Baked Turkey Croquettes

I shouldn't be posting this in the spring time because it's ideally the perfect post-Thanksgiving meal to use with your leftover turkey & mashed potatoes. So bookmark this and bust it out in November, please.

Ingredients:
3/4 lb of turkey (cooked & shredded thin)
3 potatoes, peeled, cooked, & mashed
3/4 cup fat free chicken broth
2 tsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 egg
salt & pepper, to taste
fat free olive oil spray
Directions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Mash potatoes in with 1/4 cup of the broth.
Add salt & pepper.
In a medium sauce pan, heat oil on low heat. 
Saute garlic & onions for a few minutes. Add parsley, more salt & pepper, and cook until soft for a few more minutes. Add turkey and remaining broth.
Mix well, then remove from heat.
Then add the turkey to the mashed potatoes. 
Use your hands to mix them together.
Add more salt if needed.
Scoop out the mixture, 1/4 cup at a time and form the oval croquettes.
Place each on waxed paper. 
Meanwhile, break & whisk egg and dip each croquette into the egg wash. From there dip into the breadcrumbs that are placed in a shallow dish.
Then place on a lined cookie sheet (parchment or tin foil). Spray with olive oil spray generously. Bake in oven for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Cheeseburger Soup

So sad I didn't get better pictures of this! Ask my in-laws for verification. It was delicious!
Served this with the sweet potato pizza.

Ingredients:

4 tbsp butter

1/2 pound ground beef
3/4 cup onion, chopped
2 tsp parsley flakes
salt & pepper to taste
4 tbsp butter
3 potatoes, peeled & cubed
3 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1.5 cups 2% milk
1/4 cup sour cream
cubes of bread, homemade croutons, or crackers to top


Directions:
In a large pot, melt 1 of the tablespoons of butter over medium heat and mix in beef and onion.
Mix in salt, pepper, & parsley.
Add broth & potatoes.
Bring to a boil. 
Then lower temperature and simmer for 10 to 12 minutes. You'll want the potatoes to be soft.
Melt the remaining butter in a medium microwave-safe bowl. 
Stir in the flour with the melted butter. Make sure it's mixed in completely.
Add the milk to the butter/flour mixture. 
Then add that mixture to the soup a little at a time. You want to be stirring constantly during this whole process.
Bring to a boil. 
Then lower temperature and add cheese. 
Keep at low temperature.
After cheese is melted, add the sour cream until melted through.
Serve with bread or homemade croutons. 


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Sweet Potato Pizza

This is an addicting dish. You've been warned! Perfect as an appetizer or an entire meal. I apologize for the sloppy pictures. I was on vacation!

Ingredients:
1 can of pillsbury pizza dough (or other pizza dough will do)
4 sweet potatoes, peeled & sliced into coins
2 tomatoes, cut into slices
1 15 oz. container of fat free ricotta cheese
garlic salt
olive oil or misto spray
3 cups of fresh spinach, arugula, or other type of lettuce (I used a big of spring mix)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (optional)


Directions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Spread out pizza dough on pan.
Cover with ricotta cheese. You probably won't need to use the whole container, just enough to cover the whole area with a thin layer.
If you have a misto, skip the next step....
Toss 1 tbsp of olive oil with the sweet potato slices.
Cover ricotta layer with sweet potato and tomato in any combination you want. You can have them overlap or spread them out. See picture.
Spray with misto.
Sprinkle garlic salt over pizza.
Place in oven for 12 to 15 minutes. Rotate the pizza halfway through.
With one minute left, sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
Top with lettuce after you remove from oven. Cut & serve.


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Twice-Baked Ranch Potatoes

I've fallen in love with twice-baked potatoes. (See my original post on twice-baked taco potatoes.) These ranch-flavored ones were just as good and equally easy to make. This specific recipe is from Freezer Pleasers. (I consistently rave about this book on a handful of my blog posts, so I still recommend trying it out.)


Ingredients:

4 to 5 large baking potatoes

3 oz. of fat-free packaged cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup skim milk

1 envelope ranch salad dressing mix

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

Heat potatoes in microwave for about 15 minutes.

Let stand so they cool before handling them.

Scoop out pulp leaving a thin shell, but not TOO thin. 

Combine cream cheese and milk with the mashed potatoes.

Then blend in salad dressing mix completely.

