Sunday's Cooking Tip~Left Over Chicken Nuggets

I think my three year old daughter is finally coming out of her chicken nugget phase.  She still eats them whenever we go to McDonald's, but her refusal to eat the frozen kind (Tyson, Banquet, etc..) has started.  And while I am a little relieved that this phase is passing, I will not purchase anymore after we finish off this last bag.  Due to this, I have been left to figure out what to do with all these left over frozen nuggets.  I did a little research on Google and found a few ideas about what to do with them.  I figured I'd share some of them on here :)

~Boil some pasta (any kind), cut cooked nuggets into strips, mix them in with some spaghetti sauce and use as a topping for the pasta (we did this tonight and it was pretty good)

~Cook them and cut into strips and use on top of a salad

~Make a sandwich out of them by placing cooked nuggets inbetween two pieces of bread, a slice of cheese, pickles, mustard, and ketchup (I do this also from time to time)

~Cook them, dip them in honey, and eat

~Make a wrap out of tortillas and place cooked nuggets, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, mustard and mayo spread

~Place the cooked nuggets in macaroni and cheese and serve

~Make a chicken parmesan sub by placing them inbetween sub bread and top with marinara sauce and cheese

......any one of these sound really good..but my personal favorite...eat them with just ketchup, bbq sauce, or honey mustard :) 

If anyone has any other ideas, I'd love to hear them :)

Christmas Eve Soup

I'm not sure how many of you have heard of GooseberryPatch.com?  I love their store, signed up for their e-mail newsletters, have them on my homemaking blogroll, and became a fan of theirs on Facebook :)  Guess you can say I'm a huge fan of theirs...lol.  In their e-mail newsletters, they include at least 2 free recipes every month.  This recipe came from their December newsletter. The day I received it, my husband had just finished telling me that he wanted some canned soup from the grocery store.  Canned soup??!!  Yuck!  Don't get me wrong, I know there are some really great soups out there on the market, but once I started learning how to make homemade soup, I stopped putting canned soups down on my grocery list...lol.  There is just something about homemade soup that gives you comfort when you eat it.

For this soup, we had all the ingredients so I went to work on making it right away.

This is a great way to use up all the left over ham from Thanksgiving.  We froze ours, along with 3 huge bags of turkey....lol...and I also had some left over vegetables from Thanksgiving as well that needed to be used up soon.  The recipe calls for 8 oz. of shredded cheddar cheese, but I decided to use the left over cheese we had from this recipe, Hash Brown Quiche.  Needless to say, this is the perfect soup to make if you have any left overs just sitting in the fridge.

My kids also loved this because of the cheese.  What a great way to get them to eat their veggies...lol.

Rating System:

The Hubs:  Thumbs Up

Libby:  Thumbs Up

Our kids: Double Thumbs Up....with my three year old going back for seconds :)

Christmas Eve Soup (adapted from Gooseberry Patch)

2 c. potatoes, peeled and diced

1/2 c. carrot, peeled and diced

1/2 c. celery, chopped

1/4 c. onion, chopped

2 c. water

1-1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. pepper

1 c. cooked ham, cubed

1/4 c. margarine

1/4 c. all-purpose flour

2 c. milk

8-oz. pkg. shredded Cheddar cheese

Combine vegetables, water, salt and pepper in a large soup pot. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat; cover and simmer until vegetables are tender. Stir in ham; set aside. In a separate saucepan, melt margarine; stir in flour until smooth. Gradually add milk; bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes, until thickened. Stir in cheese until melted; add to vegetable mixture and heat through. Serves 8.

I will also be submitting this recipe to the group Souper Sundays...click here for more info:
Souper Sundays