Monday, July 30, 2012

Spinach Lasagna Roll Ups

My new favorite recipe :)

1 box of Lasagna noodles
1 Large Egg
1T Garlic Powder
1T Minced Onion
1-3T Italian Spices Mixture
15 ounces of Ricotta Cheese
14-16 ozs of Cottage Cheese
4+4 ozs of Mozzarella Cheese
2-4 ozs of Parmasean Cheese
9 ozs of Spinach Leaves
24 ozs of your favorite Spaghetti Sauce (you may need more if you pick a very chunky sauce)

Mix together all cheeses except 4 ounces of Mozzarella Cheese (save for the top), spices, and the egg.  Put in refrigerator while cooking noodles.

Once noodles are cooked, lay out all noodles and pick 12 that are the most solid (without stay pieces, holes or whatnot, you are going to roll them).

Scoop out 1/12 of the cheese mixture onto each noodle.  Spread out to one end and until about 2 inches to the other end.  Do not spread to the edges (it will spill over too much in the pan when cooking).

Place 2 layers of spinach leaves over the cheese mixture and roll noodle from the end with the cheese mixture towards the end without.  It should roll to fit 3 across the short side of a 9x13 pan and 4 across the longer side.  Once all noodles are rolled, pour sauce over the top.  Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.  Sprinkle remaining cheese on top (I like to put a little on each roll, instead of just all over the top) and bake for 5 more minutes.  Serve with your favorite garlic bread and salad :)

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Buffalo Chili ~ Recipe

For my first attempt at chili, I thought it would be good to do an "outside of the box" style.  While White Chili isn't totally out of the question, it wasn't what I was in the mood for.  I wasn't sure what I wanted, and we ended up pairing it with Gyros for the adults and hot dogs for the kiddos.

A few weeks ago, we stopped at the Silver Bison Ranch on the way home from my parents house and picked up a few pounds of bison meat.  Now, we are not health nuts, but it is the leaner red meat and quite tasty.  You can basically substitute bison meant for beef in any dish and most people won't even notice.

So, I brown the pound of ground bison.  Read the back of the chili powder package and decide, there aren't enough beans or tomatoes in this dish.  So I added another can of beans (I went the lazy route, because we had canned beans and because I was tending to three WHINY girls at the same time as cooking) and a can of tomato sauce.  What started out as a small pot of chili morphed into a large pot of chili.  We probably won't finish it, because only my husband and I will be eating it.  The girls only eat it once, if we're lucky, then it's up to us.  Even though it turned out to be about twice as much as I intended to make, it was tasty!

Buffalo Chili
1 pound of ground bison mean
1 package of Ortega Chili Seasoning
1 can (14 ounces or so) of diced tomatoes
1 can (14 ounces or so) of tomato sauce
2 cans (14 ounces or so) of dark red kidney beans

Brown bison meat in a skillet.
In a large sauce pan or stew pot, mix together the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.  Add bison meat and boil for a minute.  Reduce heat and simmer for at least ten (10) minutes.  Keep on lowest heat setting  until ready to serve.

Garnish with cheddar cheese, sour cream, diced tomatoes and/or avocado, or guacamole...or whatever else you weird people put on chili.

Enjoy!