Beef Noodle Soup

When chicken noodle soup meets elements of beef stew, this comforting Beef Noodle Soup is the outcome!

I adore homemade chicken noodle soup and when I read this recipe, it sounded like the beef version and that made me so happy. Each time I was pregnant, I ended up having an aversion to chicken. From time to time, even now, the aversion rears its ugly head and chicken doesn't appeal to me at all. There is never really a convenient time for the aversion to appear, however, this recipe is really convenient when I am craving something that is total comfort like chicken noodle soup and has most of the same ingredients. It's simple, filling, and delicious!

Roasted Red Pepper & Sausage Pasta

This one pot pasta dish has roasted red bell peppers, Italian sausage, and spinach in it!

I have been all about roasted red peppers lately but I discovered this recipe when I was assigned Sara's blog for Secret Recipe Club. I put it off for a while, but I really wanted to try it out. Anything with pasta and spinach is a winner for me, but I was really excited for the bits of roasted red pepper paired with sausage in this dish. It's a one pot recipe meaning you only have to dirty one large skillet. It can be ready in under 30 minutes too, so it's a wonderful weeknight meal.

Menu Plan Monday - January 29, 2018

Goodbye, January! It's time for February :) I'm always very weary of February after many years living in upstate New York, but then I remember that I no longer live there and February in East Tennessee isn't so bad. Most of the time haha. February is a big birthday month for the family and both Cami and Mason have birthdays coming up. In February, I'm going to try and cook out of some cookbooks on my shelf. Here's what's on the menu for this week!

Monday - Pesto Chicken Caprese Pasta
Tuesday - Steak Fajitas
Wednesday - Chocolate Chip Cookie Muffins // Bacon Beer Cheese Soup with Chicken
Thursday -  Slow Cooker General Tso's Chicken
Friday - Chili Dog Nachos (Rachael Ray cookbook)
Saturday - Easy Belgian Waffles with Cinnamon Roll Topping // Mississippi Pot Roast
Sunday - Kalesidillas // Butter Pecan Cheesecake

What are you having for dinner this week?
Feel free to leave a link to the recipe in the comments!

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Air Fryer Hot Wings #SundaySupper

Get ready for the easiest and best wings you'll ever have with these air fried buffalo wings!

Hello, everyone! Who is getting ready for the Super Bowl next week? Unfortunately, my Vikings didn't make it, but that's okay. It was still a really wonderful end to a great season. Can we still talk about how they barely scraped by with that 61-yd touchdown by Diggs in the Saints game?! I'm hoping the Eagles demolish the Patriots because if they are good enough to beat the Vikings, they had better beat the lousy Patriots :P Along with watching the game and enjoying the awesome commercials comes the amazing game day food! So for Sunday Supper today, all of us are sharing EASY FOOTBALL FOOD IDEAS FOR GAME DAY.

I was incredibly excited to receive an air fryer for Christmas from my husband. I first got to test it out on New Year's Eve with this amazing hot wings recipe. I literally picked the recipe last minute and modified the crap out of it because I was craving buffalo wings! Spicy wings! I took a recipe from a blog and subbed Nashville Hot Chicken seasoning that I found at Kroger in for the creole seasoning and omitted cumin altogether. The end result was the crispy, amazing wings. I wanted to eat them all. My husband was over-the-moon, claiming they were the best wings ever, and he requested I make them regularly. If you don't have an air fryer, you can still use the recipe and just cook in your preferred method.

Dill Pickle Bacon Grilled Cheese

This sandwich is loaded with two types of cheese, bacon, and pickles! YUM!

Each year for my children's birthdays, they get to pick out a dinner and a cake. They are allowed to choose a restaurant but they never do. Last year, Cami picked Andes Mint Cake and this recipe for grilled cheese. She loves pickles and she really wanted this grilled cheese because it had bacon and tons of cheese too. I think she made a wonderful choice because these sandwiches were perfect. You have salty and sour and a good bit of crunch for an all-around perfect grilled cheese.

30-Minute Cheesy Taco Soup

When you want soup but you're also craving tacos, make this one pot cheesy taco soup!

