Another Easy Supper

I'm still on this kick about easy recipes for after church. Today I made an oldie but goodie -- Stuffed Manicotti. It's so easy and delicious too. If your family likes pasta dishes such as cheese ravioli or lasagne, they will probably like this. One bowl, one pan, 20 minutes to put together, 1 hour to bake and you're in business!

Back in the 1960s a woman named Peg Bracken wrote a series of cookbooks called "The I Hate to Cook Book." She was sort of a combination between Erma Bombeck and Sandra Lee, a humorist who found easy ways to cook. I've made some changes to her recipe, which I've put in parenthesis. Either way works, it's just up to you which you want to use.

STUFFED MANICOTTI

1 16-oz container of cottage cheese (15-oz container ricotta cheese)

8 oz jack cheese, cubed or shredded (8 oz mozarella, shredded)

1 egg, beaten

1-2 Tablespoons dried Parsley flakes (optional)

1-2 teaspoons granulated garlic (optional)

1 package manicotti, uncooked

2 jars spathetti sauce

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a large bowl, combine cheeses, egg, parsley and garlic. Mix well.

Place a small amount of spaghetti sauce in the bottom of a 13" x 9" pan. Stuff uncooked manicotti with cheese mixture and place in pan. Pour remaining sauce over the stuffed manicotti. (I usually only wind up using 1-1/2 jars total).

Cover with foil. Bake 1 hour; let stand 5 minutes before serving. Yummo!

It's great with green salad and garlic bread. One package of manicotti makes 14. Enjoy!

I Love This!

A Super Easy Sunday Supper!

On Sundays we go to church from 11:00 until 2:00. When I get home I am ready to eat and relax, not cook, eat, and relax, so I'm always looking for easy recipes. This is one I came up with after sampling a bunch of recipes and weeding out what I didn't like. It takes about a minute to throw it together in the morning, and no time at all to finish up in the afternoon.

CROCK POT CHICKEN & DUMPLINGS



2 pounds chicken tenderloins (I've found using a whole cut-up chicken falls apart)

2 cans cream of chicken soup

2 cartons chicken broth

Salt and Pepper to taste

Cook on high. I put it in at 9:00 am and we ate at 5:00 pm. When I got home from church, I put in a small bag of vegetables. I'm partial to peas and carrots, but you can use whatever you like. Today I used mixed veggies and it was great.

Now here is where you can choose how easy you want to make it. You can get a can of biscuits and use those as your dumplings. Separate the biscuits, cut them into fourths and put them into the crock pot (with the lid on) about 1/2 hour before you eat.  OR you can make Bisquick dumplings as follows:

2 cups Bisquick

2/3 cup milk

Mix well, and use your cookie scoop to scoop out dumplings and place in crock pot.

Okay, so dumplings are the prettiest looking food in the world, but they are sooo good to eat! I serve them in soup plates because they are very liquidy.

All in all, it's an easy supper and lets mom have it easy too!