29 oz. can of crushed tomatoes
7 cloves of chopped garlic (I didn’t have any fresh garlic so I used garlic powder. Sorry, Catherine!)
2 tablespoons dried basil (hey, I like basil, ok?)
½ cup of chicken broth (I used water)
Dash of ground nutmeg
Dash of salt
Dash of ground black pepper
18 oz. of frozen spinach
2 tablespoons dairy cream
1 cup mozzarella cheeese
1 lb. of your favorite macaroni
8 oz. of feta cheese, crumbled
Olive oil – for drizzling

I also added some leftover, frozen (pre-cooked) ground beef that I needed to use up. The beef adds a wonderful savor to the dish, especially with the nutmeg.

I boiled my penne rigate.

I sauteed my beef with the first 7 ingredients in the list for about 20 minutes. I then added the frozen spinach on top and allowed it to thaw. I then added the cream.

I placed the pasta in a large casserole dish and added my mozzarella cheese and some leftover broccoli.

I then poured the tomato sauce into the dish and stirred it all up. I sprinkled the feta cheese and a little extra olive oil on top.

I cooked the dish for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

OOOOO LA LA!!! This would win the heart of anyone, even those guys hawking bad credit small business loans. Sooooo gooooood.

I served this meal with some broiled Italian bread. We get leftover loaves from Panera Bakery. I slice these in half and spread either olive oil or butter on them, sprinkle garlic powder on them, and grill them under the broiler for about 3 minutes. They are magnificent with the meal, believe me.

*sigh* It’s good to eat Italian food on a snowy winter eve. Manja manja!

I feel out of all that work a few years ago. I can’t put my finger on why I stopped, exactly. Maybe it was when the kids hit a certain age and they were able to make their own meals. Or maybe it was when I started babysitting a bunch of kids and became too busy for all that kitchen work. Or maybe it was when I started my at-home job. That takes a lot of time and energy, actually. And I’m getting older, too. I sure wish they had a Battery charger for us as we age. Coffee just isn’t working so much anymore, lol.

Well, ANYWAY, I’m thinking about bulk cooking because I actually did some today. It has been a loooong time. I have been taking advantage of some good sales, and one of them was on a 20-pound slap of boneless pork loin. I’m not too fond of pork (no one is in the house), but the price was right and I figured I could make a couple of meals out of it. Which I did, today. Can you believe it— it’s not even 10 am and already the entire loin is washed, chopped, bagged and stored! Some of it is simmering in a crockpot with carrots, onions and black beans. I feel so… so… domestic!

Regarding canning– I would love to learn how to can. The food prices make me queasy and sometimes when I read the news headlines I get a little nervous. Everything seems so tenuous. Is it just me? Is it truly tenuous? Or does every generation always feel this way? I imagine how it must have felt for folks going through the world wars…. wow. Anyway, I think I will try to get back into the bulk food preparation habit again. Maybe I’ll even shell out the bucks and get a canning set.

Anyway, a chilly, damp day like this is a perfect day for baking chicken. Chicken permeates the damp air and gives us something to look forward to. Plus, the day just FEELS warmer with the smell of baking poultry in the air. When I don’t feel like cooking, but I want some winter’s day comfort food, here’s what I do: Line a heavy duty pan with aluminum foil (to help cut some of the greasy cleanup– remember, it’s a lazy day today). Place chicken pieces in the pan, skin side up. Yes, this is a fatty recipe! I did say it was comfort food. You won’t be needing any hgh supplement to grow here, not with this eating.

So place your chicken skin side up. I usually buy VERY cheap chicken on sale, and freeze it for days like these. I don’t thaw it out very much before cooking, either– I simply allo the chicken to cook all day long.

Slice one large onion and place the slices on top of the chicken. Grab some basil, oregano, parsley, and paprika, and sprinkle generously over everything.

Now, wrap up the pan with more aluminum foil. Place in an oven set at 400 degree F for about 2 hours. After that, remove the foil, turn down the heat to 350, and bake for another 2 hours. At the cooking halfway time when I remove the foil, I usually throw in a dozen potatoes for baking.

The house smells so good. Yummmmm. I usually serve this dish with some green veggies. And that’s it! It’s a marvelous meal, and the kids seem to love it.

