Green Chili Enchilada Casserole

I got this amazing recipe from my step mother last summer.  This is a great and simple Mexican dish that is lower in fat.  My kids really love this recipe so it's definitely kid friendly!

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground beef
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 4.5 green chilis
corn or flour tortillas
cheese
minced garlic

Again, I forgot to take a picture of the packaged meat. I remember to start taking pictures after I start cooking.  This is pretty versatile.  You can swap out the cream soups to either mushroom or chicken.  The tortillas can be flour or corn. Cheese, I've done mexican and cheddar.  Both are great.

                              You want to brown your meat in a skillet and then add in the garlic

Then just mix in your soups and chilies with the meat and let it simmer.  You can also add any other spices you might like at this point.  I just put in some salt and garlic powder.

While the meat is simmering just rip up about 5 tortillas and place them in the bottom of the pan.  I sprayed some pam in the bottom just to keep it from sticking.  

Basically you just layer this is tortillas, meat, and then cheese.  You'll repeat this twice. 

 You'll then put this in the oven on 350 for about 30 mins or until the cheese is melted.  Then you enjoy!

Crockpot Pasta with Sausage

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted.  Hopefully I will begin to post at least once or twice a week!  Anyway, this pasta sauce is amazing.  I've made it once and I will NEVER go back to a jarred sauce.  We've been through every jar known to man.  Everything is just way to sweet or just yucky.  This sauce tastes extremely fresh and has minimal ingredients! Guess what else??? It's healthy! WOOHOO!  Ok, so on to the good stuff.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb lean chicken Italian sausage, casings removed
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 5 cloves garlic, smashed
• 28 oz crushed tomatoes
• fresh cracked pepper
• 1 small can tomato sauce

I added another can of tomato sauce because Hubby thought it wasn't "saucy" enough.  This will be an experiment!  I also used regular Italian sausage.  Why? Well because I'm in the middle of nowhere and they don't sell the good stuff here.  

Yeah I know I forgot to show my sausages.  I got a little to happy to get them in to the pan.  You'll want to remove the yucky casings on the sausages.  Just take a knife and slice down the side of the sausage.  They will come off easily that way!  

Smash you up some fresh garlic.  YUM!

Brown your sausage minus the casing in a pan.  As it's browning you'll want to break it up into smaller pieces. 

After you brown your sausage set it aside and wipe out your pan.  Let the pan get hot and add your oil.  Toss in the garlic and let it get a little brown.  Just don't burn it!

You'll want to toss all this into your crockpot.  Nothing fancy just dump it in.  Then add your pepper!  Then you just cover this and let it cook for 6-8 hours on low.  I know, I know, that's the hardest part.