Taco Rice Recipe (Hamburger Helper Crunchy Taco Copycat Recipe)

I have been on a mission to use up things in the freezer and pantry.  I bought Minute Rice awhile back when they were super cheap.  I use it to add to soup and other things but really haven't used a lot of it so I precooked some ground beef and set it aside to make this quick meal when I was doing a big freezer cooking of chili, salsa sloppy joes and sausage sauce.  I forgot to take a picture before I started cooking but I also pulled out the taco seasoning packet that I had in the pantry from my free stockpile from Giant awhile ago.

I added the amount of water to the pan called for with 2 cups of rice on the package.  I stirred in the package of taco seasoning and added the rice.

Since the ground beef was already cooked, I added the ground beef and stirred around in the pan to make sure that I had enough water, seasoning and beef.  I left the heat on even though that wasn't the recipe for the rice but I wanted the ground beef to be heated through.  I put the top to steam the rice and meat together.

I covered it with cheese and put the top on so that it would be nice and melted.  I used cheddar and Oaxaca because that is what we had in the house and it was a perfect blend.  This is the same thing that we used to do with the Crunchy Taco Hamburger Helper because my husband hated the cheese sauce that came in the box.

We served with tortilla chips on the side for a crunch if wanted.  There were leftovers which I thought I was going to put into enchiladas but we actually ate them before I even got a chance to see how those would be.  We just heated in the microwave and put on some more cheese.

This was a super quick meal and I thought it was a great way to stretch the ground beef because I didn't use a whole pound of ground beef but you can add as much as you want.  I will totally make this again because we enjoyed it!  I think that I will add it to the menu plan in the coming month to use up the rest of the rice.  Then I will have to figure out if I can recreate with normal rice.

Taco Rice

2 cups Minute Rice or Instant Rice

1 package Taco Seasoning

1/2-1 lb Cooked Ground Beef

2 cups water

Cheese to Taste

Add water to pan and stir in taco seasoning packet over medium heat.  Add 2 cups of instant rice and stir and cover.  Add cooked ground beef and reduce to low heat.  Cover for 20 minutes.  Top with cheese and cover until melted.  Serve hot with tortilla or corn chips. 

Homemade Chicken and Rice Casserole (Copycat Campbells Chicken Casserole)

I decided that I was going to try to make homemade Chicken and Rice Casserole just like the Campbell's Cream of Chicken Soup one that my husband loves.  In case you like it and want to make it from scratch or even if you haven't, it is way easy and this tastes the same or better then the original with a can of soup.

First, I started by getting out the ingredients to make the Cream Soup base.  If you have time to do this early, you can make it early and refrigerate before or you can make it hot and put it straight into the casserole.  I found it was super easy to cook up in the morning and I actually stuck the whole pan in the fridge to cool.

First step is to put in milk and cornstarch.  I used a whisk to mix everything together but since I use a nonstick pan, I do it with a plastic whisk which actually works great.

Next is to add the seasonings needed to make the soup and the seasonings I like to add to the casserole.  It was super flavorful and the main difference from the canned soup as well as there aren't weird chunks of meat in it which I don't like in cream of chicken soup.

 I added the butter and you can see that it is thickening and sticking to the whisk.

After the butter is melted, it is wonderfully coating the whisk and it was wonderful.  At this point you have a condensed cream of chicken soup.

The important step that makes it easier then the canned soup and adds the chicken flavor which way better then the canned soup, is to add chicken broth.  It needs 1 1/3 cup chicken broth which I did over heat and mixed it together. 

 It ends up the consistency of soup because it basically is ready to eat.

In the 7x11 pan, I add 3/4 cup of rice.  The first time I made it, I added the seasoning to this instead of soup but the second time I added everything to the soup.  This can also be measured beforehand so that it is ready to go at dinner time.

When it is time for dinner,  you add the pot of soup to your rice.  I stir back and forth to combine.  My husband swears that I do something differently here because he could never get this to work without me but I swear I move a fork around until it seems thicker.

The next step is to bread the chickens which is great to do with just wet chicken into the breadcrumbs to make it easier.  During this process, I press the chicken tenders very thinly.  I can normally only fit 5 pieces of chicken across the top so if you need more you can bread and bake on another pan.

Each on is lightly placed on top of of the rice mixture and I get them to float (my husband only gets them to sink). 

