Supper Mom

Smoked Brussel Sprouts

Ingredients:

1lb brussel sprouts cut in half
1lb broccoli and cauliflower florets
1/2tbsp minced garlic
1/2cup Italian dressing
5 uncooked slices bacon cut into 1/2” pieces
Salt and pepper to taste (or your favorite seasonings)

Instructions:

Combine all ingredients in a foil pan. Cover with foil.
Cook on BBQ pit or in smoker, stirring occasionally, until veggies are soft and bacon is cooked. I can’t tell you an exact time because it will depend on the temperature you’re cooking everything else! It won’t be too long, expect 30-45 minutes usually.
That’s it! If you have to put the dish close to the heat source, you may need to add extra Italian or olive oil to keep from sticking.

Instant Pot Beans

Ingredients:

1 link sausage
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
16oz pinto beans, soaked for about 24hr (at least 12 hours is fine, a little more is better)
1 14.5oz can Mexican diced tomatoes (Rotel is also fine)
3 cups liquid (I prefer chicken or beef broth, but water is fine)
1/4 cup carne asada seasoning (I use Weber, I’m sure other brands are fine!)

1) The evening before, soak beans in water. Cover the top with a few inches of water. Drain and recover with water once if you have time. If you don’t do this step, just add 10 minutes to cook time.

2) Coin then halve sausage.

3) Add all ingredients to Instant Pot. Drain water off of beans before hand. Do not drain tomatoes. Stir to mix in seasoning.

4) Manually set to cook for 55 minutes.

5) Quick release steam when finished. Stir and serve, but let cool in bowls!

Any kind of sausage should be fine. I’ve tried home made, beef, Eckrich, and turkey with no problem. Don’t like sausage? The normal bacon sub is fine, but I’d sauté first. No meat is also just fine and won’t change the taste!

So, the soaking. I’ve tried soaking and not soaking. Soaking will help with the “beans, beans, the magical fruit” effect! Plus, in my opinion, they’re a better texture after soaking.

The time may seem like a lot if you’ve looked at other Instant Pot bean recipes. We like our beans juuust about falling apart. That’s how you’re raised around here, beans fallin’ apart and all! If you like beans that you have to bite through with a little resistance, cook for 30 minutes soaked, 40 minutes not soaked.

Breakfast Pizza

Ingredients:

1 Pillsbury refrigerated pizza crust
6 slices bacon
6 eggs
3/4 cup refried beans
1 cup shredded cheddar

1) Preheat oven to 400

2) While oven is heating, start cooking bacon. Cut it up before or after you cook, your preference.

3) Prebake crust for 8 minutes according to package directions

4) While crust is prebaking, continue cooking bacon. Drain grease when finished.

5) Scramble eggs, add to pan with bacon, and cook through.

6) Once pizza crust is done, let it cool a couple minutes. Cover with refried beans as “sauce”, top with eggs and bacon, then top with cheese.

7) Bake for 8-10 minutes more. Let cool a couple minutes before inhaling!

This recipe is so customizable! Use sausage, ham, or chorizo for the meat. Add in some peppers or change up the cheese. Use gravy or salsa for the “sauce”. Top with salsa, sour cream, thousand island (trust me on that!), ranch, etc. Or, my favorite, just use up what you have on hand!

Chicken Veggie Mac

As per usual, I forgot an ingredient… Cream cheese helps make this dish more, well, creamy!

Ingredients:

2 boxes macaroni and cheese (I suggest white cheddar if you can get it)
1 10oz container frozen chopped broccoli
2 cups shredded chicken
1 8.5oz can sweet peas
8oz cream cheese

1. Cook macaroni noodles

2. While noodles are cooking, put frozen broccoli and chicken (frozen is okay here too!) in 10” skillet over medium heat to thaw.

3. When noodles are done, drain as much water as you can from the pot. No need for a colander, a little water left is what we want to help make the cheese sauce.

4. Add noodles and cheese packets to 10” skillet with broccoli and chicken. Add in cream cheese and peas. Stir until warmed through. Season as desired.

The cream cheese may be optional if the macaroni you have is creamier and cheesier to begin with.

Next time I make this, I’m trying ranch seasoning. I feel like it can’t go wrong!

This dish is super easy to change up the veggies! Frozen mixed vegetables, anything fresh or canned that you’re craving… Use it as a base to get your fix or to use something up!

Covered Oven Pork Chops

Ingredients:

8 thin cut pork chops
Salt
Pepper
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
A dash of garlic powder
1 tablespoon minced onion (I used the kind in a shaker, if you want to cut up teeny onions, more power to you)

Preheat oven to 350
Place pork chops in a 9×13 baking dish. Season each side with salt and pepper.
Combine mayo, cheese, garlic powder, and minced onion in a bowl
Put a dollop of mayonnaise mixture on top of each pork chop, then spread to cover the top of each pork chop
Bake for 45 minutes

Don’t be surprised if this meal is prepped before the oven is done preheating!

A tray of veggies fits in the oven nicely to cook alongside these pork chops. I baked 3 yellow squash at the same time and was still done prepping before the oven was done preheating.

The thin pork chops I find are sold in packages of 4 making this recipe easy to cut in half if you don’t want leftovers, or to double for a big crowd.

Sausage and Potato Bake

Ingredients:

1 link sausage
1 bag O’Brien hash browns (or 2 large russet potatoes)
Olive oil to spray
Seasonings of choice (I use salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder)

1) Preheat oven to 350

2) Coin then halve sausage. If using regular potatoes, wash then dice potatoes into .25”-.5” pieces.

