Autumn Lasagna and Chicken Lasagna Roll-ups

Back in October, my sister-in-law hosted a Harvest Party with a potluck dinner. I made Rachael Ray's pumpkin lasagna...and it was a hit! This decadent lasagna is layered with sausage, veggies, lasagna noodles and a pumpkin-bechamel sauce.

Click HERE to see my version of the recipe. Click HERE to see the original recipe. (The main thing I changed was to add some extra veggies, and I used regular noodles instead of the no boil kind.)

It looks and tastes much better than this picture from the Rachael Ray website, but here you go for some visual affect.

I also recently made these delicious Chicken Lasagna Roll-ups.

A filling of chicken, ricotta, feta, and Parmesan is rolled up in lasagna noodles and then covered with marina sauce. Click HERE to see the recipe.

I was skeptical about the feta because it's not a flavor I associate with Italian style food, but I love feta so I decided to try it. It really adds a great zip to the filling. I only made half the filling, intending to make half the recipe, but it seemed like a lot of filling to try to stuff into 4 noodles, so I still ended up with 8 roll-ups. I froze the extras, so we'll see if this is a freezable recipe.

It's a fairly quick and easy dish to make, and it's quite tasty. I don't eat a lot of pasta, but this is certainly  a recipe I'd make again.

Simple Sausage and Bean Soup

Simple Sausage and Bean Soup. Simple indeed. Dump some stuff in a pot and you have an amazing soup that is full of flavor and texture. Click HERE for the recipe.

The recipe is open to interpretation - use some kind of sausage and some kind of beans. The original poster used black beans and garbanzos; I used black beans and great northern beans. For sausage, I used a Hungarian sausage that is homemade by the butcher at the local supermarket. It's a basic stuffed sausage, like Italian sausage, and is seasoned with a lot of paprika and garlic and just a hint of anise.

When choosing your ingredients, remember that the sausage you choose is going to influence the taste of your soup as all the spices will infuse the broth.

I made mine in the crockpot, making it super simple. I browned the sausage as directed in the recipe, and then in the same skillet I sauteed the onions and garlic. I deglazed the pan with a bit of the broth, sliced the sausage, and tossed all the ingredients in the crockpot. I cooked it on high for about two hours, and on low for another four hours.

Definitely would make this again! I'd like to try it with Al Fresco Chicken Sausage that comes in a huge variety of great flavors.

Chicken Pot Pie Crumble (and a few other dishes)

Chicken Pot Pie Crumble. This is seriously yumtastic! Definitely adding this to the list of favorite comfort foods. This recipe has your basic pot pie filling, but instead of pie crust, you make a Parmesany pie-like crumble that's sprinkled on top.

Click HERE for the recipe.

I did make some changes to the original recipe. (You can see my version by clicking HERE.) The only veggies in the original were celery, carrots, and peas. I eliminated the celery, reduced the amount of carrots and peas, and added yellow squash, green beans, and red pepper. More colour, more flavor, more nutrition. Also, the original recipe has two steps: saute the onions, celery, and carrots and set aside, then make the cream sauce. I sauteed the onions (and some garlic) in olive oil, then, without removing those ingredients, I proceeded to made the cream sauce. Finally, I cut the crumble ingredients in half.

Parmesan-Sage Baked Porkchops. Basic breaded pork gets a kick with lemon zest and sage. Quite simple, and just bursting with flavor. Definitely would make again.

Click HERE for the recipe.

Baked Spiced Chickpeas. I've made roasted garbanzos (chickpeas) before using only Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt as the seasoning, and really liked them. Kinna reminded me of CornNuts. I thought this recipe using a cumin-based spice mix sounded interesting so I tried them. Verdict: Meh. The cumin flavor is almost too strong, and the spice mixture caused them to brown too quickly so the chickpeas weren't as crunchy as I would have liked.

Click HERE for the recipe.

Corn dog muffins. So simple - a box of corn bread mix, some hot dogs, a little cheese. The idea is good, but the recipe needs some tweaking. The first batch I made, I put too much batter in the muffin tins so they formed a crown when baked, and they didn't want to come out of the muffin tin, so when I tried to remove them, the tops separated from the bottoms. (Less batter and muffin liners would probably prevent this problem.) The other thing was that I didn't like the dough to dog ratio. Although you'd lose the corn dog look, I think it would taste better if you diced the dogs into small pieces so they were incorporated throughout the dough.

Click HERE for the recipe.