Homemade Hot Pockets

Recipe

Pizza crust dough 

Ham

Cheese

Pepperoni

Pizza sauce

Break off a ball of pizza dough about 2 inches in diameter.  Roll out pizza dough, fill with meat and cheese. Fold over, pinch sides to seal.  Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes.  

To freeze, let them cool completely and then freeze.  Reheat at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Our Review

I made the pizza dough from scratch and then made ham and cheese versions as well as pizza sauce, pepperoni, and cheese versions.  While they are good, they were still too dry.  The next time I make these, I will add more sauce to the pizza versions, perhaps 3-5 tablespoons, and I will also look at adding something moist to the ham and cheese versions, although I haven't decided what would be the best thing to add.

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Mexican Lasagna

Recipe

1.5 lbs ground beef

1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely minced

6 oz tomato paste

1 Tbls chili powder

2 tsp ground cumin

dash of ground cayenne pepper

1 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

24 oz tomato sauce

14.5 oz diced tomatoes, drained

15 oz black beans, rinsed and drained

1.5c frozen corn kernels

6 oz chopped olives, canned

9-12 no-boil lasagna noodles

2c shredded mozzarella cheese

1c shredded cheddar cheese

1c sour cream

8oz cream cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly grease 9x13 pan.

Cook ground beef with the onion, drain the grease.  Add the garlic and tomato paste, stir to combine and cook for 1 minute.  Stir in chili powder, cumin, cayenne, oregano, salt, and pepper and mix well.  Add diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, stir to combine, and then add beans, corn, and olives.  Mix well and heat for about 5 minutes.

Remove from heat.  Spread 1/2 cup of the mix into the bottom of the 9x13 pan.  Layer noodles over the sauce, then spread 1/3 of the mix on top of the noodles.  Dollop 1/3 of the sour cream and 1/3 of the cream cheese across the mix and then sprinkle 1/3 of the cheeses on top.  Repeat the layers two more times until all ingredients are used.

Cover lasagna with foil and bake for 35 minutes.  Uncover and bake for 10-15 more minutes until lasagna is hot and bubbly.

Our Review

This was pretty good, everyone liked it, but I couldn't get past the strange taste of noodles with the mexican ingredients.  I'd like to try it again with a few changes.  Next time I will use tortillas instead of the lasagna noodles.  I think it would also be a good idea to mix the sour cream and cream cheese together so they would be easier to spread around.  We didn't use a lot of cayenne pepper and we didn't have the olives, I think it would be fine with the olives too.

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Navy Bean Soup

Recipe

1 lb dried navy beans, soaked overnight and then drained

1/4c bacon, chopped, cooked, and drained

1/2c onion, chopped

1/2c carrots, chopped

1/2c celery, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1lb ham bone or ham hocks (we used the leftover ham from our holiday dinner)

8c water

1/4tsp dried oregano

1/4tsp paprika

2 bay leaves

1 Tbsp parsley, chopped

In a slow cooker, add all ingredients.  Let cook for 8 hours.

Our Review

This recipe was longer and was not cooked in a slow cooker, I put it all in a slow cooker but can not remember if it was on low or high, I'm guessing low.  It was very good.  Next time I may add more bacon, but otherwise it was already good.

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