Brown sausage and ground beef and drain off fat.  Add salt, Worcestershire, oregano, and cubed velveta cheese.

While warm spread onto rye bread slices.  Flash freeze on cookie sheet.  When frozen place in ziplock bag.  Keep frozen.  Bake at 400 and heat for 10 minutes when ready to serve.

• 3 clove garlic, minced
• 1 stick  butter
• 1 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese (or 2/3 cup if you are using a Microplane zester)
• 2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 lbs of skinless, boneless, chicken meat, cut into pieces no larger than 2×2 inches

1 Preheat oven to 450°F.

2 In a bowl, combine the minced garlic with the butter. Microwave until butter is melted.  In another bowl mix together the bread crumbs, Parmesan, salt, and pepper. Dip chicken pieces into garlic butter, then into crumb mixture to coat.

3 Place coated chicken pieces on to a 9×13 baking dish. Try to leave a little room between each piece. Drizzle with remaining garlic butter and bake uncovered 15 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and juices run clear. Note that the chicken will get much more browned on the bottom side than on the top.

4. Serve over pasta with sauce or with just the drippings drizzled over.

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 oz dijon/spicy brown mustard
2 Tbs. teriyaki sauce
4 Tbs. cooked bacon
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Place chicken in a 9×13″ baking dish.  Slather each breast with mustard.  Poor teriyaki sauce evenly over all.  Add bacon bits then cover with cheese.

Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes

- Also good if you use a strip of bacon then cheese.

Fancy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches – Serves 2

Ingredients:

1- Avocado
1/2 lb fresh sliced roast turkey
1 Tomato
2-3 Slices Provolone cheese
Bread
Butter
1 large can of Tomato Soup – your choice.  I love this one.

Start by buttering the back sides of four slices of bread.  Take the non buttered side of one of the slices and compile the sandwich as follows: 1 slice cheese, thin sliced avocado, thin slice tomato, slice of cheese, 1/4 lb turkey, thin sliced avocado, cheese.  Then put another slice of bread on top, butter side out.  Set this one aside and make the next sandwich the same way.  Heat a Large flat skillet on Medium heat.  Place sandwiches butter side down and allow to brown on one side for 2-4 minutes.  In the meantime heat up the of tomato soup. Flip the sandwiches and heat the other buttered side for an additonal 2-4 minutes.  Watch the bread so it doesn’t burn, you want just a nice golden crisp.  When the sandwiches are done, cut them diagonally and serve them with the tomato soup….Ahhh.

Follow The Recipe Extra:

In order to just crisp the bread and still make the cheese nice and melty, I suggest that you pop the sandwiches in the microwave for about 1:00 on high heat.  Then put the sandwiches into the pan to cook.  This will start the cheese melting and allow you to take the sandwiches off when the bread is perfect.  I also suggest doctoring up your tomato soup with some extra basil, and parmesean cheese…sooo good.

Minestrone Soup:

1 lb. of Italian bulk sausage
2-3 stalks celery diced
2-3 carrots sliced
2 onions chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced
1-28oz can of italian diced tomatoes
2-8oz. cans tomato sauce
2 Tbs parsley flakes
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. basil
1/2 tsp. oregano
2 cans beef broth
1  tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
———————

2 small zucchini sliced
2 cups finely shredded cabbage
1 can great northern beans (or cannellini if you prefer)
1 cup uncooked macaroni noodles
Parmesan cheese

Begin by browning and draining the Italian bulk sausage.  Place browned sausage in a large stock pot with 3 cups of water on high heat.  Boil for 8 minutes then add all of the ingredients above the dashed line. Reduce the pot to a simmer and cook for 1 hour (or as much as 6 hours).

After the hour add the rest of the ingredients and the noodles.  Simmer for 1/2 hour more or until macaroni is cooked.  Serve with Parmesan cheese and a good bread.

Follow The Recipe Extra:
This recipe makes a ton of soup and it’s a filling soup at that.  Luckly its a soup that freezes very, very well.  Put any extras in a tuperware in the freezer.  When ready to reheat, put it in a stock pot and add a little water on med heat.  It will defrost nicely and taste wonderful.

Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Shells:

12 Jumbo Shells
1 10oz. Package frozen, chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1 Egg white, slightly beaten
2 Tbs. Milk
1 26oz. jar of Marinara sauce (your choice)
mozzarella cheese

In a bowl, combine spinach, ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese, egg white and milk.  Mix throughly.  In the meantime, heat a stock pot of water to boil and add the jumbo shells.  Cook only for 5-7 minutes.  Remove the pot from the stove and drain shells, carefully so as not to tear.  Put aside in a bowl.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a 9×13 inch casserole dish, coat the bottom with a small amount of the marinara sauce.  Fill each shell and place in the baking dish in rows.  Pour the remaining sauce over the shells and cover with mozzarella cheese as desired.

Cover and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.  Then remove cover and continue cooking for 15 minutes more.  Let it stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Follow The Recipe Extra:

The key to stuffing shells is not to over cook them in the water.  Only cook for 5 minutes and check them regularly. Also to make filling easier, use a pastry bag or a corner-cut ziplock.

Ben’s Mom’s Authentic Tacos:

For tacos:
1 lb lean ground beef
1 small pkg of corn tortillas (12-20 tortillas)
Vegetable oil

For garnish:
Avocado sliced thin
Tomatoes diced
Mexican style shredded cheese
Refried beans
Green Taco sauce
Salsa

Cooking materials:
cookie sheet covered in paper towel or news paper
Large round skillet
Large splatter screen
tongs – the longer the better
Paper towels

Open up the package of ground beef and the tortillas. With a butter knife or your fingers spread about 1-3 tablespoons of meat on half of one tortilla. Your tortilla should look like a pie graph with one half filled in with meat. Make sure you press the meat into the tortilla firmly, that will help keep the meat on the tortilla when you are cooking. Prepare all of the tortillas in this manner until you are either out of meat or out of tortillas.

