Cheeseburger Tot Casserole

The hubby came home from work tonight starving and while trying to decide what to make, I came across this Tater Tot Casserole I had made before.  When I made the casserole the first time, we weren’t very impressed.  Of course I couldn’t do the cream of mushroom since the hubby doesn’t like mushrooms but it was so bland, we didn’t even save the leftovers.  I think the puppies had a good dinner that night!

In theory the tater tot casserole sounds SO GOOD so I decided we could tweak it and do kind of a combination tater tot casserole and cheeseburger pie.  Cheeseburger Pie is a go-to recipe when I don’t know what else to make because it’s so good, so easy, and made with ingredients I almost always have on hand.

New Year, New Recipes to Try

Howdy!  So much has been going on these past few weeks!  We’re still in the process of getting our house organized.  Aren’t there unpacking fairies that just put everything away for you and everything is magically organized?!  Well, there should be.  I’ve also been trying to get through all of the pictures I took while my family was in Colorado for Christmas.  I haven’t gotten very far.  However, I did do a little bit of work on this one:

My whole family.  Dad, mom, brother, brother’s girlfriend, grandparents (mom’s side), me, my niece, and my hubby.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

So yes, I have posted this before, but it was a post with a bunch of other recipes and what not in there so I feel like it kind of got lost and deserves its own post.  I made this again for dinner last night and mmm… it is just so dang good!  

For as long as I can remember my favorite soup has been broccoli cheese.  And lucky for me, broccoli is one of those veggies my hubby will actually eat!

This was (originally) another recipe that I found on Pinterest, here.  Well, I didn’t like the “1 1/2 cubes of butter” explanation (I mean, really, what the heck is a “cube” of butter?!).  But, observant little me noticed the small print which said that she had found the picture for the recipe on allrecipes.com (one of my all-time favorite recipe websites).  I went to allrecipes and found a very similar recipe that actually had a measurement for the butter (6 tablespoons), but slightly different directions, so I combined the two:

Maple Bacon French Toast

I’ve been in a bit of a rut while my husband’s been gone.  Almost every Sunday morning I get up (late) and make myself french toast.   Well, this Sunday, I did a bad thing.

Oh, who am I kidding?  I did a wonderful thing.  I cooked maple syrup and bacon right into my french toast.  Now I’m not even that big of a “bacon” person but for some reason today this sounded good… and it was!

My husband is going to LOVE this.  In fact, he’s probably going to be a little upset that I made it for the first time when he wasn’t home.  It’s okay, honey, it’s just a nice surprise for when you get back!

Cheesy Garlic Bread

So yes, this is a pretty common thing to do, however, I really loved the way ours came out when I tried it this way so I figured I’d share!

My mom used to always make garlic bread with spaghetti… add a little butter and garlic powder, throw it in the toaster oven and we’re good to go.  This is not my mom’s garlic bread.

This is delicious, cheesy, garlicky, buttery, soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside… mmm, mmm good!  It’s also super simple but a great addition to any meal.  It also reheats really well!

Ingredients

• 1 loaf french bread
• 1 stick butter
• approximately 2 tbsp minced garlic (adjust based on your love for garlic)
• approximately 1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (we used a cheddar jack mix but you could really use whatever you have on hand)

Directions

1. Cut french bread into slices, but not all the way through.  You want it to stay together as a whole loaf, but be easy to pull apart into slices when you’re ready to eat.

2. Put butter and garlic into a small saucepan and cook on low until butter is melted, and then an additional about 2 minutes.  You want the butter to be infused with the garlic.

3. At this point you have a choice depending on how much you love garlic.  My husband and I absolutely love it and put it into just about every meal.  Therefore, we did not strain the minced garlic pieces out of the butter.  However, if you’re more so looking for just a hint of a garlicky flavor in your butter, you might want to go ahead and strain your butter and remove all of the garlic pieces.  TOTALLY OPTIONAL THOUGH!

4. Pour your butter all over your bread, making sure you get into all of the cuts.  We used a spoon to begin with so as to not make a giant mess.  It was also a bit of a team effort.  I’d separate the bread while my husband spooned in the butter.  Not something that couldn’t be done by yourself, but if you have some helping hands around, it’s a good team project.

5. Now add your cheese.  Again, making sure that you get it down into all of the cuts.  Here, you also want to make sure that you get it on top of the bread too because more cheese is ALWAYS better.

6. Bake at 350ºF for 12-15 minutes.  You want to make sure that your cheese is all melted and bubbly.

Let it sit for a couple minutes before digging in and enjoy!

Hope you enjoy as much as we did!