Lasagna Roll-Ups

Good morning! I hope everyone is enjoying the start of the 3-day weekend! (sorry to those who don't get one) I've been wanting to make these for some time now, and I just got around to it last night. I'am kicking myself for not making them sooner! They were so so SO delicious. I loved them, and so did my hubbie. He said they were one of the best things I've made. I knew he would like them, that's pretty much why I made them, he's a sucker for anything with marinara sauce. They were a little bit time consuming, but SUPER easy! Please don't pay attention to the provolone in the picture, I didn't end up using it. I was going to put some slices under the roll-ups, but decided not to. Make these TONIGHT! I'm so glad I did, I don't think I've ever been so excited for leftovers! Have a great day everyone! :o)

Ingredients:

9 Lasagna Noodles

1 Jar Marinara Sauce

1/2 Pound Ground Beef

8 oz Mozzarella Cheese

3/4 Cup Ricotta Cheese

1/3 Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese

Half of a Medium Onion, diced

Salt & Pepper, to taste

(This makes 9 roll-ups, you can use more/less ingredients depending on your desired amount)

Directions:

Start by filling a large pot with water and bring it to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, add about a teaspoon of salt and then drop in your lasagna sheets. Stir them around once they've softened up to completely submerge them under the water. In a skillet, add your diced onion and crumble your ground beef over it. Once that is cooked, drain off all of the excess fat. Transfer beef mixture to a big bowl and let cool for about 10 minutes. Once your pasta is done (cook it to al dante), lay something (like cookie sheets, or wax paper) on the counter top and drain the pasta and carefully lay out the noodles flat so that they can cool off. While your pasta is cooling, add your ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, and 1/2 of your mozzarella cheese to the ground beef mixture; mix thoroughly. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees before you start the rolling process. Take a large baking dish and layer the bottom with a little bit of marinara sauce for a base for the roll-ups. Spoon some of the ground beef mixture onto a lasagna noodle and evenly spread it all the way, covering the whole noodle, making sure not to put too much so that it's easy to roll up. Starting at the bottom, roll the noodle all the way up to the top, and then place it in the baking dish. Repeat process until you've finished, then spoon on the rest of the marinara sauce, covering all of the roll-ups. Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella cheese. Bake for about 20-25 minutes.

Chocolate Chip Shortbread

So, shortbread is something new for me. I've never made it. I'm sure I've had some form of packaged shortbread before, but never homemade. We were out of eggs and I wanted to make something sweet, so I was looking for recipes and found several shortbread recipes that either call for eggs, or not. The one with no eggs looked great, so I set out to make it. It was extremely easy to put together, and baked up nicely. I used milk chocolate chips because that's what I had on hand, I do think it would have been better with semi-sweet though. It was pretty good, my husband liked it a lot. If you're looking for something other than your ordinary chocolate chip cookie (or if you're just out of eggs!), try this! It will definitely satisfy your sweet tooth.

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Butter, softened

1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1 Cup All-Purpose Flour

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Cup Milk Chocolate Chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Add flour and salt. Stir in chocolate chips. Divide dough in half, and press each half into an ungreased 8-inch round cake pan. Bake 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Score shortbread with a sharp knife, taking care not to cut completely through it. Make 8 wedges per pan. Let pans set on cooling racks for 10 minutes, then invert the shortbread onto the rack and let it cool completely before you break it into wedges.

