Easy Cheesy Manicotti

I bought a crap ton of cheese this week. The majority of it was for this recipe, but we were also out of normal cheese, like cheddar. I felt a little weird going around with all that cheese in my cart, but it was for a good reason!

And speaking of cheese, here's the stuff I did use for the recipe:

I was interested in this recipe for two reasons: One, you don't have to cook the manicotti shells prior to filling them. (Win!) Two, it also has instructions about how to freeze it for a later dinner. I'm all about things that can be frozen. I really don't take the time to make freezer meals as much as I should. Anyway, filling the shells was a bit more challenging than I had anticipated and I think it was because the hole I cut in the plastic bag was a bit too big. But I made it work.

And here's where I messed up. I didn't read the recipe fully and therefore did not cover the dish with foil before baking it. >.< I noticed this mistake when I took the manicotti out of the oven and the sauce had turned a much darker color than it should have.

I was pretty convinced the dish was going to be ruined at this point, but it actually was okay. The pasta was a bit hard, but the flavor was still great. I'm confident this would have been awesome if I had used the foil. Next time I will, for sure. I'm still giving this one 4 stars because the slight fail was entirely me being stupid, not any fault with the recipe. It is very easy and came together quicker than I thought it would.

Salsa Verde Honey Lime Chicken

I was really excited about this recipe. I almost think I use my crock pot more during the summer than I do in the winter. It's just great to not have to heat up the house and still have something delicious!

Crock pot recipes don't lend themselves to super interesting pictures as all you do is dump the ingredients in the crock pot and let it do its thing. Not that I'm complaining...another perk of crock pot recipes is how easy they are! Loving it. Anywho, here's everything before cooking:

After it cooked, I shredded it and put the chicken in tacos. And I really wanted to like this recipe. But unfortunately I didn't. I don't know specifically what it was, but I just wasn't a fan of how all the flavors came together. Husband thought it was too much citrus. For me it wasn't necessarily one flavor. The overall taste didn't do it for me, but it wasn't positively awful, and it was extremely simple to make. 2 stars.

Strawberry Lemon Poppyseed Pancakes

I love summer fruit. Especially strawberries and raspberries. These definitely sounded like a good use of strawberries and lemon. The link includes a recipe for strawberry syrup that I highly recommend making with the pancakes.

I made the syrup first and it was really easy. I put everything in a saucepan and then cooked it for a bit.

After cooking it so the sugar dissolves, I first tried using a potato masher to mash the strawberries and combine everything since I didn't want to get out my blender. But it didn't work that well so I still ended up using the blender. After blending, I poured the syrup back into the saucepan to keep warm and thicken.

The pancakes weren't difficult to make either. I started with the dry ingredients:

And added the wet.

The batter seemed a bit thick, so they didn't come out nicely round and pretty. This could have been because I cut the recipe in half due to less than wonderful strawberries. Anyway, after cooking they looked like this:

For some reason, the syrup never really thickened up. However, these were surprisingly good. And the two recipes need each other, if you ask me. The pancakes are a bit on the tart side without the syrup and the syrup is a bit on the sweet side on it's own. But they're a refreshing shake up from regular pancakes that I'll definitely make again. 4 stars.

Banana Cream Pie

I'm back! With pie. It's been a crazy few weeks with the miscarriage and then Husband's brother getting married last Friday. But now things are going back to normal. I've been craving banana cream pie since I was pregnant. And this was the recipe I'd printed out weeks ago but didn't get to try until now.

I made banana cream pie from a Betty Crocker recipe years ago which called for making your custard from scratch. None of that buying Jello pudding mix here, folks. It really does make a difference and it's not super difficult.

I started with sugar, cornstarch, and a touch of salt.

Then added the evaporated milk, eggs, and regular milk.

After that's all whisked, you stick that pot on the stove and cook it until it thickens. This will take a little while, but as Alton Brown says, "Your patience will be rewarded." (We've been watching Good Eats around here lately) As it cooks, it won't seem like much is happening, and then what feels like instantly you will go from that runny mixture to this:

Hello, beautiful.
Not difficult at all, just requires a little bit of patience. I should pause here and say I did not make my own pie crust. I bought a frozen one. Until I can get a new beater attachment, my mixer is out of commission.

I poured half of the filling into my crust then added the bananas.

After adding the rest of the filling, my pie was ready to go into the fridge to set.

I ended up letting it set overnight. The recipe says at least 4 hours and honestly, I kind of forgot about it after getting dinner and doing a little shopping last night. Oops. So today I added the whipped cream and of course had to give it a try. My first slice didn't come out pretty, as they never do, but this is some good stuff. I'm calling this my go to for banana cream pie. 4 stars.