Cheesy Hashbrowns & Pork Chops

What you need (Cheesy Hashbrown Casserole):

- 1 lb (one package) hash browns, defrosted 

- 1/2 c. melted butter

- 1 tsp. salt

- 1/4 tsp. pepper 

- 1 can cream of chicken soup 

- 1 c. milk 

- 1 c. sour cream 

- 2 c. shredded cheddar cheese (I just use an entire package of it.)

What you do (Cheesy Hashbrown Casserole):

- Preheat oven to 350*.

- Mix ingredients together in a large bowl.

- Place into a 9"x13" glass baking dish and bake for 45 minutes.

What you need (Ranch Italian Oven Fried Pork Chops):

- Ranch dressing

- 2 c. Italian bread crumbs

- 1 packet of Italian dressing mix

- 2 tbs parmesan cheese

- 1 tbs garlic powder

- Pork chops (however many you want to make is up to you.)

What you do (Ranch Italian Oven Fried Pork Chops):

- Preheat oven to 350*.

- Mix bread crumbs, Italian dressing mix, parmesan cheese & garlic powder in a large bowl. Pour some ranch dressing onto a plate.

- Coat pork chops in ranch dressing and coat with the dry mix (in the bowl.)

- Place on tin foil-lined, cooking spray coated baking pan. Bake for 45 minutes.

Please ignore the insane-looking cream corn in the picture of the finished dinner. Apparently it's all we had and split an entire can between the two of us. I figured I'd switch it up and make pork chops instead of chicken like I usually do. These pork chops weren't that bad and were real easy to make. We had a lot of crumbs/coating left over but only used 3 pork chops so you may have to alter the crumb mix for your family.

The cheesy hashbrowns are something I make every now and again and are my absolute favorite. They make great leftovers (and I hate eating leftovers) and taste great cold as well. My boyfriend had never had it until I started making them and it's one of his favorites. Heck, everyone I know who has had them is in love with them.

Crockpot Chicken & Dumplings

I'm a big fan of comfort foods and I'm an even bigger fan of all things "chicken & dumpling." I don't know why, I always have been. We've been experiencing record-high temperatures the last few days so I know most people want to stay away from comfort foods but this just recipe tastes so good, I had to make it anyway.

What you need:
- 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (thawed)
- 2 tbs butter
- 2 (10 oz) cans of condensed cream of chicken soup
- 1 (14 oz) can of chicken broth
- 1 medium onion, diced (or 1 tbs onion powder, which I used instead)
- 4 large flaky fridge biscuits (half a can, we used Grands** brand and used 5 instead of 4, just made the rest in the oven as normal)

** I do want to point out that most times Grands brand flaky biscuits come with a coupon so that you can save $0.30 on 3 cans, if you want to save a little bit.
 

What you do:

- Place thawed chicken in the crock pot. Add the butter, soup, broth and onions/onion powder. Cook on high 4-6 hours or on low for 8 hours. No stirring!

- Cut each uncooked biscuit into small pieces and stir into the mix. Continue to cook on high for 30 minutes.

- Remove chicken and shred with a fork. Return it to the crock pot, mix & serve :)

I can't express just how delicious we think this recipe is. I could eat it every single day to be honest. I love my Crockpot. The chicken always turns out so moist and shreds very easily. That being said, I will probably share a ton of various Crockpot recipes as I try them out. It's my first time owning one and I think it could easily replace my oven if I let it!

Cheesy Bacon Oven Chips with Chipotle Ranch Sauce!!

What you need (for the oven chips):

- 1 large (or 2 medium) russet potatoes, cut into 1/8” rounds.

- Cooking Spray

- Shredded cheddar or colby jack cheese

- Salt & Pepper to taste

- Crumbled bacon (I used Bacon Bits)

What you need (for the chipotle ranch sauce):

- 1 tbs ranch dressing

- 3 tbs sour cream

- 1/4 tsp chipotle chili powder

- 1/8 tsp cayenne

- 1/8 tsp salt

- 1/8 tsp garlic powder

What you do (for the oven chips):

- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

- Bring sliced potatoes to a boil in cold, salted water. Boil for 5 minutes.

- Carefully drain and transfer slices to a paper-towel lined countertop or cutting board.  Pat to dry. Be careful as they like to mush and crumble.

- Grease a baking sheet with cooking spray and lay out potato slices.

- Spray lightly with additional cooking spray, then sprinkle with salt & pepper to taste.  Sprinkle evenly with shredded cheese & bacon.

- Bake 12-14 minutes in preheated oven until cheese is melted & bubbly. Serve with chipotle ranch sauce.

What you do (for the chipotle ranch sauce):

- Place all ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine.  Refrigerate any leftovers.

I’ve been wanting to try this forever now so I sent Tyler to pick up the chipotle chili powder and went to work. This best serves 2 people but can easily but altered for larger parties. You can peel your potatoes or not (I peeled mine because I’m not a fan of the skin, sue me.) It was absolutely, without a doubt, freaking delicious and is something I’ll make again and again and again if I can. We have all this stuff in the house on a regular basis anyway and did a good job of filling us both up without making a ton of food. So glad I decided to give this a try. I will say that the ranch sauce had a serious kick to it (but we loved it all the same) so if really hot isn't your thing, you may want to lessen the chipotle chili powder or the cayenne.

"Everything but the kitchen sink" smoothie.

What you need:

- 1 Cutie

- 1 banana

- Half of a pink lady apple

- Brisk Pink Lemonade + White Tea

- Vanilla ice cream

- 5 ice cubes

What you do:

- Mix it all together and blend until smooth.

We just threw some random stuff we had together and it came out great. It reminds me of an orange creamsicle if you know what those are. We didn’t use any specific amounts of ice cream, just put in several scoops until the consistency was to our liking. With the Brisk, I just put in half a glass as that’s what I had left from what I was drinking haha. But we’re both pretty impressed with the way it turned out seeing as we don’t know what we’re doing in the kitchen and we just started throwing random things in there haha. We were going to add strawberries but they went bad :/ Whoops.