With the temperature dropping, are you looking for casserole recipes?

It’s been cold and rainy here so we were looking for something along the lines of comfort food. Casserole recipes usually fit the comfort food-bill nicely! This pizza casserole bake is comfort food with a twist – not quite mac & cheese, not quite pizza. It’s fairly quick and easy to throw together, though, and is also easy to customize to your own personal tastes.

Pizza Casserole Bake

1 lb cavatappi pasta

4 C shredded mozzarella cheese

1 jar (16 oz) pasta sauce (I used Ragu)

1 lb ground beef

1 pkg. pepperonis

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350.
Season ground beef with garlic powder, salt and pepper and brown in a skillet until no longer pink.
While beef is browning, cook pasta according to package directions (about 10 minutes).
Spread a thin layer of sauce in the bottom of a 9×13 pan.
Cover the sauce with 1/2 of the cooked pasta.
Cover the pasta with 1/2 of the ground beef mixture.
Pour 1/2 of the sauce over the pasta. Top with the remaining pasta.
Cover the pasta with 1/2 of the cheese. Top with the remaining beef.
Pour the remaining sauce over the top and then cover with them remaining cheese.
Place rows of pepperonis on top of the cheese to finish.
Cover with foil (spray the foil first to keep it from sticking to the cheese) and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake an additional 15 minutes.

Normally when I make this to take to a potluck or gathering, I add a can of mushrooms with each layer of ground beef. The kiddos aren’t mushroom fans, though, so I leave them out for them. You could easily add any other pizza ingredients you’d like – sausage, green pepper, onion and bacon would all work nicely.

The weather is turning a little colder so we’re starting to make some heartier meals like soups/stews, chili, casseroles and crock pot meals. And now that Baby C. can be partially entertained in her high chair for a few minutes if I pull her close to me in the kitchen, it’s giving me some extra time to try new things. So tonight we tried an enchilada casserole recipe that a friend gave me a bit ago.

My friend found the recipe in an issue of Taste of Home magazine and said that it had been voted #1 Casserole of 2010. I did make a few minor changes to suit our tastes; you can definitely do the same. And while I am sharing a photo of the final result, I will be honest: this is not a pretty, photos-well kind of dish. It’s bubbly and gooey and cheesy, so please forgive the quality of the image.

Enchilada Casserole

Recipe type: Main

Cuisine: Mexican

Serves: 8

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef
½ tsp onion powder
1 jar (16oz) salsa
1 can (15oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 sm. can corn, drained
¼ C Italian dressing
½ C sour cream
2 T taco seasoning
½ tsp. cumin
4 8-inch flour tortillas
2-4 C shredded Mexican cheese

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400.
In a large skillet cook ground beef with the onion powder until no longer pink; drain.
Stir in the salsa, black beans, dressing, taco seasoning, corn, sour cream and cumin.
Spread ¼ of the meat mixture in the bottom of an 8×8 casserole dish. Sprinkle with ½ to 1 cup of cheese. Cover the cheese with 1 tortilla.
Continue layering meat mixture, cheese and tortillas until you've used all the meat mixture. The last layer should be a heavy covering of cheese (so no tortilla on the top of the last layer of cheese).
Spray aluminum foil with cooking spray and cover the casserole. Bake for 25 minutes or until it starts to get bubbly.
Serve with extra shredded cheese, diced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, crushed Doritos, tortilla chips or other sides.

Enchilada Casserole Recipe

Mine turned out a bit more runny than I had expected. Next time I will probably use a “chunky” salsa to reduce some of the liquid. Also, I only used 2 tortillas because that’s what was listed in the recipe. But I suggested 4 in my above ingredient list. Hubby suggested that it could use more tortilla layers and also I think additional tortillas would give it extra stability and soak up a little extra liquid.

What is your favorite casserole recipe?

How to Save Money Buying Chicken In Bulk

I’m pretty sure that we all have noticed the increase in prices as the grocery store over the last few months. One area I’ve noticed a huge difference in is fresh proteins. In the past I could sometimes find boneless, skinless chicken on sale for under $2/lb; now it is regularly $3.30/lb and sales are few and far between. While there are coupons for many products those coupons rarely include fresh meat, so you might be wondering how to save money in this area.

One way to save is when you buy in bulk. Normally I make my bulk purchases at warehouse stores. But I recently discovered a new option: Zaycon Foods where I can buy fresh boneless, skinless chicken breasts for under $1.50/lb!