Hello Kitty Cake

Good morning! It's a bright and sunny beautiful day here. Although I think the high here is supposed to be 102 degrees! Ouch. It's been SO hot lately. I'm just grateful that it appears to be dry heat, and not humid. So the past couple of days, for some reason, I've been inspired to make a Hello Kitty cake. I don't really know what brought this on, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I've NEVER done a cake anything like this because I've always been too timid to even muster up the courage to try it, but I was feeling really motivated to challenge myself. I know it's not going to look professional on any level what-so-ever, but I'am happy with the way it came out. I think if I made it a couple of more times it would come out a little better. All in all, I think it's really cute. I was debating the whole time weather or not to do a hot pink bow, or stick with the traditional red, I chose red. My hubby was kind enough to trace a template from the computer for me and cut it out, and I just stuck 3 toothpicks in the paper through the cake to secure it while I traced it with a knife, cutting the cake. Also, I baked the cake in my biggest cookie sheet, that way I was able to trace her head twice and make it a double layer cake. The only hard part was the first layer of icing, or otherwise known as the "crumb layer", which is basically a very thin layer of icing over the entire cake that you then put in the fridge to set so that way you when you lay on the final layer of icing, it goes on smooth with no crumbs from the cake. Since I didn't have any real edges or cake, because it was cut, it was hard to frost over that without making a mess, but I did my best. A few crumbies escaped to the final layer, but that's okay. The cake is not only cute, but delicious. I just made a boxed chocolate mix, but I made a vanilla buttercream to ice it, which is out of this world! I will include a recipe for it below. I used regular dyes to color the frosting, and to get black I used a small jar of Wilton's brown icing gel, it's what I had on hand, and I just used enough of it until I got it as dark as I wanted. I used regular sandwich bags to pipe, and I just snipped the corner and they worked out perfectly, as always. I can't wait to try my hand at other specialty cakes. Maybe an XBOX 360 for my hubby? We'll see! If I left anything out of this that you might want to know if you decide to make it, just shoot me an email at: ScentsfromKaitlin@gmail.com . I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Buttercream Frosting:

Ingredients:

4 Cups Powdered Sugar

2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract

2 Tablespoons Whole Milk

1/2 Cup Salted Butter, softened

1/2 Cup Vegetable Shortening

Directions:

Cream together butter and shortening in mixer, with paddle attachment on medium for about 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar and beat until smooth, Add another 1/2 cup and beat until smooth. Add Vanilla, mix. Add gradually the remaining sugar and milk, making sure you end with sugar. Continue to mix on medium until smooth.

Monterrey Jack Pasta with Pork

Good evening all! We've had a uber busy day around here working, plus we did a major cleaning of the house from top to bottom. The house looks great, which is exactly how I like it! I was looking for something to make us a couple weeks ago with things that we had on hand, and I just pulled things from here and there and threw this together. It was SO SO good, we both loved it. I'm glad I took pictures of the process not knowing how it would be, because I'am thrilled to share it with you all now! Please try it if you get a chance, you will not be disappointed!

Ingredients:

2 Cups Uncooked Pasta, of your choice

2 Cups Shredded Pork, cooked (I used a pork shoulder roast that I cooked in the slow cooker)

1 Cup Monterrey Jack Cheese, shredded

1 Cup Skim Milk

2 Tablespoons Butter

Half of a Medium Onion, diced

1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Onion Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Teaspoon Black Pepper

Directions:

In a large pot, add water and bring to a boil, then drop in your pasta and cook until al dante; drain and set aside in the pot. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a fry pan and add onions. Saute for about 5 minutes, then add shredded pork and cook to heat through; remove from fry pan and cover to keep warm. In the same fry pan (don't clean it out, you want all those yum-yums bits!) add the other 1 tablespoon of butter, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and milk. Bring to a slight boil then add monterrey jack cheese. Whisk until the cheese is melted through. Add the shredded pork mixture to the cheese mixture and mix thoroughly. Pour mixture into the large pot onto the noodles and mix together.

Pepperoni Pizza Balls

Did you all forget about me? I wouldn't be surprised, it's already June 23rd and I've only done 2 posts this month. We've been extremely busy around here. I was also sick all last week and some of this weekend. My 24th Birthday was last Monday, June 15th, but we didn't really celebrate until this past weekend 'cause I was too sick to care. The weekend I got sick we had my sister in-law's (Hi Angie!) baby shower. I was busy making cookies and cupcakes for that, which was super fun for me, I will post pictures at the end of the post. It was a cute shower, and they got a lot of adorable things for baby Noah, who is due August 4th (I hope I remember that right). We cannot wait to meet him! In the midst of being busy and sick I've actually still been cooking quite a bit and taking pictures of everything. I have a lot of stuff that I've set aside to blog, so hopefully I will be able to keep this more up to date with yummy recipes to share. I've seen these pizza balls floating around the food blogging community and really wanted to give them a try. They were good, well, they were okay. I know they would have been awesome if I wouldn't have used canned dough. I should have went with my gut instinct. I told myself after this that I really am completely DONE with any canned dough, biscuit, etc. I just DON'T like them, neither does my husband. I will definitely make these again, but with my own homemade dough. You can fill them with anything you'd like. Serve them with warm marinara, or whatever you'd like. They're definitely worth a try. I'll be back (hopefully) tomorrow with some more yum yum's! :)

