Mac and Cheese Coffins

A creepy spin on a classic favorite; bread hollowed out to resemble a coffin and a plastic dollar store find make this Halloween lunch extra special. If you are short on time you can use boxed mac-and-cheese or even your favorite frozen variety. I found a garland with four skeletons strung along it at my dollar store which was perfect for my family of four. But if you can't find them at your dollar store I have also seen the skeletons sold at megamarts such as Target and Walmart. I included a bread recipe that will give you four mini loaves that are ideal for this purpose but you can also just pick up small loaves of bread at your local bakery to shorten your time in the kitchen and get your little gremlins fed faster.

Serves: 4
Start-to-Finish: 1 hour 30 minutes (45 min prep time + 45 min bake time)
Recipe By: Betty Crocker's Cookbook

Ingredients:

2 cups elbow macaroni
2 TBSP onion, finely grated
3 TBSP butter, divided
2 TBSP all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp salt, divided
1/2 tsp pepper, divided
2 cups milk
3 cups American cheese or cheddar cheese
4 mini loaves bread (small loaves approx 6 inches long. For a recipe to make your own mini loaves click here)
4 plastic skeletons

Directions:

1. Preheat oven at 375°F.
2. Cook macaroni according to package directions; drain.
3. Grate or cube the cheese.
4. For the white sauce, in a small pot melt 2 TBSP butter.
5. Add the flour, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp pepper, whisking briskly.
6. Add milk; cook and stir till thickened and bubbly.
7. Cook and stir 1 to 2 minutes more.
8. Place half the cooked macaroni into an ungreased 2-quart casserole dish.
9. Sprinkle with half the grated onion, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp pepper, and half the cheese.
10. Repeat with remaining macaroni, onion, salt, pepper, and cheese.
11. Pour your white sauce over the casserole.
12. Dot with 1 TBSP of butter.
13. Cover and bake 30 minutes.
14. Uncover and bake 15 minutes longer.
15. Meanwhile, cut the very top off you bread loaves and hollow out the bread on the inside to resemble a coffin and lid. (You can get quite close to the edge of the loaf because you want the "bread bowl" to be able to hold lots of macaroni and cheese.)
16. Spoon the macaroni and cheese into the bread loaf coffins and top with a plastic skeleton.
17. Serve of a bed of baby greens or with other green vegetables. (For a particularly gruesome effect a ketchup for blood.)

The Lasagna Compromise

I love my mom's lasagna! It is full of cheeses; it even has cream cheese in it, yummm. But Mike thinks it is too cheesy, and dislikes the cream cheese especially. Mike likes his mom's lasagna which I find doesn't have enough cheese or sauce in it and has too much meat. Because of this I didn't make lasagna for the first few years of our marriage since neither of us could agree on which recipe to make. After a while I decided we should come up with an entirely new recipe that would satisfy both of our lasagna tastes. We finally found a wining recipe that scored big points with both of us.

Serves: 9 servings
Start to Finish: 1 1/2 hours (only 20 min of this is actual prep work the rest is cooking and cooling)
Recipe By: Original recipe by Becky Ruff, with alterations to fit our tastes.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb ground beef
1 (13-oz) jar spaghetti sauce
1/4 cup water
1 egg, beaten
1 (12-oz) ctn cottage cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 TBSP dried parsley flakes
1/4 tsp each garlic powder, pepper, dried basil and oregano
9 uncooked lasagna noodles
3/4 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Grease an 8-in x 8-in baking dish.
3. In a large skillet, cook beef over medium heat until no longer pink; drain.
4. Stir in the spaghetti sauce and water.
5. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine egg, cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese, parsley flakes, and seasonings.
7. Spread 1/2 cup meat sauce into the baking dish.
8. Layer with three noodles and a third of the cheese mixture, meat sauce and mozzarella cheese. (You will need to break up the noodles a little to get them to fit, but no one will notice any breaks after it has been cooked)
9. Repeat layers twice, ending with mozzarella cheese.
10. Cover and bake at 375° for 45 minutes. (Covering is important to keep the lasagna from drying out.)
11. Uncover; bake 5 minutes longer. (Just long enough for the cheese on top to cook up nicely)
12. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

Pork Chops with Apples and Stuffing

This recipe is an easy spin on classic flavors. It only takes about 15 minutes to prepare everything and the rest is baking time. I love to cook with pork chops because they are usually a very clean cut of meat and come in perfectly portioned pieces. It is a healthier protein source than red meat but breaks up the monotony of chicken. Helpful hint: make sure your oil is hot enough before you put your pork chops in or they will not brown up the way you want them to and you will just end up cooking them on the stove top.


Serves: 4
Start to Finish: 60 minutes
Recipe by: Taste of Home Magazine

Ingredients:

4 boneless pork chop loins
1 TBSP vegetable oil
1 (6-oz) pkg crushed stuffing mix (you also need butter for making the stuffing)
1 (21-oz) can apple pie filling with cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Heat oil in a skillet over high heat; until it crackles when water is dropped into it
3. When your oil is ready, brown the pork chops (only 5 minutes a side) you do not need to cook them through at this point this is just to give them color
4. Meanwhile, prepare stuffing according to package directions
5. Spread pie filling into a greased 8-x 8-in baking dish.
6. Place the pork chops on top of the apples, spoon stuffing over the pork chops
7. Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes
8. Uncover and bake 10 minutes longer, or until a meat thermometer read 160 degrees.

Chicken Enchiladas

Everyone in my family knows about these enchiladas. My mom makes two kinds: red enchiladas with beef and red sauce and green enchiladas with chicken and green sauce. I have been asked for this recipe numerous times so I am posting it. Mike and I have come up with some short-cuts to makes it go faster because we really don't have a lot of time between work and kids. The shortcuts knock about 20 minutes off the recipe but there is something to be said for the flavor in a recipe made from scratch. I have only included the short-cut version because most people in my family have the longer version.

Serves: 2
Start to Finish: 35 minutes
Recipe By: Original recipe Jani Jones, Adjustment Recipe by Amber Brunson

Ingredients:

1 (12-oz) can cooked shredded chicken (it looks like a tuna can on steroids and can be found in the same place as the tuna in a supermarket)
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 (4-oz) can diced green chilies
1/2 tsp garlic salt
vegetable oil
8 corn tortillas
1 (8-oz) Monterrey Jack cheese, grated (use Monterrey Jack with jalapenos if you like it really hot)
1 (16-oz) can mild green enchilada sauce

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350*
2. Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan (you will know it is ready when you can splash a drop of water in it and it sizzles)
3. Fry the tortillas in oil until crispy
4. Place the tortillas on paper towels to cool and bloat off oil
5. In a bowl, mix together chicken, onion, green chilies, garlic salt, and a handful of cheese (If desired, you can briefly heat the chicken, onion, and green chilies in your fry pan to meld the flavors)
6. Scoop a spoonful of the chicken mixture into the fried tortillas and roll the tortillas up (if you made the tortillas really crispy they will be hard to roll but it doesn't matter if they crack, you will never notice after they are baked)
7. Place the rolled-up tortillas into an 8 x 8 inch baking dish
8. Pour the green enchilada sauce over them
9. Sprinkle the top with cheese
10. Bake in the oven at 350* for 15 minutes (if you like them crispier just cook them longer)