I did it! I have finally caught up with the challenge. We are fifteen weeks into 2020 and I have tried 15 new recipes. The even better news is that I plan to try recipe number 16 for Easter morning breakfast. I did go back to get the official count and it is much better than I had thought. We had just two solid NO. Five recipes were a maybe with probably three of those really a no and 6 YES! This is definitely an area/goal for the year that I can say Covid-19 has helped me improve on and met. Both of these recipes are from my favorite food blog Lynn’s Kitchen Adventure

For dinner on Friday, we had Chicken Bacon Lo Mein. I need to first admit that I messed up. When reading the recipe I was sure that it would not feed the five of us even when adding egg rolls. I decided to double the recipe. The good news is that everyone LOVED this recipe, so even with the extra 4 meals it made, I am sure it will get eaten. I will add that this recipe required a lot more effort that I usually put into a dinner meal. I actually ended up recruiting both Kendall and Matt to help bring it all together. Everyone ate and enjoyed it so it will be a repeat just not doubling the recipe!

For breakfast this morning, I made a French Toast Casserole. Matt had made a loaf of homemade bread last Sunday because we were out of bread. About half of the bread was eaten before I went to the store on Wednesday and found several bread items on sale. The homemade bread was still sitting on the counter so I wanted to do something to use it up. We had a gallon and another one fourth of a gallon of milk and over three dozen eggs left so of course French toast was the answer. This was a quick easy recipe that I put together on Friday night and then Zach started the oven this morning. It was a hit, my family did say they preferred real French toast but for the amount of work vs the result this is definitely the way to go!

Official Results after these recipes: Yes 8, Maybe 5 and No 2

This is another recipe from one of my favorite food blogs “Lynn’s Kitchen Adventure.” She always has some good ideas to share. Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chicken is a good recipe and everyone finished their plate but I am still open to decided if we repeat it or not. Amanda, Braxton and Weherley all ate with us on Tuesday so this does make a nice 9×13 dish. I made a pot of corn and fried apples to complete the meal.

First I should share that I increased and almost doubled the amount of chicken from 2 cups to 3 and 1/2 cups. My chicken was left-overs from Costco and was diced. When looking at the overall mixture it just did not appear to have enough meat in it to satisfy my family. The second change I made was we did not have any green chilles so I added a half of cup of salsa to make up the difference. I also added some additional cheese to top it off and used Cheddar Jack cheese instead of just plain cheddar.

The one issue that I can say may be a negative is that this recipe calls for 8 cups of crushed chips. That is over half of a Costco size bag. I really think that I used too many chips and if I make again will probably stick to 8 cups of chips before crushing.

So all things considered Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chicken is a good recipe and definitely not a bomb but I am still unsure if we will repeat again.

Lunch is one of the hardest meals for us. For me, I am a weather eater, if it is warm, I want something cool but definitely nothing steaming hot. In the cold, I can eat soups and heat up left-overs without a problem. To add to the complexity of the situation, I try to limit the amount of bread, I eat on a regular basis. I am a big girl, don’t need all the starch or calories. I saw the recipe for these Ham and Cheese roll up several weeks ago an saved for later. This weekend, the temperature have been in the 80″s, I decided to try and make ahead for my lunch this week. I added the lettuce to the roll up for this week but since I ended up with 5 separate wraps I decided not to add to the others. After slicing into pinwheels, I froze the extra for either this summer or another day that I need some cool lunch. I ended up eating the end of each wrap for my dinner!

The verdict is a resounding YES! Kendall even tried one of the ends and was like these are awesome. They will be a pool staple and something easy to take when traveling as well! Ham and Cheese roll ups are a definite repeat!

This was a recipe that I found and tried because it used sweet potatoes and unsweet applesauce both of which I had on hand. You can find the recipe here. It did take about half an hour to cut up the sweet potatoes and the chicken.

The results should be considered mixed at best. The meal was ok. Lily was not able to eat because curry powder has cumin as one of its ingredients. Kendall ate was but not a huge fan because it was a little spicy for her taste. I ate but just because it was there. I was hoping Matt and Zach would really really like it but that did not happen either. I will not be keeping it to repeat. The main reason for this is Lily. I dislike her not being able to eat what we are so I really try not to include ingredients she can’t have.

