Broccoli and Cheese Mina

This dish is for my Jewish friends out there. I am not Jewish but when I saw this recipe I thought it would be perfect for the first night of Hanukkah. I tweaked the original recipe to my family's taste. I've posted the original and I'll put my changes (they were minor) beside in italics. I hope you enjoy. My kitchen smells divine right now!!!!


Broccoli Cheese Mina
Ingredients:

4 cups of bite-sized fresh broccoli florets (or one 14-ounce bag of frozen broccoli)
1 small onion, chopped
8 matzo squares
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) cold butter, chopped
2 1/4 cups (10 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
1 1/4 cups cottage cheese
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 green onions, chopped
5 eggs
3 tablespoons water
2 cloves garlic, minced

Instructions:

1. Boil or steam broccoli and onion until broccoli is bright green and crisp-tender. Drain.

2. Wet 4 matzos (briefly) under running water, then set aside to soak. Matzos should be slightly soft after soaking, but not soggy or falling apart.

3. Butter a large baking sheet. The baking sheet needs to be large enough to place all 4 matzos in a single layer. Use two sheets if necessary.

4. Place the dampened matzos on the greased sheet(s). Top with even layers of broccoli and onion, shredded cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese, and green onions.

5. In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs and water. Pour slightly less than half of the egg mixture over the broccoli and cheeses.

6. Wet the remaining matzos and place on top, again, in a single layer. Pour the remaining beaten egg over the top. Sprinkle minced garlic, and dot with half of the butter.

7. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Dot with remaining butter and return to oven. Bake 10 minutes longer, or until the mina is golden brown and crisp on top. Serve hot or warm.

I topped ours with a little more cheese once it was baked.

This was so good! The kids ate it up like it was their last meal. Which surprised me because they aren't huge fans of broccoli. All in all I say this was a HUGE hit and I will be including this into our routine more often!

Grilled Corn

We've been using our grill like crazy lately. Anything that we can think of to grill we are throwing it on there. Last night we even grilled up some bread to go with the steaks my husband grilled for Mother's Day (I hope each of my mom reader's out there had a great day!!). So this was no exception. Saturday night the grocery store had ears of corn for 5/$1. I couldn't pass it up and decided to grab 5 ears. Just enough to feed our family. I've never grilled corn before so I really wanted to try it. Perfect with the burgers that would be thrown on it as well. So I found this recipe and tweaked it for our family and Viola! Yummy corn off the grill!! Enjoy!!!


Grilled Corn
1 ear per member of your family (or more if you like them)
tbsp butter per ear
salt & pepper

peel the ears down to about 1 inch from bottom. Remove all the silk. Replace the leaves.
Place in tub of water and make sure they soak for about 20 minutes. This will keep them from burning up.
Once they have soaked for 20 min, open leaves and add butter, salt and pepper.

Place on hot grill for about 20-25 minutes. Turn occasionally so they don't get too done on one side.

Eat and enjoy with favorite grilled dish!




These had a great smoky flavor. I loved it! May have to grill my corn more often! Even my 2 year old who isn't that fond of corn on the cob ate it like it was going out of style!! I call that....a success!!

HAPPY EATING!!!!

Broccoli Casserole

My sister is a great cook. She makes the yummiest stuff with holiday dinners. I got this recipe from her several years ago and now I'd like to share it with you all. It's one of my favorite things to see on the table. I made it this year for our Christmas meal. I can really eat this all by myself, I love it that much!!!

Donna's Broccoli Casserole
2 pkgs chopped frozen broccoli, cooked and drained
1 stick melted butter
2 well beaten eggs
1/2 C mayo
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 C grated sharp cheddar cheese (and since we love cheese, A LOT, I added extra cheese)
2 tbsp chopped onion
1 C cracker crumbs

Mix ingredients and add broccoli.
Put into a grease casserole dish. Top with the cracker crumbs. Bake 1 hour in preheated 350 oven.

Super easy. When isn't something you just throw together and bake not yummy!!! Enjoy it!!

HAPPY EATING!!!!!!!

Glazed Carrots & A Chowda Mac

Happy Sunday. It's been a busy weekend for sure. Friday night we had pack meeting for scouts and it was a pot luck dinner for Thanksgiving (can you believe it's already here?!?!?!?!). So I grabbed Stephanie's glazed carrots recipe and did it. They were so yummy and got eaten all up! Thanks for the great idea!



Maple-Glazed Carrots
2 bags mini peeled carrots
2 tbsp. cornstarch
2/3 cup orange juice
5 tbsp. maple syrup
5 tbsp. melted butter or margarine
3/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt

In a large saucepan, bring 1 inch or water and carrots to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 3-5 minutes or until tender crisp.

Meanwhile, in another saucepan, combine the cornstarch and orange juice until smooth. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. This got VERY thick for me.

Drain carrots; transfer to a serving bowl. Pour glaze over carrots; gently stir to coat, eat and enjoy!



Then tonight I decided to try another recipe from a Rachael Ray cookbook. I've made this before but it's been a while. It was a lot better this time that last time. If my stomach was bigger I probably could have eaten the whole thing! I hope you enjoy it too!!




Crab and Corn Chowda Mac
10 oz small shell pasta
1 tbsp olive oil (I used veg. oil since that's what I had)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 bell peppers, seeded and chopped
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 C chicken stock
1 C milk (or you could use heavy cream to make it really rich!)
3/4 package imitation crab (or 6 oz tub of the real thing)
1 1/2 C frozen corn
2 C shredded cheddar cheese (I used Velveeta and ohhhhh boy!)
2 tbsp fresh thyme (I used dried oregano)
2 pinches cayenne pepper (I used chili powder)
chives or parsley for garnish

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Cook the pasta until al dente.

In another pan, add veg oil and heat. Add onions and peppers and cook until tender-crisp, about 3-5 minutes. Add the flour and cook for 2 minutes. Add the chicken stock and heat through. Add the milk. When milk bubbles add crab, corn, cheese and seasonings.
Drain pasta and add to crab mixture. Adjust seasonings to taste. Put in bowls and top with garnish.

This was filling and really creamy, cheesy and ooohhh sooooo good.

Hope you have a great week up ahead with Thanksgiving. Have a great one! and of course....

HAPPY EATING!!!!!!!!!1

Zucchini Lasagne

I first saw this recipe on Stephanie's Blog. I can't even tell you how good it looked. So I wanted to try it. My family isn't that fond of zucchini so I added some leftover pasta to mine, not a lot, just a small layer. Oh my!!!
Here you go!

6 small-med zucchini's sliced
8 oz pasta (use any kind-whatever you have)
1 large can fave spaghetti sauce (or use homemade-whatever you have on hand)
1 pound ground beef, cooked and drained
10 oz mozz and cheddar cheese (or use whatever combination of cheeses you like-this is what I had)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spray the bottom of 9X13' pan with cooking spray. Put a small amount of sauce on bottom of pan. Layer pasta, half of the zucchini, then half of the hamburger. Top with sauce and cheese.



Repeat for second layer using the rest of the ingredients. Top with the rest of the cheese.
Bake in 350 oven for 45 minutes.


This will turn out so good that I can't even describe it. I could have sat there and eaten the whole pan by myself. Thanks Stephanie, This was fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And did I mention that this is super healthy? It's mostly veggies. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!