Delicious Baked Potato Casserole

This is good, so good! Now that I'm looking at the picture I'm wondering why it's been so long since I've made it! This is a hearty casserole that can serve as a main dish or side dish, or bring it to a potluck! Very versatile!

Also, apologies for the lack of posting for the last month. I find as we near spring and the end of the school year there isn't as much time for writing and posting. I have many articles and recipes in the works, so those will be coming in the future. We like to wind down our school year by mid-May to allow for a much needed long summer. Not to mention, it's SO hard to concentrate when it's been so cold for so long and it's warm again!

Enjoy this recipe!

Delicious Baked Potato Casserole
by Amanda @ Natural and Organic Lifestyle

3 lbs organic potatoes (6-8 depending on size)
1 cup organic milk
1/2 cup organic sour cream
2 cups organic shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 - 1 ts of good salt, or to taste
Pepper to taste (I like about 1/4 ts)
1/2 ts organic garlic powder
1 lb organic turkey bacon, cook and crumbled, divided
Green onions to garnish

Boil or bake potatoes until tender. Once potatoes are done, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 baking dish. With a hand or stand mixer, beat potatoes with milk, sour cream, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Stir in half the bacon and 1 1/2 cups of cheese. Spoon into prepared baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes. Top with remaining bacon, cheese, and green onions. Bake for 3-5 minutes until cheese is melted.

Baked Chicken Parmesan Casserole

Chicken Parmesan is so awesome, but sooo time consuming with the breading. Making it into a casserole cuts your prep time drastically. Using packaged stuff or croutons instead of bread crumbs keeps that crunch  you expect from Chicken Parm. Try this super easy casserole and be wowed with how easy it was and how much it tastes like traditional Chicken Parmesan!

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves organic garlic, crushed
1/4 ts hot red pepper flakes
8 organic chicken thighs, boneless
2 cups organic marinara sauce
 8 oz organic mozzarella, shredded
4 oz organic Parmesan, grated
5-oz package organic whole wheat stuffing (check the seasonings to make sure it goes with the italian theme) or use whole wheat croutons

Directions:

Drizzle olive oil in a baking dish. Mix in the crushed garlic and red pepper. Lay the chicken in the dish. Top with marinara sauce. Sprinkle with half the cheeses. Evenly sprinkle the stuffing mix or croutons on top of the cheese. Top with the rest of the cheeses. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes, check for doneness with a meat thermometer.  

 

Organic Alfredo

Who doesn't love alfredo? I can't really say I know anyone. My kids are NOT big fans of red sauce on pasta, though they love lasagna and baked ziti, go figure. So making a healthy white sauce is a must around here. I can only eat lemon pasta so much (probably their fav pasta). Alfredo that comes in jars just looks gross to me. I great, creamy, wholesome homemade sauce is a must. Try it! You won't regret it!

Ingredients:
1 cup organic cream
1 cup organic milk
4 tb organic butter
4 tb organic whole wheat flour
1/2 cup organic Parmesan shredded, plus some for sprinkling on top
1/2 cup organic shredded mozzarella (completely optional, but adds a stringy cheesiness)
1/2 lb organic whole wheat fetuccine, or other pasta

Cook pasta according to directions on package. In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in flour. Cook for a few minutes while continuing to stir. Whisk in milk and cream. Cook until thickened, stirring often. Once thickened, remove from heat and stir in cheese(s). I don't always add mozzarella but I like the variation it adds. Pour over your pasta and top with a sprinkling of Parmesan. Sprinkle crushed red pepper on top if you wish. Enjoy!

Cheesy Tex-Mex Casserole

I'm not usually a big casserole making fan...but it had me at "tex-mex" =) This is a variation of Emerill's Ooey Gooey Tex Mex Casserole. His recipe calls for stew meat AND ground beef (among several other variants)....in my opinion that's just too much beef! But if you're a big beefy fan, go ahead and try it. Or add some beans instead like I do and have a great well rounded meal, not too beefy. This is the first recipe with beef in it that my 2 year old has EVER eaten! AND she had seconds!!! Granted, I slathered it in organic sour cream...but still, I've never been able to get her to eat beef before. This is one of hubby's favorite meals. He once came home from a long day and had eaten a burger on the way home but didn't want to tell me (I hate it when he eats right before coming home when I've made a yummy meal!!). I had made this meal that day and he still had 2 servings of it because it's just THAT good. He JUST told me tonight about the burger, and that was like 2 years ago! So even if you're anti-casserole, try this, it really is THAT good!