3) Place sausage and potatoes on large baking sheet. Spray with enough olive oil to slightly coat everything then sprinkle with seasoning. Mix around to evenly coat if you feel like it. It’s fine if you don’t, it really doesn’t matter!

4) Bake for 30-45 minutes. Time will depend on how thawed your hash browns were. If using regular potatoes, cook potatoes alone for first 15 minutes, then add sausage to potatoes for 30 minutes.

5) Let cool, then enjoy with toppings if you please!

I really like to top my bowl of sausage and potatoes with sour cream and shredded cheese. Supper Eating Dad likes taco sauce on his. Use up whatever you have in the fridge! Salsa and crushed tortilla chips seems like it would be good.

This is a great recipe to use up some sausage in the freezer or potatoes in the pantry. Hash browns are obviously the fastest route, but both ways are delicious.

This dish can also cook at a higher temp for a shorter time, I’ve adjusted to meet my time needs easily before. Just keep an eye on it!

BBQ Chicken Casserole

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground chicken
2 tablespoons BBQ seasoning
1 32oz bag frozen hash browns
2 cups cheddar cheese
1 cup BBQ sauce (at least)
1 cup sour cream
1 can cream of chicken
Green onion (red would also be great)

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Brown chicken meat with BBQ seasoning. If using red onion instead of green, cook onions with chicken meat

3. While meat is cooking, mix the rest of the ingredients together in a mixing bowl

4. Once chicken is browned, add to mixing bowl and combine all ingredients

5. Pour mixture into greased 13×9 baking dish

6. Bake uncovered for 50-60 minutes

Mix it up with your favorite type of BBQ sauce and seasoning, I prefer a sweet Carolina sauce. The 1 cup in the ingredients is a minimum, you can always add more in the dish plus in your bowl!

Add in a can of corn for some crunch!

Shredded chicken also works well in this recipe and is a time saver if you have some on hand already.

Dove Baguette Bites

There was an issue… I had to wing it and add this in, which was even better

Quantities for ingredients here are kind of tricky here. It really depends on how you store your meat. I made enough to fit the amount of duck we had in one freezer bag, but you may store more in a bag and be able to make more bites. This is a great recipe for whatever meat you have in the freezer. Do what the kitchen gods tell you to do!

Ingredients:

Meat of choice (I recommend duck, dove, goose, or beef)
Baguette loaf
1-2 ripe avocados
Guacamole mix
3/4 cup shredded cheese
2 tablespoons olive oil

If you have time to marinate your meat, do so! This can be done the day before, hours before, or not at all. I marinated for 6 hours in Worcestershire sauce, light Italian dressing, and Julio’s seasoning.
Preheat oven to 400
While oven is heating, slice baguette into slices between 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick. Remember, this is a rather tough bread, so thick slices are harder to bite!
While oven is still heating, mix the avocado, guacamole mix, and cheese together in a bowl. Set aside. This step can also be done earlier in the day and stored in the fridge.
Line a baking sheet with foil and spray each baguette slice with olive oil. Bake for 5-7 minutes until desired level of toastiness has been reached.
While bread is in the oven, slice meat into pieces big enough to fit on top of baguette slices. Season and tenderize if desired.
Begin heating a large skillet on the stove top to medium heat with olive oil. Cook meat about 2-3 minutes on each side until done. Set aside on a different burner that isn’t hot. Let cool a bit before handling.
Assemble bites by putting about 3/4 tablespoon of avocado and cheese mix on top of a baguette slice with a piece of meat on top of that.

From preheating the oven to putting bites on a plate is about about 30 minutes. I forgot to turn my timer off before I started eating! I served with a side of steamed cauliflower.

Plain avocado or regular guacamole would be great here. Supper Eating Dad doesn’t like tomatoes in his guacamole, so I went this route.

I originally planned on not having cheese in the recipe, but an avocado that I thought was ripe in fact was not. That left me with one avocado, so I needed a filler. Now it’s how I’ll make these bites forever! The pictured cheese above is my new favorite. It has a little kick of flavor in it that is amazing. Any shredded cheese will do, though.

For dove, use 8-10 full dove breasts. Split them into two as half a breast fits perfectly on a slice.

Use leftover avocado as a dip, leftover bread as a vessel for that dip or for croutons, and eat up the leftover meat as little nuggets.

Lent Pizza

The best part about how I want this website to go: Recipe first, notes later!

Ingredients:

Precooked thin pizza crust, whatever size you can get that isn’t one personal serving
+/- 1/2 cup alfredo sauce, depending on how saucy you like your pizza
1 tbsp. Italian Seasoning (or whatever seasoning you have on hand, really)
2 cups spinach
1/2 cup feta
1 cup shredded cheese (well, I use 1 cup, you do you)

Preheat oven to 400
Spread sauce on pizza crust
Top sauce with Italian seasoning
Top with spinach (break off the stems if you want to)
Top with feta. Use what amount our heart tells you to use here really. My heart told me to use most of the container I bought.
Top with shredded cheese. I like to use an Italian blend, but some stores also have a “pizza blend”. Regular mozzarella works just fine, too!
Bake for 10 minutes, then broil for 2 more minutes
Let sit for a few minutes before cutting and serving. I put these reminders here in case someone like Supper Eating Dad is reading and needs encouragement to not eat the food right out of the oven.

Now this pizza is obviously a knockoff version of my favorite chain store’s specialty pizza. I REALLY like pizza though, so I can’t afford specialty pizza prices as often as I like to eat pizza. With this recipe, you can make two homemade pizzas for less than the price of one specialty pizza. Double score!

From prep to putting pizza slices on plates, this meal takes about 20 minutes. I cook on a pizza pan because putting pizza directly on the rack sounds like something I’ll have to clean up later.