Arlene Makes 2 Quick & Easy Entrées: Last-Minute Lasagna & Quick Stir-Fry

Well, hello and welcome to our program today. Nice to have you here at home as usual. I so enjoy hearing from you from all of our friends, all over the place that are so wonderful to let us know how much they enjoy our program and how much this means to them. And I got an email recently from a young man who said, dear Arlene, I remember as a kid watching you and your show with my mother. Okay. At age 12, we moved to a lower part of the valley, and we’re not able to get your show on TV any longer. This really made my mom sad. Now that you are online, she has been watching you and loving every show. You know, that’s really neat if you’re in an area or you have friends or family that would like to get the program, and maybe at home isn’t seeing where they are. They can get online and with a subscription $15 for a whole year, they can watch shows anytime they want. There’s a recipes are there. They can download them into just go to ctvn.org and you have it. I mean, that’s how simple it is. But anyways, he goes on to say, I am now 19 and in college. I’m trying to become a pastor and just trying to follow God no matter what. Bless you. I’ve become very homesick since I’m in Oklahoma and my home is in Pennsylvania. I found your show online and just, it just picked my, it just picked me. Let me get it. It just picked me up when I watched it. And I saw the never filled beef dinner that you did, that show inspired me. It gave me hope that someday I will be able to sit down and enjoy the simpler things in life. I tearfully miss home so much. And your show is helping me to get through the separation from home. Thank you so much, Luke. Thank you so much, Luke. I’m glad that we could be part of a good memory in your life and you hang in there. You’re gonna make a wonderful pastor cause you have a caring heart. Well, we have some quick entrees, like a quick lasagna. Who thought lasagna could be quick. We do. We’re gonna show you how to do it. And a great chicken stir fry and a loaf of bread. An Italian loaf of bread. You won’t believe what we’re gonna do with it. Stay with us. We’ll be right back. But here’s the hint. Here’s today’s at home hint. For the best mashed potatoes ever, try using butter milk and a small amount of the water the potatoes were boiled in. Make sure the milk and the water are very warm before adding them to the potatoes. If you’ve got a helpful hint, we’d like to hear from you, send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone TeleVision. Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Today I’m gonna give you two ideas for quick entrees that are so fast. You won’t believe it. And you’re gonna say, wow, I’m gonna make that the next time I need lasagna because we’re just gonna spray some non-stick in our pan, a 13 by nine baking dish. And this, all you need for this, is you need a large sauce of your favorite, a large jar of your favorite sauce. Okay? Whatever kind is. And you’re gonna pour about a third of it in the bottom. Just a third. Okay. And we’re gonna mix that around. Make sure it covers the bottom. Smells good like you could use a marinara if you wanted. Meat flavor, sausage, cheese, whatever. I’m telling you this is so quick and easy. You will be amazed. All right. Now, for lasagna, you need noodles. You need a meat stuffing or cheese stuffing. You buy frozen raviolis and you just start to lay them. Okay, these are stuck together. We won’t use those two. We got these other ones here. We’re gonna lay them, the single layer. You want the big bag and these are filled with cheese. We’re just gonna lay them all across the bottom here because that’s our pasta and cheese layer. Okay? Just like that. Then on top of this, we’re gonna add just some frozen spinach that we’ve drained and you gotta drain it really well. Cause it’ll make us a real mess if you don’t and we’re just gonna drop that all over the raviolis. Now you keep the raviolis frozen or you won’t get them working right here if you don’t. Okay, just put this whole box. This is a 10 ounce box and you wanna spread it evenly over said, I might get a big piece like that. So we break it up and you’re just gonna put it all over these raviolis. You use the whole box. It’s good for you. You’ll enjoy it. Gonna taste good. You got your vegetable here. You got the pasta. You got the sauce. You believe how easy this is. This is like nothing here. Okay. So we have our spinach layer. All right. Now we have some I’m gonna use this cheese first. This is our shredded mozzarella. We’re gonna use about half of this. Okay. And we’re just gonna do a layer that, using about half. And then we have some graded cheese, which is Parmesan. And we’re gonna do a layer of that. Now do a little bit more of that. We’re gonna go back to the raviolis. We’re not putting sauce. We’re doing another layer of raviolis. Okay. All over. Can you imagine how easy, I mean, you can make this any size you want. If you need just a little pan, if you don’t wanna have a big pan of lasagna, you make a small one. I’m telling you this is easy as can be. Look at that. Funny how much easier could it be? Sure beats boiling the noodles and all that fun stuff, doesn’t it? Okay, you’ll have some of these left over. Save them for a quick lunch for the kids or something else, okay? Now we’re gonna pour the rest. So you have thirds. We’re gonna pour