Set uncooked tacos to the side of the stove. Heat the oven to 200 degrees and place the cookie sheet with the paper towels or newspaper inside it. On the stove heat about 1/2 cup vegetable oil in a skillet on medium-high heat. When the oil is heated, slip your first uncooked taco into the oil. The tortilla should be floating meat-side up. With your tongs move the tortilla around in the pan a little to coat the face up side of the taco with oil. This will help soften the tortilla to make it easier to fold. You’ll be able to see the ground beef browning on the side touching the tortilla. When it’s about 1/2 way brown use your tongs to fold the empty side of the tortilla over making the taco shape. Now that it’s taco shaped, turn the taco over in the oil to cook the other side. When the beef is browned, pull the taco out of the skillet.  Try to drip most of the excess oil back into the pan as you take it out. Place the cooked taco in the oven on the paper. This will soak up the extra oil and make the tacos crispy. You may put another taco in the pan now and restart the process. Replenish the oil as needed to cook all the tacos. When the last one is done, leave the tacos in the oven for 10 minutes so the last few can crisp.

Follow The Recipe Extra:
The Oil – It will spatter!! Make sure you are using your screen! I always make these tacos wearing long sleeves and it helps if you put a piece of paper towel on the top of the screen to keep spatter from jumping up at you. Also, towards the end you’ll find that the tacos and oil spatter more, and seemingly for no reason. This is for two reasons, 1.) the temp of the oil is too high or 2.) the oil has residual meat in it. The solution for problem 1 is to turn the stove down (duh!) and for 2 you can use an empty can in your sink to pour the old oil into and put new oil into the pan and continue. Do not touch the hot oil can with your bare hands until it has fully cooled!

The Tacos – You can usually cook two tacos at a time depending on the size of your pan. You should always be removing one, folding the other in 1/2, and then adding a new one to replace the one you just took out. I cannot recommend doing more than two at a time the first time that you do this.

The Meat – Sometimes the meat will fall out while you are flipping or removing. The key to avoiding this is long tongs and always turning, flipping or removing the tacos by using the tongs on the side of the taco that is open.

You – This recipe makes a lot of tacos. Lucky for you they are awesome left over. I included the list of condiments that we use, but use whatever you want. Everything is good on these tacos. Finally, if you’re a little nervous or concerned about splattering oil or burning yourself, then only heat the oil to the temp that you are comfortable with. The tacos will take longer to cook, yes, but you will have a more enjoyable time making them if you aren’t worried about the oil.

Enjoy – feel free to comment with questions!

Once my husband told me that a friend of his made chicken piccata for he and her boyfriend one night while he was in college. He then kept raving about how he would never have piccata that good again. Of course I took up the challenge. Here’s what I came up with. It’s one of the best recipes I ever cook with and I’ve made it like 1,000 times. As a side note…I realize that the the picture included is not actually of Chicken Piccata, it looked icky. Instead this is a picture of all the ingredients. I think I might like doing this from now on.

Chicken Piccata

Chicken breasts (1 per person should be plenty)
Flour
Paprika
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
2 tbs Butter
3-4 whole Lemons (depends on how much you’re making) – 3 juiced (1/2-1 cup of juice); 1 sliced
bottle of Capers
1 or 2 shallots – diced thin
1/4 cup White wine

1. Mix approx 1 cup of flour and salt, pepper and paprika to taste in a bowl. (D says: for more flavor make sure you can see the pepper and paprika thoroughly throughout the flour)
2. Pound chicken breasts until 1/4″ thick. Cut breasts into slices (D says: like Chicken tenders). Coat the chicken with the flour and set aside to be cooked.
3. In a Saute Pan, heat approx 2 tbs of oil on medium-high.
4. In the pan lay the chicken flat to be cooked. You can cook as many pieces at once as can lay flat in the pan. Cook for approx 1 min on each side, or until brown. Place finished chicken in a glass pan. For each batch of chicken you saute, add 2 more tbs of oil to replenish the pan. Cover the finished chicken and refrigerate.

5. In the same pan that you cooked the chicken, add 1 tbs of butter and shallots Cook shallots until golden.
6. Add in capers to taste and 2 tbs of caper juice. Add in White wine. Cook mixture down until it has reduced by half.
7. When reduced stir in the lemon juice. When sauce is bubbling slowly stir in the remaining 1 tbs of butter. Cook for 1 or 2 more minutes.
8. Pour the sauce over the chicken that is in the refrigerator. YOU CAN COVER AND RETURN TO THE FRIDGE TO BE COOKED THE NEXT DAY IF YOU WANT.

9. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lay the sliced lemon over the chicken. Cook chicken for 15-20 minutes.
10. Eat

Follow the Recipe Extra: Cook this recipe this way once, then anytime after that play with the amounts of ingredients. Everyone likes their piccata different. For Ben and I, I use the juice from like, 4 lemons and 3/4 cup of wine, I double the shallots and use more caper juice than capers cause I like the taste but not the texture. Make it your own !! Don’t worry about under cooking too much, you’ll be baking the chicken anyway. They should be golden brown on the outside. Watch shallots carefully they cook quick. You want them brown not burnt. Keep in mind, if you didn’t refrigerate the chicken the night before, it will still be warm from cooking reduce time to 10-15 in the oven.