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Whole Wheat Penne Pasta with Basil Pesto Alfredo

Ingredients:

• 16 oz. box of whole wheat penne pasta (I found penne rigate at Whole Foods.)
• 15 oz. jar Kroger Private Selection Basil Pesto Alfredo sauce
• 4.5 oz jar sliced mushrooms (canned would work just as well), drained
• 2.25 oz. bag of walnuts, halves and pieces (you might break up some of the halves)
• container of freshly shredded Parmesan (you could grate it yourself)

Directions:

1. Follow the directions on the box of pasta.  Boil water.  Add pasta and a little salt.  Boil for about 12 minutes.  You can lower the heat a little bit if it threatens to boil over.
2. Drain pasta in a colander and then put it back in the pot.
3. Add the sauce and other ingredients and stir to mix thoroughly.  Don't stir too roughly or you could break the pasta.  Serve or portion into containers for later.  I can fit this dish into 8 1-cup containers for reheating later.  It freezes fine.  The Parmesan melts well when reheating and makes it cheesy.

Enjoy!

Garlic Bread Spaghetti Squash

Ingredients
1 spaghetti squash
1/2 stick of butter (4 Tbsp - real butter, not margarine)
10 cloves of garlic, minced
3/4 cup half and half (or you could use heavy cream)
8 oz. parmesan cheese, finely grated and divided into 2 4 oz. portions (grate your own if possible)
10 sprigs parsley, or 5 tsp. dried

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Wash and dry squash.
3. Cut in half and scrape out seeds and pulp from the inside. (If you have trouble starting the cut, you can cut the hard stem off.  If you still have trouble, try the following steps.)

• Using a sharp knife, poke a few small slits in the squash skin; poke in a dotted line along where you plan to slice the squash in half.
• Microwave squash 5-6 minutes; cool slightly.
• Place squash on cutting board with the most-flat surface down. Slice along your ‘dotted line’ of slices.
• Since the squash will be hot, use a towel (or oven mitt) to hold the squash half.

4.  Line baking sheet with foil and lightly spray or brush with olive oil.
5. Turn squash, flesh side up, and lightly spray or brush with olive oil. Then generously season with salt and pepper.
6. Turn the squash over, flesh side against the baking sheet. Bake for one hour in the oven.
7. Turn the heat off and let the squash cool in the closed oven for another two houirs.
8. Take squash out of the oven, and using a fork, scrape out the flesh into a mixing bowl. The flesh will separate into spaghetti-like strands.

For the Sauce
1. Prep remaining ingredients. Mince garlic, measure out half and half, prepare parsley, grate parmesan cheese.
2. Melt butter on low heat in a saucepan. When butter starts to bubble, add minced garlic. Let cook for a minute.
3. Pour in half and half and keep heat on low. Let simmer for ten minutes, stirring frequently.
4. Stir in 4 oz. of parmesan cheese. Stir frequently over low heat until everything is melted together.
5. Add parsley to the cheese sauce. Pour cheese sauce over the top of squash and mix together.
6. Transfer to a medium sized greased baking dish. Sprinkle remaining parmesan on top.

To Finish Baking
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees again.
2. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until cheese is melted on top. (Bake for 30 minutes or so if you refrigerated the squash to bake later.)
3. Serve hot and enjoy!

After cutting

After brushing with olive oil

Flesh side down for baking

After baking and cooling

After scraping out the flesh

Spaghetti squash flesh in the mixing bowl

After mixing in the cheese sauce

In the pan ready for baking

After baking

Red, White, and Blueberry Trifle

Today, because it is the Fourth of July, I made this really easy and really delicious trifle for my family.

Here are the ingredients:

1 fat free angel food cake

1 8 oz. tub of sugar free Cool Whip whipped topping

1 container of strawberries, rinsed, hulled and sliced

1 container of blueberries, rinsed

Here's how I made it:

First I cut slices of the cake and cubed them and placed them in the bottom of the bowl. Then I added a little less than half the tub of Cool Whip.  Then I added some fruit to cover that layer.  Then I repeated the process, adding more to the second layer.  I used about 3/4 of the cake, all of the Cool Whip, about 2/3 of the strawberries, and about 3/4 of the blueberries.  You might use more.  My bowl was not huge.

Here is a view of the layers.  

Sorry that's kind of blurry.  It looked fine on my phone.  Well, anyway, everyone loved it. Enjoy!

Peach Cobbler

This year, I discovered that I can make peach cobbler, and so did a lot of people at my school.  Back in October, for Boss' Day, I found out that my principal loves peach cobbler.  So I asked someone what type of crust or topping she likes.  You know, there's the biscuit-type topping and then there's CRUST.  Well, she prefers crust.  So that's the kind I made.  And for days and weeks afterward, when people saw me in the hallway, they would say things like, "Oh, you made that cobbler!"  So I made it again for my principal's surprise birthday lunch at school.  The interesting thing to me about bringing cobbler to school is that by the time I get to serve myself some - like 15 minutes after everyone starts serving their food - there is NO crust left on top of the cobbler!  These people really like their crust.

This cobbler is so easy to make, it's almost embarrassing.  I buy canned peach pie filling, to which I add Apple Pie Spice because it has cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.  I buy pie crust in a box that you add water to.  I roll it out and cut it into strips.  I bake the cobbler. That's pretty much all there is to it!

The first time I used about 4 one lb. cans of peach pie filling.  This time I used 8 cans. Next time, I'll try 6.

