OK, Mom's on a Roll

I made another new recipe tonight.  Kids-- you will get all of these posts in pages for your Suggestion books later, but if you want to go ahead and make them now, here is your chance......

Crockpot Italian Chicken

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken breasts cooked and cubed
• 1 to 1 1/2 cup cooked cut broccoli
• 1 packet Zesty Italian Dressing (dry)
• 1  8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
• 2 cans Cream of Chicken Soup

• Pasta  (I used Rotelli, but any shape will work.)

About cooking the chicken:  I use flash frozen chicken breasts.  I bake them in the oven, but after I cube them, I like to throw them into a screaming hot skillet with a little olive oil just long enough to give them some color.

Combine all ingredients EXCEPT pasta in crock pot.  Cook on low 4 hours.  ( I actually only cooked it 3 hours because I was late getting started, but it worked fine)  If it seems too thick, add some milk.  I did not have to do that.  Maybe after 4 hours it might be different.

Cook pasta according to package directions.  Serve Chicken mixture over pasta.  (or I just mix it all together.  I like it better that way, but it is not as "fancy schmancy.")

Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.

Oh yeah... you can see mushrooms in the above picture, huh?  Wow.  You are observant.  I had some fresh mushrooms I needed to use before they went bad.  I just sauteed them in butter and stirred them in when I stirred in the pasta.  You can add whatever you want... that is the reason this is just a suggestion.

Philly Cheese Steak Sloppy Joes

OK.  Here I go messing with the mighty Philly Cheese Steak again.

Philly Cheese Steak Sloppy Joes

Ingredients:
l lb. ground beef
1 medium onion (chopped)
1 medium green bell pepper (seeded and chopped)
2 tablespoons steak sauce
1 cup beef broth
salt and pepper to taste

4 hamburger buns

1 Tablespoon of butter
1 Tablespoon flour
1 cup milk
1 cup Provolone cheese (shredded)  (We had to chop up slices.  They don't sell shredded here)

Cooking Instructions:

1.  Brown hamburger, breaking up into small pieces while cooking.
     Add chopped onion and bell pepper and cook for 3-4 minutes, until the onion starts to become tender.  Drain excess liquid. 
     Stir in steak sauce and beef broth.  Season with salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil and cook until the mixture is thick and bubbly. 

2.  Melt butter in small saucepan over medium high heat.  Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute whisking constantly.  Whisk in milk and cook until mixture is thickened.  Remove from heat and stir in cheese until it is melted and incorporated in the the sauce.

3.  Butter buns and toast on hot griddle or in heavy skillet.

4.  Fill bottom bun with meat, top with cheese sauce and top sandwich.  Enjoy

Simple Mini Monkey Bread

Christopher loves Monkey Bread.  I have never made Monkey Bread until today.  The only time I ever ate Monkey Bread, the pieces I got were not done.  Unless you are Amanda, raw bread dough is disgusting, gaggy, gross, ewwwwww and all the other awful things I could say.  So when I saw this recipe for making it in muffin tins, I thought, "Hey... this way it would get done in the middle," and decided to try it.  I made an AWFUL mess, but I am getting ahead of myself.........

Simple Mini Monkey Bread

Ingredients:

12 Rhodes Dinner rolls, thawed but still cold.  (You could make your own roll dough and use that, but then it would not be as "simple" now would it?)
6 Tablespoons butter, melted  (go ahead make your own butter... but do it the day before so these are still simple.)
2 Tablespoons Karo Syrup
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons Cinnamon

Icing (I did not do this .. they are sweet enough without it)

 1 cup powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon butter, melted
1-2 Tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

Spray 12 cup  muffin tin really well with cooking spray.

Cut each dinner roll into 6 pieces.  I used my kitchen shears for this step.

In a bowl, combine melted butter and Karo.  Mix well.

In another bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon.  Mix well.

Dip dough pieces 6 at a time first into the butter mixture, then the sugar mixture.  Place 6 pieces in each cup of the muffin tin. Repeat until they are full.

Cover with sprayed plastic wrap (oops, I did not read this part.  I did not spray the saran wrap, and it worked fine).  Set in a warm place and let rise until double in size.

Now some advice:  Don't get busy doing other stuff and let them rise too high.  I ended up with two pieces in the bottom of the oven because they rise higher when they bake, and it got claustrophobic in the cups, so the others threw them overboard.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.  I baked mine about 17.  I wanted to be sure they were done!!  Cool 3 to 4 minutes before removing from pan.  Mine did not stay together all nice like a muffin as shown on the original recipe, but we took them all out of the muffin tins (we did 36 at once because that is a package of Rhodes Roll Dough) and dumped them into a cake pan.  Now they are just like the original stuff Christopher likes, but DONE in the middle.  *I have to say, they are pretty NUMMY.






<==ours





                    The picture from the recipe.

I think next time, we will just put 3 or 4 in a cup, and not coat as thick with the sugar mixture.  Maybe then they will be "pretty" instead of just pretty tasty.  Oh, and I have to say, The muffin tins were a sticky gooey mess, plus it dripped sticky sugar all over the bottom the oven.  (Thank goodness all I have to do is set the oven to "clean" huh?)  Maybe that and the suicidal jumpers would not happen if there were fewer pieces in the muffin cups.  *BTW... the jumpers were not burned to the bottom of the oven.  They were just as good as the rest.

Note to clcphd... I know, I know..... too sweet, but that is why I left the icing off.  They are no worse than a cinnamon roll.