Mexican Stuffed Manicotti

1lb browned hamburger meat
1 pkg taco seasoning
1 8oz pkg cream cheese
1 pkg manicotti
2 cups taco sauce (not picante)
Shredded cheddar or Mexican blended cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large pot, bring water to a boil. Prepare manicotti, boiling for 6 minutes. Brown hamburger meat, stir in taco seasoning following directions on package. Keeping heat on medium, stir in cream cheese until fully melted.

Stuff cooked manicotti shells with meat mixture and place in greased pan. Arrange stuffed shells in pan until mixture is gone. Cover with taco sauce. Place in oven for 10-15 minutes if meat mixture was still warm. If meat was cooler heat longer. Remove pan from oven and switch heat to broiler. Add cheese on top. Broil for 1-2 minutes until browed and bubbly. Enjoy!!

Chicken Taco Soup

4 large chicken breasts

2 cans whole kernel corn

2 cans zucchini in tomato sauce

1 can pinto beans

1 pkg taco seasoning

1 pkg ranch dressing

1 small can tomato sauce

2T chili powder

1T olive oil

For Quick Evening Preparation:

Place olive oil in large pot and sear chicken breasts on medium to high for 2 minutes on each side.  Chicken will still be pink in the middle.  Put remaining ingredients in the pot.  Cover and simmer on medium for  20 minutes.  Remove chicken and shred.  Return chicken to soup and simmer an additional 25 minutes. 

For Regular Preparation:

Place all ingredients (chicken raw) into pot and simmer on low for 2 hours.  Remove and shred chicken as stated above and simmer an additional hour.

For Crockpot Preparation: 

Place all ingredients in crockpot.  Stir and set crockpot for 6 or 10 hours depending on your schedule.

This recipe is delicious!! Enjoy!

Trying Kraft Fresh Take

So I am trying something new tonight. As I was walking through the grocery store the other day, I passed the cheese section where this caught my eye. Kraft Fresh Take - You make it fresh. According to the package you just mix, coat, and bake.

Sounds easy enough. My promotion has resulted in less time for cooking and trying things (as my lack of blog posts has proven) so I am open to trying things out. At at cost of only $2.50 I thought I'd give it a shot. I chose Italian Parmesan.

It says on the package it can coat six pieces. My guess would be small to medium size chicken beasts, pork chops or fish filets. For my first attempt... Chicken it is. I use tenderloins and was able to use 8 with plenty of mix left over. I just didn't have enough chicken. With this recipe I probably could have made 15 tenderloins.

Worrying that I wasn't going to have enough, I added 1/2 cup of additional Parmesan and 1/4 cup of Panko bread crumbs. Guess I didn't need it.

The prep work is easy. Simply coat a pan, have thawed meat, (it needs to be a little wet) and open the package and shake it up. Press your filet into the mix and cover completely. Place on the pan and add additional mix on top. Repeat for all pieces. Bake until cooked thoroughly. It even gives you baking instructions for the different types of meat. Pop it in the oven, cook, and enjoy.

It certainly was easy enough. The Parmesan I added had small chunks so I made sure those pieces were placed on top of the filets.

Hope this review helps. It was pretty tasty.