Meatless Monday - Baked Broccoli Mac and Cheese

So, I'm trying out meatless Mondays, something that Cameron isn't too happy about. He's definitely a meat and potatoes kind of guy! I decided last night I was going to start doing meatless Mondays every week, so this was kind of a last minute recipe with stuff I had on hand. It has been a little chilly here in Texas the past week so some comfort food was exactly what we needed! It may not be that good for your waist line, but it sure is good!! I made a small dish just for two people, but the recipe can easily be doubled. The original mac and cheese recipe came from Kraft and can be found here. I tweaked it a bit and added the broccoli since we had some left over, and I am all about using up leftovers!!

Recipe:
4 Tbsp butter
1/8 cup of flour
1/2 cup milk
4 oz (1/4 pound) processed cheese, like Velveeta cut into 1/2 inch squares
1 cup cooked elbow macaroni
3 crackers (I used club crackers)
1 cup broccoli (I used roasted broccoli from this recipe, although plain uncooked broccoli could be used)

Preheat oven to 375. Melt 3 Tbsp butter in a saucepan and whisk in flour. Add milk gradually and stir until thickened. Add cheese and stir until melted. Add noodles and broccoli, stir to coat. Spray small baking dish nonstick cooking spray. Spoon in macaroni. Mix crushed crackers with 1 Tbsp melted butter and sprinkle on top. Bake for 20 minutes.

Christmas Dinner

Our Christmas dinner is two days late, but that's ok! We had a busy week...Spent a night in Houston with my aunt, uncle, cousin, gramma and grampa and got home really late Christmas Eve. Then Christmas morning I got woken up at 6:30 am by Cameron to open presents. We then headed to Leander at 10 am to go to our friends house for the day and dinner. We didn't get home that night until 3:30 am. Needless to say, Christmas dinner was just gonna have to wait! It was just the two of us so the meal was small and not too elaborate- I didn't want too many leftovers! So,on the menu we had: Pork Chops with Cranberry-Mustard Sauce, Roasted Broccoli, and Stuffing Balls. Oh, and can't forget Jello No-Bake Cheesecake for dessert (It's Cams fave and I wasn't up for making something fancy).

Pork Chops with Cranberry Mustard Sauce



I got this recipe from my good friend Paula Dean. Ok, so we aren't friends but I just adore her and love her recipes! The original recipe can be found here, but I changed it just a little bit.

Recipe:
pork chops
1/4 cup cranberry sauce (I used this recipe from previous post)
5 Tbsp mustard (regular or dijon)
nonstick cooking spray
salt
pepper

Mix together cranberry sauce and mustard in a shallow baking dish. Coat pork chops with mixture, cover and refrigerate 1-12 hours turning every so often. When ready to cook, heat skillet over medium high heat and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Put pork chops in pan and slightly cover and cook for 10 minutes. Uncover, turn pork chops and cook another 5-10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Stuffing Balls



I saw a recipe for stuffing balls and thought they might be tasty and look a little fancier than just a baking dish of stuffing. These are great if you like the crunchy part of the stuffing, but I realized after that I am not that person. I like really moist almost mushy stuffing, so next time I will just make regular stuffing. I kind of cheated on these and used boxed stuffing, but it could easily be done with homemade stuffing mix.

Recipe:
1 6oz box of stuffing mix (stove top or store named brand)
3/4 cup cranberry sauce (once again I used this recipe)
1 egg
1 cup water

Mix ingredients together in a bowl. Make balls with your hands, or use a round scoop so you can forgo the messy hands! Bake at 375 for 35-45 minutes. This only made 10 balls. You could always add 1 lb ground pork, or sausage to add more which would make more balls. Next time I will add sausage and omit the cranberry. I never had stuffing with cranberries but thought it sounded good. I'm sure some people love it with cranberries, but I could go without.

Roasted Broccoli


This was by far my FAVORITE part of dinner! I would have to say broccoli is my favorite vegetable. I wanted a vegetable but didn't want just plain corn, or green beans, so I opted for broccoli since I had some in the fridge. Most people just add some olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic. I thought I would mix it up a bit and get lots of flavor and seasoning from one ingredient - Italian dressing! I will be making this often from now on!

Recipe:
1 head of broccoli
1/3 cup Italian dressing
parmesan cheese
garlic powder

Put broccoli heads into a bowl and drizzle Italian dressing over. Mix well so all the broccoli is covered. Put on a baking sheet and sprinkle with garlic powder and parmesan cheese. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until broccoli is tender.

This would probably be WAY better with fresh pressed garlic, I just didn't have any.

Enjoy!