Lasagna Rollups Recipe Reboot - total time 1 hour

Just like the Dark Knight movies, sometimes classics need a reboot to make them cool again.  Lasagna is a classic dinner in my family for sure.  We have even had lasagna for Thanksgiving meals... you know... with ground turkey for Turkey Day.  And it never fails, when my husband is at an Italian restaurant, he orders the lasagna.  You might call him a lasagna aficionado. 

I've tried making lasagna a lot of different ways (with butternut squash, spinach & artichoke, pesto chicken, broccoli chicken, and the classic rollup that we're improving upon today)... this recipe is the best.  You don't have to make it all rolled up either if you prefer regular pan style.  I like the rollups because they make the perfect serving size and you don't have to worry about cutting it up and layers sliding around... plus they look cute!  And if you wanted to make extra, the rollups freeze well... perfect for individual servings to heat up in the microwave or freeze a tray of them for a weeknight dinner or busy friend.

So what makes this recipe so cool now after it has been rebooted?  I think it is the sun-dried tomatoes.  A little bit goes a long way for flavor with these babies!  Also, adding some of the sauce to the rollup filling just makes sense when you look at regular pan-style lasagna.  

This recipe will be in heavy rotation at our house, especially while it is cold out... it's the perfect Italian comfort food.  Hope you enjoy it too!

Roasted Chicken to Use All Week - total time 1.75 hours

Many nights we aren't eating dinner until 8:00 or 9:00 at night.  Not really ideal, since you really don't want to sleep with a full stomach.  You should have at least three hours active digestion so your body can focus on resetting itself while you sleep.  That means we wouldn't be getting to bed until after midnight on weeknights... which is actually closer to average than we would like it.

I'm not a morning person (which that midnight bedtime probably doesn't help), so I go into work later than most and then leave later as well.  Most of my recipes take about an hour from start to finish. That combination is the reason we are eating so late.  So in an effort to get dinner on the table quicker, it means planning ahead even more than weekly meal plans... it means doing some of the prep on Sunday.

I've seen those pins on Pinterest about buying rotisserie chickens from the grocery store and using them throughout the week.  It's a great idea, but who knows how long that chicken has been sitting there and what they used to roast it.  

I'm fortunate that the Kroger down the street from me carries local, antibiotic free chicken.  For $8-10 I can get a full chicken, roast it myself, and have about eight servings of chicken to use throughout the week.  There is very little prep involved in roasting a chicken, you just need to be home to take it out of the oven, really.  And then you can make chicken stock afterward to use as a base for a soup in your meal plan.  Now that is using the while bird!

There are probably hundred of ways to use this chicken, but we made tacos and sandwiches.  I a small mixing bowl, we mixed the chicken with some chipotle salsa and chipotle chili powder and heated it up for our tacos.  Then we made some pulled chicken sandwiches by heating of up the chicken and mixing in some barbecue sauce (which allowed mine to be sweet BBQ and his to be spicy BBQ).  And then some buffalo chicken wraps.  Each meal took less than ten minutes to get to the table!

Broccoli Chicken Alfredo Lasagna Rollups - total time 1 hour

I have developed a Nat Geo addiction over the past week or so.  Last weekend I watched too many hours of The 80s: The Decade That Made Us which I thought was fascinating.  Two things kept crossing my mind while I stared at the screen... 'how did I not know any of this was going on while I was growing up?' and 'wow, I can't believe we lived without ___ 20 years ago'.  Things I take for granted now, like computers that fit on a desk, internet, cell phones, etc.  Now I do remember the progression of all this technology... the green and black computer screens, getting on the internet for the first time in fourth grade, using my dad's cell phone for the first time in eighth grade... but it is hard to think of life without these things now.

And now Nat Geo has me hooked on Brain Games and I am sure I'll get hooked on The Numbers Game.  Can't multi-task and watch these shows... they take you're full attention. At least one network has something interesting to watch.  I used to default to Cooking Channel or Food Network (are you surprised?), but now those channels are full of reality cooking/baking crap.  I tried to sit through an episode of Cupcake Wars (while doing other things, mind you) and had to change the channel... 

Any way... here is a recipe that you can prepare on a night you have time to cook and save it for a night you don't want to or don't have time to cook but still want a home-cooked meal!

Make Ahead Mexican Stuffed Shells - total prep time 20 minutes

Ugh, it has been a rough week with some late nights at work.  It is easy to come home and not want to cook.  Since we're trying to limit processed foods in our diet, not wanting to cook doesn't leave a lot of options.  So after seeing a pin on Pinterest about freezer meals, I thought about having a 'backup' meal ready to go from fridge to oven to table.  In fact, I could even call my husband ahead of time and have him put it in the oven and it could be ready by the time I got home (and then we aren't eating after 9pm).

So I thought about what I could make that could sit in the fridge a few days before being completely baked and I think this works for most noodle dishes (just remove any raw eggs from the recipes and make sure to completely cook the meat).  I decided to go with the disposable/recyclable tin pans because I didn't want anything to break going from a cold fridge to a hot oven (and my husband doesn't have a good track record when it comes to cooking).  

My first go at a make ahead (or fridge-to-oven) meal was a success!  I wasn't even home when the mexican stuffed shells were made or even eaten.  I say a home cooked meal is definitely better than the Taco Bell run or frozen pizza that would have happened if it was not available.  :)

It took about 20 minutes to boil the noodles, brown the ground turkey, cook in the additional ingredients, and stuff the shells.  I ran cold water over the noodles to stop the cooking process and let the filling cool down a little.  After stuffing the shells and topping with cheese, I covered the tin pan with aluminum foil and wrote the baking instructions on top.  So simple!  I'm definitely planning to prepare one of these every week for that night that inevitably comes where I just don't want to cook.

What do you do when you don't want to cook?