So today I made Easy Giant Apple Pie. If you have peeled and diced apples and ready-made packaged pie crusts, this recipe takes about 15 minutes to throw together– it’s SO easy! And I call it “Giant” because it is a huge pie, baked in a casserole dish. This is nice if you have a lot of kids to feed (like me) or a big crowd, if you love leftover pie, or if you’re skipping the appetite suppressant and just want to bake a big pie.

Technically, this kind of apple pie is called “French” apple pie, because it has no top crust. Rather, it has a crumbly streusel topping. It’s fabulous with coffee or ice cream.

Regarding the spices– add to your own liking. I rarely use measuring utensils (I’m a hands-on kind of cook) so the measurements here are approximate. Also, make sure your pie crusts are room temperature. This makes them more flexible without tearing– you are going to need to pull at the crusts a little to fit them into a rectangular 13×9 casserole dish.

Easy Giant Apple Pie

2 pie crusts
1 13×9 casserole dish

for the pie mix:
10 cups (or so) of pared and diced apples (thawed)
3/4 cup raisins (optional)
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup molasses (optional)
1/4 cup ground flax seed meal (optional)
2 Tablespoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 cup flour

for the topping:
1 stick of butter
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Blend the topping ingredients and mash in the butter until the mix looks gravelly.

Mix up the apples and other ingredients for the pie filling.

Take your pie crusts. Make sure they are room temperature.

Gently unroll one of the crusts and place it into the casserole dish. You want to stretch it a little to make the crust fit up along the sides of the dish.

Unroll the second crust and overlap the first a little. Press the seam together where the two meet. Again, make sure your crust fits up along the inner sides of the dish.

Dump the pie filling in the dish. Sprinkle the topping evenly on top.

Bake in a hot oven at 400 degrees for an hour and twenty minutes. The pie should be bubbling. The baking pie makes the house smell INCREDIBLE.

Doesn’t it look scrumptious?? Yum!

Basically, she used the same ingredients (massively increasing the measurements to feed 10, of course) . Instead of making boats, she diced the zucchini and made a casserole. Oh my word– it was soooo good!! All of the kids ate it except the Picky One. They kids even had seconds! This is a great recipe. If you have extraneous zucchini, I suggest you give it a go.

Crockpot Macaroni & Cheese
serves 5-6

16oz cooked and drained pasta (elbows, shells, whatever– you can even used leftover pasta if you have enough)
3-4 cups shredded Cheddar Cheese
1 12oz. can of Evaporated Milk
1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons flour
2 Tablespoons butter
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning or cayenne pepper (optional)
1 teaspoon garlic powder or 2 teaspoons minced garlic (optional)

Grease the inside of your crockpot with butter or margarine. Mix everything together and pour into Crockpot. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours. Don’t stir, it will firm up as it cooks. In the final few minutes of cooking, you can add bread crumbs or sprinkle some dried parsley on top.

Photo is from Kitchen Wench, who, incidentally, has a spectacular Mac and Cheese recipe at her site, too. Be forewarned: it’s loaded with heavy ingredients. She calls it Mac Heart Attack n’ Cheese!

Wow Chow Chili
serves 10

• 1 large can (28 oz.) petite-diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 green pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 white onion, diced
• 1 can beef broth
• 1 small can tomato paste
• 4-5 pounds beef or pork, cubed into bite-sized pieces (I used both uncooked beef cubes and some leftover grilled pork steaks, cubed)
• 3 cans black beans, drained
• 2 Tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• salt

Throw everything into the crockpot and stir well. Turn on HIGH for 6-8 hours (or LOW for 10-12).

Serve with rice and a little cheddar cheese sprinkled over the top.

If you want to add some heat to the recipe, you can add tabasco sauce, or something like hot pickled cherry peppers. I always have a can of these on hand for my Chicken Riggies recipe. My kids don’t like spicy foods, so I don’t make them (not too often, heh heh).

I made up a pseudo-lasagna recipe, using ziti for the pasta. I call it Hybrid Lasagna, because it is a mixture of a lasagna recipe and a baked ziti recipe. The kids love this stuff! It keeps well, and you can make it early in the day (or a day before) and throw it in the oven later. It’s also great as a “full” meal- contains vegetable, meat, dairy, and carbohydrates. And, like most of my meals, it is “fully customizable,” that is you can eliminate an ingredient or substitute an ingredient. I make this stuff in huge quantities, and for when I’ve got a full house or when I want to serve it again another day.