that all over. Try to make it cover all over the top. Go back, cover all the corners. Yamo. How fast is that to make lasagna? I’m telling you doesn’t take much at all, does it? I think some of you guys could surprise the wife some night and make this, would that be nice? Hey honey, I’m making lasagna. Yeah, sure Ralph, sure. I’m telling you, I’m making it. Okay. And guess what? Bring this out. She’s gonna be impressed with you, buddy. I’ll tell you that. This is so easy. You know, I get a lot of letters from guys say, you know, I don’t even like to cook, but I like to watch the program. Well, let’s try some of this stuff once. Just see if you can impress the wife. I betcha, she’ll be pleased. Okay. Now we’re gonna go back with our cheeses and we’re gonna finish up with them. Just like that all over. Spread them out a little bit for everybody and whoops, get it all. And then the rest of our graded cheese, that’s where you’re gonna fill in the blanks, as they say, okay. Now this goes in a 350 degree oven and this one you’re gonna wanna cover with foil and you’re gonna bake it. Covered with foil for 25 minutes with the foil on. When the 25 minutes are up, then you’re gonna take the foil off and you’re gonna let it brown for about five, 10 minutes, depending on how hot it is in your oven. So let’s get this nice hot preheated oven. Don’t put that in there and then turn the oven on. That doesn’t work. That’s not a good idea. Okay. There we are right in there with the foil on. We’ll come back. Let me set my little timer here. 25 minutes. All right. Now the next one that we’re gonna make, let me show you this, little clean up here. Clear some of this stuff. Is another, it’s gonna be an accompaniment that goes with our entrees. And this is something that when I saw this, I said, I’ve gotta make this cause I know we’re gonna like it. First of all, you take a loaf of Italian bread and we’re gonna cut it this away. Okay. Be careful when you’re cutting it. Wanna go straight down through the middle, just like that. Okay. And you put it on a baking sheet, just like this. All right. Now we have two packages of cream cheese and that should be soft and room temperature because what we’re gonna do is add this ranch dressing. This is a dry ranch dressing. Not the dip. See here. It says salad dressing. That’s what we want to have. Be sure you have the one. That’s not the dip, but the dressing. Okay. And we’re gonna add that. And then we’re gonna mix this. You wanna be sure you mix it thoroughly. This bread can be used as a side dish with our entrees, or you can use it as an appetizer and you would just cut little pieces. And from what I understand, this is awesome. Now I have to tell you the truth. I didn’t make it, but I’ve tasted it. It’s good, you’ll like it. And you’re gonna really enjoy it. We’re gonna spread this, get this mixed really well. Then we’re gonna spread this. Half on this one, half on here. And then we have to show you how pretty this is. We have yellow pepper and red pepper, fresh peppers that we’ve cut very finely, very, very thin. And once we spread that, then we’re gonna take these and just put them on and pack them in. We have some cheddar cheese, that’ll go on next. We’re gonna bake this in the oven for, I think it’s about 15, 20 minutes until it gets hot and bubbly. You don’t wanna cover it. You just wanna keep it like this. Okay? We’re gonna do that when we come back, we’ll be putting it in the oven. Stay with us. We’ll be right back. Well, I am continuing to do the bread cause I do wanna see, want you to see that you just spread this. You have to make sure that your cream cheese is really soft though. Cause and if it doesn’t just pop it in the microwave, that’s what we had to do because it won’t spread very well. So sometimes you don’t know that until you get to that part, but you sure wanna use it all. So scrape out that bowl, cover every little milk and cranny as they say, and this is gonna go into a 350 preheated. Always preheat. Don’t forget. There we go. Get down to the corners. Yeah. If you like ranch, you’re gonna love this. Okay? Wow. There’s a lot here. Makes a lot. I think we’re there. Okay now let’s do, can I get a cloth please? We’re just gonna take our peppers. Half on this bread, half on this bread. Isn’t that pretty and colorful. Huh? Beautiful. Love it. This is just one of each peppers, one red, one yellow. And I chose those colors because I think it’s such a pretty combination. You don’t want any juice on them. So if there’s any juice, make sure that that stays to the bottom. Thank you dear. Okay. And you wanna press them in there because when that starts to cook, that’s gonna melt down. Okay. And then the last ingredient that we’re gonna put on this is our cheddar cheese. Oh yeah. That’s beautiful. It’s about a cup of cheddar. So you just load it up 350 degree oven, keep an eye on it because it really doesn’t have to do anything except get heated through. Okay. That easy. That’s simple. Let me see here. Okay. Into the oven. We’re gonna put that in the lower oven where we take these other meatballs outta here. I had something else going here. Get those outta the way. Okay. And we’ll just place that right in there. Like so, and we’ll wait about 20, 25 minutes and we’ll take a look at it. Okay. All right. Now, we have some oil here steaming up in our pan and I’m gonna make a stir fry with that. Let me clean up a little bit