Macaroni and Cheese

When the 3-year-old eats all of dinner, you know it was good. When she has seconds and thirds and tells you you're the best mommy ever? Well, that's a hit. And that's what happens every time I make my homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner.

This is the easiest recipe ever -- three ingredients. And one of 'em is macaroni noodles. The rest are these.


Boil 2 cups of elbow macaroni as directed on the package. Meanwhile in a saucepan warm up a can of tomato soup and add a handful or two of grated cheese.


Stir until it's all well blended.


Then add it to the cooked, drained noodles.


My favorite meal in the universe. YUM.

The Pioneer Woman's Chicken Parmigiana

I made this tasty recipe for my anniversary and my husband thought (and still thinks I am) a gourmet cook. If you want to see her step by step directions with pictures click here. Mine looked like this:

Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 45 Minutes Difficulty: Easy Servings: 6

Ingredients
4 whole (up To 6) Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts, Trimmed And Pounded Flat
½ cups All-purpose Flour
Salt And Pepper, to taste
½ cups Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Butter
1 whole Medium Onion, Chopped
4 cloves Garlic, Minced
¾ cups Wine (white Or Red Is Fine)(I used Chicken Broth instead)
3 cans (14.5 Oz.) Crushed Tomatoes
2 Tablespoons Sugar
¼ cubes Chopped Fresh Parsley
1 cup Freshly Grated Parmesan Cheese
1 pound Thin Linguine

Preparation Instructions

Mix flour, salt, and pepper together on a large plate.
Dredge flattened chicken breasts in flour mixture. Set aside.
At this time, you can start a pot of water for your pasta. Cook linguine until al dente.

Heat olive oil and butter together in a large skillet over medium heat. When butter is melted and oil/butter mixture is hot, fry chicken breasts until nice and golden brown on each side, about 2 to 3 minutes per side.
Remove chicken breasts from the skillet and keep warm.

Without cleaning skillet, add onions and garlic and gently stir for 2 minutes. Pour in wine and scrape the bottom of the pan, getting all the flavorful bits off the bottom. Allow wine to cook down until reduced by half, about 2 minutes.

Pour in crushed tomatoes and stir to combine. Add sugar and more salt and pepper to taste. Allow to cook for 30 minutes. Toward the end of cooking time, add chopped parsley and give sauce a final stir.

Carefully lay chicken breasts on top of the sauce and completely cover them in grated Parmesan. Place lid on skillet and reduce heat to low. Allow to simmer until cheese is melted and chicken is thoroughly heated. Add more cheese to taste.

Place cooked noodles on a plate and cover with sauce. Place chicken breast on top and sprinkle with more parsley. Serve immediately.

Best Ever Mac & Cheese

This is not a super cheap meal, nor is it for those who are on a diet. But man is it GOOD!

Ingredients:
12 oz. Wide egg noodles
3 C. Whipping cream
1 1/2 C. Whole Milk
1 T. Flour
1/2 t. Salt
1/4 t. Black pepper
1/2 T. Italian seasoning
1-8 oz. Bag Italian 5 cheese blend
4 oz. Cooked diced ham (optional, and yes, you may add more or less.)

Directions: Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Grease a 13 x 9 in. pan, set aside. Cook noodles in salted water until tender, but still a little firm, approx. 5 min. Drain.
Whisk cream, milk, flour, and spices. Mix in Cheese 1/2 the bag of cheese. Add noodles until coated. Pour into baking dish. Sprinkle noodles with ham and remaining cheese. Bake until cheese melts, and sauce bubbles, approx 15-20 min. Let stand 10 min. before serving.

I'm not kidding when I say that this is so good. My Grandma use to make this when we lived with her. 4 of us would finish off the entire pan. The leftovers are great to. I always like to add extra milk to the leftovers so that they are still juicy. Enjoy!

Super easy fettucine alfredo sauce

Super Easy Fettuccine Alfredo Sauce

Ingredients:
½ cup whipping cream
½ cube butter
1 cup sour cream
4 oz. cream cheese
(I always add some grated parmesan cheese and some garlic salt to taste)

Directions:
Put all ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil then turn down the heat and cook for 5 more minutes on low heat. Add cooked chicken cubes, if desired. Serve over cooked fettuccine noodles.

Easy Alfredo Sauce

Chicken Alfredo-NaDell Ransom

The other day I decided to make an Alfredo sauce from scratch. I didn't have the little pocket of mix and didn't want to go to the store. I made my OWN! From SCRATCH!
I was even missing the heavy cream that all the recipes called for, so I looked up a substitute for that.
Beware: This is NOT a diet recipe. Chicken Alfredo just sounded so yummy to me.

Here's what I did:
Alfredo Sauce
Ingredients:
-1/4 cup Butter
-1 cup Heavy Cream
(substitute-melt 1/3 cup butter in microwave, add 3/4 cup milk, 1 Tablespoon Flour to thicken.)
-1 clove Garlic (I actually used about 1/2 teaspoon of Garlic Powder)
-1/2 cups Freshly Grated Parmesan Cheese (I actually used the powdered Kraft kind)
-1/4 cup Chopped Fresh Parsley (I actually used about 2 Tablespoons of dry parsley)
Instructions:
Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium low heat. Add cream and simmer for 5 minutes, then add garlic and cheese and whisk quickly, heating through. Stir in parsley and serve.

I cut up two chicken breasts and browned them in a frying pan with 1/4 teaspoon garlic and 1 Tablespoon Parsley and then combined the sauce with the chicken. I boiled Vermicelli noodles (Size between spaghetti and angel hair) and put the sauce on the noodles on the plates.

Cheesy Saucy Manicotti Noodles

Cheesy Saucy Manicotti Noodles - NaDell Ransom
My friend made these for us more than a year ago, but she did it the hard way by boiling the noodles before filling them and didn't put sauce on them. By spreading sauce on the bottom of the pan and also on top of the noodles, they cook perfectly.
(My picture is extra saucy and they are cut in half to show how they look. )


























Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups Ricotta Cheese
1 Egg
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese
2 teaspoons Parsley
1 teaspoon Chili Powder
1 teaspoon Minced Onion
1 teaspoon Garlic
1 cup Cheddar Cheese
1 cup Mozzarella Cheese
1 can/jar Spaghetti Sauce (I use Hunt's Four Cheese, but whatever kind you like is fine.)
14 Manicotti Noodles (sometimes there's one or two leftover noodles)

Instructions:
No need to boil noodles and have them break on you!
I don't always measure the spices or cheese. You can use whatever you have on hand. This also works with the huge shell pasta, but I did have to boil those for a few minutes for them to open up a little.
Mix the Ricotta cheese in a bowl with the egg. Add Parmesan cheese and mix it in. Add spices and mix. Add the rest of the cheeses and mix again.
Spray 9x13 pan. Spread 1 cup spaghetti sauce on bottom of pan. Open box of noodles. Using a knife, fill each noodle with cheese mixture and then line them up in the pan 6 on each side and 2 in the middle. Cover with remaining sauce and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes until bubbling and hot. Can remain in oven on warm longer to let set. These are great! Enjoy!