I go across the whole pan and try to fit my 5 chicken pieces across.

There are a few different ways that you can do the next step but I used to spray with cooking spray but I don't use that any more. I frequently just drizzle a little canola or vegetable oil on the chicken to help crispy up the breadcrumbs.  This time I mixed a little melted butter into the remaining breadcrumbs.

It made it nice and chunky to add a little more bread crumbs because the chicken didn't seem to hold the crumb as much.  I wanted a little more crunchy topping.

I sprinkled it on the top of the chicken.

It is funny how different the coloring of the two breadcrumbs showed up but it wasn't super thick just a sprinkling.

I baked it until the top browns and the rice comes together.

It is super easy to see in my pans because it sort of goes up the sides and gets less liquidy on the sides.

 You can see here how the soup sticks to the chicken and to the edge of the pan.

We scoop it all out together on to our plates and enjoy the tasty dinner.  There is an option to put a veggie in the pan like peas or broccoli but we like our veggies separate so we don't put any into the casserole.

Chicken and Rice Casserole

Ingredients

• 1 cup cold milk
• 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons butter
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• ⅛ freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• ⅛ teaspoon dried parsley flakes
• 1 1/3 cup chicken broth 
• 3/4 c rice
• 5 chicken tenders
• Breadcrumbs

Instructions

1. In a small saucepan whisk together milk and cornstarch. Add butter, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika and parsley.  Add more seasonings to taste.
2. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Once boiling, simmer for 30 more seconds to thicken.
3. Add chicken broth and stir until combined. Set aside to cool or use right away.
4. Preheat over to 375 degrees
5. Mix soup with rice in a 7x11 casserole dish until combined with a fork.
6. Bread wet chicken tenders and flatten.  Place chicken on top of the rice mixture in the casserole dish.
7. Use cooking spray, canola or vegetable oil, or melted butter to coat each chicken tender.
8. Bake for 45 minutes or until brown and serve.

 
Super tasty and easy meal to make with things that we always have around the house.  Super flexible to change to what ever seasoning you prefer.  The original soup recipe can be found here and the Campbells Chicken and Rice Casserole original recipe can be found here.  You can see from these recipes that I have changed these recipes and added my own take on it over the years and the recipe just keeps changing.  I hope that you try this recipe and enjoy it as much as we do and feel free to change it up to fit your families needs.

Biscuit Pizza Recipe

I was looking for a creative dinner one night when I decided that I was going to roll out the biscuit dough to make pizzas.  We made one per person the first time and then made 5 the next time so that we could have extra because we liked them so much.  I got these biscuits free with a past sale at the store so I was looking for creative ways to use them.

My son likes peeling and popping the cans so he is always in charge of that.  What kid doesn't like to do that?! After the biscuits came out, I dipped them into the corn meal.  Neat that it fits right in there and I don't have to use a bowl!

Then, flipped and did the other side because if not, they were sticking when they were rolling out and I swear that you can't taste it that much but it adds that pizza texture to the bottom.

I put it on the cutting board and rolled them out one and a time with the rolling pin.  My son did a little bit of the rolling but I wanted to get them extra thin so I normally did a little more rolling just to be safe.

Then, I put them on the pizza pan that we have which I love because there are holes through so that the air lets it cook on both sides at the same time.  Wonderful for anything you don't want to have to flip and we have more then one because we love them so much.  We did all different kinds for dinner with buffalo chicken pizza, pepperoni pizza and white garlic pizza.

I baked them at 350 degrees in the oven for 13-15 minutes and they came out nice and brown.  Just watch closely because this crust turns brown very quickly and the first batch was a little overcooked and not as tasty.  This batch was super tasty and all got eaten!!

We really enjoyed these yummy homemade pizzas with a quick and easy short cut of using a can of biscuit dough.  I hope that you try this the next time you can't figure out what to do with that extra can of biscuit dough.  Of course our favorite recipe is doughnuts (recipe found here) but when you are looking for a quick and easy dinner look no farther then biscuit pizzas!!

Homemade Taco Seasoning

I have tried homemade taco seasoning powders and I always end up back with the store bought packets for different reasons.  One reason is that I can usually get the pouches for free at sale and coupon and you know that I like free.  The second reason is that the homemade ones never taste nearly as good to me.  I am sure that my body must love all the extras that they put in the seasonings but it nicely adheres to the meat and makes a great little sauce.

