Recipe: Karen's delicious monkey bread!

Hey, MOPS moms! If you've been to one of our recent meetings, you've had the chance to try Karen's delicious monkey bread. She was kind enough to share the recipe, and who would have guessed it was this easy? Enjoy!!

Easy Butterscotch Coffee Cake (Monkey Bread)

1 - 25 oz package frozen dinner rolls (approx. 24 rolls)

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 - 3.5 oz package butterscotch cook and serve pudding mix (not instant)

1/4 cup white sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup melted butter

The night before, place frozen dinner rolls in greased Bundt pan. Mix pudding mix and brown sugar and sprinkle over rolls. Mix white sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle on top. Pour melted butter over all. Lightly cover with plastic wrap and leave on kitchen counter overnight to defrost and rise. In morning, preheat oven to 350 F, remove plastic wrap and bake bread for 30 minutes. Invert onto platter and serve warm.

Quick Recipe: Shrimp Pasta

Here's another of the yummmy recipes that Chef Gini prepared for us on Saturday!

Shrimp in Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce with Angel Hair Pasta
From Mentor Mom and Personal Chef Gini Bortz

Servings: 6

8 oz angel hair pasta
12 oz roasted red peppers, jarred, drained
8 oz cream cheese, light, softened
1/2 c chicken broth, fat free
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 t red pepper, ground
2 lbs shrimp, frozen, uncooked (31-40)
1/4 c basil, fresh, chopped

Directions:
In a blender or food procesor, blend red peppers, cream cheese, broth and garlic until smooth, scraping the sides.

Pour mixture into a large skillet and bring to a simmer, about 5 minutes. Add raw shrimp and cook just until done,about 3-5 minutes.

Remove from heat and blend in chopped basil and serve.

Quick Recipe: Spinach and Sausage Pizza

From Mentor Mom Gini Bortz:

Spinach and Sausage Pizza
Healthy and fast - and a great way to sneak green veggies into your kids' diet!

3 oz. baby spinach
1 14 1/2 oz can tomatoes in juice, drained
1 pizza crust, 12 inch
1 lb. Italian sausage, browned
3 oz. Mozzarella cheese, grated

Place tomatoes in a fine-mesh strainer and press out as much liquid as possible. Spread spinach onto pizza crust. Top with tomatoes, sausage and mozzarella.

Preheat oven to 450. Bake 10 minutes until cheese is melted.

Quick Recipe: Pulled Pork Sandwiches

From Wendy: This recipe is so easy, according to Wendy "You almost can't call it a recipe!"

Prep time: 5 minutes
Six to eight servings, depending on how hungry you are!

2 jars Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce (you can find this at Safeway)

4-6 country style spareribs (boneless) OR 4 lbs (or so) pork shoulder

Place ribs, fat side up in crock pot and pour one jar of sauce over.
Cook on low for 8 hours.

Remove meant and discard sauce from pot. Shred and serve on rolls with fresh sauce from the second jar. For traditional style sandwiches, serve with cole slaw (Wendy says that KFC's slaw is the best - pick up a container on the way home).

Quick Recipe: Low-Fat Crock-Pot Chicken

Renee's Crock-Pot Spicy Chicken

Prep time: 10 minutes
About 8 servings

4 large chicken breasts (can be frozen still)
1 can black beans, rinsed
2 cans corn, drained
1 jar of salsa
1 package of shredded cheese

In crock pot layer one can of corn, then beans, then corn, then half jar of salsa, then all chicken, then last half of salsa. Cook 6-8 hours.

Serve on top of brown rice and sprinkle cheese on top.

For extra heat, we like medium salsa!

Quick Recipe: Poppy Seed Chicken

Tara's Poppy Seed Chicken

6 chicken breasts (cubed and boiled)
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
2 tubes Ritz crackers
2 T. poppy seed
2 sticks margarine, melted

Crumble 1 1/2 tubes of ritz crackers and mix with margarine and poppy seeds. Use mixture to cover bottom of a 9x13 inch pan. Combine chicken, cream of chicken soup, and sour cream. Pour mixture over cracker mixture and spread evenly. Crumble remaining 1/2 tube of Ritz over the top of the dish and a little bit of poppy seeds. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Quick Recipe: Tortilla Soup

Blog Mama Monica is taking a break while they move across town. In the meantime, here is the first Quick Recipe in our series.

From Adelle: Super easy, healthy, flavorful (not spicy) and kid-friendly!
Prep time: 30 minutes

1 Rotisserie Chicken (from the grocery store) with bones removed.
Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces, or just shred with your fingers.
1 T. olive oil
1 t. chopped garlic
1/2 yellow onion, diced fine
1 can Bush's Seasoned Black Beans, drained
1 can Fire Roasted Tomatoes with Garlic
1 c. Trader Joe's frozen Roasted Corn*
2 cups chicken stock
1 tsp ground cumin

Saute onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil in the bottom of a 2 quart pan till translucent. Add beans, tomatoes (and juice), chicken stock, corn, cumin and shredded/chopped chicken.

