Terre Pruitt's Blog

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Posts Tagged ‘lasagna’

Freezer Staples

Posted by terrepruitt on October 14, 2019

Not too long ago I claimed to cheat at dinner in my post about how I sometimes use a prepared meal or frozen entree (sometimes I actually use a side) to make up a portion of a meal. I am sure we all do it, right? Well, if not, I know I am not unique in doing it and it is nothing new. I was curious as to what you might have in your freezer as a staple. Here is what I like to have in my freezer:

a lasagna
Annie’s pasta bowl
Annie’s enchilada meal
meatballs
quiche

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, Nia Technique, SJ City Fit, SJCityFit, City of San Jose Exercise Classes, Cambrian Yoga & Cardio Dance, CYCD, Yin YogaAlthough the last time I bought some frozen meatballs I was sorely disappointed because I LOVE them, but I purchased the wrong kind and I didn’t love the ones I bought as much as I usually do.

I don’t have ALL of these items in my freezer at the same time, but hopefully I have one or two. With the lasagna sometimes I have a larger size and we actually eat it as our entree, but sometimes I just have a single serving and just use it to complete the meal either adding it to meat or sometimes pasta. The same with the pasta bowl. I might add meat to it or additional pasta or use it as a side to an entree. With the enchiladas there are two and we each get one and I add meat or veggies to make two meals. The sausages sometimes get eaten as an entree or I add it to potatoes and/or eggs, or pasta or put it on a tortilla and call it a pizza. It just depends.

The meatballs are sometimes the entree. Sometimes I add them to pastas, sometimes I put it on a tortilla and call it a pizza, it all depends. But I really like have a bag of them in the freezer. As I said, though, the last bag disappointed me. It was the same brand but the meat and the spices were different and they actually caused such a fuss in my oven that it shutdown. They are greasy and caused a lot of smoke.

The quiche is usually used as the entree and we can have it two nights. It is yummy and bakes up rather fast.

I can’t think of what else I like to have on hand to help with dinner, but I am sure I am forgetting something.

What about you? What do you have in your freezer that is a staple?

Posted in Misc | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Italian Chicken

Posted by terrepruitt on June 5, 2014

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia at the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Zumba, PiYo, Gentle YogaI recently made lasagna with tomato sauce using the recipe I posted here My First Tomato Sauce Lasagna.  So yes, I use jarred sauce because otherwise I would never make the lasagna because I am kinda not a big fan of tomatoes so I know I would not make a good sauce.  I like this one (pictured).  I didn’t use the whole jar though.  I didn’t measure either.  I just put what I thought was about three cups or more, but I wanted to save a little sauce for pasta.  We don’t usually have pasta with red/tomato sauce, because . . . . well, you know.  But the other night I was trying to figure out what to have for dinner.  I had just cooked ground turkey and if it were just me, I could eat that almost every night, but recently I was told by my husband that he could not.  So . . . . there was chicken in the freezer, but it was not in a marinade bag so . . . .what to do?  Then I remember that ol’ recipe where you pour tomato sauce over the chicken and top it with cheese.  Just like the Salsa Chicken, I had never done that because . . . . well, you know.  So I decided to try it because it would be something new to us even though it is an old recipe.  So I made Tomato Sauce Chicken, I think of it as Italian Chicken.

So easy and so good, just like the Salsa Chicken.  This time I had what I think of as regular chicken breast (instead of the thin ones I had for the Salsa Chicken), but I decided to cut them up into smaller pieces because I was going to serve them over pasta.  I didn’t have that much sauce, but that was fine with me.  After I made it and ate it, I realized that I probably could have been eating something like it all along as long as I hadn’t followed the recipe and drown the meat in tomato sauce.  The little bit I had and used was perfect, to me.

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Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia at the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Zumba, PiYo, Gentle YogaItalian Chicken

Two Chicken breast, cut into pieces
Poultry spice
garlic salt
3/4 cup (or so) Tomato Sauce
3/4 cup (or so) Shredded Cheese
Pasta (cooked to you liking)

Preheat the oven to 350° F.  Spread out the chicken pieces in a baking dish.  Sprinkle the chicken with the poultry spice and garlic salt.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Take the dish out of the oven and turn each piece of chicken over.  Sprinkle the chicken with the poultry spice and garlic salt. Spread the tomato sauce over each piece of chicken.  If you LIKE tomato sauce use more.  Then top each piece of chicken with cheese.  Bake until chicken is done to your liking.  I baked it for 10 more minutes.  Turned off the oven and let it sit for 10 more minutes.

