Easy Chicken and Rice Soup (tastes like Demo's)

If you've ever had Demo's restaurants soup then you know how great it is. This recipe that my mother in law gave me tastes exactly like it and it is so easy. Just throw all the ingredients in a pot on the stove and simmer. I call my mother in law Martha Stewart because she is an amazing cook so if she tells me a recipe is good then I'm automatically impressed. And to find out you could get the same taste with canned chicken was a wonderful surprise. I've made this over and over again. Make this for your family with rolls and salad. It'll look like you cooked all night.


Bring 3 c of water to a boil. Add 1 3/4 c of minute rice, let stand 5 min.
Add to rice :
2 1/2 c of water
30 oz of chicken broth
20 oz cream of chicken soup
4 T lemon juice
1 stick of butter
1 T parsley flakes
1 can of white chicken breast meat
Salt and pepper to taste
Add onion powder and garlic powder ( or sauté an onion with 3 cloves of garlic)

Simmer for 20 min.

Quick breakfast for baseball mornings

Early games need easy breakfasts. One of my family's favorite breakfasts is banana bread.  This is the best banana bread I have ever had. Moist and delicious. A friend of mine gave me this recipe years ago after I begged her. Make this the night before and serve it the morning of baseball with some fruit. I microwave it for a few seconds with some butter smeared on top. And if you are feeling really motivated then scramble some eggs in the microwave too.

Banana Bread

3-4 bananas
1 tspn vanilla
1 tspn baking soda
1 c sugar
1 1/2 c flour
2 eggs
1 stick butter

Chop up bananas and put all ingredients in a large bowl. Soften the butter in the microwave. Use mixer to mix all of the ingredients together. Do not over mix. Pour into greased bread pan. Bake 350 for one hour.

Things you need for hot baseball tournaments

I read on anything that I want to learn to get better about. I especially love to find ideas on how to save time and make life easier. That is why I started this blog. We can learn so much from one another on what makes life easier.  I am loving the great ideas my fellow team moms are sharing with me on what has helped them to get thru sports and make their life easier. One of the ideas that I have seen at the ballpark when you are going to be there all day is the wagon. We parents spend all day at the ballpark with these travel tournaments so we need to be prepared with our chairs, cooler, snacks, Frogg Togg cooling towels, etc. Bringing a wagon to pull all this stuff for you to the ballpark is a great help to parents. I also recommend highly the coolers that have wheels. Pack them with waters and fruit for your kids. Fruit is the best snack for the ballpark. Sliced apples, grapes, strawberries are all good examples of stuff we share with the kids in our dugouts in between the games to give them a lift. The Frogg Togg cooling towels can be found at Walmart or any sports store. Wet it and it cools off your child during dugout time. They are a life saver and I recommend them for the parents too. I wear mine when I help in the dugout or even when I am sitting on the sidelines watching three games in one day. We put a 2oz bottle of spirits of ammonia in a cooler with cold water and our cooling towels. When the kids are in the dugout they put the towels on their necks, take off hats and drink water from a separate water cooler. Asthmatics are not recommended to use this though. Read the bottle for specifics. And don't forget to bring tents to put over the bleachers during the games and the team in between the games.

Easy Bacon, Egg, Cheese biscuits

These are so good and if you just take the time to make these
one Sunday night you aren't busy you will be set on a future quick breakfast.  I make enough that we eat on them for a few days and then I freeze the rest to pull out of the freezer when I don't have the time to make these. In all honesty I can't even find time to post pictures with my blog posts yet!

Bake your biscuits. I like the frozen Pilsbury Grands.

Make your bacon.

Here's the trick....Spray a 12 cupcake muffin tin with spray vegetable oil( I love the silicone type. They have saved me from the eggs sticking to the cupcake tins. Big time saver on clean up because the egg just slides out of tin). Crack an egg in each muffin slot and lightly mix it in the tin a little. Bake 350 for 20 min.

Now put it all together on the biscuit and add some cheese. I prefer shredded cheddar sprinkled in them. Eat right away or let cool and wrap in plastic wrap to put in fridge. The next day you can just take them out of plastic wrap and microwave them for a minute.

If you freeze them, wrap separately in aluminum foil and put them in a freezer bag. l prefer to take them out of freezer the night before a game to thaw and then cook in oven for about 25 minutes.

These made ahead on a day you have time will save you the morning you have to be at the ball park super early!

Easy Enchilada Casserole

Enchilada casserole is one of my husbands favorite meals and it makes a lot so you can eat on it for a few days. It warms up great in the microwave too. I think its even better the second day too.  One of the tricks to having dinner ready on a crazy hurried night is by cooking on a "non" sports night and then having leftovers to eat the next night when you are in a hurry to get to ball. We just ate on the tuna casserole and the lasagna leftovers for the last few days. I will post the lasagna recipe in the future for one of those "non"sports nights when you have the time to make it. Its time consuming but it is the best lasagna I've ever had and like I said you can eat on it for a few days.

This recipe can be made so many different ways with whatever you have on hand. I've made it with ground beef or chicken also. If you use the ground beef though be sure to add 1 tspn salt to the pound of ground beef. And if you use the chicken you can use 2-3 cooked chicken breasts. (I've also used a large can of chicken)

Hubby's favorite Enchilada Casserole

1 can of black beans drained and rinsed
1 can of refried beans
2 1/2 cups of cheddar cheese
1 can of enchilada sauce 14oz (I prefer red)
12 small flour tortillas

Preheat oven to 375. Mix enchilada sauce with the black beans in a bowl. Put a half of a cup of the refried beans on bottom of 13x9 dish. Arrange 3 tortillas in a layer, top with 1/3 of the refried beans, top with the black beans, then the cheese. Repeat twice more. Tear remaining tortillas and sprinkle on top. Sprinkle cheese on top of this. Bake 20min till bubbly. Serve with sour cream on top. Hubby likes hot sauce on his.
6-8 servings

Crockpot Cream Cheese Chicken Chili

If you want to be prepared for dinner, put this in the crockpot before work. It is delicious and easy and I always get compliments for it when I cook it for friends, family, teacher luncheons and church.

