Casseroles for Baby

With baby on the way, I started making casseroles... I figured at least if I could freeze a few casseroles for later, we wouldn't starve.  Here are some pictures! 

Beef & Tater Bake

Who doesn't love tater tots?  I'm a fan.  Remember, though, I am in general a fan of things all jumbled together in a yummy mess.  Plus, I was pretty pregnant when I made that.  Regardless, it was tasty.

This next casserole is for any fan of pizza.

Spiral Pepperoni Pizza Bake

A little warning... either don't fill your dish quite so full of mozzarella OR put the dish on a cookie tray so that the cheese doesn't bubble all over your oven.  I love my darling husband who cleaned our oven!  <3

This last casserole is completely designed by me! 

Alissa's Mexican Polenta Bake

Alissa's Mexican Polenta Bake
1 can refried beans
1 roll of polenta, cut into rounds
Corn (canned or frozen)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
Green chiles
1 lb. ground beef, turkey, or chicken (I prefer beef... but you can use what you like!)
Taco seasoning (Packet or make your own!)
1/2 onion, chopped
1 jar salsa con queso
Other toppings... grape tomatoes, black olives, mushrooms, banana peppers, jalapeno peppers, sour cream, guacamole, etc.

Cook the ground beef in a pan and toss in the onion.  Add the taco seasoning.  *Just a side note... I made my own taco seasoning the other day without a packet (because I didn't realize I was out of them).  This works just as well! 

Spread the refried beans into a 13 x 9 pyrex dish.  Sprinkle some of the corn and black beans on top.  Add the polenta rounds spread out evenly.  Add more corn and black beans.  Add the seasoned meat and onions.  Add mushrooms or banana peppers if you're going to do so.  Add more corn, black beans, green chiles, jalapenos, etc.  Top the dish with the jar of salsa con queso. 

Bake in the oven at 350 for about 20ish minutes.  Top with anything else you want!  See... easy.  For all of you who are watching your weight... this was about 9 WW pts for 1/8 of it.  Not too shabby.

Please note that I am writing this almost 6 weeks (tomorrow) after baby arrived! Did I manage to make and freeze these casseroles prior to baby arriving? NO. Baby came 3 weeks early and surprised everyone... especially me and Jim. 

My sweetie at 1 month.  :-)  Love!

Happy birthday! :-D

And then there was dinner!  Yummy, yummy, dinner. 

Neal came over tonight for a pre-birthday dinner and Glee-ness since I didn't have class tonight and he got off work a little bit early.  It's been a while!  Here's what I made:

Chili-Corn Casserole

It was amazing.  I actually used my own leftover chili from over the weekend and it was pretty fabulous in this casserole.  Here are a few pre-cooking pics so you can see what's underneath all that pretty cheese:

  

   

I heart casserole!

THEN... I made these for dessert:

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

Yeah, they were pretty much as good as they look.  Happy birthday to the best brother in the whole wide world.  <3  (I have to say it early because I'll be asleep pretty much as soon as I'm done blogging!)  Night blogosphere!

Mmm... Mushrooms!

Happy Friday!  :-)  Are you as happy as I am that it's Friday again?  Don't get me wrong... the other days have their plusses... it's just that Friday is lucky enough to have the weekend attached to it.  Poor, poor Monday got the raw end of the deal.

Anyway, I hope that you have a fabulous weekend and you make these:

Wild Mushrooms on Polenta Rounds (WW recipe)

Aren't they pretty?  :-)  Soooooooooo good.  This is the first time I've ever used polenta.  I found it to be a little strange!  Mainly because when I opened the package, polenta juices squirted out all over me.  There should have been some sort of warning. 

Jimmy liked these and he doesn't even really like mushrooms.  I loved them because I love mushrooms.  Which leads me to the question:  Why don't I cook more recipes that involve mushrooms!?