* Garlic Cheese Biscuits *

I LOVE these! I seriously could eat the entire batch myself. They are so fast and easy and perfect to go along with any italian dish or soup or with whatever your little heart desires. You can actually find this recipe off the Bisquick box but I originally got it from my sister at a bridal shower...thanks for the 5 1/2 years of yumminess, Tarese :)

* Garlic Cheese Biscuits *
1 1/2 c. Bisquick mix
1 c. cheddar cheese (or whatever you have on hand...I usually use Colby jack)
2 shakes garlic powder
shake or two of parsley
1/2 c. milk
-------------
3 T. butter
garlic salt
Parmesan cheese
parsley

Mix first 5 ingredients together in a bowl. When combined, drop by spoon onto cookies sheet. Bake at 450* for 7-9 minutes. While baking, mix melted butter, garlic salt, cheese, and parsley together. After biscuits finish baking, pour or brush butter mixture over the tops. SO YUMMY!

* BBQ Ranch Quesadillas *

This recipe is delicious! We love mexican food around here (and by "we" I mean "me"--although my hubby and kids do eat it well, they just don't LOVE LOVE-LOVE it like I do) and this recipe did not disappoint. I think it's going to be one of my new "go-to" recipes. I found it here at Cooking a la Mode. I didn't use these exact measurements--I pretty much just threw in what looked good. I also forgot to put the rice in (and we love rice so that was kind of a weird thing to do) and it still turned out good! I even used fresh cilantro from our garden...mmmm!

* BBQ Ranch Quesadillas *
1/2 c. white rice, cooked
1/2 c. black beans
1 c. chicken, cooked and shredded
3/4 c. frozen sweet white corn
1 diced tomato
1/4 c. diced green or red onion
1/4 c. minced cilantro
2 c. shredded cheese
1/3 c. - 1/2 c. BBQ sauce
10-12 flour tortillas
butter
salt
1/2 c. bbq sauce
1/2 c. good ranch dressing

In a large bowl, combine rice, beans, chicken, corn, tomato, onion, cilantro, and cheese. Fold in bbq sauce and mix until evenly distributed. Add more bbq sauce if needed. The mixture shouldn't be drenched, but should be fairly well-coated.

Butter one side of tortillas. Place about 1/3 c. of chicken mixture on half of the tortilla and fold over. Place on a baking sheet. Sprinkle tops of quesadillas with salt.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10-14 minutes, or until light brown and slightly crispy. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine desired amount of ranch and bbq sauce for dipping.

Cut each quesadilla in half and serve with bbq ranch dipping sauce

* Zucchini Fritters *

Wow...two zucchini recipes in one week. I never thought that would happen. I don't really care for zucchini and neither does my hubby. Don't ask me why he has 5 zucchini plants growing in our garden. I usually have to hide it in something...think bread, brownies, cookies, etc. I saw this recipe and it actually sounded good to me--weird, I know. And guess what! It was actually good! Even my picky almost-three-year-old loved it and ate 1 1/2 of them! I found this recipe here at Real Mom Kitchen. She is having a "Zucchini Week" this week so go check out her recipes!

* Zucchini Fritters *
2 cups grated zucchini squash
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
1 small onion, finely chopped (I just sprinkled onion powder generously over the top)
1 clove of garlic, finely minced
1 egg
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Place zucchini inside a tea towel or flour sack towel and squeeze out excess moisture. (I forgot this step and it still turned out yummy!)
In a bowl, add zucchini and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add the remaining ingredients. The mixture with be sticky and thick. Continue to stir, it will thin down. You want it to look like a thick cake batter.
On a parchment lined baking sheet, divide batter into 6 mounds on the parchment using a spoon or ice cream scoop. Then flatten each mound with a spoon or your hand to form 4 inch rounds.
Bake for 15 minutes or so, until the fritters are deep golden brown on the bottom. Then turn to broil and place on the second highest rack in your oven. Broil on high for a few minutes, you want to crisp them up but watch carefully so they won’t burn. Serve with ranch dressing or marinara. Makes 6 fritters.