Looking at the ingredients list can be overwhelming, but with a little prep work, this soup is very easy to throw together and have on the dinner table in 30 minutes. I like to print recipes out and take it with me to my spices and take them all out at once and line the up in order. This recipe is also made in one pot, which is my favorite. Less dirty dishes is always a good thing. There's an array of garnishes to pick from too. You can top it with a few or all of them. You can top it with those listed or any you would like. We did Fritos, sour cream, dried cilantro, diced tomatoes, and hot sauce on ours. It's one of my favorite soups because it's just a taco in soup form...and there is NOTHING wrong with that :)

2 AM Breakfast Burgers

When you can't choose between breakfast and a burger - have both!

I recently made an copycat burger that has breakfast foods on it, but to be honest, if you don't want to mess with shredded hashbrowns than this is definitely the way to go. I personally like this method better because I am literally the worst at cooking shredded hashbrowns. It's just one of those things I have never been able to master. But you know what? That is totally fine by me when I can bake up some of these hashbrown squares and throw it on the bottom bun, no fuss!

Menu Plan Monday - January 22, 2018

Only two new dinners this week - my kids were wanting all the things we've had before. It's such a fun thing for me to see my kids suggest something they used to not like - tomato soup! Actually none of us like tomato soup until my mother-in-law made one with basil and I came home to find a recipe like hers to make. Sally's Hawaiian Pizza was a big yes for me when Matthew suggested it because it has bacon and Canadian bacon and stuffed crust :)

Monday - Spicy Sausage with Orecchiette Pasta
Tuesday - Crispy Southwest Chicken Wraps
Wednesday - Carrot Cake Muffins // Slow Cooker Tomato Basil Soup with Grilled Cheese
Thursday - Buttery Garlic Herb Chicken with Zucchini
Friday - Sally's Hawaiian Pizza
Saturday - Steak Hash with Pepperjack Sauce // Bacon Chicken Club with Garlic-Basil Mayo // Cranberry Bliss Bars
Sunday - One Pot Cabbage Casserole

What are you having for dinner this week?
Feel free to leave a link to the recipe in the comments!

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Fantastical Friday

Today's Fantastical Friday is going to be short and sweet.

Recently, many social media platforms have decided to yet again change their algorithm. Effectively making it to where you see what the powers that be *think* you want to see. It hurts small creators a lot to do this. As a consumer myself, this drives me crazy. If I follow a page, I want to see their posts. I don't want someone else to say, no, she doesn't need that, she needs to connect with more people. I connect with people in my real life on my own terms, not on social media. I use social media to connect with others who share common interests, like recipes or books, through pages that I follow.

So this is just a "PSA", if you want to continue to see pages you follow, be sure to engage with them. Like and comment on posts. Share posts. This shows the powers that be that you WANT to see them and I think we can all agree if we "like" a page or follow someone, we want to see their content. :)

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Sugar-Crusted Chocolate Chip Muffins

These muffins are sure to bring a little sweetness to your morning!

I love breakfast foods, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I looked forward to eating sweets for breakfast. My mom used to make chocolate chip muffins from the pouch mix all the time, so they are pretty much my favorite kind of muffin to eat. I am picky on recipes though because I expect them to taste like the pouch ones, which to be fair are super sweet all the way through. I think what I appreciated about these muffins is that the sugar-crusted topping brought all the sweetness together.

Butterfinger Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies #FantasticalFoodFight

Welcome to another Food Fight! Fantastical Food Fight is a group of food bloggers who will get a theme or ingredient each month and make some sort of variation for it. It could be traditional or nontraditional and can be found in a cookbook, on a blog, or be a blogger's own creation! For more details, check out this page.

This month's Fantastical Food Fight theme is OATMEAL because January is National Oatmeal Month. Even though I host and plan the event, I typically don't pick my recipe until the theme is announced for everyone. I will go to my Pinterest boards and type in the ingredient or theme and see what pops up. This particular month, I was meal planning and happened to be looking for a cookie recipe for the first weekend of January and saw this Butterfinger Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies recipe with oatmeal in it. I immediately moved it to my meal plan board and was so excited to make it.

I have made Butterfinger Cookies from Sally's Baking Addiction before, but I really thought these looked quite good. The other ones were just a regular cookie base with candy in it. These, on the other hand, are peanut butter cookies with candy PLUS oatmeal, which is the whole reason for making them for the Food Fight! They are chewy and peanut buttery and the bits of milk chocolate chips and Butterfinger candy are the best - it's like a burst of rich chocolatey goodness!

