“Spring is nature’s way of saying – Let’s Party!” ~ Robin Williams

Ahhh……The beautiful sunshine and warmth!! I can feel it coming – SPRING!

I can also feel the pollen coming too……

But that’s ok! I love spring.

Had a great day that started with church and a quick lunch at Zoe’s – I’m very excited about their new app that lets you scan in your receipts and sends you goodies as you build up points.  I highly recommend downloading it if you live around a Zoe’s.  I practically have one in my front yard – so it works great for me.

Even though it seems to be warming up, I’m still craving warm comfort food you usually have during the colder months.  My BFF made this last weekend and told me it was a must try.

Chicken Pot Pie Casserole (adapted from The Shady Porch)

  • 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, boiled and shredded
  • 2 cups chicken stock (from boiling the breasts above)
  • small bag of frozen vegetables
  • ½ stick butter
  • 2 cups Bisquick
  • 2 cups 2% milk
  • 1 can cream of chicken soup
  • 3 chicken bouillon cubes
  • 1/2 t. dried sage
  • 1 t. black pepper & salt

Preheat oven to 350º

Melt butter in 9 x 13 casserole dish.

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Layer shredded chicken and season with salt/pepper and sage. Top with veggies.

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(I forgot to take a picture of the veggies)

In a small bowl, mix together milk and bisquick and evenly pour over chicken and veggies.

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In another bowl whisk together chicken stock, cubes, and soup.

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Pour this mixture over milk mixture.  DO NOT MIX any of the layers.

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Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes or until set and browned on top.

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This one pan dish is a super simple way to make chicken pot pie and it was super delicious too!

-abp

“Appetizers are the little things you keep eating until you lose your appetite.” ~ Joe Moore

What a busy wonderful weekend!

We had dinner with friends at a nice restaurant on Friday, ate barbeque ribs, pork tenderloin and many yummy appetizers on Saturday for the Bama game (I think my pulse may finally be back to normal after watching that nerve racking game) and on Sunday for the first time in a long time I had the whole peanut gallery over for dinner – Taco Pasta – more on that later in the week.

The appetizer that I quickly made up on Saturday for the game was Cream Cheese Sausage Balls adapted from Plain Chicken.

I like these sausage balls because they do not dry out like other sausage balls and this is of course because of the cream cheese. I also got a great tip from the the Plain Chicken blog and that was to mix the sausage ball ingredients up with the dough hook on your mixture.  This was huge for me – I sometimes avoided doing these pretty easy to throw together appetizers because I hated mixing the dough up by hand and with my current wrist condition – there was no way I would be able to, so with this helpful tip – I can pull this together in NO time!

Cream Cheese Sausage Balls

  • 1 lb hot (or mild -your heat preference) sausage, uncooked
  • 8 oz cream cheese, softened
  • 1 1/4 cups Bisquick (or all purpose baking mix)
  • 4 oz cheddar cheese, shredded

Heat oven to 400º

Place all ingredients into stand mixer with dough hook attachment.

Mix until well combined.

Roll into 1-2 inch balls, place on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes or until brown.

Now that I know I can quickly mix this up with the dough attachment and since I usually have all these ingredients on hand (I buy the sausage when it’s buy one get one free at Publix and freeze it), I’ll be making these a lot for a quick last minute party or breakfast.

I hope everyone had a weekend that was as enjoyable as mine!

abp