Easy Pizza Lasagna for Picky Eaters

Picky eaters are a challenge in any household. Riel is a recovering picky eater, but this recipe predates our relationship. I adapted it from the Better Homes and Gardens’ Junior Cookbook that my mom gave me for my 8th birthday. My brother, the king of picky eaters, wouldn’t touch regular lasagna (with all that cottage cheese and heaven forbid – onions).

Ingredients

The finished product

12 Ounces ground beef

½ Cup chopped pepperoni

2 ½ Cups spaghetti sauce

6 Lasagna noodles

3 Cups mozzarella cheese

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook ground beef and chopped peperoni in skillet on medium high heat. Drain excess fat.

Spoon 1 cup of spaghetti sauce in the bottom of the 2 quart baking dish. Stir the rest of the sauce into the meat mixture.

Place 2 uncooked noodles on sauce in bottom of dish. Spread 1/3 of the meat mixture on top of noodles. Then layer 1 cup of mozzarella, 2 more uncooked noodles, 1/3 of the meat mixture, 1 cup of cheese. Then the remaining 2 noodles, rest of the meat mixture, and last of the cheese.

Cover the dish with tin foil and bake for 1 hour.

Let cool for 15 minutes before removing tin foil and serving.

1 lb ground beef, add pepperoni (and onions and garlic, in this case), add sauce, and layer everything together

You Can Roast an Entire Chicken!

You might be thinking: Why bother with roasting a chicken? Well…

My roast chicken, fresh out of the oven

• It’s budget-friendly. It’s hard to beat 6 pounds of meat for 5-8 dollars.
• It’s absolutely delectable. But don’t take my word for it – try it!
• You will feel like the best chef in the universe (for goodness sakes, you roasted an entire bird!)
• You will have leftovers! You can use your left-over chicken in fried rice, chicken noodle soup, BBQ chicken sandwiches, and anything else you can think of.

Roast chicken is easier than it seems!

This recipe is almost exactly Ina Garten’s Perfect Roast Chicken. I chose to try this recipe because there was a video to show me how to do it.

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken (5 or 6 lbs)
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 large bunch fresh thyme, plus 20 sprigs
• 1 lemon, halved
• 1 head garlic, cut in half crosswise (you need a sharp knife for this!)
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 large yellow onion, thickly sliced
• 4 carrots cut into 2-inch chunks
• 1 bulb of fennel (I am vastly unfamiliar with fennel, so I left this out)
• Around 6 red potatoes, quartered (I added these, so that we could have chicken and potatoes)
• Olive oil

Directions (from Ina’s recipe)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Remove the chicken giblets [save the neck for chicken stock]. Rinse the chicken inside and out. Remove any excess fat and leftover pin feathers and pat the outside dry. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Stuff the cavity with the bunch of thyme, both halves of lemon, and all the garlic. Brush the outside of the chicken with the butter and sprinkle again with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string [I used wooden shish-kabob skewers, which I soaked in water for an hour, because I couldn’t find kitchen string – it worked perfectly] and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. Place the onions, carrots, and fennel [I did red potatoes instead of fennel] in a roasting pan. Toss with salt, pepper, 20 sprigs of thyme, and olive oil. Spread around the bottom of the roasting pan and place the chicken on top.

Roast the chicken for 1 1/2 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh. Remove the chicken and vegetables to a platter and cover with aluminum foil for about 20 minutes. Slice the chicken onto a platter and serve it with the vegetables.

All stuffed, tucked, and ready to cook

Simple, Scrumptious Fried Rice

When we first got married, I had a handful of meals that I knew how to cook. But Riel didn’t like any of them! Not homemade chicken noodle soup, scalloped potatoes, or even spaghetti. I’ve since realized that my execution may not have been as impeccable as I once thought. And Riel was more than willing to cook dinner – if we wanted to order pizza or have a freezer dinner. This fried rice was one of the recipes that eased the tension when dinnertime came around.

It’s based on Rachael Ray’s Special Fried Rice, though we have made several changes (like adding meat!)

Ingredients:

• Water
• 1 ½ Cups white rice
• 3 Tablespoons cooking oil
• 2 Eggs
• 2 Cloves garlic
• 1/3 Cup chopped onion (or green onion)
• Shredded carrots, bell pepper, and any other veggies you like
• 2 Tablespoons soy sauce (Be careful! It is easy to ruin the whole dish with too much soy sauce)

Rachael Ray’s Special Fried Rice

 Directions:

1. Cook rice in rice cooker (or on stove-top, if you must) and let cool.
2. Heat up a couple tablespoons of oil on the stove-top.
3. Scramble an egg or two in the oil.
4. Stir in your veggies – whichever you prefer. We do carrots, onions, garlic, sometimes bell peppers or green onions.
5. Cook your meat. We like chicken or shrimp best. Pork would probably be good as well.
6. Add the rice and fry everything together for a few minutes.
7. Add any frozen veggies (we skip these because Riel can’t stand peas or corn!) and soy sauce.