Kevin's hobo dinner

1-2 lbs potatoes, diced small

Olive oil for drizzling

Salt

Onion powder

Garlic powder

Rosemary

Can of green beans

Thinly sliced onions

Thinly sliced bell pepper

Precooked summer sausage, sliced

Ground breakfast sausage, browned

Crushed red pepper flakes

3 T butter

In medium bowl, drizzle olive oil onto diced potatoes, enough to coat. Sprinkle on spices generously and stir to coat thoroughly. 

Place seasoned potatoes on tin foil sheet or in casserole dish. Top with green beans, onions, peppers, and both kinds of sausage. Dot with butter cut into small cubes. Dash with crushed pepper flakes. Fold up foil packet or cover casserole dish with tin foil. 

If cooking in fire, Kevin said it only took 15 minutes (the fire was hot). If cooking in the oven, cook for ~45 minutes at 425, until potatoes and onions are soft. Remove foil and bake for another 5 minutes or so to crisp things up. (The green beans are the most sensitive so watch them to keep from burning or drying out too much.)

Better Copycat Costco Chicken Bake

All of the copycat recipes I found online just called for salad dressing of some sort. I find that when I make white ranch pizza sauce using straight salad dressing it's too strong for my taste. Luckily, a Costco employee posted a comment with a more accurate recipe. Oh my was it spot on! I kind of had to guess ingredient amounts, though, so bear with me. (And can you tell I have no clue how to write and publish a recipe???)

Ingredients for final bake 

Each bake ends up being almost 12 inches long

1 recipe of pizza dough (see here for my favorite recipe)

3 chicken breasts, cubed and cooked

1 cup mozzerella cheese

1 cup cheddar cheese 

1/2 cup diced green onions

1/2 cup bacon crumbles

2 cups medium-thick ranch white sauce (see below)

Roll out pizza dough until 1/4" thick and cut into 4 squares or rectangles. (The pizza dough recipe I use makes an 11" x 17" pizza dough so if you bought crust dough at the store it might be a different size, resulting in a different quantity of chicken bakes you can make.) In a medium mixing bowl, mix all ingredients together (except pizza dough, duh...) and spoon a quarter of the mixture onto each piece of dough. Roll up, leaving ends open somewhat as the rolls will lengthen as they cook. Sprinkle with shredded cheese. Bake at 425 F until lightly browned and you can hear the sauce inside sizzle. (If the end is still open it will start to bubble out a tiny bit.)

Ingredients for medium-thick ranch white sauce:

(I took the medium white sauce recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook and modified it.)

2 T butter

2-3 T all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

dash pepper

1.5 cup milk

3 T ranch dressing powder (1 to 1.5 packets- I just buy it in bulk in bottles that are slightly larger than spice jars)

1. In a small saucepan melt butter over medium heat. Stir flour, salt, and pepper into melted butter until evenly combined with no lumps, making a roux.

2. Stir in milk all at once. Stir constantly to evenly distribute butter-flour mixture.

3. Stir the sauce over medium heat until the mixture bubbles across the entire surface and thickens.

4. Add 3 T ranch dressing powder and continue to cook and stir sauce 1 minute longer to completely cook flour.

Betty Crocker's Creamy Chicken Enchiladas

My aunt gave me the Betty Crocker "New Cookbook" (the edition printed in 1996) and this was one of the first recipes I started making in college. It became so much of a staple I even memorized the page number (#408). Recently while we were moving I didn't have access to my book so I called my sister and asked her to take a picture of the page number and text it to me so I could make them. It worked perfectly!

Ingredients

1/4 cup chopped pecans (optional- I leave them out)

1/4 cup chopped onions

2 T butter

1 (4 oz) can diced green chili peppers

1 (3 oz) package cream cheese, softened

1 T milk

1/4 tsp ground cumin

2 cups chopped cooked chicken

12 (7 in.) flour tortillas

1 (10.75 oz) can condensed cream of chicken or mushroom soup

1 (8 oz) carton of sour cream

1 cup milk

1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

2 T chopped pecans (optional- I leave them out)

1 can large olives, chopped (I added this ingredient, they're not in the original)

Directions

1. In a skillet cook the 1/4 cup pecans (if using) and the onion in butter over medium heat till onion is tender and pecans are lightly toasted. Remove skillet from heat. Stir in 1 T of the canned green chili peppers. (When I don't feel like sauteed onions - like when I'm pregnant - I skip this step, and just add the 1 T of chili peppers when combining everything in step 2 and just add onion powder.)

2. (I like to pour a little of the cream sauce from step 3 to coat the bottom before placing in the tortillas.) In a medium mixing bowl combine softened cream cheese, the 1 T milk, cumin, and half the chopped olives; add nut mixture and chicken. Stir till combined. Spoon about 3 T of the chicken mixture onto each tortilla near edge; roll up. Place filled tortillas, seam sides down, in a 3-quart rectangular baking dish.

3. In a medium mixing bowl combine soup, sour cream, the 1 cup milk, remaining chopped olives, and remaining canned chili peppers. Pour the soup mixture evenly over the tortillas in the baking dish. Cover with foil and bake in a 350 degree F oven for about 35 minutes or till heated through. Remove foil. Sprinkle enchiladas with Monterey jack cheese and the 2 T pecans. Return to oven and bake about 5 minutes more or till cheese melts.