Party Potatoes

If you're not from Utah you might not be familiar with Party Potatoes (AKA funeral potatoes). These are a staple in my family/community. They are creamy, cheesey, yummy potatoes that go well as a side to almost anything. I like to serve them with this BBQ turkey recipe or any grilled chicken or beef. We make them for family parties, church parties, and funerals all the time. Here's my favorite recipe that I learned from my mom:

Party Potatoes -

1 cube butter
1 Tablespoon dry minced onion
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 small container sour cream (16 oz.)
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
1 bag frozen hash brown potatoes (2 lbs.)
2 cups crushed Corn Flakes

*This recipe will fill a 9" x 13" pan. If you need more just double the recipe and buy one of those disposable large roaster pans like this and put them in there.

(You can skip to the bottom of this post to watch an instructional video)

 In a large pot melt your stick of butter over medium/low heat.

 Add your Tbsp. of dry onion.

 Let the butter melt completely with the onions then remove from heat.

 Stir in 2 cans of cream of chicken soup,

 1 small container of sour cream,

 and 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese. Mix together well.

 Add 1 bag frozen hash browns or you can use fresh shredded hash browns like these Simple Potatoes. (I had to use 2 bags of these since they were smaller.)

 Stir in the potatoes until they are thoroughly covered by the sauce/cheese mixture.

 Transfer to a greased 9" x 13" casserole pan.

 Crush up 1-2 cups of Corn Flakes and sprinkle over the top.
Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

My critics give Party Potatoes 2 thumbs up!!

I hope you enjoy them too!

 

Here's a short instructional video:

 



 

Crockpot Beef Stew

Is there anything better than throwing a few ingredients into your Crock Pot in the morning and coming home at night to a delicious meal?! I can't think of anything. This is a beef stew recipe my mom got from a sweet, elderly lady in her neighborhood named Ila. We've been making it for years and it's always delicious, warm, hearty, and comforting especially on a chilly winter night.

 

Crock Pot Beef Stew -

 

2 lbs. beef cubes for stew

3-4 large russet potatoes

2 cups chopped carrots

1 small onion (optional)

1 can tomato sauce

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 package dry onion soup mix

1 package frozen peas 

 

Start by getting out your favorite Crock Pot.

You will need: 2 lbs. beef stew meat,

frozen peas (you'll add these last about 30 min. before stew is ready),

baby carrots,

 1 small onion,

1 small can tomato sauce,

2 cans cream of chicken soup, 1 can cream of mushroom soup,

1 package dry onion soup mix,

and 3-4 large russet potatoes.

Peel your potatoes and chop them up into bite size chunks. (I peeled 5 large potatoes and had WAY too many so I just used 3.)

 



Chop up your carrots until you have about 2 cups.

(If you want to add 1/2 of the small onion chop it up and put it in the bowl with the other veggies. I left it out.)

In a separate mixing bowl stir your soups and tomato sauce together.

Place half of your veggies in the bottom of the Crock Pot and half of the meat on top of them. Season with Lawry's salt.

Spread half of the soup mixture on top of the meat and veggies.

Then just repeat the process one more time; veggies, meat, salt, sauce.

Sprinkle the package of dry onion soup on top of the last layer.



Set your Crock Pot to either 6 hours or 8 hours, depending on how much time you have before dinner.

Then just go about your day and forget about it!

 Stir the stew a few times throughout the day if you're home.

 About a half an hour before serving the stew, add the peas.

 Ah, that pop of green color just completes it! Once the stew has cooked for 6-8 hours it's ready to be served. I like to serve my stew in bread bowls with a salad on the side. I've been smelling mine cook all day and I'm ready to eat it up. Delicious! I hope you enjoy it too.

New Year's Giveaway!!

**This giveaway is now over. Thanks to all who entered it!!

I thought it would be fun to do a giveaway at the beginning of the year to start the year off right! In my post on homemade rolls I wrote about my favorite baking sheets and lids from Orson Gygi. I love them so much that I want to share them with one of you (I wish I could share them with everyone)! They're perfect for baking cookies, rolls, potatoes, brownies, whatever you need to bake but my favorite thing is the lid that goes on top for letting rolls rise.

So here's what you'll get: 2 half size Orson Gygi baking sheets (18" x 13" x 1") and 2 half size lids to go with them.

 

To enter:

 

1. All you need to do is follow Fun Ideas to Share on facebook (just click the link to get there).

 

2. Share this post on your Facebook page. Link is: http://funideastoshare.blogspot.com/2015/01/new-years-giveaway.html

 

3. Leave a comment on my Facebook post after you've done steps 1 and 2 saying what you'd make first if you won these pans.

