Pizza Casserole

Made this for dinner tonight. Even hubby liked it. It's nice because it's the kind of thing you can easily personalize to suit your own tastes. I pulled a recipe out of Parenting magazine and made it my own.

1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 loaf good crusty bread, cubed
2 cups shredded mozzarella (about 8 ounces)
1/4 pound pork sausage, cooked
1/2 cup pepperoni, chopped
1 small can sliced olives
1 can diced tomatoes (I used fire roasted ones because I like the flavor)
5 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dried oregano
fresh basil, shredded (optional)
grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Saute onion, garlic, and mushrooms until softened. Place in a bowl with bread, cheese, meats, olives, and tomatoes. Mix to combine. Place in a greased 9x12 casserole dish.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, sour cream, milk, basil, and oregano. Pour evenly over the bread mixture in the casserole dish. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours.

About 20 minutes before baking time, pull the pan out of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Remove the cover and bake for 45 minutes or until brown on top.

Serve with fresh basil and grated parmesan, if desired.

menu plan June 22 - 26

Here we are, another week already. The month is flying by!

Monday: Pizza casserole (from a recipe found in Parenting magazine)

Tuesday: Tamale Pie

Wednesday: Cranberry pork chops (in the crock pot)

Thursday: leftovers, if we have enough, otherwise I'm trying to find my recipe for cabbage roll casserole!

Friday: Either leftovers (if we didn't have it Thursday) or cabbage roll casserole (if we did!).

Don't forget to go to orgjunkie.com for many more menu ideas!

Pantry Challenge Update

Ok, first of all, someone needs to tell my grocery shopping brain that the whole point of a pantry challenge is to use stuff up, not replace it as quickly as you pull it off the shelf! Part of it is my hubby's fault, I think - he made me this awesome pantry inventory system, complete with a bar code scanner, so as soon as I use the last of something, it automatically adds it to my shopping list. And, well, if it's on my shopping list, I *must* buy it. Time to start leaving the list at home from time to time!

It's some weird psychological thing - you'd think I went hungry as a child or something (which I never did, except for the one night I got in trouble and Dad sent me to bed without dinner), because I have this almost compulsive need to fill the pantry and have four or five of everything on the shelves. Never mind that the grocery store is only a mile away!

I forgot that, right before I announced this pseudo-challenge, I gave my mom a Costco order (I'm not allowed to have a card because I'll spend too much (obviously), so she does my shopping for me), so we're well stocked up with tuna fish, Minute Rice, and ketchup, too!

At any rate, for the most part, I've been making stuff that doesn't require new purchases or special ingredients. This week, I didn't buy any meat at all except lunch meat, and last week, the only meat I bought was a package of chicken breasts that were on sale for $1.49 a pound.

And yet I've still managed to completely blow my budget for the month out of the water. I think I need to adjust my budget - now that Caitlyn is eating, I'm buying mostly organic produce (she eats mostly fruit), and I try to buy organic other stuff when there isn't too great a difference in price (so no dairy, yet, except yogurt, which is the exact same price as the regular stuff for some reason). That adds up fast.

In the meantime, we only ate out once this weekend, instead of our usual 2 - 3 times, and with all the menu planning I've been doing since I've been back at work, we rarely eat out during the week. So that helps the budget tremendously!

So I guess this pantry challenge update wasn't much of an update, more a bunch of ramblings from a woman who thinks too much about food and really should go to bed, huh? :-)

Menu Plan June 14 - 19

Here's the plan for this week!

Sunday: kielbasa and cabbage

Monday: lemon balm chicken (using pesto made from the lemon balm taking over my herb garden!)

Tuesday: tacos

Wednesday: tuna casserole

Thursday: leftovers

Friday: stuffed peppers (I have the filling already made and in the freezer, so this is a super-quick and easy dish).

Be sure to visit www.orgjunkie.com for many, many more menu ideas!

For Kimmer - hamburger ideas

I've been thinking about Kimmer's comment about what to do with ground beef during my pantry/freezer challenge. The more I think about it, the more ideas I come up with, which then promptly leave my brain, but here are some to get you started. I have recipes for most of these, which I can post if you need them!

- hamburgers (of course!)
- chili
- veggie beef soup
- stroganoff
- hamburger gravy on biscuits (I love this but hubby won't eat it so I never get to make it)
- tamale pie
- hamburger casserole (hubby's mom's recipe - a concoction of beef, noodles, tomato soup, veggies, and cheese)
- nacho dip
- beef and bean burritos
- Hamburger Helper (I use the box on lazy days, but there are a ton of recipes out there on the internet for homemade ones)
- chili mac
- spaghetti and meatballs (or just meat sauce)
- Swedish meatballs (this recipe is already posted on the blog)
- sloppy joes (another favorite of mine that hubby won't eat...sigh...)


And that's all I can think of at the moment (and it's getting awfully close to my bedtime), but I'll post some more as I think of more!

Menu Plan Monday June 8 - 12

Well, here we are, another week already! Last week's menu plan was seriously messed up - first we ended up being away from home at dinner time two days in a row, because my car had to go into the shop, and then I lost my grill because of new patio construction. Who knows how long it will be before I get my grill back (it's in the shed till the patio cover is built), and I'm sure going to miss it!



Anyway, here's the plan for this week (and tonight we had creamed tuna on biscuits, by the way!):

Monday: Swiss steak

Tuesday: Pineapple chicken

Wednesday: Hamburger casserole

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: meatball subs.

Sounds like a yummy week!