Manicotti!

Hey friends!
Another recipe from my sweet friend Melissa!  You can read about her journey here.

Manicotti- yum!
delicious, easy, and healthy Manicotti

boil manicotti shells in big pot for a minute less than the box instructs, drain in colander and set aside

mix together thawed frozen spinach, fat free ricotta, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and one egg in a bowl 

(amounts depend on how many shells you want to stuff and how spinachy you want the filling to be, use your judgement!)

using your (clean:)) hands, stuff manicotti with ricotta filling. be careful not to tear the shells, they can be delicate

cover the bottom of a baking dish with sauce, line manicotti shells in pan, cover with  more sauce, low fat shredded mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese. bake for 30 minute at 375, covered, until last 5 minutes

Chicken Marsala

Hey friends!

Today, our recipe comes from my friend Melissa.  You can check our her writing here.

She is a great cook, momma and loves Jesus fiercely!

Chicken Marsala

1lb chicken breasts or tenders

1 package of mushrooms (baby bellas or white buttons are what I use)

marsala cooking wine

flour (wheat flour is a healthy substitute)

butter or margarine

a drizzle of vegetable or olive oil

chicken broth (optional)

cut up raw chicken into bite size pieces and coat with flour

saute in a pan drizzled with oil

brown both sides of chicken but do not cook through (2-3 minutes on each side)

remove from pan

melt butter or margarine in pan, add sliced mushrooms and cook a few minutes until butter is absorbed 

add generous amount of marsala cooking wine (I like to add chicken broth as well)

simmer on med low until mushrooms are soft and you have a good amount of sauce

Add chicken to pan and simmer in sauce and mushrooms until chicken is cooked through

**If you don't have enough sauce at any time, just add more broth/marsala wine

Serve over pasta or any rice

We love the Trader Joe's Organic Brown Rice from the freezer that you can microwave in 3 minutes

Enjoy!

PS Elle gobbles this right up! I love that she will eat these mushrooms!

Abbeys Bacon and veggie quiche

Quiche

It's french, it sounds fancy, it sounds hard.  Bahhaha! Those french can't fool me!  This is so easy and SOOO good.  And what I love about quiche, it's an any meal- meal.  Make it for dinner, have left overs for breakfast.

Okay here we go, what you need:

1. bacon, get the center cut and be happy with it after it's cooked.
2. pie crust (you can get the rolled up find next to the rolls or you can get the frozen kind in the frozen section.  I personally like the rolled up kind next to the yogurt and cinnamon rolls in the grocery store).
3. 1 cup of Frozen veggies (I use broccoli and spinach)
4. 4 eggs
5. cheese
6. 1 onion
7. 8oz of grated cheddar cheese
8. 1/2 cup of milk
9. 1 cup of mushrooms

Step 1.  Eat lunch.  In the mean time, preheat oven to 400 degrees and cook pie crust for 10 minutes.  Take out of oven.

Step 2.  Cook bacon when you are SUPER full so you won't eat 1/2 of it :)

(if you don't eat bacon, still make this!  I've done it without and it's still amazing!!)

Step 3.  Sautee onion.

Step 4.  Mix together the eggs, milk and cheese.

Step 5.  Add all the veggies to the pie crust.

Step 6.  Add the milk/egg/cheese mixture over the veggies.

Bake for 15 minutes on 400 then reduce heat to 350 and cook for 25 minutes (mine always has to cook longer than this!!  So just watch it).  Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Summer salad

Hey friends!  Sorry for the month long absence.  It's been crazy around my house and I know for sure around Emily's house.

And honestly, we are running out of recipes!  If you email them to us, we will post them, give you credit for them and provide a link to your blog- if you do it!

So this is one of my FAVORITES!  I seriously made this every week last summer when I was pregnant with my youngest (who is turning 1 tomorrow- wahhhhhh!!!).

Here is what you need:

1. Mixed greens (maybe even some spinach?)
2. tomatoes 
3. carrots
4. blueberries
5. blackberries
6. strawberries
7. Raspberries (I do this sometimes, because I have a hard time getting good ones.)
8. onions
9. some sort of nut or seed (almonds, pecans, sunflowers, sesame seeds, etc)
10. blue cheese crumbles
11. I have done chicken sometimes and it was good.  i just cooked it in the skillet and added some seasoning to that it wouldn't be bland.
12. *Last night I didn't have chicken thawed so I added a black bean burger.  I just cooked it, tore it up and sprinkled it over. Oh my.  I think that's my new favorite!
13. yummy light dressing (I have used light honey mustard, raspberry vinaigrette and balsamic)

Chop everything up into bite sizes.  Have small babes, just don't give them the lettuce and nuts/seeds and give them everything else and they will love it!  Mine like to "dip"  Salt and pepper and then enjoy!