Chicken Hawaiian Haystacks

I must be on a rice kick or something. All I want to make are recipes including rice. Why is that? Well this Hawaiian Haystacks recipe is good for all the right reasons, one of which is that you can make it how you want it. Each person's plate looks a little bit different because you get to decide what goes on top! As you can see, I like mine with a cherry on the top! :)

Hawaiian Haystacks are a great meal when you have a crowd coming over....just make more rice, and more toppings! 

Toppings for Hawaiian Haystacks can include any kinds of cut up fruits and veggies! 

The last few days have felt like semi-summer weather with temps in the 60s. It was fun to go out and play kickball with my 2nd graders in the SUNSHINE! I was SO over the freezing cold and windy temps of last week. I had recess duty a week ago during the day AND after school and it was snowing and super WINDY. My umbrella that I was holding kept doing the backward blow up thing and then would almost send me down the street like Mary Poppins. It was embarrassing!  Just call me Mary.  So I long for the white beaches and sun and unfettered relaxation of a Hawaiian Island.

I love the crunch these chow mein noodles add...

Add Cream of Chicken soup, sour cream, milk and spice it up with Lawrys or Salt and Pepper....that's it! 

I like slivered almonds to top my Hawaiian Haystacks....

The kids love coconut....

Have to have a cherry on top!  Or a handful! 

But since I can't wrangle that for now, I can at least eat yummy food with the taste of Hawaii in it.  This recipe is easy, quick and really yummy.  And it's a great choice if you have to feed an army or a crowd at a party.

I diced up some cooked carrots..... chow mein noodles and slivered almonds....

And lots of fresh fruit and veggies.....

The hubs likes my Hawaiian haystacks........that sounds a little weird saying it out loud though......hehe...

So here are the easy ingredients for the basic chicken mixture that goes over rice.  Then the toppings are whatever you decide you want to add. I use one of those veggie and dip platters when I'm doing it for a crowd. You can find them at the dollar store for.....well.....A DOLLAR!  I use them when I'm doing cookie decorating in my classroom too. They are very versatile for putting out little piles of stuff.



HAWAIIAN HAYSTACKS RECIPE

Here is the Chicken base all mixed up....then I just microwave it to warm it ...

RECIPE INGREDIENTS
Hawaiian Haystacks
2 cans cream of chicken soup  (or use large family sized can)
3  chicken breasts diced
1 t. salt  (or Lawry's Season Salt)
1/8 t. pepper  
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 to 1 cup of milk 
3  cups Steamed Rice

My finished plate of Hawaiian Haystacks....a work of art really!  

DIRECTIONS
Boil the chicken and dice up.  Mix soup, salt and pepper, milk and sour cream and milk. 

I boiled 3 chicken breasts with a handful of carrots.....

Cook rice until tender. I have a rice cooker so I added around 2 1/2 cups.  Put soup mixture on top of rice and top with any or all of the following:

Toppings: Canned pineapple tidbits, mandarin oranges, grated cheese, slivered almonds, chopped red pepper, celery, olives, diced tomatoes, chow mein noodles.

Veggie and fruit toppings for the Hawaiian Haystacks can be as varied as what you can find to cut up from your fridge and then add a few canned fruits and maybe some dried fruits and nuts too....

Well, now he's just acting like Vanna White...he's such a tease! 

 It's really filling, and everybody can pick their own preferences for toppings. That makes it even more of a fun meal. You can see my husband is having fun doing his own toppings...LOL.  Actually I made him pose...he's just a good sport. :O

He doesn't like the fruit as much....he's more of a veggie man....

He does like the almonds and the white grated mozzarella cheese....

Hawaiian Haystacks...My plate is still prettier than the hubs....just sayin........

This recipe for Hawaiian Haystacks is a KEEPER!   Enjoy!  

Luscious Lemon Meringue Pie

I LOVE lemon meringue pie. I bought a few lemons last week on a whim and now I had to do something with them ....

Soooooo......I decided to make a LEMON MERINGUE PIE! yUmMLy!!! 

Doesn't it look good? Well it all started with a few lemons.....

So I squeezed them and zested them!  SLURP! 

Mixed them up with egg yolks and sugar SWEET! and cooked them!

And poured them in a pie shell I baked up....

Ingredients

1 finished pie crust (I use real butter in mine)

• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1/3 cup water
• 4 egg YOLKS ONLY (Separate the whites and set aside)
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 3 tablespoons butter

Then I whipped up the 4 egg whites....

Meringue 

4 egg WHITES ONLY (be sure no yolk gets in)

• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup white sugar

Combine 1 1/2 cups sugar, salt, and water on high heat and bring to a boil. In a separate bowl mix cornstarch and 1/3 cup water and whisk adding it into boiling sugar mixture. Stir until thick and clear and take off stove. In a small bowl, whisk together egg yolks and lemon juice and little at a time whisk egg yolk mixture into hot sugar mixture. Return pan to heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in lemon zest and butter last. 
Let it set till you are ready with meringue. Pudding should still be semi warm.




