An Easy and Cheesy Side Dish

Asparagus and Parmesan Cheese

I don't like eating the same things over and over. I truly use recipes I find and pin on Pinterest as inspiration in my kitchen. I found this recipe and was excited to try it. I'm shooting for different but I'm also aiming at healthier recipes as well. Recently, I've debuted two chicken entrees (Parmesan Garlic Chicken & One Pan Dinner). Now it's time for a side dish!

You all know me by now. I understand all recipes won't be quick and easy, but these are the recipes I gravitate towards! This recipe fits neatly into my quick and easy category!

Baked Potato Casserole

I'm trying to get a better footing on my cooking game, so I'm up for trying new things; I always have been up for trying new things.

My best friend Nicole posted a recipe on Instagram that looked simply delicious.

The recipe was for Baked Potato Casserole!

I had to give it a try because I just love all things potato!

I wanted to try it so bad I requested the recipe in advance and cooked it the day after she posted the picture!

Here's how my casserole turned out:

Visit her blog for the recipe. Aside from having to peel the potatoes, which took way too long for my liking, it was quick and easy!!

I have a similar recipe that I wanted to try soon...but my boyfriend requested that I stick to making this recipe, preferably every week, because he likes this one! Lol...I aim to please, so I see a lot of potatoes and potato peeling in the near future :-)

Have a great week y'all!!

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I Tried Something New: Couscous

OFFICIAL BIRTHDAY COUNTDOWN!: 14 Days

I told myself at the beginning of the year that I would try new foods that are healthier. For some reason or another I got it in my head that things like couscous and quinoa are healthy foods. I finally bought some during this last trip to the grocery store.

I decided to try the couscous first because it only takes five minutes to cook. To be honest, I didn't know anything about couscous before I cooked it except that I've known it to be used in Greek dishes...oh and that I've pinned recipes including couscous on my Pinterest! After I Wiki'ed it, I found out that couscous is a type of wheat.

Last week I had left over chicken and gravy and there was no more rice. I decided what a perfect night to to give it try!!

The instructions are easy:

1. Combine 1 1/4 cups of water, 2 teaspoons of butter, 

and the contents of the Spice Sack (in the box).

2. Bring to a boil and stir in the couscous.

3. Cover and remove from the heat.

4. Let stand for five minutes.

5. Fluff the couscous before serving.

I did just that and everything turned out just as it should.

The picture on the left shows the couscous after it finished cooking and the picture on the right shows the couscous mixed in with the chicken and gravy.

The couscous was pretty good. Since I combined this with chicken and gravy I feel like it would have tasted better if I had gotten unflavored couscous. The Roasted Garlic and Olive Oil version tasted like Oodles of Noodles, chicken flavor! LOL. It was definitely different, but good. The texture was much like that of Oodles and Noodles too...in little ball form.

I would like to try it again, but I would like to find something that it would compliment a little better!!

Have you tried couscous? What would you suggest to try it with?? I'm curious!

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Creativity

I wrote a post about my Green Bean Casserole recently. I forgot to take a picture that night, so I'm sharing one now! I like to get creative with my dishes so look at what I did with this one! I put an "M" in my casserole...LOL...(it stands for my name, in case you were wondering!)

So, because I thought outside of the box while making this casserole, my word for the month is CREATIVITY!

Last month was crazy, but I'm applauding myself because I had a post for every day of the week last month...YAY!!! That's definitely not an easy task.

I want to keep up the routine this month (with no promises ;-) plus I want to try and find different ways to be creative. Let's see if I can manage to do this.




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Green Bean Casserole

I super love Green Bean Casserole. Green Bean Casserole is the first casserole dish I ever taught myself how to cook. I do it so effortlessly now and it never rarely seems to disappoint. I decided to share my recipe, although you can get it off of just about any french fried onion canister...I like to spice mine up with a special ingredient.

Unlike kale, I've had a chance to perfect this recipe. I've found that it's best not to deviate from this recipe in ANY WAY. It may taste okay if you switch some ingredients out for other ones, but I like it just the way I do it.