I use two boxes of pie crust mix.  Each one says it makes two crusts, but that would be two wimpy round pie crusts.  This is one long rectangular cobbler.  I dump the contents of both boxes in a bowl and add the water according to package directions.  I stir until it combines in the bowl, then separate it into two balls and place them on a floured surface. I roll it out and place a section of crust to fit in the bottom of my greased casserole dish. Then I take the peach pie filling, to which I added two teaspoons of Apple Pie Spice, and pour that mixture over the bottom crust.  Next comes the only almost hard part.  I roll out more crust, from the other ball, and cut into strips which fit the width of my casserole.  I lay them across the pan.  Then I cut strips that fit the length of my casserole, and I make a lattice pattern, or weave the strips.  It's not as tricky as it sounds.  Over, under, over, under.  Then I add little pats of butter to the top of the crust, about one half stick of butter. I place the casserole dish on a cookie sheet to catch any drips, and then I bake it at 400° for about 45 minutes, until the top is starting to turn golden brown and the filling is bubbly.

BEFORE

AFTER

(Added May 12, 2013)  Today I made a smaller version of my peach cobbler for my Mom for Mother's Day.  Instead of making it in a large rectangular pan, I used a square glass pan.  So I tried something different with the crust.  I used a refrigerated pie crust instead of making it.  I just unrolled it and cut the strips first, then rolled the remaining dough and fitted that section to the bottom of the pan.  Then I poured 3 cans of peach pie filling into a large bowl and added a couple cans of peach slices, drained (no sugar added).  The extra peaches were probably overkill, but oh well.  I stirred in 2 teaspoons of Apple Pie Spice, and then poured the mixture over the bottom crust.  Then I just latticed the crust strips and placed it in a 400° oven.  I forgot to place it on a cookie sheet, so I set off the smoke detector and had to place a cookie sheet on the rack below it and wait for the alarm to stop ringing.  I won't see my cats for a while - they are probably under my bed.  I baked it for 30 minutes, took it out, turned the oven off, waited for it to cool somewhat, put on my long oven mitt, reached in with a towel and wiped off the bottom of the oven, turned the oven back on, put the pan on a better cookie sheet, and put it back in the oven.  I baked it for another 15 minutes, until the crust was golden brown and, hopefully, done, so a total of 45 minutes in all.

Just FYI, I like the crust I have to add water to much better than the crust that's already made and rolled.  The flavor and texture are better.  Now I know.

This is what the finished product looked like:

Carrot Cake M&M Cookies

A little while before Easter this year, I discovered this new flavor of M&M that is really tasty: Carrot Cake flavor.  It might be a limited-time-only flavor, and I couldn't find it everywhere.  But after my sister and I tasted it, we decided it would be good in a cookie.  So I bought some pre-made sugar cookie dough and made some cookies this weekend.  They were really easy, obviously since they were pre-made, and really good!

To make them, I took three M&Ms, one of each color, and pressed them gently into a sugar cookie square. Then I placed each blob onto my cookie sheet that I had sprayed with Pam cooking spray.  

Once I had twelve cookies on the tray, I placed them in my preheated 350° oven.  The package said to cook for 11-15 minutes, but I recommend cooking them for about 12-13 minutes, depending on your cookie sheet and your oven.

I love this little plate.  I never get a chance to use it!

Chocolate Peppermint Patty Cookies

Last summer, I discovered Pinterest and saw recipes for cookies with candy inside them. I tried a couple recipes and they were really good!  Chocolate chip cookies with mini Reese's cups or Rolo's inside are quite yummy!  I got the idea that a chocolate cookie with York Peppermint Patties inside would taste good, then I never tried it until a couple weeks ago.  It's really good!  Here's what I used:

I found the cookie dough at HEB.  It's 24 little breakaway squares and you have to use two per cookie for this recipe because of the peppermint patties.  So it makes 12 generous cookies.

Now you basically follow the package directions.  First, you preheat the oven to 350°. Then I always spray my cookie sheet with cooking spray before I bake.  I don't care that they say "ungreased baking sheet".  It's going to stick and I'm going to have pry my cookies off the cookie sheet.  No, thank you!

Now I opened the package of cookie dough and set the sheet of dough pieces outside of its package for easy access, and I opened up 12 peppermint patties and set them on their wrappers, again for easy access.  Cookie dough gets sticky on your fingers after a while, and having everything accessible seems to help.  

Now I start assembling.  Take one square of dough and sort of flatten it with your fingers. Place a peppermint patty on top and place another slightly flattened/smushed piece of dough on top of it.  Press the edges all the way around to close it so you can't see the peppermint patty and place it on the cookie sheet.  Repeat this 11 times.  By the time you're done, the oven will be hot and you can place the cookie sheet inside.  The package says 12 -16 minutes.  I usually set a timer for the lowest time, turn on the oven light, and check on it once in a while.  My cookies were done in 12 minutes.  (Somehow you just know - they look done, they smell done, they aren't burnt yet.)  Then you let them cool for about 2 minutes before taking them off the cookie sheet.  I don't recommend eating them before they have had a chance to cool.  (Believe me, I know.)

This is what they looked like after they cooled:

I tried to show in the cookie that's front and center how the warm candy center wants to ooze out of the cookie.  My mom and sister said these were the best cookies I'd ever made.  My mom won't let me make them at her house anymore (too tempting).  My sister, however, had no qualms about me making a batch at my house and bringing her some!