Thursday, October 31, 2013

One More For Johnsonville and Ore Ida

I love the month of October the changing weather, the falling leaves in a rainbow of colors, and lets not forget my wedding anniversary and our little get away weekend to celebrate it. With wedding anniversary's and field trips and Halloween October is a busy month so working with Johnsonville and Ore Ida this month was right on time and helped me to keep on loving October.
  Sunday dinner resumed in my house at the end of September and you never know for sure how many and who will show up on any given Sunday. I just plan big meals that will make good left overs in case no one shows up. So the Sunday after our get away I am still catching up with everything that was left undone while I was away. Boring everyday stuff that just seems to pile up,I just knew in my heart of hearts I would have a house full because I am just so far behind and well you know Murphy's Law and all. I kept thinking to myself what am I going to make for dinner it kept me a wake the night before thinking so hard. Taking a break I sit down turn on my computer and start browsing around to see what my food friends have been cooking up. I do a little food stalking on Facebook nothing inspiring there, off to Allrecipe I go I read a few blogs and get some good ideas but not for Sunday dinner, back to Facebook the heck with it I will play a game and not worry about it. At least that is what I tell myself. First thing I see in my news feed is that one of my friends and fellow allstar has posted her blog. Off I go to read it and yep there in her wonderful pictures, and words of wisdom is my Sunday dinner. Easy if a little time consuming to put together ( even when you cheat and use jarred sauce) but it is a family favorite and everyone loves it. That's right I am talking about lasagna, with so many recipes for it and all of them economy size I knew I couldn't miss.
   I used the Johnsonville recipe on Allrecipes site, just as I suspected easy to put together and the oven does the cooking for you while you sit back and relax and enjoy your company. Or in my case take pictures of them until they yell at you to stop. I put the lasagna together just before noon time without cooking the noodles and put in in the fridge until I was ready to cook it. That gave me even more free time to enjoy and snap pictures. As I said it is time consuming getting everything chopped cooked and ready for the lasagna but well worth it on the long run. 
    I had just finished up my boring chores and put my lasagna in the fridge when my kids showed up and started carving pumpkins. Thanks to Johnsonville , and Baking Nana for highlighting the perfect easy Sunday dinner I got spend my time pumpkin carving ( well taking pictures of it) instead of where I normally am in the kitchen cooking dinner.

My son the pumpkin carver, my daughter in law the pumpkin seed cleaner, and my granddaughter the colorer. The bottom photo with Madeline gazing at her dad in such a loving way, a favorite photo for me for sure.


There is the finished pumpkin sitting proudly center stage and as I said I took so many pictures that day you can see my son telling me enough sit down and eat. Doesn't that lasagna look good?
I cut my lasagna to soon while it was to warm still and while it tasted awesome there is no shot of a nice firm slice sitting on a plate just the warm cheese mess you see on my dinner table.
 Through the rest of that week I tried a few more Johnsonville recipes and my hands down favorite going to use again and again, already have it memorized so I don't even have to look it up again  is Sausage,Peppers and Spaghetti Squash. This dish was so good that hubby complained there was no left over squash for his lunch the next day. That was because we all Mom included had seconds.
 As I look back over the past week all my meals were quick and easy and beef less. A real wallet saver there. Ground turkey and ground sausage are both a much better price then ground beef.
  I used one more Johnsonville  recipe and when I found out from reading a blog on Allrecipes that I can make my own hashbrown casserole instead of going to Cracker Barrel for them, one more dinner fell into place and Ore Ida makes its first appearance in my house. We normally don't use frozen potatoes so this was a real treat for me the prep time for this next, well 2 dinners was next to zip. 
 First was Italian Sausage Frittata served with Restaurant Style Hashbrown casserole. A quick and easy meal. The hashbrowns being the favorite of the night. I will be keeping that recipe in my line up.
The 2nd next to no prep easy to fix dinner  was the Hawaiian Turkey Burger and waffle fries with a Garlic Aioli for dipping the fries in. The Aioli is another idea I got from reading a fellow allstars blog. For the frozen potatoes I really needed help with ideas and I certainly got them. while I only tried 2 recipes or dinners using Ore Ida however I saw more then a few recipes and ideas I want to try.
 Dividing up the fries is serious business in my house. Mom and Bill are both fryaholics  and Getty the dog would like the chance to be a fryaholic.
Bill was just all kinds of excited to try the Aioli. He loves loves garlic. He loved loved loved the Aioli. I added extra garlic even though the reviews said it was to overwhelming with garlic. There was a definite kick to it and he could not get enough.
Here are a few of the recipes I tried this past week.
Garlic Aioli
Restaurant Style Hashbrowns
Italian Sausage Frittata
Hawaiian Burger
Sausage , Pepper and Spaghetti Squash
Lasagna

I am a supporting member of Allrecipe.com and a participant of the Allrecipe All Star brand ambassador program.I am not compensated for my work with allrecipe.com. Products received are only used for experience based reviews on my Blog Its All About Life.
Reviews, content and opinions expressed here are mine alone.
 I am sorry no matter what I do or try I can't leave comments on my own blog so I do read your comments and thank you for stopping by.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, you did that all in one week? I did 5 Johnsonville recipes and my son would have been delighted if I had done it every night.

    ReplyDelete