What’s Cooking in the Kitchen? APRIL KITCHEN Lasagna

Easy Crockpot

Ingredients:

1 pound Ground Beef

1 package Lasagna Noodles

½ Onion

1 Red Pepper

14.5 ounce Diced Tomatoes

28 ounce Crushed Tomatoes

6 cups Beef Broth

12 Ounce Spaghetti Sauce

Ricotta Cheese

Mozzarella Cheese

Parmesan Cheese

Italian Seasoning

Directions:

Start by cooking your ground beef if you need to and drain to remove the grease.

Next, spray your crockpot with a nonstick spray or put it in a crockpot liner bag.

Chop up your onion and dice your pepper. If picky kids chop the vegetables large for easy picking out.

Now, start by spreading your ground beef out in your crockpot.

Next, spread out your chopped onion and peppers on top of the layer of ground beef in your crockpot.

Open your can of tomatoes and use a spatula to drop the entire can contents into the crockpot, you will want the juices from the cans in as well.

Next, pour in your beef broth and the half jar of spaghetti sauce. You can add more broth and sauce to make everything more soupier or thinner.

Add in the amount of seasoning you want, you can do this as heavy or light as you want. Mix everything that is in the crockpot but noodles and cheese together.

Turn the crockpot on low.

Allow to cook for about four hours; you can stir it every so often or allow the crockpot to cook as-is.

About the four-hour mark break, the lasagna noodles in a ziplock bag. I let one of the kids do this with a meat tenderizer. Stir your crockpot and drop in your broken noodles lasagna and turn your crockpot to high.

*If you need to, you can add more broth or spaghetti sauce at this point if you think you had to broth much to evaporate or cook off.*

Allow everything to cook for about 30 to 45 minutes until your noodles are fully cooked. Be sure to stir occasionally to make sure the noodles cook.

Serve into a bowl and top with a dollop of Ricotta Cheese, sprinkle with Mozzarella, and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Allow to sit for a couple of minutes to steam and melt the cheese.

CHICKEN Casserole

Ingredients:

Casserole

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 cup cottage cheese

1/2 cups sour cream

1 cup mozzarella, shredded

1 (10.75 ounce) can cream of chicken soup low sodium

1/2 cup green onions, sliced

1/2 teaspoon dried poultry seasoning

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

6 slices cooked and crumbled bacon

4 cups cooked chicken, cubed or shredded

Topping

30 Ritz crackers usually 1 sleeve

4 tablespoons butter melted

2 tablespoons green onions, sliced

2 slices bacon cooked and crumbled

1 tablespoon parsley, chopped

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Spray a 8X8 inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray; set aside.Add cream cheese (4 ounces) to a large bowl, and whip with an electric mixer. Add remaining casserole ingredients and stir to combine. Spread in a prepared baking dish.

In a small bowl, mix the Ritz crackers (30) with melted butter (4 tablespoons) until evenly coated. Sprinkle evenly over the chicken mixture.

Bake uncovered, about 30-40 minutes, or until heated through. Garnish with 2 tablespoons green onions, 2 slices of crumbled bacon, and 1 tablespoon parsley. Serve.

Mask

If you are a Native to Southern Arizona this is a must try mask. Hot, dry climates can be very unforgiving on the skin. Olive oil naturally keeps skin hydrated and softens the skin. Avocado is also great at helping the skin stay hydrated and is great for sensitive skin to calm inflammation. Mango boosts collagen production on the skin, helps to restore skin elasticity and also helps prevent wrinkle formation. Honey naturally moisturizes and hydrates the skin.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp Honey

2 tbsp Avocado

2 tbsp Olive Oil

1 mashed Mango

Directions: Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl. Apply to the face. Leave the mask on for 15-20 minutes. Rinse with cool water and pat dry.

The Tradition of Easter Bread

Many holiday breads are meant to celebrate the end of a fast, to symbolize an offering, or to invite good luck for the year ahead. In other contexts, breads aren’t symbolic as much as traditional, baked as a reminder of family and togetherness and celebration.

Easter and Good Friday inspire a particularly rich array of festive breads to honor the occasion. Colomba di Pasqua originated somewhere in the Lombardy region of Italy. It’s an enriched bread with a sugar-nut syrup coating served on Easter. The loaves are shaped like a dove to symbolize peace. In Russia, many families eat kulich on Easter. It’s a tall, narrow, enriched bread made with candied citrus peel, almonds, and saffron. The top is traditionally inscribed with symbols meaning “Christ is risen.” Tsoureki is a Greek Easter bread that’s often braided and sprinkled with nuts. It’s served with Easter eggs dyed red to symbolize the blood of Christ. Croatians celebrate Easter with a cake-like sweet bread called pinca or sirnica that is enriched with butter and eggs. The loaf can be shaped into a round and decorated with a cross or braided and formed into a wreath.

In Great Britain, sweet currant-filled buns decorated with a cross—and aptly named hot cross buns—are traditionally prepared for Good Friday. The custom dates back at least to the Middle Ages, and some still insist that baking hot cross buns on Good Friday will protect a home from all sorts of calamities during the upcoming year, including fire and bad luck. During the 1500s, when a law prohibited the sale of hot cross buns except on Good Friday, Christmas, and for burials, people made hot cross buns at home to get by.

Portuguese Sweet Bread has traveled the globe; it has taken hold where larger populations of Portuguese immigrants settled, including Hawaii and New England. Called folar in Portuguese, and it is traditionally made during Easter. There is a savory variation called folar de Chaves, which is stuffed with ham, linguiça, and salpicão.

These loaves are just a sample of some of the rich bread traditions associated with Easter. When it comes to the holidays, bread has played an important role in holiday meals across many different cultures and traditions. Modernist Bread includes a number of recipes for different traditional holiday breads, including Colomba di Pasqua as well as Portuguese Sweet Bread.

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