Creamy Salsa Verde Enchiladas

These unauthentic enchiladas are amazing with cream cheese, salsa verde, and a little kick of Rotel!

What is it about enchiladas that make them oh so delicious but also really ugly to photograph? Probably the cheese. I really enjoy enchiladas that feature a green sauce and chicken. I honestly don't know why I don't care for beef or red sauce enchiladas, but that's life *shrugs*. I appreciated this recipe so much because it had elements from my go-to enchilada recipe but new elements as well. I loved having cream cheese because it's much more substantial than doing sour cream. The cilantro (not pictured) was also a must for this recipe. It was icing on the cake...but in real life, cilantro on the enchiladas. I think that saying has the potential to take off, right? Anyways, this recipe is great and relatively simple to throw together. You could easily use rotisserie seasoning, if desired, to cut down on prep time.

Menu Plan Monday - January 15, 2018

It's a week of tons of tried and true recipes. I haven't made the alfredo for Monday in many many years and we were all craving it. Crunchwraps made it to our monthly menu once again. Then Weds, Thurs, and Sunday are all new recipes for dinners that we are all pretty excited about.

Monday - Broccoli Chicken Alfredo
Tuesday - Copycat Taco Bell Crunchwrap
Wednesday - Snickerdoodle Crumble Donuts // Slow Cooked Chicken Fajita Chili
Thursday - Quick & Easy Beef Noodle Stir Fry
Friday - Big Evil Cheeseburgers
Saturday - Bacon and Egg Breakfast Burritos // Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese // Butter Pecan Cheesecake
Sunday - Sheet Pan Sausage and Veggies

What are you having for dinner this week?
Feel free to leave a link to the recipe in the comments!

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Twinkie Cupcakes

Fluffy yellow cupcakes filled with marshmallow creme and topped with marshmallow buttercream frosting - you won't be able to stop at one!

What's better than a Twinkie? A Twinkie in cupcake form, of course. This isn't quite a sponge cake, but it does have a delicious marshmallow creme filling and marshmallow buttercream frosting. It does taste like a Twinkie and they are so light and airy, so it makes you want to eat more than one. I followed the directions and filled 20 cupcake liners, but I think that it would be much better with 22 to 24 cupcakes total. I did have to kind of trim edges of cupcakes that overlapped the edges of the muffin pan cups. Unfortunately, these cupcakes won't survive the apocalypse...but that's because they won't last more than a couple days in your home :)

Crockpot Cajun Ham and 15 Bean Soup

This ham and bean soup is packed with a punch of Cajun seasoning. Just set it and forget it in your crockpot.

I had never heard of the 15 bean mix bags before and didn't realize there were multiple versions of it, so I had accidentally picked up the Cajun version. I honestly can't be too bummed because this Cajun version was phenomenal. It's a fairly simple recipe to throw together and into the crockpot. Set it and forget it. I can't wait to try more of these 15 bean mixes - especially in soup recipes.

Biscoff Muffins

These muffins have a Biscoff swirl and a crumb topping with a hint of Biscoff!

These muffins are simply fantastic. I hate that I waited so long to make them. I have this really bad habit of putting breakfast recipes on my meal plan and I never get around to making them. In 2018, I'm going to attempt to make 2 breakfast recipes a week and see how that goes. Once I finally got around to making these muffins, I wanted to make them over and over again. There is regular batter that gets swirled with a Biscoff batter topped with Biscoff crumb topping. It's one of my favorite recipes for muffins and I cannot wait to have them again. They are perfect with a cup of coffee...almost reminiscent of coffee cake, in fact!

Menu Plan Monday - January 8, 2018

I'm trying out another recipe for garbage plate. This one is Binging with Babish's and I'm ridiculously excited to try it. I'm also looking forward to some old favorites and some new favorites - I know there will be some new favorites in here.

Monday - Italian Noodle Casserole
Tuesday - Creamy Chicken Quesadillas
Wednesday - Oreo Muffins // Loaded Zuppa Toscana Soup
Thursday - Chicken Yakisoba
Friday - Pizza Braid
Saturday - Cinnamon Roll Wrapped Donuts // Kalesidillas // Moist Vanilla Cupcakes
Sunday - The Garbage Plate

What are you having for dinner this week?
Feel free to leave a link to the recipe in the comments!

