Creamy Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bake

If you’ve been reading this blog awhile, unlike many of you who create dishes, you know I'm pretty well just a recipe follower with the occasional light recipe adaptation until this meal.  Dennis recently posted the recipe for Creamy Chicken Alfredo Lasagna on his “Ask Chef Dennis” blog and the ingredients appealed to me.  We had ricotta, spinach, and chicken that all needed to be used but I didn’t have enough noodles to make lasagna and wasn’t willing to make a store trip so I used on hand ingredients and heavily adapted his recipe.  As it turned out, we had 24 oz of ricotta, only half a bag of spinach (I thought we had 1½), and no mushrooms so the recipe below was born.  You can get the original recipe and pics by clicking on the above link.

Delicious and Easy Vegetable Cheese Sausage Breakfast Casserole And Christmas Tree

I’ve always enjoyed breakfast casseroles and have made, and posted about, many of them over the years and lately I decided I really, really like them as they can be made then eaten on for several days.  For this one, I used the recipe for Easy Vegetable Cheese Sausage Breakfast Casserole from Serious Eats and I made it as shown below.

Savory Reuben Bake And Our Little Garden

When Bev came home from Sam’s Club recently with a corned beef brisket flat, I went to my saved recipes to see if I could find something different to do with it and I discovered the recipe for Savory Reuben Bake on the “Mia Recipes” blog.  I cooked the corned beef in a crockpot with potatoes and carrots the previous day then used the remaining for the Savory Reuben Bake.

Crack Chicken Casserole - Very Good

I try to make cooking for Friday cards pretty simple so one-pot meals and casseroles are usually high on my list.  I saw this recipe for Crack Chicken Casserole on the “Ask Chef Dennis” blog and it seemed to fit the bill.  Dennis says that “Crack Chicken Casserole is creamy, cheesy, and packed with crispy bacon, ranch flavor, and pasta. Pure comfort food baked to perfection.”  I followed the recipe as written.

Crack Chicken Casserole

Ingredients:

2 cups rotisserie chicken - shredded

8 oz cream cheese - softened

1 packet ranch dressing mix

10.5 oz cream of chicken soup condensed

1 cup sour cream - full fat

1 cup half and half or whole milk

1½ cups sharp cheddar cheese - shredded

6 slices bacon cooked and crumbled 

8 ounces shell pasta - cooked aldente

2 cups crushed Ritz Townhouse crackers  

4 ounces unsalted butter - melted (1 stick)

½ cup green onions - sliced for garnish

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Cook the shells per the instructions on the package for aldente.

Butter a 9×13-inch baking dish. Set aside until needed.

Add the softened cream cheese, ranch seasoning mix, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, and half and half to a medium bowl. Whisk until smooth and creamy.

Delicious Chicken Broccoli Cheddar Rice Casserole – Not Your Typical Broccoli Casserole

We had made a version of this broccoli casserole several years ago but I updated it for a larger dish and a different assembly method as shown in the recipe below.  It's different than the usual holiday version of broccoli in that it contains rice.  I topped this one with cheese but the traditional crumb topping can also be used.  The original recipe calls for boiling the chicken then using the water for the rice but I hate to boil the flavor from the chicken so I baked it and added some Chicken Better Than Bullion to the rice cooking water.

Delicious Loaded BBQ Pork Potato Casserole For RV Rally Arrival

We recently attended a rally for our RV travel club (even though we stayed in a motel) in Pensacola, FL and a pot luck supper was on tap for the arrival day meal.  Since we would be driving down in the car and arriving shortly before the meal, I planned our contribution to be something I could make at home and heat up after we got to the rally.  The dish I chose was Loaded BBQ Pork Potato Casserole from the “Mom On Time Out” blog and I followed the recipe as shown below.

Deconstructed Skillet Stuffed Cabbage Rolls And A Very Small Rant

We really enjoy cabbage rolls, especially when someone else makes them, so when I saw Kevin’s recipe for Deconstructed Skillet Stuffed Cabbage Rolls  on his “Closet Cooking” blog, I knew I wanted to give it a try.  I’m going way out on a limb here to say I actually changed a Kevin recipe a little based upon some other recipes I saw – I added some bacon & sausage and changed the cooking order just a little.  The original recipe and his great how-to pics can be found by clicking on the above link.

Christmas 2023 At Almost Heaven South

Just as last year, Kathy and Keith, came from Nebraska to Tennessee for a couple of weeks and spent the first part of the visit with Wende and the second part with us.  After they did Christmas morning with Eliza at Wende’s, they all came down to our place for more Eliza present opening and Christmas dinner.

With the addition of friend Kathy, her daughter Ashley, and our neighbors, Pat & Steve, we had 14 for dinner - Pat, Steve, Ashley, Kathy, Wende, Ralph, Beanie, Eliza, Kathy, Keith, Larry, Beverly, Pat, Cindy.

Easy Chicken Tetrazzini

For our three person Friday get-together (Bev, Pat, and Cindy are in FL), I wanted to cook something for which I had the ingredients, was pretty simple, didn’t dirty many pans, and met the likes/dislikes of the diners.  As it turned out, I had a box of gluten free pasta and some chicken breasts and the dish I came up with was chicken tetrazzini.  The recipe I picked was Easy Chicken Tetrazzini from Amy on her “Belly Full” blog.  I made just a couple of changes as noted.