I decided to try a new recipe which I found on the Pioneer Women website when searching options.  I pulled out all of the ingredients from the spice cupboard including a few different options of each kind of spice.

I took the measurements and poured each one into an empty spice jar that I had washed out and keep in the cupboard.  It actually started to look a little like the sand art that I do with my son.

I put the top on and shook the bottle.  It mixed together really easily and looked a lot like the packaged taco seasoning mix to me.

I decided to try it for the first time with half a package of taco seasoning and half of this homemade seasoning and the taste was great.  With the added benefit that I only had half of a package of taco seasoning left.  Taco seasoning has some thicken agents in them so sometimes to get that more saucy feeling to the taco meat, you need to cook it up and add the seasoning and water.  If it doesn't get to the consistency that you want mix water and corn starch in a container until combined and add it to the  taco meat.  It should help the meat to be a little more saucy and still have that same great flavor.  I can't wait to try this taco seasoning again!!

Taco Seasoning

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons Chili Powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoon Ground Cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon Paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Onion Powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Dried Oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon Black Pepper

Instructions

Measure out all the ingredients in a small bowl. Mix well. Then taste and adjust the salt or spices as desired. Store in an airtight container until ready to use.

For a larger batch (the equivalent of about 6 packets), use:

1/4 cup chili powder
3 tablespoons ground cumin
1 tablespoon each paprika, crushed red pepper, and salt
1 1/2 teaspoons each garlic powder, onion powder, dried oregano, black pepper

I hope that you try a recipe to make your own Taco Seasoning and enjoy!!!  Do you have any recipes that you like to make so you don't have to buy things at the store??

Taco Pizza

This is the second time that I have made this and I haven't told you about it so I thought I would share.  I haven't done a great job with pictures so I am going to try to make it up as I go along...just like I did with the recipe.  It was originally the way to use up my very little amount of taco meat to make a whole meal.  I started with this pizza crust but you can easily make your own.

I made some homemade enchilada sauce.  It is super easy to make from just a few ingredients which you can see here.  I have made both a red enchilada sauce and brown and we prefer the red one which just has a little tomato sauce in it which makes it even more perfect for pizza. The great thing is that I almost always have all of the ingredients in the pantry.

I made extra and put the other sauce in the freezer so that I would have it for enchiladas later.

 I spread the enchilada sauce and seasoned taco meat on the pizza shell.  Topped with cheddar cheese and mozzarella cheese.  I baked at 400 degrees until the cheese is lightly browned which is about 15 minutes and then I wait as long as I can to cut it into 8 pieces.  We topped the pizza with thinly sliced lettuce and enjoyed the whole pizza before I took this picture of the last piece left.

It is a nice difference with the hot and spicy bottom layer and the top lettuce layer. Feel free to add anything else that you like on your tacos.  We enjoyed this tasty leftover meal and so will you!!

I hope that you check this out for yourself and enjoy it as much as we did.  If you want to make your own pizza crust, my favorite recipe is here.  I hope that you enjoy this tasty dinner with this yummy recipe.

Fried or Baked Mozzarella

I had used the crescent rolls to make some pizza bites in the past and I decided that it would be a good idea to try to see how they would taste fried.  I got a bunch free in the last few sales and we don't often make them to eat with dinner so I try to use them as creatively as possible.

I pulled out a few cheese sticks to see how they would taste.

I cut them into small bite sized pieces.

I sealed up the edges of the crescent roll division areas and cut them into a pieces a little bigger then the cheese.

I rolled the edge over the cheese like this.

Then I folded the edges in dough so no cheese can get out the edges.  After pushing in the sides, I continued rolling the dough until it was totally covered.  On any that had a lot of extra dough, I cut it off to make an extra one with the extra dough.

When this was done, you get a little thing about the size of a pizza bite.  I smooshed the dough in so that there wouldn't be any cheese leaking out. 

 

Originally I was going to bake these and I decided to try them fried because I really wanted to see what the difference would be in the taste and texture.

They browned up nicely and quickly into these much later pillow-y fried cheese balls.

When you bite into the center, it is soft soft and has a little crispy outside with the dough fried up.  It was super tasty and an interesting change.  It was great dipped in a little pizza sauce.  I enjoyed it for my lunch and reheated the leftovers for dinner the next night.  It tasted exactly the same!!  Perfect to make ahead of time and heat up for dinner.