 

That's it! Make sure your comment is on the Facebook post so I can keep track of who has entered. In one week (on January 9th at 10:00 am) I'll announce the winner. The winner will then have 3 days to email me their info at bhnielsen@gmail.com. If I don't hear from them in 3 days I'll draw another winner. Good luck!!



Dollar Store Organizing

Happy New Years everyone! One of my New Year's resolutions is to get my house my more organized. One small project I tackled on New Year's Day was my bathroom drawer that was driving me nuts! We moved into our home 6 months ago and I still hadn't gotten it organized the way I wanted. So I went to the Dollar Store and bought some cute, cheap little plastic organizers and went to town. Here's how it turned out:

This is what my drawer looked like before. Everything was just thrown in there and it was a mess! It was hard to find anything and not functional at all.

These are the little plastic containers I found at the Dollar Store. It's always hit and miss what they have but they usually have some type of plastic baskets like these. You can see they were 2 and 3 for a dollar so I spent a total of $4 for this project. Wahoo!

And here's how the drawer looks now. Everything has a place and it's all organized into sections. It's so nice to just look in quickly and know where to find something.

 

 

After I finished this drawer, I even had extra baskets left over to organize my kids' bathroom drawer. I love this drawer now and I feel so much better when I open it and see everything in its place! Now onto my next project...

 

If you have any organizing projects that need to be done and you don't want to spend a fortune on them check out your local Dollar Store first and see what helpful tools you can find.

 

And if you need help getting motivated to start organizing check out my favorite YouTube organizer at Home Organizing by Alejandra.tv. She has some great tips and tricks and something about watching her makes me want to get organized too! Here's one of her videos on Cheap Storage Ideas:

 

Strawberry Cheesecake

Of all the desserts out there cheesecake has got to be one of my favorites. I searched all over for a delicious cheesecake recipe but I didn't like the ones that weren't baked and tasted too cream cheesey. When I tried the Lion House Cheesecake recipe I knew I found what I was looking for. This one is not the easiest recipe but believe me, it's totally worth it.

Lion House Strawberry Cheesecake -

Crust -

1 1/2 cups crushed graham crackers
3 Tablespoons sugar
6 Tablespoons melted butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Filling -

3 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla

Topping -

1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Strawberry topping -

1 package strawberries
1/3 cup sugar

(Skip down to the bottom of the post for a video tutorial)

If you have a springform cheesecake pan you'll want to use that. If not just use a regular pie pan but be aware that you might not need to use all the cheesecake crust, filling, and topping since it could spill over.

Place your graham crackers in a Ziploc baggie and mash them up with a rolling pin. You'll need 1 1/2 cups.

 Melt 6 Tablespoons butter in the microwave.

Add your graham cracker crumbs, 3 Tablespoons sugar, and a dash of cinnamon (optional) and mix together.

Evenly distribute the crust around the bottom of the greased pan and press down the graham crackers until the bottom is covered completely.

Mix together with a hand mixer three 8 oz. packages of softened cream cheese.

Add 1 cup sugar,

3 eggs,



2 teaspoons lemon juice,

and 3/4 teaspoon vanilla.

Blend well. You may have some chunks of cream cheese but they will cook out in the oven so don't worry.

Pour the mixture on top of the graham cracker crust. Place in the preheated 300 degree oven and bake for 55-60 minutes. Make sure you place the cheesecake on top of a baking sheet to prevent any spills falling into your oven.  

While the cheesecake bakes, start on your strawberry topping. Chop up 1-2 small containers of strawberries into bite size pieces.



 Place them in a pan and cook them over low heat. Add 1/4 - 1/3 cups of sugar. You don't want to  cook this long, just until the sugar dissolves and juice starts to come out of the strawberries.

Take out 1/3 of the strawberries and blend them in your blender.

Add the puree back into the pot and turn off the heat. Let cool, and place in the refrigerator. That's all there is to that! (Side note: To save time you can always just use store bought canned strawberry or raspberry sauce but this is a hundred times better!)

Here's how the cheesecake will look after being baked.

The last step is making the sour cream topping.

Place 1 cup sour cream in a mixing bowl.

Add 1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. 

Whisk together.

Pour on top of the cheesecake after it has cooled for a few minutes.

Bake for another 10 minutes. Let it cool completely and refrigerate before serving.

 

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the cheesecake when we served it on Thanksgiving but it's beautiful and delicious! You'll see it in the video below. I hope you enjoy it.