Zaycon Foods was founded in 2009 and is based in Washington state. The goal of their company is to bring fresh meats and other products direct to consumers at wholesale prices. They combine the buying power of multiple families in each community which allows them to negotiate huge savings. Then they look for farms or processors in each community and bring you the foods directly from them; your meats are as fresh as if you owned a farm yourself (without all the mess and work!). And they sell the meat by the case; this allows them to further keep the costs down by skipping handling charges.

I had the opportunity to participate in a Zaycon Foods event this week and I honestly, I wish all my shopping was that easy. A couple of weeks before they came to town I went online to reserve my case. (Chicken cases each contain 40 lbs. of chicken.) I choose the event closest to me (they generally have multiple events in each state), ordered my case of chicken – each case of chicken costs $60-65 – and printed out my confirmation. Then this week on my assigned day and time I drove to the delivery location and waited. The driver was a few minutes late, but once he did arrive, I was in and out in less than 2 minutes. I didn’t even have to get out of my car! Just drove up next to the truck, told the guy where I wanted my chicken stowed, told him my name and off we drove.

The chicken is fresh and comes packaged in a big box (designed for refrigeration). When I got it home and we opened the box, there were four plastic bags of about 10 lbs. each, and they were all sealed inside a larger plastic bag. The breasts were huge with very little fat on them. We portioned them out to roughly two double-breasts to each gallon-sized ziptop plastic bag. That way we can pull out only what we need for each meal.

What to do with all that chicken? Well, to start check out this recipe I prepared using my Zaycon chicken. You can also check out my Pinterest recipe boards for additional ideas. And be sure to like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter as in addition to updates about deliveries in your area and new additions to their offerings I have also found that they share recipes.

Giveaway is now closed.

I received the above stated product(s) in order to facilitate my review. No other compensation was received and all opinions are 100% that of myself and my family.

I skipped over Tasty Tuesday this week so that I could bring you a recipe using the fresh Zaycon Foods chicken that we picked up this week.

Chicken is one of those things that while really versatile, I often find myself making it in the same four or five ways every time: Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese, Chicken Chimichangas, fried chicken, homemade chicken nuggets or baked chicken with Lawry’s. So I decided to change things up and play around a little bit with the chicken I made for dinner last night. I used only what I had already stocked in the pantry and while it’s not going to win any Iron Chef competitions, Cheesy Stuffed Chicken is something I’ll make again sometime!

Pantry Chicken Recipes Continue reading »

I received my first Gooseberry Patch book from my grandmother when I was in high school. It was about planning and decorating for Christmas, recipes and gift ideas and the style it was written in was very engaging. Combining a number of my favorite things made it a sure-fire hit with me and from that day on I was hooked.

Gooseberry Patch was started back in 1984 by Delaware, Ohio, neighbors Vickie and Jo Ann. They both had young kids and were looking for a way to do something they loved that allowed them to stay home with the kids and as they both shared a love of home cooking and making memories they created the idea of Gooseberry Patch. What started as a catalog turned into their first cookbook in 1992 and they haven’t stopped since.

One of their newest cookbooks is Quick & Easy Christmas. It has over 220 “Christmas-y” recipes, most of which are in 30 minutes or less. A feature of the recipes that I love is that they’re all submitted by Gooseberry Patch fans and readers so you are getting many time-tested, family-approved dishes to try.

The book also contains simple decorating and gift ideas, tips and tricks, and holiday quotes. There is one at the bottom of nearly every page; at 218 pages that’s a lot of bonuses! I also adore the country Christmas sketches and images that adorn most pages. It really gets you into the Christmas spirit! The last neat feature is a US to Canadian measurement conversion in the back of the book which I’m guessing could be quite handy!

For more information on Gooseberry Patch – and notices about fund-raising opportunities, sales, contests, free recipes and more – you can find them on Facebook, watch them on YouTube and follow them on Twitter.

You can purchase a copy of Quick & Easy Christmas for yourself on Amazon for $11.41 (or $9.99 on the Kindle) – or you can win one below! Just enter on the Rafflecopter form with as many or as few options as you would like. Reminder: Rafflecopter sometimes takes a moment to load; if it hasn’t loaded after a minute, please try refreshing your browser.

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I received a copy of the cookbook for purposes of facilitating the review. All opinions are 100% that of myself and my family.

Views From the Ville

Pizza Casserole Bake Recipe – Perfect For These Colder Temps!

With the temperature dropping, are you looking for casserole recipes?

Tasty Tuesday – Enchilada Casserole

What is your favorite casserole recipe?

Fill Your Freezer with Fresh Chicken from Zaycon Foods

How to Save Money Buying Chicken In Bulk

Pantry Chicken Recipes: Cheesy Stuffed Chicken

Gooseberry Patch Quick & Easy Christmas – Review & Giveaway