Meringue

Boy it sure made a lot of meringue! 

Then I topped the pie with the fluffy stuff and baked it! 

Mix the 4 egg whites and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a clear glass bow and whip it up till it looks kind of foamyl. Be sure nothing extra gets into the egg whites or they won't peak. Gradually add the 1/2 cup sugar as you whip till it forms stiff peaks. Add a little 1/2 cup of meringue to your lemon pudding. Then pour it into a pie shell that has been cooked. Add the rest of the meringue to the top of the pie up to crust edges. Bake in preheated 350 oven for 10 or so  minutes until peaks look golden brown.  Set it set for 1 hour before serving.   

And it turned out pretty! 

And it was delicious too.  Yummly!   SO...... That's what I did today! 

St. Patrick's Day Decor and Peanut Butter Cup Cake

Well, it's the Irish holiday of St. Patrick's Day almost upon us.....I decorated a bit.

I love the cute little leprechaun my class made a few years ago out of laminating empty rolls....they were cute! And look at that awesome tablecloth I actually sewed myself! Yeah, I rock just a little bit on that machine. lol.

Some of my favorite March St. Patrick's Day story books I read to the kiddos. 

 I love the holiday full of rainbows. I taught the kids all about ROY G. BIV. That is the clown who reminds us of the rainbow color order.  Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. I just mix up indigo and violet and call it purple instead. Then they do a pot of gold with a 1 inch x 12 inch strip of each of the 6 colors and glue them on the back of a pot. We add fake coins glittered to the top.

We made Leprechauns, March Book Reports and some Leprechaun similes and pots of gold. 

I loved this arrangement on my dining room table. I have a green, painted basket full of leprechaun napkins on the table. 

My classroom St. Patrick's Day Bulletin Board we just finished today at school. I love how it turned out with all these pots of gold and Leprechauns! Check out my classroom blog HERE at Patties Classroom.

My front entry room table decorated up with St. Patrick's Holiday stuff. 

I love this picture of 2 of my granddaughters from Chuck E. Cheese of all places! 

PEANUT BUTTER CAKE AND ICING - I made a chocolate cake and put some peanut butter, powdered sugar, butter and milk together and topped it all with Reeses Peanut Butter Cups on top. How decadent is that? Yum. It was really great.  HERE is a link to Food.com's recipe for the peanut butter icing. It is to die for, really, truly. 

I love this story The Luckiest Leprechaun! 

Coffee Table with Happy St. Patrick's Day decor at my house. 

I love this holiday. It is fun to get out all the green stuff for March. I'm glad Easter is late this year so we get a whole month to enjoy the Irish stuff. Kiss me I'm Irish!

Sweet Potato Casserole (with pecan crunch topping)

I went to a class the other night on making your own mixes and seasoning packets for ranch dressings, tacos, and spaghetti sauce. The gal gave a few good tips that I want to pass on. 

For her chicken she goes to Costco and buys 4 rotisserie chickens every 3 weeks or so. Then she just pulls the chicken pieces off and puts them in baggies and freezes them for recipes. So easy! 

I also love her idea for listing the menus on her inside pantry chalkboard contact paper. On the other side she lists missing ingredients she needs to buy. Smart idea!   Check out her blog HERE.

The other great idea was she puts her dinner fixings into a bin and she keeps 3 bins lined up in her pantry at all times. That way if she is missing an ingredient for something coming up for dinner in a few days she can get it restocked in her pantry before it comes up. Then when it is dinner time she just grabs one of the bins and starts dinner having all her ingredients on hand. What a cool idea! 

This is a similar idea from Life With Both Hands Full's blog. She puts mixes in her bins. But I do love the dinner ingredients in a bin idea too! How simple that would make it, no standing in front of the fridge just staring with that dazed and confused look! 

Anyway, here is a yummy recipe for a dinner side dish, that we don't make often enough. She had made some sweet potato chips that had a New Orleans hot rub sprinkled on them. They were so yummy. I'll have to try them this week! 

Sweet Potato Casserole

Ingredients:

4 cups sweet potato, mashed
1/4 c white sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 t salt
4 T butter, melted
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 t vanilla extract

topping:
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 c brown sugar
1/3 c flour
4 T butter, softened
1 c chopped pecans

Place canned, or baked and mashed  sweet potatoes in a large bowl and add sugar, eggs, salt, butter, milk and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Pour into 9 x 13 glass pan.

Sweet Potato Casserole - great for Sunday dinner with almost anything! Yummy! 