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Shepherd's Pie Potato Skins #SundaySupper

Your family will be on pins and needles waiting for this meal to hit the dinnertable!

If y'all have been around for a while, you know I participate in Sunday Supper often. What is Sunday Supper? It's a movement started by Isabel Laessig to inspire others to spend more time around the family table. Each week, a community of bloggers shares recipes from a particular theme. This month marks the 6th anniversary of the very first virtual Sunday Supper event and it's also Sunday Supper Month. Take the pledge and join the Sunday Supper Movement to bring back family dinners!

Since it is Sunday Supper Month, today's event is SUNDAY SUPPER RECIPES. These recipes are ones that may take a little longer to make and the whole family waits in anticipation to all gather around the dinner table and share together. This fits me so well because Sundays are days I have more time to make dinner and tend to make more time-consuming feasts on those days.

Today, I am sharing these Shepherd's Pie Potato Skins. On the surface, they sound like they would be an appetizer, but they definitely are a main course meal. It's definitely a different take on shepherd's pie where the potatoes become the vessel and they aren't in a casserole dish. I feel all the elements are very classic shepherd's pie but it is all about that crispy potato skin!

Cheesy Jalapeno Tuna Casserole

Boring tuna noodle casserole, begone! This casserole is spicy and cheesy in all the best ways!

One of my favorite cookbooks ever is Chrissy Teigen's Cravings cookbook and I have already made multiple recipes multiple times from it. This tuna casserole is one of those recipes I have made multiple times because we all love it so much. It also makes so much casserole that we have lots of leftovers. What I love about this recipe is that it takes classic elements of a tuna noodle casserole like cream of mushroom soup, peas, and a crunchy chip topping and then takes them to the next level. Jalapeno kettle chips, an insane amount of cheese, fresh jalapenos, and corkscrew pasta make this the most awesome tuna casserole EVER.

One Pot Thai Chicken Noodle Soup

Classic comfort food made with Thai ingredients that will blow your mind!

2017 was the year we went a little out of our comfort zone with food. I like to think we tried quite a few new things and tried new cuisines. This Thai Chicken Noodle Soup has some ingredients that we really typically wouldn't eat together or think to put in a soup. I was unsure how the combination of different flavors would work together. I personally was really excited to use some Thai basil that I had dried from my AeroGarden and it really tied the whole thing together. As a child who hated chicken noodle soup, it's crazy how many different chicken noodle soups I now eat! This soup was wonderful. All those flavors went together perfectly. Nothing was overpowering. Just loved it so much :)

Beef and Broccoli Noodle Bowls

Itadakimasu! This bowl of ramen, beef, broccoli, and other goodies is the perfect weeknight meal!

Ramen is becoming more and more frequent on the meal plan in my house. Part of it is because ramen is delicious and the other, because it is super common for some form of anime to be playing on the tv at any given time. Granted this dish isn't like the ramen I see most on anime, it still makes me want to yell Itadakimasu {let's eat in Japanese}!

Menu Plan Monday - January 1, 2018

Happy New Year! I hope 2017 was a good year, but hope that 2018 is an even better year for you and your loved ones :) This week is starting off kind of simple with some old favorites and then a stew with black eyed peas and a pork roast.

Monday - Leftovers
Tuesday - Tatortot Tacos
Wednesday - Cinnamon Roll Donuts // Black Eyed Pea Stew with Sausage and Kale
Thursday - Steak, Potatoes, and Asparagus
Friday - Quick & Tasty Cheesesteak Subs
Saturday - Easy Belgian Waffles // Butterfinger Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
Sunday - Slow Cooker Pork Roast, Potatoes, and Carrots

What are you having for dinner this week?
Feel free to leave a link to the recipe in the comments!

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Countdown to 2018: Fantastical Favorites

Happy New Year! To my blogging friends, thank you for joining in to countdown to 2018 and share all the amazing recipes you posted in 2017. Today is the Wild Card day where everyone gets to choose whatever category they want. I chose to share my favorite recipes from 2017. It was hard to narrow down the list and honestly, many of my other favorites were featured in the other categories :)

An InLinkz Link-up