Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Casserole

28 August, 201327 August, 2013Marissa

The broccoli in our garden is growing like crazy right now. We’re past the point where it produces nice, neat heads like you see in the store and have moved into the tiny-little-broccoli-all-over-the-plant phase. When the broccoli gets too out of control to handle with salads and pasta dishes, I like to make this cheesy casserole. It is a great side dish for something like breaded chicken (which is what we did for lunch on Monday).

Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Casserole

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6-8 cups of chopped broccoli and cauliflower (About 2-3 heads of broccoli and one small head of cauliflower)

3-4 mushrooms, sliced

Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Casserole recipe, ready to sprinkle with cracker crumbs — ready to sprinkle with cracker crumbs

½ cup butter

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 can cream of celery, chicken, or mushroom soup

7-8 ounces of cheese dip (such as Kraft Cheez Wiz or Tostitos Smooth & Cheesy)

½ cup crushed crackers

Place broccoli and cauliflower in medium-size pan. Put sliced mushrooms on top and add enough water to steam the vegetables. Bring to a boil, then turn off heat.

Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Casserole recipe, Just out of the oven — Just out of the oven

Melt butter in a 2-quart casserole dish. Add soup, onion powder, and cheese dip. Stir. Drain vegetables, then add to cheese mixture and stir. Sprinkle with crushed crackers. Cover dish and bake at 375°F for 25-30 minutes.

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Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

14 August, 20138 July, 2014Marissa

The oven is back! As of last Wednesday afternoon, I’ve been able to bake. I promptly made bow-tie pasta, chocolate chip cookies, easy bread sticks, and now I can finally share these cheesecake bars. The crust came from this recipe, and I borrowed the filling from this Annie’s Eats recipe. The first time I made it and took it to church, I received several compliments on the flavor. In particular, people liked the shortbread crust as an alternative to graham cracker.

Warning: do not attempt to substitute wax paper for parchment paper. It refuses to come out of the pan. Aluminum foil would work much better, I think.

Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

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Shortbread Crust

1 cup butter

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup confectioners’ sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepared a 9”x13” baking dish with a parchment paper sling. Cut the butter into the flour and confections sugar and press into the baking dish (I use the bread hook attachment on my hand-held electric mixer). Bake 20 minutes or until light brown. Let cool on wire rack.

Filling

2 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened

½ cup sour cream

¾ cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

pinch of salt

2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 pint fresh blueberries

Reduce oven temperature to 325°F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine cream cheese and sour cream with an electric mixer. Beat on medium speed until smooth. Add in the sugar and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 1-2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Blend in vanilla, salt, and lemon juice. Fold in blueberries gently with a spatula until evenly incorporated. Pour mixture over the shortbread crust.

Bake for 35 minutes or until just set and the center no longer jiggles when the pan is tapped. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before removing from pan using parchment paper. Cut into bars and serve.

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Bowtie Pasta Bake

10 July, 201316 November, 2014Marissa

bow ties are cool Doctor Who invented pasta — Bow-ties are cool

This is the first pasta recipe I made that my dad (a confirmed anti-pasta man) actually liked. It had a long, tumultuous history. My first attempt at making it was a disaster of soggy noodles, but there was something in the flavor that made me think it could be perfect. As a Doctor Who fan, I know that bow-tie pasta was the solution, and I was right (actually, any pasta that stays pretty firm when cooked, like penne, would have fixed [most] of the problems with this dish). Even after the pasta switch, though, I had to tweak the sauce several times before it got to it’s current state of yumminess. So, without further ado or sci-fi digressions, here’s the recipe.

Bowtie Pasta Bake

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6 ounces dried bowtie pasta

3/4 pound boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces

1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms

1 head of broccoli, chopped

1-2 carrots, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ cup chicken broth

bow tie pasta bake ready to go in oven — Ready to sprinkle with bread crumbs and bake

1, 10 ¾-ounce can condensed cream of chicken soup

12 ounces dairy sour cream

1 teaspoon onion powder

¼ teaspoon pepper

1 slice of bread, lightly toasted and crumbled

1 tablespoon butter, melted

Coat a large skillet with olive and cook chicken until it is no longer pink. While cooking, sprinkle chicken with powdered garlic and black pepper to taste.

Cook pasta until al dente according to package directions. Drain. Rinse with cold water and drain.