Use a hand mixer to blend completely.

Scoop into the potato shells.

Top with cheese.

Place in microwave again (2 at a time) and cook for 3.5 to 4.5 minutes in a microwave safe dish. 

You can also freeze them to eat later. To defrost cook on 50% power for 8 to 9 minutes. Do not freeze for more than 3 months. 

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Meatloaf Cupcakes

For April Fool's my cooking club had a get together and I decided it would be fun to make one of those April Fool's Desserts (google it). I went with the whole mashed potato cupcake thing. It was great.

However, one of my friends (Hi Jess!) was really disappointed when the she found out the mashed potatoes were chocolate cupcakes & frosting, she actually WANTED the mashed potatoes instead. So as a treat, when I knew she was coming over for dinner, I decided to make mashed potatoes for real. I wanted to keep with the cupcake theme though, so I decided I would do meat cupcakes instead with mashed potato icing. So cute! It might sound gross, but it's actually quite delicious.

There are a bazillion meatloaf recipes out there and anyone will do. I'm a no-thrills kind of meatloaf gal. I don't like bbq sauce or brown sugar or too much of anything else. I like a little bit of seasoning and some veggies. I also want the meatloaf as healthy as possible. That's why I'm really happy with this recipe. I did a 50/50 combination of ground turkey and extra lean ground beef. 

I also put in shredded carrots, diced onions, and diced celery. Normally it would be a pain in the rear end to dice, chop, and shred all those veggies and try to get them small enough to mix into the meat mixture. But with the help of Darrenkamp's and my small food processor it was very easy.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb lean ground beef
1/2 lb ground turkey
1/2 cup shredded carrot
1/2 cup onion, diced
1/2 cup celery, diced
1/3 cup skim milk
3/4 cup italian-style breadcrumbs
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan
2 eggs
salt & pepper
Box of instant mashed potatoes and all the ingredients that goes with it or homemade mashed potatoes.


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Prepare the instant mashed potatoes, directed by the box. (See end note on why to do the mashed potatoes first).
Next, start to prepare the meatloaf.
In a small bowl mix in the breadcrumbs and milk.
Saute the veggies until soft. (You can use oil, but I chose to just use fat free olive oil spray).
Transfer into a food processor once the veggies have cooled and mince on a low setting until the veggies are very tiny.
Mix the meat, eggs, breadcrumbs/milk, parmesan, parsley, salt & pepper together in a large bowl. Use your hands or a spoon, make sure it's mixed well.
Place meat mixture into muffin pan. (I use the bendable, non-stick muffin pans and the meatloaf pops out easily at the end.) You should fill up each muffin cup about most of the way.
Bake in oven for about 20 to 25 minutes.
Makes about 12.
For the mashed potato topping you will use about 4 oz. of instant mashed potatoes. Follow directions on box.
(for pink icing mix in beet juice!)
Use a star tip and pipe the frosting or use a plastic bag and cut a whole in it. [You might want to do the mashed potatoes first, then do the meatloaf because it's hard to pipe the mashed potatoes when they are still really really hot.]

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Twice-Baked Taco Potatoes

These came out so well, I'm so proud!



My mother sent me this recipe she found a couple weeks ago and we were having people over, so it was the perfect opportunity to try them out. Most people love mashed-potatoes and most people love tacos. Put them together to create a masterpiece!

I had a lot of commitments on Thursday night, so I prepared them on Wednesday and had my husband bake them in the oven for 30 minutes just in time for our dinner guests. I know you can freeze twice-baked potatoes so you can try doing that too. Enjoy!


Each potato can serve 2 people, or 1 if you are hungry. I was on a time crunch so I used the microwaveable potatoes (aren't all potatoes microwaveable?). They worked like a dream. I would highly recommend them. They would work better for small amounts though. If you are only making for 4 people then they are definitely the way to go. You have to bake them for 8 minutes or if doing several at a time you would bake them for 5 to 6 minutes per potato. If you are baking 10 potatoes that comes out to be an hour (I did it in shifts though), which means you might as well bake them in the oven. But if you are just using a few potatoes it will save you an hour. It also will save you from having to wash and scrub the potatoes because they come cleaned and packaged. You actual cook them while still in the packaging. It may be cheating, but I'm all about it. 


