Lazy Pierogies

Did you catch the Real Farmwives of America & Friends over the weekend? We had a freezer cooking extravaganza! (Search #FarmGirlsFreeze on Twitter or Instagram to see what we were up to.) Ten of the ladies got together and cooked 11 batches of each meal to share. Holy moly – that was a lot of cooking! We worked hard, we had a blast, and we each came home with a freezer full of meals for this harvest season!

We all cooked from Gooseberry Patch’s cookbook, “Our Favorite Freezer-Friendly Recipes”. And we found some great stuff in that cookbook! I made the lazy pierogies, and from what I hear, they were pretty tasty!

One-Pot Beef Ravioli

Are you tired of easy, fast, one-pot dinners yet? Of course not, how could you be! We’re big fans of pasta around here, especially ravioli, tortellini, and lasagna. (I prefer ravioli and tortellini because they take a lot less effort than lasagna and taste similar, depending on how you prepare it.)

Here’s a recipe for some yummy ravioli, all done in one (large) pot.

Garden Pasta Salad

My friend Rebecca makes an amazing cucumber pasta salad every summer. I can’t get enough! This year I asked for her recipe, and decided I would tweak it – just a little bit. Here’s the result of the tweaking, and I’m pretty excited about it!

Best Baked Macaroni and Cheese

June is National Turkey Lover’s Month, and it’s also National Dairy Month! I’m talking about turkeys on my other blog, so thought I’d hit the dairy angle here. Introducing… best baked macaroni & cheese! This recipe is from Gooseberry Patch’s new cookbook, “Garfield… Recipes with Cattitude!” (Check out this post for other tasty recipes from this cookbook!)

Tortellini with Ham and Peas

I’ve got another recipe for you from the not-quite-released-yet new cookbook from Gooseberry Patch!




“Garfield… Recipes with Cattitude!” is available for pre-order, and will ship in June. Until then, I’ve got a copy to review! (And I’ll be giving away a copy starting this weekend, so be sure to come back to enter to win!) I’m having a blast with this cookbook, and I can’t wait to share more recipes with you!

Bow Tie Lasagna

Okay. I promised one more crockpot recipe before I moved on from “Slow Cooking All Year ‘Round.” And I cooked another one. But I can’t find the pictures. Anywhere. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if I even took the pictures. Sorry to say that you are missing out on Crockpot Chicken Parm! (You’ll just have to buy the cookbook to get the recipe for that one.)

So I am switching gears to another brandy-new Gooseberry Patch cookbook! This one is “Garfield – Recipes with Cattitude!” And guess what! It’s so new that it’s not even available yet! I’ll be giving you a few sneak peaks, and I’ll be giving away a copy of this cookbook next week, so be sure to check back!

In keeping with the Italian theme of my missing chicken parm photos, I’m starting off my Garfield experience with a “cheaters” lasagna – using bow tie pasta instead of lasagna noodles!

Ravioli with tomato sauce

One of Farmer Doc’s favorite dishes is lasagna. I usually make it for him on his birthday, but it can be a big pain in the butt! This year we compromised with ravioli and a homemade tomato sauce. And Garlic Bubble Bread. (Seriously? This bread is the way to his heart!)

Dad’s Best Mac & Cheese, recipe #8

I have already told you about one of my favorite comfort foods – homemade macaroni and cheese. While I am perfectly happy with my family recipe, I am also always on the lookout for some variations. And boy did I find a good one in Autumn with Family & Friends!!


Mix together one egg, 1 tablespoon hot water, 1 teaspoon ground dry mustard, and 1 teaspoon salt. Add the egg mixture, and 1 cup of milk to cooked elbow macaroni. (Or spirals. I like spirals. I just didn’t have any.) Add most of a 12-ounce package of shredded sharp cheddar cheese.
I had only bought an 8-ounce bag of cheddar. So I added some mozzarella to make up the difference. Mix that all up. (We’re not aiming for cheese melting, just everything mixed together.)
Spread one tablespoon of softened butter in the bottom of your pan…
And then pour in the macaroni. Top with extra cheese.
And bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes, until the top looks like this.Oh, yum!! This was mac & cheese heaven!

I do like a crunchy topping, so maybe next time I would add some crushed cereal with butter to the cheese on the top… But this was still so good!

We had this with Gooseberry Patch’s Crunchy Chicken “Toes” and garden broccoli.
I will say, all that butter in the bottom of the pan made for some seriously yummy mac & cheese, but it left my stoneware pan feeling pretty greasy. I ended up using a little bit of dish soap to clean the stoneware (which you’re not really supposed to do). There was no other way of getting around the butter. But it was so worth it!

