Being an adult is a tough thing. Some days I look back on college life and reminisce on how easy life was...especially the summers. Living at home, working less than 30 hours a week and having home cooked meals. Thanks Mom!
Sometimes the hardest part of my day is figuring out what to eat for dinner, especially when I've just gotten home from work and did not plan ahead. When you're ravenous, making a big meal is just not an option. Thankfully, the crock pot has come in handy many nights for dinner. I don't know how to make a whole lot of things in the crock pot, but I'm finding more and more recipes.
I stumbled upon this recipe on Pinterest and also found another neat crock pot recipe site here.
Prepare the night before, stick in the fridge and plug in the next day before you head to work. :)
Yield: 6-8 servings
Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1/4 cup chopped onions
1/4 cup chopped bell peppers
29 oz. can tomato sauce
8 oz. package lasagna noodles, uncooked
4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 1/2 cups cottage cheese
Directions:
1. Spray the inside of the crock pot with cooking spray.
2. Brown the ground beef and drain off grease except for about 1 Tablespoon. Remove beef from pan.
3. Saute peppers and onions in pan with grease until slightly softened. Add beef back in and stir in the tomato sauce.
3. Spread 1/4 of the meat sauce on the bottom of the crock pot. Arrange 1/3 of the uncooked noodles over the sauce, breaking as needed to fit.
4. Combine the cheeses in a bowl. Spoon 1/3 of the cheeses over the noodles.
5. Repeat layers twice. Top with remaining sauce.
6. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours or to work around your work day, cook on high for an hour or two before work then cook on low or warm until you're home again.
7. Let lasagna stand in crock pot with lid off for at least 10 minutes before serving.
Wow, it has been quite a while since I last posted. Summer's busy, ya know! I do have some good reasons!
Reason #1: Duluth is on a hill, however, after receiving more than 9 inches within 12 hours on June 20, it flooded. We are very blessed to have very little damage to our house, however, we did get a foot of water in our basement...which means we had to haul everything outta there!
Reason #2: It's a hot summer! I haven't been cooking that much. Can you blame me? Pregnant, summer, and cooking are three tough things to combine. :)
Anyway, my love of food includes looking at food. Just looking at it. So beautiful. Naturally, I love looking through food magazines which is where I found this recipe. I love when they change much loved desserts into other forms of desserts. So fun!
Yield 2 dozen cookies
Ingredients:
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 Tablespoon grated orange peel
1 egg
1 cup white chocolate chips
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
2. In medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt.
3. In large bowl, cream butter, sugars, and zest with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg, mix well.
4. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture and mix well. Stir in white chocolate chips.
5. Drop dough by tablespoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes or until edges start to brown. Cool 3 minutes on pan and move to cooling rack.
6. Enjoy and think of the good ol' days of eating dreamsicles on the front porch. Or not, I didn't have a front porch or remember eating dreamsicles there, but it sounds like a good memory.
P.S. Isn't orange zest incredible? I can't believe how it can flavor things!