Ingredients:
10 potatoes
1.5 cups sour cream, reduced fat
2 cups skim milk
2 cups cheddar or mexican blend shredded cheese, reduced fat
2 cups mozzarella cheese, reduced fat
1 pound ground beef or ground turkey
1/2 cup taco seasoning
salt & pepper to taste


Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and bake potatoes for an hour to an hour and a half. 
Or follow microwave instructions if you use those type of potatoes.
Meanwhile, brown beef/turkey and season with taco seasoning. Set aside.
Let them cool and cut out the potatoes using a knife and fork (or whatever other strategy you use for mashed potatoes) away from the skin.
Do not get too close to the skin. You want them sturdy enough to hold further ingredients.
Mash the potatoes with the sour cream and milk using a mixer. Add more milk, butter, salt, etc. if desired.
Stir in cheddar cheese and taco meat. 
Season potatoes with salt & pepper.
Spoon filling into potato skins. 
Sprinkle with additional taco seasoning and mozzarella cheese
Bake in oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Crock Pot Corn Chowder

There is this cool website called A Year of Slow Cooking about a women who set a New Year's Resolution to cook, using her crock pot, every day in 2008. It's great because she has a TON of slow cooker recipes. There are desserts, drinks, entrees, soups, etc. All kinds of recipes. I found this corn chowder one and decided to give it a try.

I did this recipe a little differently. The original recipe has you throw everything into a slow cooker, cook for 4 hours, then puree the soup using a small hand mixer while the soup is hot. I didn't have the resources or the skill to do that. So I pureed everything in a blender first, then put it in the slow cooker and cooked it after everything was blended together. I was still happy with the results. You may want to add more seasoning, or garlic, or other types of vegetables. But the corn and potatoes is what gets it done. 

Ingredients:

2 quarts of low fat chicken broth

1/2 cup diced onion

1/2 cup diced red pepper

1/2 cup diced celery

1/4 cup shredded carrots

32 ounces of frozen corn

6 small white potatoes (i didn't peel mine, but you can choose to take the skins off of yours)

1/2 cup low fat shredded cheese (optional)

olive oil or fat free cooking spray

fresh parsley

salt & pepper

Directions:

Brown the onion in oil until cooked.

Add onion, red pepper, celery, carrots, broth, & corn into a blender and puree. You can do this in sections, if needed.

Add potatoes and blend more. 

It should be a creamy consistency and there shouldn't be too many lumps. 

Transfer to slow cooker. Cook on high for 4 to 5 hours or low for 8 to 9 hours.

When ready to serve top with cheese & parsley, add salt & pepper to taste. 
Serve with toast. 

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Potato & Bacon Cheese Quiche

This is recipe is also from Pillsbury Best Of The Bake-Off Contest Winners Cookbook. It's another winner. Warning...it's not as healthy as my last recipe. But it is GOOOOOOD. 

I made it down in Myrtle Beach while on vacation. Once again, I cheated by using the generic Walmart brand instead of Pillsbury Dough (sorry Pillsbury!) but it saved me a few bucks so it was worth it.

My husband was raving about it last night at wings. So I know it must of been good :-)

Ingredients:

1 bag of potatoes (preferably hasbrown or tater tot style)

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 bag steamable frozen broccoli & cheese sauce

1 pie crust from 15 oz box

4 eggs

2/3 cup heavy whipping cream

7 slices of bacon, cooked, crumbled

1 cup shredded parmesan cheese

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 teaspoon basil

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon parsley

1/3 cup green onions, choppped

garlic salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook hashbrowns in oil over medium-high heat, flip halfway through and cook other side, following directions on bag. (I had a small skillet so I had to do two rounds of this)

Sprinkle with garlic salt (I had a garlic sea salt grinder) while cooking.

Meanwhile, cook steamable broccoli bag as directed on bag.

Place pie crust in 9 inch glass pie plate as directed on box.

Line the bottom and sides of the pie with cooked hashbrowns.

In large bowl, beat eggs and whipping cream with whisk. (we have a pretty awesome whisk at our beach house)

Stir in broccoli & cheese bag contents.

Stir in bacon, cheese, basil, pepper, & parsley.

Pour filling into pie plate.

Sprinkle green onions over filing.

Bake 30 to 50 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Check inside with a toothpick or knife.

I would love to know that you visited my blog or tried out a recipe. Leave me some love encouragement!

Mashed Potato Bar (aka Mash-tini Bar!)