* Homemade Biscuits and Sausage Gravy *

I am not a "made-from-scratch" kind of girl. I am all about shortcuts (think Bisquick, gravy mixes, jarred spaghetti sauce, etc.) and although I generally think that made-from-scratch things taste better, I am too lazy just not confident enough in my cooking abilities to try homemade things out. So the other night I decided to try to make homemade biscuits and gravy...not because I necessarily wanted to but because I was out of Bisquick and gravy packages and this was the dinner the hubby requested. It actually turned out pretty good, if I say so myself! So if you're a "made-from-scratch" kind of person, give it a try :)

I found the biscuit recipe here and I got the sausage gravy recipe out of the "Worldwide Ward Christmas Cookbook" (yes, the Christmas one...they didn't have the regular "Worldwide Ward Cookbook" at the library so I settled for the holiday version.)

* Homemade Fluffy Biscuits *
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg
2/3 cup milk

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut in shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Beat egg with milk; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Turn onto a well-floured surface; knead 20 times. Roll to 3/4-in. thickness; cut with a floured 2-1/2-in. biscuit cutter. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees F for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.

* Sausage Gravy *
1 lb. sausage
4 T. grease from sausage (add 2-3 T. butter, if necessary)
4 T. flour
2 c. milk
1 dash hot pepper sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Cook sausage. Remove from pan and drain grease from sausage. If there is not 4 T. of grease, add 2-3 T. of butter and put back into pan. Mix flour and grease/butter until it forms a ball. Stir in milk. Whisk together until incorporated and let it cook until it thickens. Add sausage, salt and pepper to taste, and a dash of hot sauce. Serve over biscuits.

* Zucchini Bread or Muffins *

We got our first zucchini out of our garden this week so I decided to make muffins for breakfast one day. The kids LOVED it and it was a nice way to get rid of our zucchini...how sad is it that I am already saying "get rid" of our zucchini when it was our first one? :) I got this recipe out of a cookbook we received in Young Womens years ago.

* Zucchini Bread or Muffins *
1 c. sugar
1 c. brown sugar
3 eggs
1 c. vegetable oil
2 c. shredded zucchini
3 T. vanilla
3 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda
3 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. baking powder

Beat the eggs and then add the oil and sugars. Add vanilla and zucchini and stir well. Add dry ingredients. Bake at 325* for 35-45 minutes in greased and floured bread pans ---or--- 25-28 minutes in lined or greased muffin tins.

I actually halved this recipe and it made 12 muffins and a small loaf of bread. If you do the whole recipe, I believe it makes two loaves.

* Soft Caramel Popcorn *

Wow...I am not doing so hot with this recipe blog, am I? Has anyone else noticed that when I do manage to post a recipe on here, all of my recipes are pretty much unhealthy and require no skill to make them? Well, the recipe I am posting today is no different :)
I was in the mood for a treat again (that happens to me all the time...no, I'm not pregnant but when 8:45pm hits around here, I NEED a treat.) Most recipes for Soft Caramel Popcorn out there require sweetened condensed milk...and it was a Sunday night and we didn't have it so I found this recipe and it was pretty good! It makes A LOT of caramel for the amount of popcorn they suggested you pour it over so I'd either add another bag of popcorn or just eat the caramel that settles on the bottom of a spoon (which is what I did).

* Soft Caramel Popcorn *
2 bags of microwave popcorn, popped, or about 1/4 cup of popcorn kernels, popped in an air popper (I'd say 3 bags...unless you want to eat just caramel at the end)
2 sticks of butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugars and corn syrup; stir on medium heat until it comes to a boil. (Make sure the heat is not too hot - if it boils too soon, the caramel will be grainy.) Once it starts boiling, boil for 1 minute. Take off the heat and mix in the baking soda. Pour over popcorn and stir until coated.

* Pollo A La Crema *

There is a Mexican restaurant in Evanston, Wyoming called Don Pedros. I first went there with my family when I was a teenager, shortly after gettting my braces off. We had gone fishing for the day and then randomly decided to go eat at Don Pedros for dinner. I remember thinking it was pretty good! After leaving the restaurant and getting almost home (about 2 hours away) I remembered that I left my retainer there! Lucky me, I was a nerd and had my name and address on my retainer case so the nice people at Don Pedros mailed it back to me.

Fast forward like 7 or 8 years. I marry a country boy from northern Utah. His hometown is about 45 minutes away from Evanston and my hubby's family's favorite Mexican restaurant is Don Pedros. Their favorite dish to get there is Pollo A La Crema. I decided to try to make the recipe at home but there are not a lot of recipes out there for Pollo A La Crema. This recipe is the closest I could find to resemble Don Pedro's version.