Cook mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, garlic, and chicken broth in small sauce pan. Bring to boiling and immediately remove from heat. Do not drain.

Add soup, sour cream, onion powder, and pepper to large bowl. Stir in chicken, pasta, and vegetables. Spoon into a 13x9x2-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.

bow tie pasta bake recipe — fresh from the oven delicious

Mix bread crumbs and melted butter. Sprinkle over noodles. Cover with foil. Bake in a 350°F oven for 15 minutes. Remove foil. Bake 5 minutes more or until heated through.

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Baked Parmesan Chicken Skillet

3 July, 201316 November, 2014Marissa

Pasta is probably my favorite food. So when I came across this recipe through Pinterest, I was really excited to try it. Problem was, I didn’t have any pasta shells, I don’t like diced tomatoes, and all the basil in my house is dried. So I came up with a variation using spaghetti sauce and threw in some rotini I wasn’t sure what to do with (which was great, since the little spirals trap the sauce and hold flavor). It was a lovely dish, but a bit dry so I added more liquids the next time and it worked perfectly. I hope you enjoy!

Baked Parmesan Chicken Skillet

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1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Baked Parmesan Chicken Skillet — nicely melted cheese on top

1 cup tomato sauce

2 cups water

1½ cup low-sodium chicken broth

10-12 oz pasta (I used rotini)

¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1 teaspoon dried basil.

Cook chicken in an oven-safe 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Once done, remove from skillet and set aside. Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Add the oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt to the skillet and cook just until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomato sauce, water, chicken broth, and the pasta to the pan, stirring to combine. Bring the mixture to a vigorous simmer, then cover the pan and continue simmering until the pasta is tender, about 16-18 minutes. Stir the pasta frequently as it cooks.

Once pasta is tender, remove the cover and stir in 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, the pepper, and the chicken. Sprinkle the top evenly with the mozzarella cheese, the remaining Parmesan cheese, and finally the basil. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake for 5-10 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and bubbles around the edges.

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Muffins!

21 June, 201316 November, 2014Marissa

I love breads and pastries. Usually I’m able to resist the allure of the baking section when I’m in a store, but when the last two apples in a bag start to get too soft to want to eat as a snack, there really is no other option than to convert them into muffins.

This recipe is from Better Homes and Gardens Homemade Bread Cook Book (1973). It can easily be altered for other fruits. For instance, you can use blueberries instead of apples, add 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice, and leave off the topping to have a lovely blueberry muffin recipe.

Apple Muffins

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1 cup white, unbleached flour

¾ cups whole wheat flour

¼ cup sugar

2½ teaspoons baking powder

¾ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 well-beaten egg

¾ cup milk

1/3 cup cooking oil

1 cup peeled and chopped apple

topping

2 tablespoons sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Stir thoroughly the dry (first six) ingredients; make well in center.

Blend egg, milk, oil, and apples in a small bowl. Add all at once to dry mixture. Stir until just moistened.

Line muffin pans with baking papers and fill ¾ full. Sprinkle with topping.

Bake at 400°F for 12-18 minutes, or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.

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Daddy’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

16 June, 20138 July, 2014Marissa

First, I feel like I should explain something about the last post not having a title. I didn’t catch it until it was posted to Facebook, and by that time my subscribers had already received an e-mail with a cryptic number in the subject line. If you, like my mother, reread the article obsessively trying to figure out what that number meant, I apologize.

My dad had two requests for Father’s Day: deviled eggs and chocolate chip cookies. There are certain people I associate with different foods — my mother with Caramel Apple Coffee Cake, snickerdoodles with a friend, sugar cookies and Grandpa — and chocolate chip cookies will always make me think of my daddy. It is such a wonderful ego boost to be baking these cookies and have him come through the kitchen and tell me how amazing they smell and what a wonderful daughter I am. I suppose baking chocolate chip cookies is one of my ways of telling him what a wonderful father he is.

Real Chocolate Chip Cookies

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1 cup butter, softened

¾ cups sugar

¾ cups brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 ¼ cups flour (I use 1 cup whole wheat and the rest white, unbleached)

6-8 ounces chocolate chips.

In a large bowl combine butter sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. stir until creamy. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Add baking soda and salt, then stir. Gradually add flours. Mix well before stirring in chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded spoonfuls of dough onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375°F for 7-9 minutes, or until the edges are just starting to turn golden brown.

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