Ingredients:
1 lb organic ground beef
2 cups organic black beans, cooked
1 organic onion, chopped
4 TB organic tomato paste
2 large tomatoes diced
1 veggie boullion cube
2 cups of water
(or instead of water and boullion you could use 2 cups veggie stock, or beef if you must be that beefy, ha)
Approximately 6 whole wheat tortillas
2 cups organic jack cheese, shredded
2 cups organic cheddar, shredded

In a large skillet, saute onion in a little oil for 3 minutes. Add ground beef stirring constantly until cooked through. Add beans, tomato paste, tomatoes and boullion/water or stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Turn off burner. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large baking dish, pour a couple ladles full of beefy/bean mixture. Top with a layer of tortillas. If using small tortillas, place two side by side. If using large ones, place one whole one and a strip of another to cover the remaining space. Sprinkle cheese over tortillas, and cover with beefy/bean mixture. Follow with another layer of tortillas, cheese, and beefy/bean mixture. Keep layering until beefy/bean mixture is done or you're at the top of the dish. Your last layer should be tortilla covered with cheese. Bake for about 10 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before slicing and serving. Top with a dollop of sour cream and some hot sauce

Mexican Stuffed Poblano Bake

This is so yummy, I could eat it all the time. Well...almost all the time...I have to leave room to eat enchiladas and french onion soup =) This turned out to be totally family-friendly. The first time I made it just for hubby and I because I thought it would be too spicy for the kids. They kept asking for bites and ended up eating a ton of it. Though, here's a disclaimer, some poblano peppers are spicier than others so if I had really spicy ones it wouldn't be so kid-friendly. But I've made it many times since then and they still gobble it up. So maybe cooking them for so long makes them less spicy, I don't know. Either way, we love this recipe!

Ingredients:
24 oz organic crushed tomatoes or tomato puree
2 organic onions, chopped, divided
1 jalapeno, chopped
Sea salt and pepper
3 cloves organic garlic
2 cups organic beans, black or pinto
1/2 cup organic cornmeal
1 cup pepperjack cheese
1 ts organic cumin
4 large poblano peppers, organic if you can, I can't find them =(

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a blender, puree tomatoes, 1 onion, jalapeno, 2 garlic cloves, and a dash of salt. Pour into a 9x13 baking dish.
Mince remaining garlic clove. In a large bowl combine garlic, beans, cornmeal, 1/2 cup cheese, 1 diced onion,  cumin, 3/4 cup water, 1/2 ts salt, pepper to taste.
Slice peppers in half and remove stems and seeds. Place in baking dish and stuff with bean mixture. Sprinkle remaining cheese over top.
Invert another baking dish to cover the dish and place in oven for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake another 10 minutes until cheese browns.
Enjoy!

Sweet and Sour Veggies and Beans

This is a great vegetarian option to the traditional sweet and sour dishes. Though this would still be awesome with chicken if you wanted to.

Ingredients:
2 heads organic brocolli
1 organic red pepper
2 cups diced pineapple
1 cup organic beans, pinto, black, or kidney
1 organic onion, sliced
2 cloves organic garlic, minced

1/4 to half a cup pineapple juice (Note: if using canned pineapple, which I don't recommend with bpa lined cans, you can use the juice from the can. You can run some pineapple through a juicer. Or use frozen pineapple and as it defrosts you will end up with enough juice. Or with fresh pineapple you can mash some with a potato masher and squeeze some juice out.)
1/4 cup organic brown sugar
2 TB organic cornstarch
1/4 ts organic ground ginger
1/4 cup organic vinegar (apple cider or white wine)
2 TB braggs liquid aminos, or organic soy sauce

In a bowl, combine pineapple juice, brown sugar, cornstarch, ginger, vinegar, and braggs or soy sauce. Set aside. In a skillet, saute in a little water or oil,
brocolli, red pepper, and onion until tender. Add minced garlic and saute for about a minute. Add beans and pineapple and cook until heated through. Pour in reserved sauce and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook for 3-5 minutes until sauce is thickened.
Serve over brown rice.

Mexican Chicken and Beans

You had me at "mexican" =) Quick, easy, and yummy!

Ingredients:
1 lb organic chicken thighs or breasts, diced
2 cups organic corn
1 cup organic black beans
1 ts oil for cooking
1 TB cumin
1 ts chili powder
1 ts garlic salt
1/2 cup water

Optional:
Tortillas (fajita or burrito)
Sliced jalapeno
Organic sour cream
Salsa

Cook diced chicken over medium in a skillet with the oil. When fully cooked, add the beans, corn, water and seasonings. Cook about 10 minutes until sauce thickens and flavors are mingled. Serve with or with a tortilla if you wish and top with sliced jalapenos, salsa, and a dollop of sour cream!

Quinoa Tabouli

Quinoa is so very good for you with 8 grams of protein, 5 grams of fiber, 4 grams of fat in a one cup serving. It is a gluten-free grain, so it's great for everyone. You can use it in place of rice on most recipes. Tabouli or Tabbouleh usually calls for bulgar wheat. This is a yummy side or main dish. Enjoy!
This is a variation of a recipe I saw at www.hacres.com

Ingredients:
1 cup organic quinoa
1 cup organic grape tomatoes, cut in half
1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, minced
A couple mint leaves, minced
3 cloves organic garlic, minced
 Half a cucumber, diced
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
Juice of one lemon
2 TB gluten-free tamari (or organic soy sauce, braggs liquid aminos)
2 TB olive oil
1 ts sea salt
pinch of cayenne

Place quinoa in a fine strainer and rinse. Rub the grains together.
Place quinoa in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until all the water is absorbed. Remove from heat, cool.
In a small bowl, mix together lemon, tamari, olive oil, salt, and cayenne.
Toss all ingredients together.
Let mixture sit for an hour for all the ingredients to mingle. Refrigerate until ready to serve and toss one more time. Enjoy!

Vegetarian Nachos

Nachos are such a well rounded meal! So grab a tray of them and head to the living room for movie night with the kiddos! That's what we do! (You can even throw on some meat if you must for those meat eaters!)

Ingredients:
1 bag organic tortilla chips (important to get organic since a huge percentage of corn is GMO)
2 cups shredded organic cheese, jack or cheddar
1 can sliced black olives
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 tomato chopped
1 organic onion chopped
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped (optional)
1 cup organic black or pinto beans (already cooked)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lay chips on a parchment lined large baking sheet. Scatter all the ingredients except the cheese all over the chips.

Top with cheese. (I like putting the cheese on top of the toppings because it holds them to the chips)

Cook for 10-15 minutes until cheese is melted. Serve sour cream and salsa on the side, Enjoy!

Tacos - Make your own taco night!

I'm sure most people know how to make tacos. I'm not talking authentic Mexican tacos, I'm talking American-ized tacos. But, do you know how to make it without the little packet of taco seasoning? If not, read on! Make your own taco night is a favorite around here. Simply fill a bunch of bowls with taco toppings, hand out shells, and let the kiddos go to town! Garden of Eatin makes organic taco shells, which I was super excited about when my grocery store started carrying them!

Ingredients for taco meat:
1 lb organic ground beef (or more depending on size of your family, this leaves us leftovers)
1TB organic garlic powder
1 TB organic chili powder
1 TB organic cumin
1 TB organic all season salt
1/2 cup water

Brown meat. Add all the other ingredients and simmer while you chop everything else! So easy-no packet needed =) (If you have onion powder, add some of that too, I never have any)

Toppings:
Shredded cheese
Diced tomatoes
Diced onions
Chopped cilantro
Shredded lettuce
Diced jalapenos
Beans
Salsa
Guacamole
Hot Sauce
Sour cream

Chicken Fajitas (Works great for beef too!)

This recipe works for a pound of meat. Easily multiplies for more meat. Make with my tortillas! Mmmm, Mexican food!

Ingredients:
1 lb organic chicken (or organic beef may be used)
1 cup shredded organic cheddar cheese
4 whole wheat tortillas
1 organic red pepper, sliced
2 organic onions, sliced
1 cup organic beans, pinto or black
Organic sour cream, salsa, and hot sauce if desired

Marinade:
Juice of one lemon
1/2 cup water
2 TB olive oil
2 ts braggs liquid aminos or organic soy sauce
3 cloves of organic garlic, shopped
1 ts salt
1/2 ts ground pepper
1/2 ts cayenne pepper

Slice chicken in strips and soak in marinade for at least an hour, up to overnight, in the refrigerator.

Cook chicken in a pan with red pepper and onions until chicken is cooked through.

Wrap in a tortilla with beans, cheese, sour cream, hot sauce, and salsa. Enjoy!

Ricotta Stuffed Hot Peppers

A couple weeks ago we went to the Garlic Festival. This is always so fun. The food is always super good. We always have to try a little of everything..well we've never tried the garlic sprinkles on ice cream, but I must draw the line somewhere ;) This year one of the booths had a spicy stuffed pepper that was so yummy I HAD to try to recreate it. And I did! I used Hungarian wax peppers which are moderately spicy. Though I think that may be an "average" because some were only a little spicy and some made we want to rip my tongue off. But the spice went away and I was happy with the result! Feel free to use a less spicy pepper. It would be good in banana peppers too. Though I have to say, I decided to leave the seeds in to make them spicier, I won't be doing that next time. It worked well for the ones that were only a little spicy but made the more spicy ones a little hard to handle. But whatever pepper you decide to use, make these, soon!

Ingredients:
8 Hungarian wax peppers, organic if you can find it, I couldn't
8 oz ricotta, organic
1/4 cup shredded parm, organic
1 cup shredded mozzarella, organic
1/2 ts ground pepper
4 cloves organic garlic, minced
1/2 ts sea salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix together everything but the peppers in a medium bowl. Cut the end off the peppers at an angle to release the seeds and membrane, like this:

Pull gently on the stem so it lifts out the seeds. Hopefully it looks like this: (If not, just scrape the seeds out)

There are a couple ways you can get the filling in. You can use a butter knife and push it down in until it's full.
You could also use a zip lock bag, fill with mixture, seal, and cut a corner off , squeeze down in. Either way, it should look like this when you're done:

Place them all in a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees.

Cheese Enchiladas

I'm from California and my favorite food ever is enchiladas. Granted I like almost anything Mexican (or Mexi-Cali, since I guess I've never really had Mexican food in Mexico). I judge every single Mexican restaurant by their cheese enchiladas. If they aren't good, I don't go back. Harsh? Maybe, but enchiladas are super important to me =) So, since moving to NY there is a serious lack of Mexican restaurants so if I want enchiladas I have to make them myself. I came up with this recipe and in my opinion it's perfect. I've passed down my love of enchiladas to my kids. They always have seconds and sometimes thirds. So try this recipe, you'll be happy you did!!! And FYI I use small whole wheat tortillas for this. You by all means CAN use corn tortillas. I actually prefer corn, but the tortillas are a little trickier to roll. So warm them first. My husband prefers flour tortillas. I conceded since I've been unable to find organic corn tortillas. Since corn is highly GMO'd, I opt for the flour tortillas. I did make my own tortillas once, but that took a long time.

I make two pans at a time, cut in half if you only want one. But believe me, you'll want leftovers!

Cheese Enchiladas

18 small tortillas
16 oz. organic jack cheese

Sauce:
2 TB olive or coconut oil
1 TB organic chili powder
1 TB organic cumin
1 ts organic garlic powder
1 ts sea salt
36 oz organic tomato sauce

In a saucepan heat oil over medium heat. Toss in the chili powder. Cook for a few minutes. Pour in tomato sauce. I use bottled tomato sauce (which is actually pureed tomatoes) I then rinse down the sides of the bottles to get the last bits of tomatoes out, filling about halfway with water, then add to pot. You don't want  it too watery, but I find it a bit thick if I don't add any water. If you end of adding too much water and need to thicken it, it's easily fixed by adding a little tomato paste. Add cumin, salt, and garlic powder. Simmer on medium low for atleast ten minutes.

Let sauce cool for ten minutes (not totally necessary, but your fingers will thank you in a few minutes).
This is how I set up my work station:

Pour a spoonful of sauce in each pan and spread it around. Also pour a spoonful of sauce on the empty plate.

Take a tortilla, lay it on the plate, and rub it around in the sauce. Flip it over and do the other side so both sides are coated in sauce. Sprinkle cheese across the middle. (Now by all means you can add veggies, ground beef, chicken, etc...I'm just partial to just cheese)

Grab one end and roll up. Place in baking dish, seam side down.

Continue with all tortillas. Pour remaining sauce over the top and spread around. Sprinkle on remaining cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes, until everything is hot and bubbly! I always serve them with a side of rice and beans, sour cream, and cholula hot sauce! Enjoy!

Three bean vegetarian chili

Three bean vegetarian chili

3 Bean Chili

couple tb oil, I use coconut oil
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 (or more) jalapeno chopped (6 makes a spicy chili)
Drain all beans if using canned:
2 cups or 2 cans black beans
2 cups or 2 cans pinto beans
2 cups or 2 cans kidney beans
1 large can fire roasted diced tomatoes, or 4-5 fresh tomatoes diced
2 tb chili powder
2 tb cumin
2 ts salt, or to taste
1/2 cup veggie broth, beer, or liquid of choice (I use beer if we have it, otherwise I use veggie broth)
a couple dashes of hot sauce (I use Cholula)
Optional: If I add too much liquid I will add a can of refried beans to thicken it back up

Directions:
Heat oil in a big soup pot and then cook onion, bell pepper, jalapeno's, and garlic, until softened. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for atleast 15 minutes. Also works great in the crock pot....just throw in all the ingredients and cook until veggies are soft, maybe 4 hours. If you must, you can also add meat....but it doesn't need it. If serving chili to kids, I leave the jalapenos out, and add chopped fresh jalapenos as a topping option for adults.
Top with any of the following: Shredded cheese, chopped green or yellow onions, cilantro, sour cream, chopped jalapenos etc.