It was pretty good! Both my husband and I really enjoyed it. I still feel like there could be a little something more added to it but I'm not sure what. If any of you have any suggestions, let me know :)

* Pollo A La Crema *
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 c. boneless chicken breasts, cut in strips
1 sweet onion, cut in half lengthwise and sliced
2 cups fresh mushrooms, sliced fairly thick
1 tablespoon paprika (or more if desired)
2 tablespoons chicken base
1 cup heavy cream (Mexican cream works best but I just used regular cream and it was good too!)
2/3 cup sour cream

Heat oil in large frying pan. Saute chicken and onion until chicken is no longer pink & onions are translucent.
Add cream, mushrooms, paprika & chicken base. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5-7 minutes or until chicken is tender.
Remove from heat and stir in sour cream. Mixture will be somewhat thin, but should be a creamy texture like the consistency of a white sauce. Serve hot with warmed flour tortillas and Spanish Rice.

* (My In-Laws) DoritoTaco Salad *

When I think of taco salad, I usually think of chips (or a hard shell) topped with meat, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, cheese, etc. At my in-laws, they make their taco salads different--but still good! I've seen this recipe around so I know other people eat it this way too...in fact, you can find a similar recipe here.

* Dorito Taco Salad *
1 lb. hamburger
1 can red kidney beans (I used black beans because that's all I had on hand)
1 c. grated cheese
1 head ice berg lettuce
Dorito chips
1 bottle of Thousand Island dressing (to taste...depends on how dressing-y you want it)
sliced olives
(none of these measurements has to be exact...do more of what you like and less of the stuff you don't like as much)

Brown beef in skillet and drain off fat. Add beans and cook for a few minutes. (You can add taco seasoning to it the beef and beans but the chips and dressing give it plenty of flavor.) Mix all ingredients together, except lettuce and chips, and allow to sit in fridge for an hour or so. Just before serving, add chips and lettuce (don't add too soon or they will be soggy) and enjoy!

When we make this, it is always too much for us to eat for one meal so we usually have it for leftovers the next day. The problem is the chips get soggy so I've started to just mix the meat, beans, cheese, and dressing together. When we're ready to eat it, we put the amount of salad we need for our own serving on our plate, top it with the meat/bean mixute, and then crumble doritos on top and it turns out just as good and a lot less soggy for future meals.

* Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Treats (or butterscotcheroos) *

*Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Treats (or butterscotcheroos)*
(as always, sorry for the ugly picture...it's even worse with my camera phone...)
1 c. corn syrup
1 c. sugar
1 c. peanut butter
6 c. rice krispies
1 c. butter scotch chips
1 c. chocolate chips

Bring corn syrup and sugar to a boil. Remove from heat and add peanut butter. Stir until smooth. Mix in cereal and stir until it's evenly distributed. Pour and press into buttered pan. (I usually stop here because I like these better without the chocolate/butterscotch top)
Melt butterscotch and chocolate chips in microwave or on stove (according to package directions). Speadly evenly over krispy treats and allow to cool. Cut into squares are devour.

* Pizza Crust and White Sauce *

I've said before that I don't necessarily love my go-to pizza crust recipe. I mean, there is really nothing wrong with it other than it's kind of bland but it's fast, easy, and doesn't need to rise. This recipe is similar with a little more flavor...it's also fast, easy, and doesn't need to rise. I found it on Real Mom Kitchen blog here. Give it a try, if you're looking for something fast and easy.

*Fast & Easy Pizza Crust*sorry about the crappy picture...my camera broke a few weeks ago and I had to use my phone :(
3 cups flour, more or less
1 tablespoon honey, heaping
1 tablespoon oil, heaping
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon yeast
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. (If using a pizza stone, let stone heat for at least 30 minutes in the oven before baking pizza.) Mix all pizza dough ingredients together, except the flour. Add flour and knead for a bit then put into pan (or use a pizza peel and pizza stone). Top dough with sauce and toppings. If baking in a sheet pan, bake for about 12 minutes (checking often) until crust is browned and cheese is golden and bubbly. If baking on the preheated pizza stone, slide pizza onto stone and bake for about 8 minutes. Makes 1 large pizza.

I also used this white sauce found on Real Mom Kitchen. It reminded me of the white sauce we used at Papa Murphys...and it was also really good!

*White Pizza Sauce*
½ cup ranch dressing
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. dried basil
¼ cup shredded Parmesan

Mix all ingredients together and place on your pizza crust. This is enough sauce for 1 (14 inch) pizza.