Easy Lasagna

This lasagna is so easy and fast to make and taste great!  What I love about this is I assembled it at night and then baked it the next day.  It was Delish!!

1 small onion chopped
3 cloves garlic minced
1 package mild Italian Sausage (remove casing)
3 Italian zuchinni (cut into rounds)
1 jar spaghetti sauce any kind
1 egg
32 oz. Ricotta Cheese
8 oz. Mozzerella Cheese (grated)
1 pkg. Lasagna Noodles
Olive Oil

Mix the ricotta cheese with 1 egg and set aside. Grate the mozzerella cheese and set aside. Cut the zuchinni into rounds and set aside.

In a skillet pour 2 TBS. olive oil and add the chopped onion and garlic.  Saute until transparent in color making sure the garlic doesn't burn.  Add the Italian sausage and crumble with the back of a wooden spoon.  Cook until sausage is brown and add the jar of spaghetti sauce and 1/2 jar water.  Simmer over low heat and remove when hot. 

In a 9 x 13 inch pan, begin by spooning some of the sauce mixture on the bottom of the pan.  Next add a layer of lasagna noodles (uncooked) to cover the bottom of the pan and follow with a layer of ricotta cheese, mozzerella cheese, zuchinni rounds, meat and noodles. Repeat with the above layers and finish with ricotta cheese, zuchinni, meat and mozzerella.

At this point, you can either bake and eat or cover and refrigerate until next day. 

Bake at 350º for 1 hour. Let cool about 15 minutes and serve. Great with salad and garlic bread!




At this point I covered and refrigerated before baking

After baking

Oven-Baked French Toast

What a great breakfast this morning!  Another fast and easy recipe and very economical.  This receipe is taken from the Pampered Chef Stoneware Sensations Cookbook.  I will post the receipe, based on what I used, without the refrences to the Pampered Chef products needed.  This breakfast cost me less than $10 and fed my family of 6. 

Recipe for Oven-Baked French Toast

1 loaf French Bread ---$1.49
6 eggs --- ($1.00 - they were 1.99 per dozen and I used half)
1-1/2 cups milk
3 TBS. granulated sugar (for egg mixture)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
Powdered sugar
Strawberries about 12 ---($1.00 - I paid $2.99 for 2 lbs. and I used about 1/3 of pkg.)
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
1 tsp. lemon juice
3-4 TBS. granulated sugar (for strawberry topping)

Spray 9 x 13" casserole baker with vegetable oil.  Using a serrated knife, cut the ends off the bread and cut loaf into 1-inch-thick slices (10-16 slices depending on the size of the loaf) and arrange closely in a single layer in prepared pan.  In a bowl, beat the eggs and add in milk, 3 TBS. granulated sugar, vanilla, salt and cinnamon; mix together and pour over bread. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.


The slices in greased pan

Pour egg mixture over and at this point, cover and refrigerate

(At this point, I left it overnight in the refrigerator and set my oven for delay start for the morning)

Preheat oven to 400ºF.  Bake uncovered, 30 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove from oven.  Top with strawberry topping and powdered sugar, or you can sprinkle with powdered sugar and top with fresh strawberries.

While the french toast was baking, I cooked the bacon and strawberry topping.  For topping, wash and slice strawberries.  I placed them in a small saucepan with 3-4 TBS. granulated sugar and 1/4 cup orange juice.  I let the strawberries break up and release their juices.  I cooked until they looked syrupy and poured that over the hot french toast and sprinked powdered sugar over that. 



Slice strawberries small for easy cooking



Sliced strawberries, sugar and orange juice



French toast out of the oven and ready for topping



Ready to serve

Ready to eat

Serve with bacon.  I used a pound of bacon that I paid $2.99 for.  Add this to the cost of the ingredients for the french toast and it cost about $8-9 to make.

Tip for the Day!

Sometimes I need just a little cheese grated but hate to bring out the large metal grater.  I don't like to cut the cheese in slices because it doesn't melt quick and even. 

I've discovered that when you want a small amount of grated cheese in a hurry, you can use a lemon zester.  This is the perfect tool and the cheese comes out in thin strips for easy distribution and melting.

I used the zester in my previous post "On the Go Breakfast" and you can see the picture of what the cheese looks like after being "zested."

On The Go Breakfast!

When we want breakfast quick but we don't have time to really get things out and cook, I like to make this easy, fast, microwavable egg and cheese burrito.