Like most Italian dishes, this requires a lot of cookware and dishes for the prep work. I hate doing dishes! But the nice thing about this is that you can prepare this early in the day. Whch means that the cookware gets dirty early in the day, and you have all afternoon to wash it. I like that. I don’t know about you, but after dinner, I am tired and the last thing I want is a huge stack of dirty cookware to clean! OK, on with the show:

Hybrid Lasagna

Serves 10!

1 pound ground beef or ground sausage, cooked
2 boxes ziti
1 large white onion, diced
2 28oz. cans petite tomatoes
1 28oz. can spinach
3 eggs
1 tub (32oz.) small-curd cottage cheese
1 jar spaghetti sauce (leftover sauce does well)
Shredded mozzarella cheese
Dried basil
Dried oregano
Garlic powder
Salt and pepper
Aluminum foil
A GREAT BIG casserole dish (or several small ones)
A cookie sheet

You’re going to do three things for the prep work: boil the ziti, coat the ziti, and cook the tomato sauce. I always get the ziti boiling first thing. A word of caution: do not overcook the ziti! It’s going to be sitting in a tomato sauce for over an hour– it will get mushy. Cook the ziti for about 5-6 minutes, until it is al dente- the point at which you can split the noodle with a fingernail without too much effort. If it falls apart in your fingers, it’s overcooked. Don’t worry– I’ve done this, and served it up anyway. Kids will eat just about anything. But keep an eye on the pasta. Drain it and rinse it with cold water. (In Italian cooking, we usually don’t rinse the pasta, but I am being unconventional here. You don’t want to allow the ziti to cntinue cooking. The cold water stops it in its tracks).

While the ziti is boiling, I heat up my pre-cooked and drained ground beef. Sometimes I use ground sausage (ooo lala! it’s good with sausage), but I was a dunderhead today, and didn’t thaw out the sausage in time. So ground beef it is. Once the beef is heated, add the onion. Allow this to cook until the onion is translucent and tender.

Now, add your two cans of 280z. petite diced tomatoes. Add in your spices. I’ll leave the quantities of the spices up to you- I love basil and it sweetens the tomatoes, so I add about a tablespoon. I add 1/2 tablespoon oregano and about three shakes of the garlic powder. Stir it all in and allow to simmer for about 10 minutes. The simmering is important– if you don’t cook the tomatoes through enough, the ziti will have a raw taste to it. Wait until you see it really bubbling and look for those frothy red-brown bubbles to show up. It will also smell wonderful.

So while that simmers (don’t let the tomatoes burn! keep them in the back of your mind and stir the pot every minute or two!), let’s go back to the ziti.

In a large bowl, lightly beat the eggs.

Open up your can of spinach, drain it thoroughly, and beat it into the eggs. Add a little pepper and salt to the mix.

Now add the cottage cheese. Mix it up really well.

Dump the cooled ziti in, and mix to coat the ziti thoroughly. Set aside.

By now, your tomato sauce should be just about done. I always assemble all my components at this point. You’re going to work in layers: spaghetti sauce, ziti, cheese, tomato sauce. Repeat this one more time.

This dish can be a little juicy. Like I said, I just hate scrubbing cookware, so I mummify my pans before baking with them. I wrap my cookie sheet with aluminum foil and place my casserole dish on top. Then, I loosely cover the Hybrid Lasagna with a sheet of foil. I puncture the top with a fork, to allow steam to escape. The foil cover keeps the ziti noodles from drying out. There is nothing worse that hearing my family bust their teeth on solidified pasta at the dinner table.

Bake the Hybrid Lasagna for an hour at 350 degrees. If you make the dish early in the day and refrigerate it, be warned that you will have to bake it for a longer time, for it to cook in the center. At the final 15 minutes of the baking time, remove the foil and add some shredded cheese on top to get it browned and gooey (yum).

You can serve this dish with bread, a salad, with yogurt banana parfaits on the side, or whatever. Or just serve it alone; it’s a complete dish.

Here are some extra ideas for customizing this dish: