Fettuccine Alfredo

Once again dinner had fallen on me. Not literally. That would have been rather messy. Rather, the responsibility to make dinner had fallen on me. And so I began looking up quick recipes. I had not planned for the crock pot, and I knew I'd have about half an hour that evening, so I began looking around for recipes.
I pulled up my amazingly-cool-new-app on my phone. It's the app put out by my favorite recipe website, allrecipes.com. They call it the Dinner Spinner. You pick a meal (dessert, breakfast, main course, side dish, etc...) pick an ingredient (poultry, beef, cheese, pasta, veggies, etc...) and pick a prep time (Less than half an hour, 40 minutes of more, Slow cooker, etc...) and then hit the ok button, and it pulls up all the meals in those categories. It's awesome. :D

Well, we had chicken, and I had 30 minutes, and it was a main course, so I selected those options. Fettucini Alfredo was the one thing that popped up that contained (almost) all ingredients I knew we had on hand. We only needed the cream cheese, so I called ahead and had my brother run to the store and pick it up, since I knew I wouldn't have time to go shopping before I had to make the meal.

8 oz Dry Pasta
1 (8 oz) package Cream Cheese
3/4 C. Grated Parmesan Cheese
1/2 C. Butter or Margarine
1/2 C. Milk
1 tsp. Garlic Powder
1/4 tsp Dried Basil
1 Pinch Ground Nutmeg

Anyway. So I got home and began the meal prep. First, I put a pot of water on the stove to boil, then I took the thawed chicken and began cutting it up.

Then I melted a bit of butter in a pan and began grilling the chicken.

Meanwhile, I was melting the butter in a sauce panon the back of the stove. Notice I had three burners running, and all were requiring my attention, since the water had boiled and I had added the noodles. So I was stirring the noodles so they wouldn't stick, flipping the chicken so it wouldn't burn, and stirring the butter so it wouldn't scorch.
Then I added the cream cheese, parmesan cheese, milk, and spices to the melted butter. I wanted to make a bit more than the recipe said, but only had the one package of cream cheese, so I added a bit of sour cream in as well, just to mix things up. It turned out pretty well.

I stirred the whole mixture around on low heat until the cream cheese was melted and mixed in smoothly.

Then I added it to the cooked pasta. I must confess that, even though the recipe called for fettucini pasta (and it is Fettucini Alfredo, after all) I used Rotini pasta, instead. :P

Then I took the cooked chicken, and chopped it into bite-size chunks.

I mixed it into the pasta and served it up!

It was very rich, and very creamy, and very full of calories, but it was also very tasty. :D

Slow Cooker Pork Chops

I bought some pork on sale awhile ago, and decided to use it for dinner a few nights ago. My mom had just had hand surgery, so she wasn't in much of a position to do much cooking, and it fell upon me. With this in mind, I pulled out my trusty crockpot and got cooking.

2 Tbsp. Shortening
4 Pork Chops
1 Egg, Beaten
1/2 C. Flour
1 Large Onion, Sliced
2 Cans Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
2 Cups Milk

Many pork chop recipes call for you to brown the pork before putting it in the crockpot, and this recipe was no exception. I began by melting the shortening in a skillet over medium heat.

Next, I whisked the egg up in a small bowl, and measured the flour into another small bowl.

I defrosted the pork chops and, dipping them first in the egg, then in the flour, laid them in the skillet to cook.

While they sizzled away merrily, I sliced up the onion.

I didn't end up using quite the whole onion. Maybe about half of it. I'll save the rest for later and maybe make some onion rings out of them or something.
Once the pork chops were done on one side, and flipped, and done on the other side, I took them out of the pan.

Then I greased the crock pot, laid the pork chops in the bottom, and covered them with the onions.

Then, I mixed up up the other ingredients: the milk and the soup.

I poured the mixture on top of the onions, and set it on low to cook for a few hours.

After about 8 hours of simmering (recipe calls for 8-10) I made some rice and turned the crock pot onto low. The sauce was sizzling. :D

I dished out some of the pork, and then spooned the sauce over some rice.

Yum yum yum yum yum! Delicioso!

Sour Cream Noodle Bake

I saw this recipe posted on FB a few weeks ago from a friend of mine, and it looked really good and relatively easy, so I decided to make it.

1 1/4 Pound Ground Beef
1 Can (15 oz) Tomato Sauce
1/2 tsp. Salt
Dash Pepper
8 oz Egg Noodles
1/2 C. Sour Cream
1 1/4 C. Small Curd Cottage Cheese
1/2 C. Chopped Green Onion
1 C. Grated Cheddar Cheese

I started by putting a pot of water on to boil. While I waited for that to boil, I browned the beef. I used 2 pounds instead of the called for 1 1/4 pound, since I was making a bit more for our big family.

Then, I added the tomato sauce. Again, I upped the amount a bit. I used a 15 oz can and a 10 oz can. I threw in the pepper and salt and mixed it together.

While that simmered, I cooked the egg noodles. I cooked the whole 12 oz bag that I had, to go with the other inflated ingredients.

Once those were cooked, I mixed together the cream cheese, cottage cheese, and onion, again upping the ingredients by about half. I also neglected to notice the kind of cottage cheese I had bought. I had gotten large curd instead of small curd, but it made little difference. :P I threw in another dash of pepper, too.

Then, I mixed the noodles in. The noodles alone were very good. :D

Then, setting that aside, I shredded the cheese, a step of which I did not take a picture.
Then I began to layer it. Some versions of this recipe call for you to mix all the ingredients together, casserole style, but I liked the layer idea better. I spread about half the noodles into the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. Even if you're making the original portioned recipe, I'd recommend using this size pan, since the food I made nearly overflowed. :P
Pour and spread half of the meat mixture on top, and then sprinkle with half the cheese. When in doubt, always use more cheese than less.
Then, repeat. The other half of the noodles, the other half of the meat, and topping it all off with the other half of the cheese, making sure it's liberally covered.

Once that's done, bake it for 25 minutes, or until the cheese is all melty and bubbly and yummy looking.

Serve it up, lasagna style!

I thought it was delicious. One of my brothers did not approve of it, so I'll probably not make it very often, but the rest of my family loved it. :)