Spinach Lasagna Roll Ups

Husband and I are trying to be healthier and as part of that Husband wants to try to eat less meat. So I decided to give this recipe a go. I did combine it with another one when it came time to assemble the roll ups and bake them, and I'll post the link when I come to that point.

First I cooked the lasagna noodles and laid them flat on some foil. I did have more noodles than are pictured, but due to a lack of counter space, I left the rest of them in the colander.

Making the filling was easy. First I drained my thawed spinach:

Then I added the cheeses, egg, and salt and pepper.

It all got mixed together:

Now here is where I deviated from the original recipe's instructions. Since there's just the two of us I followed the Pioneer Woman's directions for freezing lasagna roll ups in foil loaf pans. I put some marinara in the bottom of the pan:

Then put four roll ups in each pan with more sauce on top.

I added more cheese to the tops because...cheese. I love cheese.

One of the pans went in the oven for us to eat tonight and the other two got covered with foil and stuck in the freezer for a later date.

I followed the baking instructions on PW's website and when it came out of the oven they looked like this:

PW recommends two roll ups as a serving for your normal adult. And these roll ups did end up fuller than I expected so I think that's the perfect serving size. They were a little difficult to eat, but pretty tasty. I'm excited to see how the frozen ones hold up. Husband and I agree on 3 stars for this one.

Loaded Chicken and Potatoes

I originally saw this recipe on one of those recipe videos floating around on Facebook. I'm sure you've seen at least one of them, they seem to be everywhere! But this looked pretty good so I decided to give it a go.

It was really easy, just took some time to chop up the potatoes and chicken. I only bought six potatoes as the ones I found were pretty large.

I mixed up the...sauce? I guess you could call it in a small bowl. I cut the amount of garlic powder in half, because well...garlic. I haven't been shy about my dislike of garlic. I had to resist cutting the amount down further because 2 tbsp seemed like a LOT of garlic powder.

I poured the sauce over the chicken and potatoes and mixed it all up. Definitely use a large bowl for this, it's a lot of food.

Then I poured it into my pan. I sprayed the pan with cooking spray, even though the recipe didn't mention it. In my mind it's never a bad idea to do so. The times I've forgotten I've definitely kicked myself for it.

While the whole thing was baking in the oven, I cooked and crumbled the bacon.

With five minutes left on the timer, I sprinkled the bacon on the chicken and potatoes, then put the cheese on top of all that. After the whole mess came out of the oven, it looked like this:

I have to say I'm still a little unsure about how I feel about this recipe. Husband called it a casserole, and for some reason I don't like that idea. Maybe because casseroles tend to have a reputation of being the go to meal when someone needs meal assistance because they're easy. I don't know. But anyway, the taste was good, but not great. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't amazing either. The word that came to mind as I was eating was mediocre. Husband said I should keep the recipe, but I don't know if I will. I want to keep the recipes that make me smile and proud of what I've put together. So I guess this one falls somewhere between 2 and 3 stars.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have semi-sweet chocolate chips on hand right now because I wanted to make muddy buddies. Usually I have milk chocolate because I just like them better for when I make cookies. So, I tried this recipe as a way to use up some of the semi-sweet chips. The recipe directions were super simple. Add all the ingredients except the milk and chocolate chips to a mixing bowl and mix.

After mixing those, it says to add 1/2-1 tablespoon of milk to make the dough smooth. Honestly I probably could have gotten away with not adding the milk at all, my dough was already pretty smooth at this stage. But, since I'd never tried this recipe before I added 1/2 tablespoon. I also added the lesser amount of chocolate chips because I don't like my cookies overloaded.

At this point the dough was super smooth and squishy. Almost moreso than I would have liked. I rolled it into balls and popped them into the oven.

I baked them for the shortest amount of time since I like soft chewy cookies. These were beyond soft and chewy. Almost all of them fell apart as I tried to take them off the cookie sheet to cool.

For the next batch, I baked them the maximum amount of time. Those ones held up better, but they were still extremely fragile. They taste pretty good, but I'm not impressed with how the dough behaves. Maybe next time I'll eliminate the milk entirely. Husband likes them, but I have yet to bake something he doesn't like. I think these will only get 2 stars and may find themselves in the fail pile.