There are only 4 ingredients and no pans or no mess to clean up.  Just grab a small microwavable container with lid, spray with cooking spray really well, break open an egg or two and scramble with a fork.  Place the lid on top, (if lid doesn't have a vent built in, lay the lid on top of container without sealing so egg doesn't explode) and start microwaving at 30 second intervals, checking to see doneness of egg.  When egg is almost done, remove from microwave and break up the egg and add some shredded cheese.  Place back into microwave (without lid) and put the flour tortilla on top of the container and microwave for 20 seconds or until tortilla is hot and softened.

If bacon is desired, you can cook the bacon in the microwave before the egg is cooked.  Just put a couple slices onto a microwave safe plate covered with paper towels to absorb the grease.  Microwave 1 minute per slice.  When done, remove from microwave and cook the egg.

That's it. Remove from microwave, fill tortilla and roll into burrito and you have breakfast in just a few minutes.  So easy and with no clean-up!

Fried Rice

This was so easy to make and what a delicious side dish.  I wish the picture would have come out better but trust me, it looked beautiful and colorful and tasted great!  You need leftover white, steamed rice for this.

I made plain white, steamed rice by boiling 4 cups of water with a teaspoon of soysauce.  When the water was boiling, I added a pinch of salt and 2 cups long grain rice, stirring in the beginning and letting the water come back to a boil.   Once boiling, I covered the sauce pan and lowered the flame to low till water was absorbed about 5-10 minutes. 

When the rice was done, I let it cool and I stuck it in the refrigerator.  When I was ready to make the fried rice, I put some sesame oil and canola oil in a skillet - enough to coat the bottom of the pan.  I let it get really hot then added the cold white rice, breaking up any clumps with my fingers.  I tossed it around in the oil (be careful as rice will start to pop and jump out of the pan) until it was warm and well coated, then I made a well in the center of the rice and cracked an egg into the pan and stirred that until it was scrambled then mixed it into the rice.  I added frozen peas and carrots along with chopped green onion, and chopped ham ( I used  the sandwich type and you could also use, pork or chicken) and about 2 teaspoons of soy sauce.  I cooked it until everything was mixed and hot.

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

Nothing beats homemade cinnamon rolls.  This recipe is so easy and with the bread maker there's virtually no mess.  Just put your ingredients into the machine and let it do the work.   This recipe is from my Toastmaster Bread Machine Recipe book.

Cinnamon Rolls

1 egg (room temperature) + enough water to equal 1 cup

1/4 cup oil

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

3-1/2 cups Bread Flour

1-1/2 tsp. Active Dry Yeast

Filling

1/3 cup softened butter or margerine

1/3 cup sugar

2 TBL Cinnamon

Glaze

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1-2 TBL water or milk

1/4 tsp. vanilla

Place egg + water to equal 1 cup, oil, sugar, salt and bread flour in the machine and set to dough setting.

When done, take dough and place on lightly floured surface, roll dough in a 12x18 inch rectangle.  Spread with softened butter and sprinkle with combined sugar and cinnamon mixture.  Roll up tightly, jellyroll style, starting with the longest side and cut into one inch slices.

Place in a lightly greased pan and let stand in a warm place for 1 hour.  Bake at 350º for 25-30 minutes or until done.

Mix glaze ingredients until smooth and drizzle over top.  ( I like my glaze on the thicker side so I add more powdered sugar until I get the consistensy I like)

Albondiga Soup (Meatball Soup)

This is such a delicious soup and perfect on a cold day!

ALBONDIGA SOUP

I don't really measure but I'll do my best.

Slice carrot (I used 4) into rounds
2 potatoes (with skins) chopped into bite size pieces
3 Mexican Zuchinni or Squash cut into quarter pieces
1/2 medium onion - 1/2 chopped and 1/2 sliced into thin strips
1 bunch of cilantro chopped fine
Salt
Pepper
2 lbs. ground beef
1/2 cup uncooked rice
2 cans Vegetable or chicken stock
1 small can tomato paste

First I put about 1 TBS. oil in a large stockpot and cook the chopped onion until it's soft and translucent about 5 minutes. Take out of oil and mix with ground beef, 1/2 chopped cilantro, uncooked rice, salt and pepper (again, I don't measure so I'd guess about 1 tsp. salt and maybe 1/2 tsp. pepper.) Mix it all together and form meatballs.

Then I like to drain the excess oil from the pot and add the carrots, potato, sliced onion, tomato paste and stock plus 4 cans water into the pot. Bring to a boil then add the zuchinni and uncooked meatballs into the pot and cook for about 30-45 minutes until the balls are cooked. There should be enough liquid to cover the meatballs.  When done serve into bowls and garnish with remaining cilantro.

Make sure you buy the less fat ground beef so there's not alot of grease cooked into the soup. The recipe above made about 10-12 servings.   Really easy and it only took about an hour start to finish.