I served it over linguine.  I put some of the tomatoes and the “juice” on the pasta.

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Yes, this recipe is easy.  And yes, you can figure it out on your own.  You can add and subtract, but sometimes do you just need ideas?  You need a starting point?  I do.  I actually have always thought about trying this but my dislike of tomatoes kept me from doing it.  But now I am more tolerant of them.  I would imagine it would be really good with mozzarella cheese, but we had the Mexican Blend type of shredded cheese.  And that was actually really good.

The chicken we buy from Costco is packaged in twos and they are rather large so we have enough for another meal.  Yeah . . . you probably know I love leftovers as much as you know I don’t really like tomatoes.

So what are you having for dinner tonight?

Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Boneless Pork Chops In The Crockpot

Posted by terrepruitt on October 15, 2013

If you have read any of my recipe posts you probably know I love leftovers.  It just makes a lot of sense to me to cook once and have some of the meal left over for a quick meal later on.  This is really a great help for people who are busy or who’s schedule does not allow for cooking every night.  This week I am going to be busy three nights in a row.  Two nights I am subbing Nia for Hot Hula and the third night I have Gentle Yoga.  So Monday I did some cooking.  Monday I actually prepared dinner that will be our dinner for a couple of nights, but I also prepared a lasagna.  I froze it and I will put in the oven before I go to class one night this week, so it will be done around the time I get home.  I will use time bake for that so we will see.  But last night we had Crockpot Balsamic Pork.

I modified a chicken recipe I had seen on Facebook.  First of all I used pork instead of chicken.  I love chicken and I have been “missing” it.  We haven’t had any for a while.  Then the people-getting-sick-from-chicken thing came up and I was happy we hadn’t purchased any.  Then I found some in our freezer hiding behind something and I was happy.  It was purchased way before the latest issue and we had eaten the other chicken from the batch so I was so glad to have found it.  So we had just had chicken and I didn’t feel comfortable buying any so I bought pork.  I know that I like pork and balsamic so I thought it would work.

I rarely use my crockpot.  Something about cooking meat for HOURS, just doesn’t sound good to me.  This recipe called for FOUR hours on high.  Well, I figured that pork would NOT need FOUR hours so I decided to try it for two and see how it looked.

The recipe also calls for dried basil, but for some reason I thought fresh would be better.  Not sure why and not sure that it was.

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Crock Pot Balsamic Pork

1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 heaping tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 heaping tsps dried minced onion
1/2 cup of fresh chopped basil
5 garlic cloves, pressed with garlic press
2 tblsp olive oil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
7 thick cut boneless pork chops
chopped parsley for the top

Combine the first four ingredients in a small bowl, then spread over one side of pork, saving half for the other side.  Use half the basil piling a little on each piece.  Let the pork stand a bit.  Then flip the pork over and use the rest of the dry ingredients and basil to coat the pork.

Use the garlic and the oil to coat the pot of the crockpot.  Then place the pork inside.  Pour the vinegar over.

Set to high and cook for about two hours.

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Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia at the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Zumba, PiYo, Gentle YogaAn hour and 45 minutes later I turned my pot down to low so that I could keep preparing my salad for dinner and my lasagna for later.  I think I will cook it less next time.  I think turning it off at an hour and 45 minutes would have been better.  Although our pork was not overcooked, we just prefer it a little less cooked.

I know the thing that people think is so great about crockpots is you put it on and forget it.  Even though this is not hours and hours of “forgetting” it is still at least an hour and 45 minutes.  I would think it could be the four hours on low.

This was good.  My husband and I love garlic and that was a primary flavor . . . so I think if I want the balsamic to stand out more I will use less garlic.  If I had used dried basil – as the original recipe calls for – this would have been a super simple meal.  Adding the basil (washing and chopping) dropped it down to a simple meal.

It was good.  I can see me making this again.  And one day I will even try it with chicken.  Last night we had it with a spinach salad and my favorite Smashed Potatoes!  I did not take pictures of the finished product.  I was doing too many things at the time!

Do you use a slow cooker/crockpot?  What is your favorite thing to cook in the crockpot?  Does meat you cook in a crockpot come out well done?

Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »