Smoked Sausage & Potatoes

Ingredients:

-1 package of smoked sausage, sliced into rounds

-1 large onion, peeled and chopped

-5 large potatoes, peeled and chopped into ½ inch cubes

-olive oil

-fine sea salt

-freshly ground black pepper

-sweet paprika

-dried thyme

a handful of greated strong cheddar cheese

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400*F. 

Line a large baking tray (with sides) with several sheets of foil, and spray with cooking spray. Set aside.

Put the sausage rounds, onions, and potatoes into a large bowl. Drizzle with a couple TBS of olive oil and season to taste with salt, pepper, paprika and dried thyme. Toss together with your hands until everything is evenly distributed. Pour this out onto the baking tray, and spread it out as much as you can.

Place into the heated oven and roast for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring every 15 minutes or so, until the potatoes are golden brown and tender. Turn off the oven. 

Scatter the cheese over top of the cooked meat and potatoes, Pop back into the oven a few minutes to melt the cheese.

Mexican Casserole

Ingredients:

1lb. ground beef

1/2 cup diced onion

1 pack taco seasoning mix

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese 

1 can refried beans (thet spread easier if you warm them in microwave)

1 cup prepared rice (I used Minute Rice)

1 can Mexican blend corn (DRAINED)will only use about 1/2 can

4-5 large flour tortillas

8 oz of thick chunky salsa (your choice mild or hot)

Directions:

Spray a spring form, round cake pan or casserole with cooking spray

Brown ground beef ,and onion and drain 

Add taco seasonings and cook according to package direction

Lay 1 tortilla in bottom of baking dish and spread 1/3 of bean on it ,top with 1/3 of the meat and sprinkle on some cheese .

2nd layer tortilla, 1/2 the rice, 1/2 salsa, 1/2 the corn and cheese

3rd layer tortilla, 1/3 beans ,1/3meat, cheese 

4 layer tortilla . beans ,meat, corn, rice, salsa and cheese

Bake covered with foil at 350 for about 40 minutes uncover and bake 10-15 minutes longer. let sit 5 minutes before cutting . After baking top with sour cream,diced onion and shredded lettuce if desired

Pumpkin Crunch Cake

Ingredients:

1 box yellow cake mix

1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree

1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans (the original recipe called for 1/2 cup)

1 cup butter, melted

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease bottom of 9 x 13″ pan.  Mix pumpkin, milk, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.  Pour mixture into greased pan.  Sprinkle dry cake mix over pumpkin mixture and top with pecans.  Drizzle melted butter over pecans.  Bake 50-55 minutes

No Bake Cheesecake

Ingredients:

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

1 8 ounce tub of cool whip

1/3 cup of lemon or lime juice

1 8 ounce package of cream cheese.

Instructions:

Most important part of this recipe, is to leave the cream cheese out for a couple hours at room temperature. The cream cheese will become soft and smooth. The importance of this is to create a smooth texture. Not doing so, will create horrible lumps of cream cheese that will ruin the flavor of this pie.

After your cream cheese is softened enough, I like to see if it will spread easily with a plastic spatula. In a mixing bowl, mix all before mentioned ingredients. Please note: the lemon/lime juice must come last. The reaction of the citrus juice will start to harden your mixture almost immediately.

On the low speed of you hand mixer, blend well. Around 2 minutes of so is plenty, just make sure all ingredients are incorporated. Immediately pour mixture into a waiting graham crust ( (I like to use a vanilla wafer crust instead of graham and I used an 8” cake pan. Recipe below.) ) or for those of us that can't have the gluten, I opt for muffin cups. Refrigerate for an hour to and hour and a half and viola.

Vanilla Wafer Crust

24-30 vanilla wafers depending on pan size

3 Tablespoons melted butter

Mix both ingredients until it sticks together. Punch onto sides of cake pan to resemble a crust.

Add-ons-Make it your own!

To make this recipe your own, there are several things you can add.

Oreo cookie crust. Incorporate a few of the cookies in to the batter, smashed of course. Top with a few whole or halved cookies as well.

Fresh strawberries, with or without glaze. I like to cut the strawberries up in to quarters and place in a zip-lock bag. Gently whacking the bag of berries on the counter a few times to start releasing the juices. A half an hour later, you have a no fuss, no extra sugar strawberry topping and glaze. Although a little vanilla in bag wouldn't hurt anything.

Key lime juice instead of regular. This will give you a tart cheesecake, more like a key lime bar if you lessen the cool whip content. About half is needed for recipe, although the more that is used, the lighter and fluffier the taste and texture will be.