Ingredients:

1 Batch Pizza Dough (canned or homemade, you can find my homemade one here)

1 1/2 Cups Mozzarella Cheese, shredded

1 Cup Pepperoni, diced small

1 Tablespoon Butter, melted

1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

1 Teaspoon Dried Oregano

3 Tablespoons Parmesan Cheese, grated

Directions:

Roll your dough out onto a lightly floured surface, make it about a 9" x 14" rectangle. Use a pizza slicer to cut rows down and across. You will want to have about 30 individual squares when you're done. Fill the middle of each square with mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni. Take each corner and bring it into the middle and pinch them all together to completely close the dough around the filling. Place the balls seam side down into a pan that is lightly greased. Once your pan is full, brush on melted butter, then sprinkle on garlic powder, oregano, and parmesan cheese. Bake in a pre-heated 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Baby Shower Goodies:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake. I wrote his name and did the border in melted chocolate.

Duck Sugar Cookies. I had so much fun with these ones!

Onesie Sugar Cookies. I was really upset with how these looked the next day. All of the brown border had bled and they looked awful.

Vanilla & Devil's Food Cupcakes w/ Vanilla Butter Cream & Peanut Butter Frosting.

Chicken Florentine Pasta

Hey everyone! I'm doing this entry a bit late when I should be in bed. My hubby and I are going to a George Strait concert tomorrow night at the Dallas Cowboys brand new stadium. We are super excited. I will keep this short and just say that this was really yummy for dinner tonight, try it sometime! Have a great weekend!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 Cups Egg Noodles

1 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast

1 Box Frozen Spinach

2 Tablespoons Light Butter

1/4 Cup Onion, diced

2 Tablespoons Parmesan Cheese, grated

1/2 Cup Fat-Free Milk
1/2 Cup Mozzarella Cheese, finely shredded

1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1 Teaspoon Black Pepper

Directions:

In a large saucepan, fill 3/4 way full with water and bring to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dante. Wash and remove fat from chicken and cut into cubes. In a large fry pan, add chicken, butter, onions, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Once chicken is cooked add parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup of the mozzarella cheese and milk; bring to a simmer. Cook spinach according to microwave directions, then squeeze as much of the liquid out as you can. Break up spinach into chicken mixture; mix well. Pour chicken mixture into the large saucepan with the drained pasta and mix well. Serve and top with mozzarella cheese.

Tacos Carnitas

I hope everyone had a great weekend! One of our local grocery stores, Tom Thumb, is having this crazy meat sale this week. They have several items that are $1.00/lb. I got a 4-5 lb pork shoulder roast for only $3 something. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, then after some thinking I totally knew I wanted to do tacos carnitas. Carnitas means "little meats". It is a type of braised or roasted pork. I put mine in the slow cooker on low for 6 hours and it shredded beautifully. It was delicious piled in a flour tortilla with fresh onions, fresh lettuce, and freshly shredded monterrey jack cheese (I would highly recommend that anytime you use shredded cheese on anything, that you buy the blocks and shred it yourself. It is so much fresher, and makes a huge difference). So simple, so good. I really prefer these to regular tacos made with taco seasoned ground beef. They are not greasy and taste very light. I might have to head to the grocery store before the sale ends to get another one!

Ingredients:

4-5 lb. Pork Shoulder Roast

1/2 Cup Water

1 Tablespoon Garlic Powder

1 Tablespoon Onion Powder

1 Teaspoon Black Pepper

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 Large Onion, diced

Flour Tortillas (the recipe can make up to 15, use however many you want at the time)

2 Cups Monterrey Jack Cheese, shredded

2 Cups Ice Berg Lettuce, shredded

Directions:

Set your slow cooker to low and add water. Season both sides with garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, and salt. Place in slow cooker and add 1/4 cup of your diced onions on top of the roast. Cover and cook for 6 hours. If your roast has a bone, you should be able to stick some tongs in and put it right out. Remove roast (I'm sure you'll have to do this by pieces because it will be falling apart) to a cutting board and shred it. Take your slow cooker and remove all of the water. After you're done shredded the roast, return it to the slow cooker and turn heat to "keep warm", or whatever your particular setting may be. Warm up your tortillas in the microwave, for about 20 seconds per 5. Fill with pork, onion, lettuce, and cheese. Close it up just like a taco and enjoy!