Macaroni and cheese is pure comfort food. There is just something about pasta in a creamy, cheesy sauce that feels like a warm blanket or brings back memories of your favorite comfy clothes. I tend to get a little bored with regular macaroni and cheese so I like to change it up from time to time. Cajun macaroni and cheese takes all the goodness of the classic dish and adds some spice.
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Easy Chicken and Rice Casserole
Remember my goal to eat at home six out of the seven days of the week? Well, we are rocking it! One reason we are doing so well is thanks to some super easy meals that I can prepare and freeze or use shortcut ingredients to throw together fast. This easy chicken and rice casserole, using Tyson Grilled and Ready chicken breasts, is one of those dishes that I know I can always get to the table even when I am short on time.
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Spicy Sausage and Tortellini Soup
Yesterday brought us temperatures colder than we’ve had in our area in 20 years! The schools were closed and no one wanted to go outside. Of course, what do you do on a cold day? Well, if you are me, you make soup! Soup for me is the ultimate cold weather food because it warms you from the inside out. My husband claims soup isn’t a meal so I also need to make sure whatever soup I make is really filling. That is how this spicy sausage and tortellini soup came about.
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No Boil Barbecue Chicken Alfredo Lasagna
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My family loves pasta. Like, seriously loves pasta! I love the convenience of many pasta dishes too…especially lasagna because it can be assembled ahead of time and cooked later. Plus, lasagna is one of those dishes that gets a little better the day after too. The problem: I am not really a traditional lasagna lover so I tend to skip it when making my weekly menu plan. The other day, I was looking at how crazy busy our week is going to be and decided lasagna would be the perfect thing to fill one of our empty days. I stopped on the way home from getting my haircut and grabbed the ingredients I needed to make No Boil Barbecue Chicken Alfredo Lasagna.
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Orecchiette Pasta with Sausage and Parmesan
I love pasta. Who doesn’t right? It can be used in anything from a side dish or become a star in a main course. I tend to skip the more traditional pasta in red sauce dishes though and look for ones that get most of their flavor from simple ingredients. When I made orecchiette pasta with sausage and Parmesan, the freshness of the ingredients were where the dish got almost all of the flavor. Yummy!
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Carrot Cauliflower Shepherd’s Pie
I love Shepherd’s pie. Like seriously love it. My family tolerates it but would rather I not make it quite so much once the weather turns cold. I try to oblige but I really wanted to give a few substitutions to my normal favorite recipe a try. So, I begged the family to forgive me as I whipped up carrot cauliflower shepherd’s pie.
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Orange Chicken Stir Fry Recipe
Remember my clean-ish eating goal? Well, it is totally still happening and I am doing {surprisingly} well with it despite all of the yummy things like chocolate eclair cake and s’mores in a jar coming from my kitchen. I think it helps that so many things can be “cleaned” up but still taste delicious. Take this orange chicken stir fry recipe for example…generally orange chicken evokes images of fried pieces of chicken covered in a thick, goopy orange sauce. This one, on the other hand, is full of fresh vegetables and packed with flavor.
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Thai Red Curry Stuffed Peppers
A lot of people think, when I tell them that I am trying to eat cleanly, that all I get it is meat and veggies. To a degree, that is pretty true because the focus of clean eating is whole foods like meat and vegetables. But, that doesn’t mean all I get to enjoy on those items is salt and pepper. As I was playing around with different food ideas, I made Thai red curry stuffed peppers. These stuffed peppers on the face are really meat and vegetables with a few clean ingredients added in that add so much flavor.
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Herbed Steaks and Roasted Potatoes #STAROliveOil
I love cooking and trying out new ingredients. Flavored olive oils and olive oils crafted for specific types of food are one of my newest favorites to try out. At a recent shopping trip to Walmart, I discovered that #STAROliveOil makes three different varieties of olive oil that are specially formulated for different foods by using different types of olives to create unique flavors that pair well with everything from vegetables to beef.. I used two of the flavors to make my delicious herbed steaks and roasted potatoes.
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Sage Butternut Squash Pasta
Getting extra nutrition from pasta makes a dish like Sage Butternut Squash Pasta even yummier, especially when you have pasta night once a week!
Pasta night is probably my favorite night of the week. I am a total pasta nut and I love trying out new recipes. I also like to make sure the food I am eating provides health benefits too so I love the Barilla Better for You pastas. 
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