Baked Polish Sausage and Potatoes

I love a good dish my husband can easily put together without a lot of instructions. When I say my husband can easily put together, I mean just that. After having an emergency appendectomy in January, I quickly realized I needed more recipes that my husband and son could easily put together when needed. Baked Polish Sausage and Potatoes is just that kind of recipe I wish I would have had ready for them in January.

Baked Polish Sausage and Potatoes

When my sister and I spent the summer with my oldest brother and his wife when we were teenagers, my sister in law fried polish sausage and potatoes one night. I loved it! I loved the recipe enough to bring into my kitchen when I got married and the best part about it is it’s FRUGAL.

When I taught school, a former student brought baked sausage and potatoes for lunch one day. After a little quizzing, I realized their mom basically used the same ingredients for

garlic roasted potatoes

and added the sausage. I knew I had to try baking the potatoes and sausage together and that is what I did.

Several weeks ago, I was digging through a pile of cookbooks and scrap paper where I had written recipe notes down. On one little 3x5 card, I found Baked Sausage and Potatoes. There was nothing else written down, but I quickly remembered baking the dish and how good it was. I knew I had everything on hand except for garlic. So I wrote out some ingredients for my husband to fix one night for supper when I had to work. All I’m going to say is YUMM!!!!!

He had the bright idea of sprinkling paprika for color and adding cheese at the end. Did I tell you how yummy it was? YUMMM!!!

Baked Polish Sausage and Potatoes

Ingredients:

•  1 package of polish sausage cut in rounds or diced

•  1 medium onion, peeled and chopped

• 4-6 potatoes, peeled and chopped into bite size cubes

• ¼ cup oil – just enough the coat the potatoes and sausage

• 1 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning

• salt and pepper to taste

• 1 cup of shredded Cheddar Cheese

• Paprika for color *optional

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a baking dish with aluminum foil.

In a large bowl combine the sausage, onion, and potatoes. In a small bowl mix together oil and seasoning and mix well. Pour oil mixture over the sausage and potatoes. Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes then stir the mixture and continue baking another 20-30 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Top with cheese and bake about 10 minutes or until cheese is bubbly.

Mushroom Gravy Smothered Mini Patties

This is my favorite go to main dish with sides of veggies meal. It is on my meal planner one time every two weeks, that is how much we like it; my sweet son gets excited when he realizes it's the day on the planner calendar. If you are looking for a stick it to your ribs kind of dish, this is it. Mushroom Gravy Smothered Mini Patties are out of this world!

This recipe started out with me using venison butterfly steaks, and then I moved on with ground meat during the summer months one year. From that moment on, we've been enjoying this dish. The recipe doesn't call for anything out of the ordinary; you probably have everything already in the kitchen for this easy dish. In fact, it is a recipe you can customize for your family’s tastes.

I have tried making the gravy with plain water, milk, chicken broth and beef broth. They are all very good, but since I mostly use ground venison, I try to stick with beef broth so there will be a more beefy taste.

Our favorite way of eating these little patties is right on top of a cloud of mashed potatoes – oh so heavenly!

Mushroom Gravy Smothered Mini Patties

Ingredients:

•  1 pound ground meat
•  1 (14.5oz) can beef broth
•  ½ package of mushrooms sliced
•  ¼ cup of flour
•  1 small onion chopped
•  garlic powder to taste
•  onion powder to taste
•  salt and pepper to taste
•  up to 1 cup of water (optional)

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, mix together meat and seasonings. Heat skillet over medium high heat, if you are using a low- fat meat, you'll need to add a little oil. Form meat into mini patties and fry until done.

Remove the patties from the skillet and drain most of the fat (you only need enough to keep the mushrooms from burning). Turn the heat down to medium low and sauté the mushrooms, add flour to the mushrooms, stirring constantly, add broth and continue stirring to keep lumps from forming.

Depending on how much or how thick you want the gravy, you may need to add a little water. Once your gravy is made, turn the heat down to low, continue stirring until there is no chance for burning. Add the meat patties back to the gravy and simmer for about 5 minutes.

Enjoy!

Mexican Casserole

My husband knows my love for Mexican foods.  In fact, this month there have been more Mexican dishes served than normal since this has been a month of experiments with meatless recipes. Mexican Casserole is one of our favorites and my husband who never asks for something particular except for fried chicken, asked to have this a second time in a week. It's that good!

Anything that is of the Mexican cuisine is served with chips at our house. It's a tradition, Jamie started when he was little and that boy was on to something that we still do.


Anything this cheesy has to be good right?

I knew you would agree with me on the cheesiness. You know what? It is a perfect frugal meal that could be turned into something even better if you chose to put ground meat or shredded chicken in it.

No major bowl messes, everything can be mixed up in one bowl. If you decide to not make the rice ahead of time and heat the corn, beans, rotel and salsa up a little it won't take too long in the oven. How easy is that for a quick weeknight meal? It's yummy, filling, frugal and super easy. Unless you are feeding a football team or an army, there will be plenty for lunches the next day.

Cheesy Mexican Casserole

Ingredients:

• 1 can whole kernel corn, drained
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 (8 ounce) carton sour cream
• 1 cup salsa
• 1 can  rotel
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cups cooked rice
• 16 oz shredded colby-monterey jack cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Prepare rice ahead of time, so it will not be sticky.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a large bowl combine corn, beans, sour cream, salsa, rotel, onion, rice, salt and pepper and half the cheese. Mix well. Spoon into a lightly greased baking dish. Bake for about 25 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly.

How easy is that for a quick weeknight meal? It's yummy, feeling, frugal and super easy. Unless you are feeding a football team or an army, there will be plenty for lunches the next day.

Teriyaki Stir Fry

I'm sharing with you another new family favorite recipe... TERIYAKI STIR FRY. My friend Rhonda led me to the IDEA of this recipe. While knowing the tastes of my family, I knew just soy sauce, salt and garlic powder in the recipe were not going to win them over,so  I had to do something else. We love Chinese saucy foods, and before we moved here we had a favorite Chinese buffet that served a teriyaki noodle dish, so I decided to make a teriyaki sauce to go the noodles and vegetables. What a dish, it is dee-lish!

Since I make a SOY SAUCE SUBSTITUTE, for all of my Chinese food recipes, this one was no different. I found THIS teriyaki sauce recipe and changed it a good bit since I was using my sauce. This is one of those recipes you can use any vegetable or you can even buy a bag of stir fry veggies. This particular day, I used a bag of vegetables and a mixture of spaghetti noodles. I had a quarter of a box of whole grain noodles and just mixed it in with regular noodles.

Teriyaki Sauce

1 cup Soy Sauce Substitute
¼ tsp garlic powder
4 TBSP packed brown sugar
1-2 TBSP honey
2 TBSP cornstarch

Make the soy sauce substitute in advance and let it sit so the flavors will do their thing. Over medium heat, add all the ingredients and whisk until there are no lumps from the cornstarch. Cook until thickened.** You may want to taste your sauce while adding the sugar and honey, to keep it from being too sweet.**

Noodle Stir Fry

3 TBSP  oil
1 onion sliced
½ bell pepper diced
1 clove minced fresh garlic
Vegetables - whatever you fancy!
1 pound spaghetti noodles

In a skillet, heat oil and cook vegetables and garlic together – cooking on medium heat until vegetables tender. Boil the spaghetti noodles in water and drain. Stir cooked vegetables and noodle together. Add teriyaki sauce and stir to coat.

This is another winner for my frugal, meatless meal ideas. YAHOO!