Friday's Four New Recipes

I've been slacking again this week...tight budget for groceries in the Clark household so we improvise and have boring creative meals. We had friends over last Friday night and cooked steak, Bacon Twice Baked Potatoes,  and green beans. They brought turtle brownies and ice cream!

Bacon Twice-Baked Potatoes
2 Medium baking potatoes (I used 5 small potatoes)
2 tablespoons reduced fat butter
1/4 cup fat free milk
1 bacon strip cooked and crumbled (I used 3 strips)
1/4 teaspoon salt
Dash pepper
1/2 cup shredded reduced fat cheddar cheese, divided

Prep: 1 hour 15 minutes       Bake: 20 minutes

1.) Bake potatoes at 375 degrees for 1 hour or until tender. When cool enough to handle, cut a thin slice off the top of each potato and discard. Scoop out pulp, leaving a thin shell.

2.) In a small bowl, mash the pulp with butter. Stir in the milk, bacon, salt, pepper and 1/3 cup of cheese. Spoon into potato shells. Top with remaining cheese.

3.) Place on a baking sheet . Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cheese is melted.

2 Servings or 4 with the smaller potatoes.

These were great! This was my first try at twice baked potatoes and everyone loved them!


For Valentine's Day, Hubby made us dinner of Chicken Parmesan and I made dessert.

Hubby's Chicken Parmesan

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Can of bread crumbs
2 eggs
Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
Grated Parmesan Cheese
Large gallon size zip lock bag
Jar of spaghetti sauce
spaghetti noodles

Rinse chicken, pour some of the bread crumbs and some Parmesan cheese into the plastic gallon size bag, dip chicken in the egg, place chicken in bag and shake around. Place chicken in a 8x8 or 9x13 pan and top with mozzarella cheese. Bake for 35 minutes at 375 degrees. Last 5 minutes, top with spaghetti sauce and Parmesan cheese.
Boil noodles for 9 minutes and drain. Heat rest of spaghetti sauce in a pan on medium to low.

Enjoy!

For Dessert, I made Sweet Apple Crumble
Prep: 15 min.  Bake: 25 min.  2 servings

1 cup chopped peeled tart apples
1-1/2 teaspoons water
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon butter

Topping:
3 tablespoons semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons old fashioned oats
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Vanilla Ice Cream, optional (forgot this key item at the grocery store)

1. In a bowl, combine apples, water, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Spoon into a 1-qt baking dish coated with cooking spray. Dot with butter.

2. For topping, combine the chocolate chips, brown sugar, oats, peanut butter, flour and cinnamon; crumble over apple mixture. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until apples are tender. Serve warm with ice cream if desired.
This recipe wasn't what I was expecting. I was thinking more of an apple crisp but it was not so much. The chocolate wasn't good with it. Needless to say, this recipe was clipped out of a magazine and will probably be thrown away.

As for the other meals we had this week, sandwiches, left over chili, and scrambled cheesy eggs with turkey bacon. Next week will be much better and I will definitely have 4 new recipes!!!