Ingredients:

1 can of Cream of Mushroom

3/4 cup Milk

French Fried Onions

2 cans of French Style Green Beans

Soy Sauce to taste

Pepper to taste

Steps:

1. Pour the cream of mushroom into a bowl.

2. Add enough soy sauce to turn the cream of mushroom a light brown color.

3. Add a couple of shakes of pepper then add milk.

4. Pour all the green bean juice (lol...water) out of the can before adding the beans to the bowl and stir.

5. Add about 2/3 of the french friend onions.

6. Put in a casserole dish (I use a 9.5 in round casserole/pie dish but you can use whatever you have).

7. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 mins (or longer if you'd like; how I feel determines how long I bake it).

8. Remove from the oven and stir then add the remaining french fried onions to the top of the casserole.

9. Bake for 5 additional minutes (or as long as you think it needs) and...voila!

I've done this enough times to eye a lot of this stuff, but you may want to stick to the recipe the first couple of times you do it. It's very delicious!! I could eat this stuff every single week! So, although I've cooked this meal casserole dish about three times since deciding to post about it, I've never taken a picture of the whole dish itself. Here, however, is a picture of it on my plate.

I scooped the casserole out of the dish to put it in the plate
so all of the french fried onions are on the bottom. :-/

I made this for my family this weekend during my sister's graduation cookout and it was a hit!! We ate it ALL! 

Try this recipe and let me know how it goes!! Happy Cooking!

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So, Kale Got The Best of Me...I Got Something For That!!

Spinach!! That's right, spinach.

I couldn't get the kale to do right, so one of my bloggers suggested spinach. A light bulb went off in my head. Before I ran across kale, I kept saying I would give spinach a try.

I did!

I went and bought a very small can of it! LOL...and it was decent, but I wanted to be able do it the right way. I got swept up into work and personal life things, so I forgot about it. Thank goodness for my Mi-ettes!

I gave spinach a whirl!! I bought a big bundle of spinach and googled a recipe. Guess what pops up?! The same recipe I used the first time I cooked kale. I was very, very skeptical but I told myself to go for it. This was a totally different green from kale, so I didn't want that to stop me.

I had a lazy night and cooked hamburger helper...don't let
the pic fool you...that hamburger helper was dabomb.com!
Try it (Patty Melt)!

For the steps to cook it, click here (see Attempt #1). The only thing I didn't mention was I had to cut the stems off of both the kale and spinach. Also time frames were different. After I put the spinach  in the pot with the oil and garlic and coated all the leaves, I let it cook until the leaves were wilted. Then I drained the remaining juice from the pot, sprinkled it with oil, and salted it to taste...resulting in what you see to the right! It was on point too!! Very, very tasty. I tend to like my greens very salty, but if I'm trying to be healthy...I'm definitely trying to stay away from too much salt! My sister and I have to fuss at my mom about the ridiculous amounts of salt she consumes.

I guess I should mention this as well. Anytime a recipe calls for garlic, I use minced garlic (in extra virgin olive oil), which comes in a jar. I think this garlic tends to have more of a citrus-y taste which can affect the flavor of some foods. With this recipe it definitely did. The next night, I cooked spinach again but this time I used garlic powder instead. It was much better. I'll get brave one of these days and actually try to cut a clove of garlic, but for now...I'll stick with what I have.

So, with all that being said...spinach was a hit. I really appreciate all the suggestions from the kale post and I'm very much looking forward to trying more new things and sharing it with you all!!




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What In The Kale Is Going On?!

I'm slowly trying to transition my menu into a healthier version of itself. I'm not going on health binge like everyone else around me, but the people I love are eating healthier, so it's important for me to be able to provide healthy meals.

My best friend cooked some kale recently for dinner and I fell in love with it. It tasted so much like mustard greens and I  LOVE mustard greens. It was her first time cooking it, so there were improvements to be made, but I decided to take my own stab at it.

