Alfredo Pizza

We got this courtesy of Aaron's brother Jared.

Ingredients

1 loaf french or Artisan bread
1 can Alfredo sauce
1 lb. pork sausage
2 halves different colored sweet bell peppers, chopped
½ sweet onion, chopped
1 can fresh mushrooms, chopped
1 cups shredded cheese (yellow or white, whatever you like better)

Preheat oven to 350. Cook and drain sausage. Add peppers, onion and mushrooms to sausage. Sautee for a 3-5 minutes. (adjust time depending on how cooked you like your veggies) Add Alfredo sauce. Simmer 1 minute. Cut the bread lengthwise, then into desired chunks from there. (We generally make ours pretty big, but with kids, you might make some smaller) Lay cut side face up on baking sheet and cover bread with sauce. Cover sauce with cheese. Warm in oven to melt cheese and warm bread, 10-12 minutes.

You can see with this one, we used a white cheese, the sauce is more of a tannish color. Anyhow, we've used cheddar too and it works great too. Sometimes we like to sprinkle some parmesan ontop before baking too. It adds a nice flavor.

Peanut Butter Snack Balls

This recipe is courtesy of my mom. I've had it forever, but hadn't ever tried it. It's super easy and fast.

Ingredients

1 cup dry milk powder

1 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup creamy or crunchy peanut butter

1/2 cup honey

Mix everything together and roll into balls. You do not have to bake this. I'm not usre how man it makes, but mak ehte balls about the size of a walnut, so they are about 2 bites.

I probably made mine bigger than she recommended. They were more like 2 adult bites. They're really simple and I don't remember having any left over, so they must've been a hit!

Beef and Bean Stir Fry

This one came from Reader's Digest. Unfortunately I partially botched the recipe a bit. But it wasn't irreparable. I just don't doubt that it could've tasted way better than it did.

Ingredients

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 lb. boneless beef top loin steak, trimmed of fat and cut in thin strips (I used ground beef. Not too fancy, I know.)

2 gloves garlic, minced

1 tsp. chopped fresh ginger (I didn't use fresh ginger, but ground)

2 carrots, thinly diagonally sliced

3 1/2 cups brooli florest (8 oz.)

6 green onions, cut in long thin strips (I'm pretty sure I didn't have any. Don't recall if I substituted with yellow onions or not.)

1/4 cup orange juice concentrate, thawed, or orange juice (Here's where I messed up. I put the whole container of concentrate, then when I realized, tried to scoop some back out. Needless to say, ours was a bit heavy on the orange flavor.)

2 tbsp soy sauce

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

1 15-oz. can cannellini beans

In 12-inch skillet with flared sides or a large wok heat 1 tbsp. of the oil over medium-high heat. Cook and stir beef, garlic, and ginger until beef is browned, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from skillet. Heat remaining oil. Add carrots and broccoli; cook and stir 3 minutes. Add green onions; cook 1 minute more.

Add orange juice concentrate, soy sauce, and crushed red pepper; toss to coat. Add cooked beef and beans; cook until heated through.

We serve with rice. Although the flavor was a bit off, I still recall enojoying it and know that if I followed the recipe better (and added green onions) it would be even better. Perhaps one of you can cook it properly and let us know? :)

Mini Pies

This was a random creation. We had a container of pie filling, but it was partially used, and I'm not one to just eat pie filling. So I decided to try and make little mini pies. These two came out best. My biggest problem was adding too much filling, which made them messy.

Ingredients

Any pie filling of your choice

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup cold water

Sift flour with salt. Combine oil and water in measuring cup. Beat rapidly with fork until thick and creamy. Pour over flour, all at one time. Toss and cut with fork until blended. Form into ball, divide dough in half. Form into balls. Roll between sheets of waxed paper to 1/8 inch thickness. Remove top paper. Cut out desired size shape for pies. Use any bowl as stencil and cut around it. Put a small amount of filling into center, and cover with another circle shaped pie crust piece. Seal edges with fork, pierce top for venting. Bake according to pie filling instructions.

These were really fun to make and pretty darn simple if you're familiar with making pie crust. Of course, you can always substitute a homemade crust with some from the store. And you can cut the pie crust recipe in half if you don't have a lot of the filling, or use a full recipe for most of a can full.

Garden Fresh Quesadilla

This was a random creation I made last summer whilst enjoying the fresh yumminess out of the in-laws garden. I don't recall if the tomatoes were garden fresh. I don't think so, but the asparagus and spinach were. This was so delish, I can't wait til next summer so I can make it again!

Ingredients

1 handful of fresh spinach

1-2 stalks of asparagus (depending on your supply and desire)

1 roma tomato (again, use as much as you want)

one warm quesadilla (I bet you all know how to make that)

1 tsp. Oregano

1 tsp. Onion powder

1 tsp. Garlic powder

Chop your asparagus and tomato. Put in a pan with seasonings. Cook to desired doneness. After washing fresh spinach, layer on plate and put quesadilla ontop. Put freshly cooked garden veggies ontop. Enjoy!

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Made it a few times last summer. It's easy to tweak and change per your liking. Perhaps this will inspire some of you to garden!

Fish in a Pouch

This is one of Emeril's recipes. I think it's really flavorful, so we enjoy it. And the butter mixture gives you a nice amount of sauce when it's done so you can mix it in with your rice, if you eat it with rice.

Ingredients

1 stick butter, room temp
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp. minced garlic
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. ground white pepper
4 (8 oz.) white fish fillets
2 tsp. Baby Bam

Preheat oven to 375. In a small mixing bowl, combine the butter, Worcestershire sauce, parsley, garlic, salt and white pepper. Use a rubber spatula to mix the ingredients well until smooth. Season each fillet with ½ tsp. of the Baby Bam. Lay each fillet in the center of a piece of aluminum foil and spoon 2 tbsp. of the compound butter over the top of the fish. Seal aluminum foil pockets. Lay pouches on a baking sheet and place in oven. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove and watch out for steam when opening packets.

It took me a few tries to master the butter compound business and not burning myself with steam opening these up. But it's a super flavorful fish, and we definitely enjoy it!

PB&J

I know... there's nothing really exciting about good ol' peanut butter and jam.  But I saw this idea in a magazine and thought I'd share.  I used a cookie cutter to cut out the bear and then did the heart shape with a small knife.  (I've added "small heart cookie cutter" to my list of things I want.)  The kids thought it was fun.