Jesus Take The Meal

    I've been absent. Really absent. Hoping to get back into posting with some degree of regularity, but I will make no promises. Here is the easiest dessert ever. Seriously, I needed 2 to have on hand for Super Bowl, and my 12 year old made one and the 14 year old made the other one. Feel free to make your own graham cracker crust, but I went the easy route and did not. Ingredients: 1 larger graham cracker crust 1 large tub of cool whip 4 sharing sized Snickers bars 1/2 c. peanut butter 2 tsp of half and half, heavy cream, or milk (I've used all of these before, and there isn't a difference in the end product) Directions: Microwave peanut butter and Snickers in a bowl until melty (about 1 min). Stir to mix and add milk/cream/half and half (whichever you use). Once that is combined, you mix in cool whip and put into pie crust. Freeze for about 3 hours and enjoy. Store leftovers in freezer. Easy Peasy!!!

This is not a pretty dish. There's no good way to make it pretty. So, I will just tell you it's good and stick with that. I did divide this one up before baking into a pan for the oven and a pan for the freezer.  Ingredients: 1 bag frozen shredded hashbrowns 1 bag of shredded cheese (2 c) 2 16 oz containers of sour cream 2 bags bacon pieces 1 package of Ranch seasoning Directions: Mix sour cream, Ranch, most of the cheese (save a little for top of dish), and bacon pieces. Stir in hashbrowns. Pour into casserole dish (I used an 8x8 square one, but the entire amount will fit into 9x11 dish). Top with a little shredded cheese. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.  *If freezing, prepare up to baking and cover with foil. When ready to bake, leave foil on top and bake for an hour. Remove foil and bake for another 15 min until cheese is melted and center of dish is hot. 

This is another meal that helps "Tomorrow Me". I made a batch of sheet pan pancakes on Sunday evening. I actually made 2 pans - one chocolate chip and one batch with apples that had been cooked in butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar. I halved each pan and divided half of each sheet pan into one container for this week and one pan for the freezer. So I'm helping "Tomorrow Me" and "In a Few Weeks Me" by being able to pull an already prepared meal out of the freezer.  This recipe is from Kate Strickler of Naptime Kitchen. Ingredients:  *Note: this is for one sheet pan worth of pancakes 3 c. Pancake Mix (If you make your own mix use that. I often do, but this was easier) 2 c. Milk 2 eggs 1-2 tsp vanilla flavoring Mix in Options: For this batch I did chocolate chips for one batch. For the other batch I had apples that needed to be eaten, so I diced them then sauteed them in about 1 T butter, 1/4 c. brown sugar, and 1 tsp cinnamon until they were soft and brow...

We had this pasta for dinner last night, and it was a "new to us" recipe. It makes a large dish, so if you don't have a huge family to feed I would suggest dividing into two servings and freezing one. We could have done that to feed our crew of 5. Our youngest doesn't really enjoy most pasta dishes, so I did know  going in that he wasn't going to eat this. The other boys ate it and liked it. I served it with a bagged Caesar salad and garlic bread. Kate from Naptime Kitchen talks often about doubling a recipe and making one for dinner and one for the freezer. That's my goal with recipes like this that I know we will like. I will do that next time, or I will make an 8x8 dish for dinner and freeze one about the same size.  Ingredients: 2 tsp olive oil (I actually didn't use this) 1 lb ground beef (90% lean) 1 lb ground Italian sausage 1/2 c chopped onion 2 tsp minced garlic 24 oz jar marinara (Carbone's Tomato Basil is excellent) 8 oz can tomato sauce (I ...