They would be great with a little bit of pepperoni and sausage too!!  

Super easy and tasty made from things that I got super cheap or free at the store and enjoyed making them into a meal. Hope that you check out this and make some for yourself. I know that you will enjoy these tasty treats in a little bit of dipping sauce!

Homemade Pasta with my Kitchen Aid Mixer

I got a wonderful Kitchen Aid Pasta for Christmas from my aunt, uncle, and cousins and I was so excited.  I was sitting there hugging it for awhile.  Now I am going to work on figuring out how to use it!!  Here is what I did!

I decided to make this pasta recipe for my first time.  I knew that it was really simple but that means that I wouldn't waste anything if it was horrible and I messed it all up.  The first step was easy and I put the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl.

I mixed the eggs in a measuring cup to make sure that they measured enough to see how much mroe water I would need. I  added the water here as well.

I mixed the wet ingredients into the dry and it was very crumbly so I was a little worried.

When I was patient and followed the instructions and I got this dough that came together better then I expected.

I kneeded it in the bowl and it was a good consistency but maybe a little thick.  Next time I would add a little water but I never know the first time I make a recipe.

I put the pasta maker on the front of the machine.

It was pretty easy to use and figure out but the dough went in small balls to wait to be put into the pasta maker.

Then, after while the pasta started to come out.  There is a special tool to push the dough down into the machine so that you don't loose your hand.  Doesn't this look like a playdough machine??  I think that I could have just used one of those instead :)

It was really interesting and hard to figure out how long the spaghetti should be but we cut it when it touched the counter for a little bit.

The laying it out was the hardest part because the pasta was warm and started sticking together so it needed flour and we ended up laying it out on a drying rack for the best result just while we made enough to cook for the meal.  I am sure that a pasta drying rack would have been easier but I didn't have one so I worked with what was on hand.

I cooked the spaghetti which cooked very quickly in the boiling water and rose to the surface almost immediately.

We enjoyed our meal which was only half of the pasta.  I had mine plain with butter and garlic salt.

My husband had his with spaghetti sauce and we both enjoyed it.  My son did not enjoy it as much so we made him a batch of the store bought pasta.  Here is hoping that I make some with another recipe that suits him too.

After eating, I used the rest of the dough to make this neat pasta.

When it got to a good length, I cut them off and these were really easy and helped me learn to better make the pasta quickly and easily.  I don't know if I could do the spaghetti by myself but this was pretty easy to do by myself.

I laid them on the now empty drying rack.  I figured that these would be easier to dry and store.  I left them on the rack over night and put them in a container.

There is another recipe in the book that looks good in the book that came with the machine.  The directions are a little different then the ones that I followed but I hope that either will help you if you try to make your own pasta.  I mixed them together a little to make the best idea of pasta since I really didn't know what the consistency of the dough should feel or look like.  Having two recipes made me a feel a little better that the end result would turn out well!!

I hope that you enjoy the recipe and the process to try for yourself.  I am hoping to try some different flours to make a more tasty and tender pasta.  I can't wait to try again soon!!

Homemade Pasta Recipe

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour, sifted (plus extra flour for preparing)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 large eggs, beaten
• 2 Tablespoons water plus more for dough to come together

Directions:

1. Place flour and salt in mixer bowl. Attached bowl and flat beater. Mix eggs and water in measuring cup to note measurement (difference in egg size might mean more water later). Turn to speed 2 and mix for 30 to 60 seconds. Add more water if the dough is too dry, in 1/2 Tablespoon increments (I used 1/4 c and added it faster then 1/2 tbsp.)
2. Change out the flat beater for the dough hook. Turn to speed 2 and knead for 2 minutes. Remove the dough and knead by hand for 2 minutes. Let it rest for 20 to 30 minutes.
3. Roll dough into small ball pieces before processing with pasta press. Attach the pasta press to the front of the mixer.  Turn on the stand mixer to speed 2 and run the pasta dough through the press.
4. When the pasta comes out the bottom of the press, add flour to the outside so that the pasta doesn't stick to each other.
5. Allow pasta to dry for a few minutes before boiling.
6. When boiling your pasta, it only needs 3 to 7 minutes to boil or tender to taste