My mom sends me links and emails from time to time. If she comes across a recipe she thinks I'll like or if she just comes across something cute she wants me to check out she'll send me a quick note about. Last month she told me to "google" Mashed Potato Bar because she had just seen a segment about it on the Today Show. Apparently, it's the new thing that catering companies or weddings are doing now. It's pretty cool! A lot of you may have heard of a Baked Potato Bar, but the Mashed Potato Bar takes it to a whole 'nother level. I really wanted to give it a try but was waiting for the perfect occasion to use it. We helped host a Christmas Party this past weekend and tried it out. Total success! It worked out well because a lot of people brought desserts and hours de vours, so it was nice to have the mashed potato bar to compliment them all. 

In reality, it's a real simple idea. Sophisticated simplicity, if you will. Mashed Potatoes are pretty easy to make. (well if you use instant like I did) Then you just select a variety of ingredients that you think your guests will enjoy with their mashed potatoes. The best part is you can use an icecream scoop and
serve them in martini glasses! Hence the name, Mash-tini Bar!!! It makes mashed potatoes look a lot fancier then they are and everyone loves the variety. We ran out of martini glasses so I used a variety of wine glasses. Check out the pictures!



Here are some ingredients I included:
Green onions
Shredded cheese
Roasted red peppers
Beef gravy
Chicken gravy
Sour cream
Diced tomatoes
Corn
Marinated zucchini
Bacon pieces
Turkey Pepperoni pieces
Paprika
Garlic Salt

What are your thoughts? What would you add to your Mashed Potato Bar?
Chili!
Melted Cheese!
Bacos!


Need more ideas? Check these out: San Diego Cooks, Frugal Fairy, Project Wedding.

My next challenge? I think I'm going to take on cake pops! Has anyone tried making these before??? Let me know if you are up for the challenge!


I would love to know that you visited my blog or tried out a recipe. Leave me some love & encouragement!

Skinny Chili Cheese Fries

One of the bloggers I follow, Heather, made a youtube video on how to make Skinny Chili Cheese Fries and it's one of my favorite dishes to make. My husband really likes them too. There is something fun about making them, Heather's recipe is neat because of her secret ingredient. The best part is they are relatively healthy so I can feel good about myself. Our good friends, Jess & Drew just had a baby girl several days ago. Instead of bringing over a meal, we brought over the ingredients and made the meal while visiting with the baby. It was great. Here is the recipe we used to feed the four of us with some leftover. Delicious!


Ingredients:

• 4 - 5 potatoes (go with a potato per person)
• 2 - 3 tsp of olive oil (you can go with 1 tsp per 2 potatoes)
• 2 cans of Turkey Hormel Chili (or another low fat/fat free can of chili)
• 1 can of chili packet seasoning
• 2 cups of shredded fat free cheddar cheese or 1/2 cup of cheese per person (you can use 2% or regular cheese, but fat free works because you don't have to melt it)
• salt & pepper (we went with kosher salt!)
• 10 - 12 ice cubes
• 2 1 gallon ziplock bags 
• 2 cookie trays/baking trays with ridges
• 2 very large sheets of Tinfoil

Directions:

1. Preheat ove to 450 degrees.
2. Slice each potato into 8 to 10 french fry wedges
3. Divide potatoes into each ziplock bag.
4. Add olive oil to each bag.
5. Split contents of chili among both bag, then seal bag & SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE! (see, told you it was a fun recipe!).
6. Make sure oil & chili seasoning is mixed up nicely and evenly among all the fries.
7. Take out fries and spread out among cookie sheets/baking sheets.
8. Now take all the ice cubes and spread them out intermittently among the french fries so they cover all areas of both cooking sheets.
9. Wrap up each tray with tinfoil cover tightly and seal edges.
10. Bake both trays in oven for 20 minutes. The ice cubes & tinfoil will STEAM the potatoes, so they cook without getting burnt!
11. Remove from oven, remove tinfoil, rotate potatoes to other side, sprinkle with salt & pepper.
12. Place bake in oven uncovered and cook to make them crispy.
13. Bake for another 20 minutes, could be 10 minutes, could be 30...watching to see how crispy you want them and that they don't burn.
14. Remove from oven, top with chili & cheese and enjoy!

I would love to know that you visited my blog or tried out a recipe. Leave me some love & encouragement!