Special thanks to Gooseberry Patch for providing me with this great cookbook to try and to share with you.If you would like to see other great recipes, check out www.realfarmwivesofamerica.com.

Printable recipe card:

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Pumpkin-Sausage Penne, recipe #6

Is it Saturday already? How the heck did that happen?!?

With no further ado, here is the post I had planned to have up last Tuesday!

Recipe number 6 from Autumn with Family & Friends from Gooseberry Patch!
This is another one I cooked for girls night. We do love our carbs!!

First, I browned up a pound of pork sausage. This was supposed to be maple-flavored sausage, but I didn’t have any. So I cooked the sausage in real maple syrup. It worked – the sausage had a great maple flavor when it was done!
Once that was done, I put it in a bowl and set it aside. I used the same pan to make the sauce…
8 ounce package of cream cheese, cut into cubes; 2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese; 1/2 cup butter, cut; and 1/2 cup milk.
(The girls said, “anything is great with cream cheese and butter!”)

Once the cream cheese was melted, and the sauce was creamy, I added the spices…
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper and some nutmeg.
Stir that all up, and then add 1 cup of canned pumpkin. Be a little patient here – it takes some stirring and some time, but I promise, this will turn a beautiful gold color, and have a fantastic creamy texture!Then add the sausage back to the sauce and stir it all up, and add a 16 ounce package of cooked penne pasta.Toss to coat.
And that’s it! No need for oven baking for this dish!

I used whole-wheat pasta for this, and the brown color of the pasta really did not complement the beautiful gold of the sauce. I think next time, I will stick to good old regular white pasta.

It is entirely likely that I made a double batch of Garlic Bubble Bread to serve to four people with this dish. And I didn’t have many leftovers!

Special thanks to Gooseberry Patch for providing me with this great cookbook to try and to share with you. If you would like to see other great recipes, check out www.realfarmwivesofamerica.com.

Printable recipe card:

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Perfect Cheesy Pasta Bake, recipe #2

Welcome back for recipe #2 from In the Kitchen with the Real Farmwives of America & Friends and Gooseberry Patch!This is the first time I have cooked with chicken in a long time… We have freezer beef and freezer pork, so I don’t buy (or cook) much chicken. This time, I did! (And it was kind of a nice change.)First, measure out 4 cups of uncooked pasta, and cook according to package directions. I used whole grain pasta, but no one says you have to. (The 13.5 ounce package I bought was the perfect 4 cup measurement.) Boil the pasta, drain, and put into a large bowl.
I had planned to use pasta sauce that we had canned last summer, but I only had pint jars left. This recipe calls for 3-1/2 cups, and a pint is only two cups, so I pulled this pinch-hitter out of my pantry at the last minute. Again, I just used the whole container. It was pretty close to 3-1/2 cups.
Then, grate up 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese. The pre-grated stuff is fine, too. I like to use any excuse to get out my fancy cheese grater!
Add the sauce (canned, jarred, or otherwise) and the parmesan to the cooked pasta.
Mix it all up…
And put half the pasta in an 8x8 baking pan. Then put 1 cup of cooked, diced chicken on top of the pasta layer. (This is one chicken breast, boiled, and diced. It’s kind of a boring way to cook chicken, but the chicken is not the star in this dish – this is all about the pasta and the cheese!)
Layer the rest of the pasta on top of the chicken.

Grate up 1/2 cup Velveeta cheese (I prefer the 2% milk variety)…
And get yourself 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella (this was pre-shredded).
Spread the cheeses over the top of the pasta dish.
I didn’t think that looked like quite enough cheese. So I added extra mozzarella. Hubby Doc thinks I should have added even more.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes, until hot and bubbly. (In my stoneware, it took 35 minutes. Another 5 and the cheese should have gotten that pretty brown color.)
I served this to my girlfriends with Garlic Bubble Bread (recipe coming this weekend!) for our girls’ night in. The girls loved it. (Although the bread took center stage!)Don’t worry, we ate our vegetables too. We had a veggie platter to pick from all night long. Just none of them made it on the plate… Whoops.

While we did enjoy the pasta, I would recommend a few slight changes. We all thought there could have been a little more sauce – maybe a can of diced tomatoes for a bit more texture? And you can never go wrong with more cheese… I will definitely make this again, but I might tweak it, just a little…

Special thanks to Gooseberry Patch for providing me with this great cookbook to try and to share with you. If you would like to see other great recipes, check out www.realfarmwivesofamerica.com.

Update:  Here's the printable recipe card!

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