce uniform results when making multiple batches. I can weigh a cup of flour, then dump it out and weigh another cup of flour and get 2 different weights. Every time you scoop your flour it comes out a little different...it all depends on how hard you scoop or pack the flour in. So if you need something to add to your birthday wish list I strongly recommend a baking scale! :) ~Carissa

Chicken Cacciatore ~ page 111

This sounds complicated, but it really comes together fast! I should have taken a picture before I added the parm cheese so you could see how pretty all the olives and mushrooms were in the sauce. My 5 year old gobbled it up...now the 2 year old didn't so much like it, but she is just weird sometimes! The leftovers were even better the next day for lunch.

Even though Evelyn wouldn't eat it for dinner she sure loved helping make it.

Orange Glazed Poppy Seed Loaf ~ page 257

This was so good that I ate half of the loaf myself! I added orange zest to my glaze because I was juicing oranges anyway. It added even more orange flavor.
I wanted 3 loaves so I used one large loaf pan and 2 medium pans...the smaller ones are antique baking dishes that I used to collect from flea markets and such.
Above is the glaze with the orange zest that was so yummy! The only thing differently I would do next time is to grease AND flour the pans. The recipe just says greased pans, I had to shake a bit to get the loaves out. I think the original recipe mentions flouring the pans. I have to go stick the other two loaves in the freezer before I eat them too! --Carissa

Chicken Tikka Masala ~ page 138

I know this recipe has already been blogged about, but I made it again today and had a change that I made that I think made it better. In the recipe it says to cook the chicken and discard the marinade...well, it is quite difficult to separate the marinade from the chicken since it is thick yogurt. Most of the marinade gets sautéed in with the chicken. The recipe has you taking out the chicken after it is cooked so you can make the sauce then add the chicken back in. When you are ready to dump the chicken back in the sauce try draining the juices off first... it is all the marinade that turned watery while cooking. Check out the photo below...there was alot of juice to pour off. This reduces your simmering time since the sauce is thicker without the juicy marinade.
I tried out a new brand of coconut milk today ...GOYA, I really liked it. I am having an Indian Dinner Party tomorrow night and wanted to get a head start on cooking, so I made this today and put it in the fridge...I think the flavors are gonna be even better tomorrow!

Biscotti: Chocolate Chip ~ page 199

This was sure a yummy treat on a rainy afternoon today. It is a little sweeter than the average biscotti, and a touch softer, just because I don't like mine too hard. The only change I made was to add an extra egg white, but that was only because I had small eggs. They were farm fresh straight from under the chickens, so they weren't the large size that you normally get in the store. Other than that I followed the recipe perfectly.
Above are the logs before they went in the oven, and below is a cute way to package them up for gift giving. This baggie was going to some friends at church that were having us over for dinner.