Life and Goals

Throughout my life I like to give myself some goals and challenge myself to go above and beyond. Like for instance I gave myself a goal this summer of reading one book. Yes I know one book was a low goal, but honestly I wasn't sure I could do it. Not when you have a 2 year old in your face wanting your every last bit of attention. I learned that reading fit into my schedule nicely. I usually read after Lukas goes to bed or lunch time at work. Well I am happy to say I have read 6 books this summer! I exceeded my goal and rekindled my love for reading. Plus it helps destress!

Well I am going to give myself another goal. I want to make some homemade bread. I made homemade focaccia bread in June. It turned out great and we used it as bread sticks for the father's day meal I made. Well this time I want to make some homemade breads that you have to be patient with and let rise and all that. I have picked out 3 recipes I want to make before the end of the year.

1st: Homemade Cinnamon Bread from Pioneer Woman's blog.

2nd: Make my Mom's homemade cinnamon rolls from scratch! I don't think she has made these in a long time. I hope she still has the recipe!

3rd: Make a loaf of wheat bread and use it for sandwiches.

If you have a recipe for me to try...please feel free to send it. I would love to try it and love trying new things! jesslynntabor at yahoo dot com

Wish me luck! ♥

Pizza Casserole

We had one of my favorite casseroles the other night for dinner. I have been making this one for a few years and my husband really enjoys it. Lukas just started gobbling it up and I thought I would share it here!

I found this in the Wal-Mart cookbook I bought probably over 5 years ago. Their website isn't too bad either.

Ingredients:
2 lbs. ground Italian sausage (I used 1 lb turkey, 1 lb Italian sausage)
1 box (160z) elbow macaroni
1 green pepper (chopped)
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 can spaghetti sauce
2 cups mozzarella cheese (shredded)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Brown sausage and drain, while cooking sausage boil noodles then rinse and drain. Set sausage aside and combine noodles, soup, and chopped green pepper.
In a 9x13 casserole dish layer half noodle mixture, half spaghetti sauce, half sausage, and half cheese. Repeat layers. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Then uncover and bake another 15 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes before serving! Enjoy!

Some sides for Summer

We had a little grill out with just my husband, son, and I last week. I found some yummy recipes to try from Dinners for a Year and Beyond blog. I found a coleslaw that didn't require any salad dressing. It was a pretty simple coleslaw and it was rather tasty! Sweet and Tangy Slaw


We also had these Parmesan Potatoes from the same blog. They were really good. Next time I will probably change these a little adding some more flavor, but Lukas loved them! Gobbled them right up!

Chinese Night

We had a Chinese night at our house last week. We had my Mom and brother over for dinner. They both love Chinese and it was fun making this stuff too!


I made baked egg rolls to go with the chicken dish I had decided on. Fried egg rolls are so much better, but baked egg rolls are so much better for you! Here is the recipe I followed and I left the meat out. They turned out really good, but next time I will add the meat. Hmmm....maybe next time I will add shrimp. That would be yummy!


For the Chinese dish I followed this recipe from Kid Appeal blog. This recipe is awesome! I made it a few months ago and used Chinese lo mein noodles, but this time I used regular whole wheat linguine noodles and I like the Chinese noodles way better!

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

Last week before we left for camping I decided to whip up some delicious and wholesome muffins to munch for breakfast while camping. I followed this recipe Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins from In Good Taste blog and they turned out pretty good too. I did do some extra substations. Here is the recipe I followed.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
2 large eggs
1 cup skim milk
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup of blueberries and 1/2 cup of raspberries

Mix dry ingredients in separate bowl, and then cream eggs, milk, sugar, and applesauce then add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Fold in berries and grease or line muffin tins with muffin cups and bake at 400 degrees for 15-17 minutes or until you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean. Super easy and good!

Note: I also melted a little butter and put some butter on top of the muffins and sprinkled sugar for some extra flavor!

Camp Fire Tacos

This past weekend we were camping at one of our favorite campgrounds here in Minnesota. It has tubing, volleyball, canoeing, kayaking, horse shoes, and whatever else you can imagine up. We also brought bocce ball, and bean bags...we had lots of fun! So as you can imagine we worked up quite the appetite!

When my friend and I were trying to plan suppers for the camping trip I decided to look up camp fire recipes on http://allrecipes.com to see what I could find. We decided on camp fire tacos and oh my were they delicious!

I didn't take any pictures, but my friend had the pie irons. We sprayed the irons with pam, placed the tortillas inside, along with already made up taco meat and cheese. You can bake them over the fire for as little or as short of time you would like. They turn out great either way! We topped ours with sour cream, lettuce, and more cheese. We did have a tomato, but it got stepped on when it was on the ground. Next time I will probably add onions, peppers, and maybe some black olives!

Turkey Tator Tot Hotdish

I made this turkey tator tot hotdish for my husband and Lukas when I was going to be gone for supper. Lukas absolutely loves tator tot hotdish and my husband doesn't mind it either. This recipe cuts some of the calories from beef by using turkey and mixes some good veggies together! Plus ground turkey is cheaper than ground beef!

I used:
2 lbs ground turkey
1 can cream of mushroom soup (I usually use 2 cans, but was short one can.)
1 can of green beans
1 shredded carrot
1 can of mushrooms
1/2 bag of tator tots

Cook your turkey (I also add 2 beef bouillon cubes.) While cooking season with favorite seasonings. (Minced onion and garlic powder for us.)
Then mix all ingredient together and top with tator tots.
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. YUMMMM! Half way through baking I topped with cheddar cheese. Extra Yummm!