Hamburger Casserole

Cook hamburger with onion. Drain hamburger. Mix cream of mushroom and cream cheese. Cook noodles. Put hamburger back in pan add drained corn and cream cheese mixture. Heat hamburger sauce enough so it will be easy to mix with noodles. Pour noodles and hamburger sauce in casserole, mix. Heat in oven until bubbly.

Freezer Stash Meatballs

Makes 48 meatballs; 8 servings

3 pounds lean ground beef
1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs
3 eggs
6 tablespoons minced onion
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Preheat oven to 400 .
In a large bowl, mix beef, crumbs, eggs, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Shape into 11/2-inch meatballs. (A miniature ice cream scoop makes fast work of shaping.)
Arrange in two 10-by-15-inch jelly roll pans. Bake in preheated oven until meat is browned, with no trace of pink and juices run clear, 10 to 13 minutes.
Drain, let cool to room temperature, divide into thirds and freeze each portion in vapor-moisture proof containers or use in one of following.

3/4 lb hamburger
28 oz can spaghetti sauce
1 C water
15 oz Ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/2 t oregano (optional)
16 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded
2 T parmesan cheese
8 lasagna noodles, UNCOOKED

In separate bowl, combine ricotta cheese, egg & oregano.

In 9×13 pan layer ingredients as follows: 1/2 the sauce mixture, 1/2 the pasta, 1/2 the ricotta mixture and 1/2 the mozzarella cheese. Repeat. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over all.

Cover pan with foil. Refrigerate overnight or freeze**. Bake @ 350 degrees 50-60 minutes. Remove foil cover during last 10 minutes of brown top is desired. **If frozen, thaw in refrigerator overnight before baking.

**My kids LOVE this recipe. Even my son who really doesn’t like lasagna all that much.

1 red pepper chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1 can spaghetti sauce

1 pkg. Ravioli cooked, drained

½ cup shredded mozzarella

Preheat oven to 350 F. Heat dressing in large skillet on medium heat, add peppers and onions. Cook and stir 2 minutes or until veggies are crisp-tender. Stir in pasta sauce.

Spread ½ cup of sauce mixture onto bottom of baking dish. 

Cover with ravioli’s,  1/2 of the cheese and  the remainder of the sauce mixture. Top with remaining cheese.

MEATBALL STROGANOFF
(5 servings)

1 (10 3/4-oz) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1 cup mushrooms, sliced and cooked in butter until soft
1 family meal-sized portion of freezer meatballs

In medium saucepan, mix together mushroom soup and sour cream. Gently stir in mushrooms and meatballs. Simmer until meatballs are heated through. Serve over hot cooked rice or over egg noodles tossed with melted butter and chopped
parsley.

(if you can’t find frozen meatballs on sale, you can make your own quite easily and more frugally. I’ll post a recipe for those too)

I’m so excited, I finally have my seeds started for my garden this summer. Well, some of them anyway.

Right now, I have:

green peppers

beefsteak tomatoes

sweet 100’s tomatoes

cucumbers

yellow peppers

chives

pumpkins

I’m going to share some pics as they grow. Hope you enjoy!

Day One

Here are three of them. One of him on my hand, one of him on my son’s and a closeup of him in the birdfeeder.

On My Hand

With My Son

Windblown

Porcupine Meatballs

1 package ground beef

1 onion, chopped

1 egg

1/2 cup rice, uncooked

1 large can spaghetti sauce

salt and pepper to taste

Combine above ingredients, except for spaghetti sauce in a mixing bowl. Form into small meatballs and arrange in a 9×13 baking pan. Cover with sauce and bake at 350 for 1 hour or until meatballs are cooked through.

This is an incredibly easy and frugal recipe. And delicious to boot! It’s a definite family favourite here.

Last Monday, my son woke up with a high fever, an extremely sore throat and a cough. I took him in to see the doctor and the diagnosis was strep.  It was nights of no sleep and days of cool cloths on the forehead and buckets to catch what came out.

Wednesday, hubby got the same symptoms.

Friday, I did.

Turns out, it wasn’t strep at all, just some sort of malicious bug that decided to invade our house and make our lives miserable.

Everyone seems to be feeling much better now. Except our daughter. She woke up this morning with a headache and a sore throat. I’m not sure if she’s catching it or not, but to be safe, I sent her back to bed.

Now that things seem to have settled down, I can get back on track here with posting recipes , tips and hints.

Thanks for being patient!