Bring to a simmer. Serve whenever you're ready! This tastes even better the next day. Let your kids choose their own garnishes - we like fresh cilantro, a bit of sour cream or cheese (Cotija or Monterey Jack), sliced fresh avocado and/or tortilla chips.

*This is what makes this soup taste fabulous - plain frozen corn just doesn't bring the same flavor!

Recipe: Baked Three Cheese Egg Casserole

At this month's Saturday MOPS kickoff, Joelle brought an amazing Three Cheese Egg Casserole. Not only was it fantastic, but we are lucky enough to have her share the recipe with us! Enjoy!

Baked Three Cheese Egg Casserole

7 large eggs
1 cup milk
2 tsp sugar
1 pound grated monterey jack cheese
4 oz cream cheese, cubed
16 ounce container small curd cottage cheese
2/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 3-quart casserole dish and set aside.

2. Beat together eggs, milk and sugar. Add cheeses and melted butter and mix well. Stir in flour and baking powder and pour into prepared dish.

3. Bake for 45-50 minutes until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Cut into squares and serve.

Makes 12 servings. May be prepared in advance and refrigerated covered. If placed in oven directly from refrigerator, uncover and bake up to 60 minutes.

Speaker Recap: Gini Bortz on "Quick & Easy Dinners"!

Wowee! Mentor mom and personal chef Gini Bortz prepared tasty treats for us at this month's MOPS meeting, complete with timesaving tips and tons of resources! If you couldn't make it to this month's meeting, or if you haven't had a chance to look through your information packets yet, here are some of the highlights.

Timesaving tips!
* Keep your wastebasket within arm's reach when you're cooking, so you don't have to continually cross your kitchen.
* Freeze meals ahead of time to use during busy weeknights.
* Gini had many positive things to say about pressure-cooking, and how it has transformed her cooking into a shorter, easier process (and who would have thought you could make cheesecake in a pressure cooker?)
* Lining your pan with parchment paper saves on clean-up time!
* Meet up with a friend and have a "cooking play date"--let your kids play together while you prepare a few meals together to freeze.

Involve your child in the cooking process!
* Your child can help grease cake pans with butter.
* Try letting your child dredge chicken nuggets in the cornflake mixture.
* Your child might enjoy washing vegetables or ripping lettuce.
* Make meals interesting! Can your child make a picture out of salad ingredients on a tray? Make a face with veggies on an English muffin pizza? Fun, tasty, and healthy.

Yum, yum!
During her talk, we got to see Gini prepare Lemon Cheesecake, Rotini with Meat Sauce, Wacky Chocolate Cake (it was even a vegan recipe!) and Baked Chicken Nuggets. Four recipes, from start to finish, in about an hour and a half? Wahoo! And then we got to eat them, too--delicious!

Links to Gini's recipes!
Lemon Cheesecake
Pasta with Meat Sauce
Multi-Bean Soup
Vegetarian Pizza, Chicken Fajitas, Gini's Vegetable Beef Soup, Shrimp in Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce with Angel Hair Pasta
Pizza Caterpillar

Links to learn more!
Here are some links and some recipes (thanks, Gini!) to help us busy moms save time while still providing healthy meals for our families.
10 Great Reasons to Cook with Kids
5 Tips for Healthy Cooking with Kids
10 Things to Have in your Freezer

Links to recipe websites!
recipezaar.com
allrecipes.com
foodnetwork.com
childrensrecipes.com

Wendy's Bread Pudding Recipe

At this month's meeting, the Saturday moms were treated to a yummy bread pudding, baked by Wendy. She was kind enough to share the recipe with us! For those who missed it, or those who want a new delicious recipe to try, here it is.

Bread Pudding (joyofbaking.com)

Thanks to Wendy for passing it along!

Ellen's Hashbrown Casserole

Those of you who came to Saturday MOPS know that Ellen brought the most AMAZING potato breakfast casserole - it was gone in 60 seconds it was so good!

For those that missed it (or those that want to try it themselves) here's the recipe.

Hash Brown Casserole

Thanks Ellen, for sharing!

Karen's Quiche

We had a great MOPS meeting on Saturday, a perfect start to a new year with four new moms joining our group! All of us on the MOPS team are excited for Wednesday's kick off THIS week, too! Hope you can make it!

And here's a little teaser of what you can expect! So many have asked for Karen's quiche recipe we decided to offer it on our website! Enjoy!

Easy Spinach Quiche

4 eggs, beaten
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
16 oz low-fat cottage cheese (small curd)
8 oz frozen chopped spinach, rinse to thaw; drain
1 bunch green onions, chopped
Dash black pepper
¼ cup Italian style bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 325 F.
Mix first 6 ingredients.
Place in greased pie pan and top with bread crumbs.
(You can cover and refrigerate overnight before baking.)
Bake for 65-75 minutes on baking sheet.

Thanks for sharing, Karen! See you all on Wednesday at 9:30am!