Can of rotel
Can of corn
Can of black beans (drained and rinsed)
2 frozen chicken breasts
8 oz cream cheese
1 packet of ranch dressing
1 T cumin
1 tspn onion powder
1 tspn chili powder

Put all ingredients in crockpot and cook 8hrs on low. Shred chicken and enjoy!

For those of you with picky eaters like me, add an extra chicken breast or two to the recipe. When it is done take out the extra chicken breasts first and shred separately to serve to your picky eaters. Then shred the rest of chicken in the crockpot with your ingredients and serve that with some bread and salad.

What to do with your kids game balls that is EASY

I love to write and since I live baseball on an almost daily basis I thought that should be what I write about. This is my basis for starting this new blog. To be my outlet to write and my way to share the recipes my baseball mommas ask for at the same time!  My baseball moms and I are always talking about how busy we are and how we can hardly find time to cook dinner so this blog is going to be about helping other sports mommas. I am not the expert on the subject but I have some ideas that work for me. And I am constantly learning from my baseball mommas.

To start you off on a baseball idea go to my other blog site makingmylifeeasier.blogspot.com and see how I took my sons game balls and turned them into a part of their room rather then an eyesore.  It  is an EASY (this is going to be the whole point of this site mommas) way to take those game balls your kids keep earning and put them to use. There are also some easy recipes on there.

Join me back here tomorrow for the beginning of Sports Momma Goddesses.

THE BEST Potato Soup (tastes like Outbacks)

1 30 oz bag of frozen shredded hashbrowns
3 14 oz cans of chicken broth
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup of chopped onion
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1 pckg crème cheese

In a crockpot, combine everything except for the crème cheese.  Cook for 6-8 hours on low.  One hour before serving , add the crème cheese and heat thru. 

Quick dinner before practice

So I was racing home today to get my kids fed before baseball. I needed a QUICK meal to make the hubs happy. Looking into my pantry I see a can of tuna fish. Ok that's what I am working with.

Easy Tuna Casserole

large can of tuna fish 9 oz ( I prefer albacore)
can of cream of chicken soup
1 c cheddar cheese

Boil 3 cups of macaroni noodles by directions on box. Mix in a 13x9 pan with the soup, tuna and cheese. Crush up Cheese-Its crackers and layer on top of casserole. Bake 25minutes at 350. Serve with can of peas on the side if your kids hate them like mine !

All American Chili-dogs

So this is what I had planned for dinner for tonight before baseball practice got rained out. I give credit to e-meals for the recipe. If you haven't tried them they are great and save you time too because they give you your recipes for the week with your grocery list and you pull it up on your iPhone while you shop. You click the recipes you don't like off the grocery list and it will automatically take the ingredients for that particular recipe off of your grocery list for you. It saves me time and money since I only buy what I go to the store for that is on my grocery list and you can pick a list also that tells you the menus by the sales that week and tells you how much you are spending total. Go to e-meals.com for more information. And no I am not getting paid to say that.  I do recommend buying the groupon for it though if you decide to use it so that you end up only paying $3 a month for it for the year but you have to catch it when the groupon comes out.

 All American Chili-dogs
Serve with coleslaw and baked beans

2 cans of chili
1 can of cheese soup
1/4 cup chopped finely onions
8 count hotdogs
8 count buns
1 cup chopped tortilla chips
1 cup cheddar cheese shredded
condiments

Stir together chili, cheese soup and onion in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook 10min until heated thru.

Add hot dogs and simmer 10minutes.

Heat buns according to package if desired.

Place hot dogs in buns and top with chili, cheese, crushed tortilla chips.

Easy Crockpot Beef Stroganoff

Ok friends, crockpot cooking has saved me many days in the "getting dinner on the table before baseball" department. So I am going to share some of my easy yummy meals. For those of you who have "meat and potato" husbands like me, make a salad and some crescent rolls. I prefer the bags of salad you just add a chopped up red pepper, onion and cheese to when they go on sale. And I don't think you can have kids much pickier then mine and they love this recipe too. I do have to serve the noodles on one side of the plate buttered and the meat on the other side of the plate for the kids but don't judge. LOL.

Crockpot Beef Stroganoff
1 lb beef stew meat, cubed
1 can French onion soup
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream
1 bag egg noodles

Combine beef and soups in crockpot. Cook on low 8 hours. Stir in sour cream right before serving over noodles.

Quick meal ideas for the hurried Mom

All of us sports moms are running around trying to get the kids ready for practice. Do they have their bat bags in the correct car? Do they have their cleats tied? Did they grab a bottle of water? Sports glasses? Check. So dinner is just one more thing to add to the stress. But I am going to give you a quick list of ideas that you can tape on your refrigerator like I have to remind you on those hectic days what to make in a snap.  In the days to come I will give you some fancier meals that even your husbands will be impressed by but this article is about FAST and easy.

1. Grilled cheese with fruit
2. Egg salad sandwich
3. Cheese quesadilla (or with beans)
4. PBJ (hey they got food in their belly right)
5. Can of tomato soup or noodle soup
6. Frozen fish sticks
7. Hot dog with fruit
8. Tuna fish sandwich
9. Lunch meat sandwich (I prefer to grill them like a grill cheese)
10. Fried bologna sandwich
I serve almost anything with applesauce or yogurt if I am in a hurry also and don't have time to cut up fruit.