Creamed Cauliflower (aka Creamy Garlic Parmesan Cauliflower with Bacon) & Thanksgiving Dinner

When daughter Wende invited me over for what is becoming her traditional Thanksgiving supper of Cornish hens cooked over an open fire, I volunteered to bring a side dish.  My original choice was Brussels sprouts & sweet potato hash but when I saw Kevin’s recipe for Creamed Cauliflower, I changed my mind.

On his “Closet Cooking” blog, Kevin describes the dish as “A quick and easy stove-top creamed cauliflower with butter, garlic, parmesan, and bacon!”  I made it by his recipe below but since I made it ahead of time, I transferred to a dish for reheating at Wende’s and I used one of his options to add shredded cheese to the top.  For the complete list of options and his good how-to pics, just click on the above link.

But before I get the cauliflower, this is the main event being cooked over the open fire - potatoes and onions in the foil.

Pork Chop Supreme & Buttery Peas

I had three pieces of pork loin in the freezer and two of them went toward making Pork Green Chile Stew and I opted to use the third one to make six ¾” chops for this dish.  The recipe for Pork Chop Supreme came from the “Sweet Peas Kitchen” blog and I followed it as written.  I made it for our Friday group which was only three of us with Bev and Pat in Marco and Cindy off to Nashville – since I’m cooking for one, I wanted leftovers.

Cottage Pie Baked Potatoes Ala Mary & Breakfast

I am a potato fan and could eat them about every day – maybe the Irish blood in me – and I love Cottage Pie (Shepherd’s Pie from beef).  So when I saw Mary’s recipe for Cottage Pie Baked Potatoes on her “Vegetable Recipes” blog, I knew I had to try it.  Bev had just been to the Mennonite market and brought home some fine looking Yukon Gold potatoes that I could to use.  I followed Mary’s recipe but didn’t take pics of the process as they looked just like Mary’s which you can see by clicking on the above link.

Loaded BBQ Pork Potato Casserole

I was planning to make stir-fry for our Friday get-together and when I saw this recipe for Loaded BBQ Pork Potato Casserole on Tricia’s “Mom On Timeout” blog, I wished I had some pulled pork in the freezer.  During our Thursday drive down to the Englewood Farmers Market, we passed an Englewood, TN BBQ restaurant that Bev said she had always wanted to try.  So on our way home, we pulled into Navarro’s Smokehouse full parking lot and decided it must be good so the stir-fry was out and the casserole was in.  After tasting the pulled pork, I knew why they were full.  

Pork Chop And Hashbrown Casserole & Spring Has Sprung Here

 

When I saw this recipe for Pork Chop And Hash Brown Casserole containing two of my favorite things (pork and potatoes), I thought it would work well for our Friday card night.  The recipe comes from “The Country Cook” blog and I followed it except I used six chops and made a slight change to the cooking directions.  The original recipe along with lots of pics can be found by clicking on the above link.

Mexican Casserole with Ground Beef and Corn Tortillas

For out Friday card night, I like to make meals that are quickly cooked or can cook while we play and this one was the latter.  It also met three other criteria – gluten free, Mexican that we all like, and from one of my favorite meal sources.  The recipe for Mexican Casserole with GroundBeef and Corn Tortillas came from Chef Lea Ann on her “Cooking On The Ranch” blog.  I made it per the recipe except as shown in ( ).

Mediterranean Broccoli & Cheese Omelet

We had a good-sized container of steamed broccoli left over from another meal and rather than just reheat it to eat, I went in search of a recipe to use it for breakfast.  I found several omelets and frittatas and since I’m a fan of all things Mediterranean, I settled on the recipe for Mediterranean Broccoli & Cheese Omelet  from “Taste of Home” magazine.  I added some onion, chicken, and cheddar cheese to get the recipe below.

Baked Potato Chicken and Broccoli Casserole & Second Toe Surgery

With my second toe surgery was set for Tuesday, and I knew we wouldn’t want to be cooking so I made up a casserole the day before so all that we needed to do was reheat it.  I used the recipe for Baked Potato Chicken and Broccoli Casserole from Mary’s “Barefeet In The Kitchen” blog. Since I wanted plenty of leftovers, I increased the ingredients by 50% to get the recipe below.  Just click on the above link for her original recipe and some tasty looking pics.

A Delicious Spinach and Chicken Enchilada Casserole With Our Go-To Green Sauce

When I saw the recipe for “Spinach and Chicken Enchiladas” on Mary’s Vegetable Recipes blog I thought it sounded good for our Friday get together.  I’m pretty sure an enchilada is a corn tortilla wrapped around a filling which hers isn’t so I added the word casserole which I believe is more accurate.  I made the enchilada sauce using the second recipe below and I used about twice as many tortillas for the casserole as shown in the recipe below.  You can tell from my plate that I remembered the pic late into the meal.

Chicken Shepherd’s Pie

Cindy wanted to make this dish and we agreed it would work well for our Friday get together.  She got the recipe for Chicken Shepherd’s Pie from The Kitchen Girl blog and followed it except she increased the ingredients by 50% (shown below) and used corn starch rather than flour for gluten-free.