 In another bowl mix topping ingredients and sprinkle the mixture over the sweet potatoes. Bake for 30 minutes at 325 or until topping is light brown. 

This always makes a delicious side dish that goes great with chicken, beef, turkey or pork! Yummy! Next I'm trying Sweet Potato Chips! 

Breakfast Burritos with Sausage and Peppers

A fun breakfast for Presidents Day  is Sausage Breakfast Burritos. 

It is easy to shred and chop lots of fillings and lay them out in colorful bowls for your guests to just  make their own burrito the way they like it!

chopped tomatoes

shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 of a Jimmy Dean sausage 1 pound chub.....we had leftovers so I froze it in a freezer bag. 

Scrambled eggs with red peppers......

All the fixins for Sausage and Egg Breakfast Burritos 

I use fried up and crumbled Jimmy Dean sausage and scrambled eggs with red peppers, some cheddar cheese, tomatoes, and top with salsa or sour cream.

honeydew melon 

Breakfast Burritos are a fun holiday treat!
Now I just have to decide if I'll accomplish anything today! Yum. 

Warm up the tortillas in the microwave and cut up some fruits for side dishes.  Then pour some orange juice and dig in!

Winter Soup Recipes

I was at the Sprouts Market near Fashion Place Mall yesterday with the hubs. We were getting lots of Farmer's Market produce because it is so fresh and delicious there. They had this most delicious looking soup bar! It made me want to go home and make soup. So I did! (after I got lots of yummy organic veggies and fruits!)

But before I did I had to sample some of their BUTTERNUT SQUASH soup. It was delicious. The veggie gourd is low in fat and high in fiber and potassium too. Yum to that, right? It had a hint of nutmeg in it.

Butternut Squash makes a delicious soup! I'll have to mess around with that one! 

Another soup I love to make is broccoli cheese or cream of broccoli.  It is easy and sosooooo yummy. The recipe is  HERE. 


I got a few yellow crook-neck squash, some zuchini and a really giant sweet onion and a giant yellow pepper!. And their avocados were GIANT! They know how to grow stuff! For sure!  I'll be making a great salad with those things. But what I really love are their fruits. They had blackberries for $2.50 a basket that were so big and sweet looking I bought 2 baskets! And the Cuties were so cute!

The recipe for this homemade chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles is HERE. It's another favorite soup of mine, perfect for the cold, rainy weather we've had lately, and especially today!

White Bean Chicken Stew

And here is my Clam Chowder Soup.  It's one of my hub's favorites.

Here is my recipe for clam chowder. You can delete the clams and add some parmesan cheese and it's a pretty good Potato Cheese soup too. 

But it got me thinking about how much healthy stuff goes into soup and how we could probably lose more weight if we just replaced a few pasta dishes with veggie soups and stews.  I'm going to make more veggie soups! Especially on a rainy day like we've had. Now if I can just stay away from the crusty bread and butter!

Spaghetti Alfredo

I was at the market the other day and I saw half pints of cream on sale for 25 cents. I thought to myself.....hmmm.....self.....why don't we make some alfredo pasta? Yum.

Spaghetti Alfredo Noodles is a great weeknight dinner.....super easy and super delicious! 

Spaghetti Alfredo  by the Weekday Chef

So I bought a bunch of different boxes of noodles and pastas, thinking that I would decide later what type I wanted to cook. But when I got home, I didn't realize one of my boxes of spaghetti had a lid that was coming apart. I picked it up and it fell all over the counter next to the stove.

So we made spaghetti alfredo for dinner.  It was yummdiddlyumptious!

Here is the recipe for Spaghetti Alfredo
1/2 cube sweet cream butter salted
1/2 pint of cream
1/2 to 3/4 cup of Parmesan cheese shredded
1/2 teaspoon Johnny's Garlic Seasoning Salt
A few shakes of dried parsley
A shake of Johnny's Seasoning Salt to your taste

I just drained the pasta and then mixed this stuff in quickly while the noodles were hot. Just toss it for a minute and season it and then eat it! So simple yet so divine!

These are orange rolls made with a roll dough recipe. I got the recipe from my neighbor Barbara B. and boy are they good! 

I put a side salad with grape tomatoes and green peppers with it and freshly made ranch dressing and some crusty french bread with real butter. Yes it is not a low calorie meal, but hey, you can't have your rice crispie treats and eat them too!

Rice crispie treats with butterscotch morsels sprinkled on top while warm. 

I have loved rice crispie treats since I was a little kid. The butterscotch morsels make them quite divine! The recipes are HERE. 

The homemade alfredo sauce  goes great with chicken if you have some leftover rotisserie or a grilled breast. But it is good by itself too on any kind of pasta. I've done it with shrimp too. Yum. It's so easy. I don't know why we don't make it more often!