Crockpot Chicken with Apple and Sweet Potato another one of the not keepers of this challenge. But the good news is that I am starting to catch up. By the end of the week we should be on number 14. I do already have at least one new recipe to try this week. One of the problems that I am running into right now is that we have so many left-overs that I hate to add to the mix unless it is necessary.

Before I share about these recipes, I decided that I needed to count and confirm how many weeks behind I was on this challenge. Both of these recipes were fairly simple to make. They both also contained ingredients that I had already on hand. 12 is the official answer with number 13 needing to occur before next Friday. I did make sure to include at least one more new recipe for the upcoming week but I also know that sometimes I have to sneak things in as well. It will mainly depend on what left-overs need to be eaten before I start cooking.

Both of these recipes were fairly straight forward and easy to make. I was also able to use items that I already had on hand so they are both considered within our budget.

First on Friday, I made a Kool-Aid pie. It contains 4 ingredients and took less than five minute to complete. Mix together a container of Cool Whip, a can of condensed milk and a pack of Kool-Aid. You can use any flavor but we only had grape Kool-Aid so that is what we used. Place in graham cracker crust and chill for at least two hours. The verdict- not bad, really sweet but honestly probably not something I will repeat.

For dinner on Saturday, I made a low country boil. The recipe was one that I asked my sister in law for. I plan to add a link here! This took exactly an hour to prepare but was really not a lot of effort, just remembering to set the timer. The two bags of shrimp have been in my freezer for approximately a year. The corn on the cob was dated 2017. I used a whole 5# bag of potatoes but ended up peeling the extra potatoes and freezing a batch of mashed potatoes for future use. We did purchase hush puppies from a local restaurant just to help small business. It turned out awesome and it definitely something that we will do again in the future! No picture and very few left-overs make it the perfect meal.

I am very hopeful that with my time at home I can at least get through 10 new recipes. I am keeping that number small because I am expecting to return to work a week from today. If this changes, as I am anticipating it will, I would like to catch up and complete 25 new recipes before the end of April. One of the few limitations that I am going to plan to stick to the next week is to only use items that I already have on hand. This recipe can be accessed via my recipe page or simply click here.

Spinach and Bacon Quiche, I made the quiche yesterday afternoon. We had purchased a 4# bag of spinach , several weeks ago at Costco. We usually use the spinach to supplement our salads. However, salads are not being eaten regular and I did not want to lose this much food. I made creamed spinach last night and also froze a portion of the spinach already cooked to use in a future batch. The two cups that this recipe called for actually finished out the spinach so a double win! This recipe made a full deep 9 inch pan and all 5 of us ate for breakfast with enough for 3 more servings. Everyone said that they liked the Quiche, but of course it had too much spinach for some and too much bacon for others. This would be a repeat with a couple of exceptions. First in the future I will blend the spinach into the egg mixture and it would like be a dinner meal as it took an hour to bake. We just don’t have that kind of time on a normal morning.

February was a challenging month with sickness being the main challenge. I looked back and I have tried five new recipes this year so far with only one being a definite keeper. We have plans to finish our kitchen remodel, installing the new floor this month so I am looking at trying to use the food we have here until we need to eat out. Today, I decided to try a new recipe using up cresant rolls, turkey and cheese. Here is a link to the basic recipe.

Of course, I could not simply follow the recipe. So here are the changes that I made. 1.Cut the recipe in half. I only had one can of cresant rolls and they were not the big and flakey kind. I also used the remaining mixture to spread on Hawaiian rolls which I baked as well.
2. Used turkey instead of chicken. I need to finish using up the turkey, I cooked several weeks ago.
3. Did not sprinkle the outside with Italian seasoning- Lily’s allergies.

The result- Not bad at all. In fact, I will probably use this recipe again. I am thinking it would be a good way to take some food to a swim meet or last baseball game. Kendall and I ate the Hawaiian rolls. They were super filling with one being enough. Lily had a cresant roll and did not complain about it being turkey instead of chicken.