ATTEMPT #1

I went to the grocery store, bought the kale and was ready to go! I was tempted to buy a bag of pre-cut kale, because it would have been much easier to just open a bag, wash it, and pour it in the pan. But the cost was what changed my mind. Buying bundles was much cheaper. So, I got home googled a recipe for how to "sauté" kale, prepped my kale, and got going. Here are the steps I followed:

• Sauté garlic in oil until the garlic is soft
• Add 1/2 a cup of water
• Add the kale to the pot and coat the leaves
• Cover the pot and let it cook for 5 to 15 minutes (I chose to let it cook for 5 minutes because I only had a small amount of kale)

I followed all the instructions so I thought everything would work out...wrong! Wrong!! Lol. I was so busy cooking the other food and washing dishes so I wouldn't have to do it later that I got distracted. I began to smell something burning. Really? Burning?!? I check the pot of kale and it had burned so badly that it was burnt black and stuck to the bottom of the pot. IT HADN'T EVEN BEEN FIVE MINUTES YET!! I think I went wrong in two places - I used a metal pot and the heat was on a medium-high setting.
 

I was going to say forget it and eat my fish and rice without the kale, but I really wanted kale that night so I gave it another try. This time I used a non-stick pot and I did not take my eyes off of it. I cooked it, but it turned out really tough and very bland BUT here's what it looked like:

Before After

Don't get me wrong. It tasted okay after I added salt, but I want to be able to cook it so that when it goes from the pot to my plate, it's a complete product.

ATTEMPT #2

I was determined to redeem my name because I think I'm a decent cook. I was not about to let kale take me out of the cooking game. This time I tried to boil it. I thought this should be simple enough. Here are the steps I took:

• Fry bacon in the pot (for seasoning)
• Add water
• Add salt
• Add kale
• Boil

Simple enough, right?! When I googled a recipe for this, the time span was the same...about 5 to 15 minutes. I tasted it at 5 minutes and it was tough. I tasted it at 15 minutes and it tasted just like it did at 5 minutes. I was so discouraged. I let it cook for 10 more minutes and it still wasn't tender. It was past time for me to eat, so I turned the stove off and called it a night. I didn't even eat the kale with my dinner. When I reheated the leftovers, it was more tender that it was the night I cooked it. However, my goal is to get it tender the very first night I cook it.
 

I told my mom of these fiascos and she told me to try the first way again, but cook it on a lower heat setting (and I will also use a non-stick pot).
 

Please, Mi-ettes, give me some pointers you might have for cooking kale (or any type of greens - collards, mustard greens, etc.). I'm very interested to hear ways that have been successful for others.
 

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Bacon and Cheddar Cheese Grits Casserole

I tried this recipe last night and gave it two thumbs up. I wouldn't necessarily say it was the quickest because it's not...lol, but it is pretty tasty. Usually, when I bake I forget to grease the pan, but I didn't this time and I could definitely tell the difference. I had Pam...but I decided to use butter. Although that's not the healthiest alternative, I love butter! I'm not shamed!! :-)

I found this recipe on Pinterest (Bacon and Cheddar Cheese Grits Casserole), so that already puts me at 2 Pinterest demonstrations this month!

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Bacon and Cheddar Potato

So...a little while back my sister put me on these things called Bacon and Cheddar Potatoes (from Wendy's). I caught myself buying 2 or 3 of these things a week!! It was getting ridiculous. Wendy's has lost their minds because they don't have a $0.99 menu anymore (actually they do, but some of the items that used to be up there have magically increased in price). A Bacon Cheddar Potato is almost $3...for ONE!! When you order a potato...it's usually very messy, not done right, missing something, etc.! So one of my coworkers suggested I make my own.

Of course, I looked up a "recipe" to figure out the best way to bake a potato and I found a way that works for me. I altered this recipe a bit. I coat the potato with oil but I don't salt it. I don't eat the skin so there's no need to. I leave the potatoes in the oven for an hour. I usually don't turn them halfway through, but maybe I should start. After I take the potato out of the oven, I split it into four sections, salt and pepper it, butter it, then place cheese all over it. I then put the potato in the microwave to further melt the cheese. After that's done, I top it with bacon.

I love this snack and it usually will hold hunger back long enough for me to get some real food!

Give it a try!

How To Bake A Potato