here. If there’s anything that I like. I really like chicken stir fry, but it’s a lot of pain. Having to cut everything and prepare this and do that. So this is an easy way. And I’m surprised that somebody’s thought about this because most recipe interventions are because someone’s like in a bind and they say, well, there has to be an easier way. Well, this is a great one. I really like this. We have some Sesame oil. I’m gonna add some to our huge skillet here. We wanna make a nice deep skillet if you have it. Okay. A walk would be fine. And really there’s just a few ingredients. First of all, you wanna buy a bag of coleslaw mix. It’s already shredded cabbage. You can get this, any local grocery store. We’re just gonna add that to our skillet. And then we have shredded carrots. This is a half pound about eight ounces. We’re gonna add that also. Even though there’s a little carrot in that cabbage mix. We still want some more. And basically this is only gonna cook about three minutes until it all begins to wilt. That’s all you have to do about three minutes. Okay? So we’re gonna keep an eye on that. A big piece of cabbage out of there. I think it’s great when people come up with other ideas to make stuff that we really like, they give it a twist to make it easy. Then you say, wow, you know, I could have stir fry often. If you’re living alone, you could do this for one serving. If you had to, you wouldn’t have to use the whole bag. You could make it. This will probably feed I would imagine a good four people. This will wilt down. It’ll wilt down a lot. The only other things you have to have are some cooked chicken. This is about a pound and we’re using chicken breasts that we’ve cooked, cooked them. I don’t know if you’re familiar with those little cans of white chicken breast. It looks like tuna, but they’re a little bit bigger and they’re packed in water. I keep them on my shelf all the time because they’re great for chicken salad. If you wanna add chicken to pasta, if you wanna add chicken to this, or if you just have a couple of breasts that need to be cooked, put them in the microwave on a level plate and they’ll cook right up for you. Then you can do whatever you need to do with them. Okay? Okay. This is now getting some color. I think I’ll use a bit more Sesame seed oil just to get that flavor that we’re looking for in there. It’s gonna be good. Okay. A non-stick surface is really good for a dish like this too. We just keep stirring only about three minutes. You don’t want it to cook the life out of it cause you want that crunch to it when we eat, because we’re going to pour this over a four cups of cooked rice and that’s our whole meal. The vegetables in here are wonderful. You can see how it’s welding down already. It’s getting lower in the pot. This is what we’re looking for. Just great. Smelling good. We’re getting there. Okay. If you wanna just do your own slaw, you can grade it. You get a cabbage and do it. You can do the same with the carrots. Doesn’t matter, anyway, but this is what you’re looking for. Okay. Now we’re gonna add our one pound of chicken that we’ve cued up, cause remember it’s already fully cooked. All we’re doing with it now is just warming it through. So we’re gonna mix that together. Oh yeah. Oh I can. This smells great. You’re gonna love this. Now to that, I’m going to add some, you go to your salad dressing aisle and if you can find Sesame salad dressing, you’d wanna use that. If you can’t, we’re gonna use poppy seed. They’re kind of interchangeable, but that’s this taste that we’re looking for. We’re gonna use about a third of a cup or more to taste and we just put that in there, like that. Okay. And we’re gonna mix that about, and then we have about a fourth of a cup of chopped peanuts, just plain old shelled peanuts. And we’re gonna add those in too. Oh yeah. Now we’re mixing it around. Oh boy. I wish you were here. I really wish you were here. You would love this. Look how quick the stir fry is. Isn’t that amazing with a bag of carrots and a bag of cabbage. And you’re wondering you have a bag in there. You’re gonna make coleslaw. What am I gonna do? You know, you could fry the cabbage and make paluszki. It’s just that packaged vegetable like shredded. It comes in such handy for you. When you’re trying to make things that you don’t have time to do all of that work. Those are gods sins. So get them in your pantry and keep them in your fridge. Those are the things that really make life easy. Well, I’m gonna pan this up. When we get back, we’re gonna be in the dining room and we’re gonna show you everything we’ve done today. Stay with us. We’ll be right back. 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So that’s available to you send your check for $25 to add home and say, I want to subscribe for your, and you’ll get the printed form through the us mail once a month with all the recipes at the beginning of the month. And then the third way is, if you’re just seeing us for the first time and say, well, I don’t know if I’d be interested in watching or not. You can send for each month individually just by sending a self-address stamp business size envelope and a couple of dollars to help us with the printing and we will do it for you. Okay. Let’s take a quick trip around the table, down in front. Look at that easy, quick, last minute, lasagna. Isn’t that awesome. I mean, that’s gonna be fit for anybody who’s gonna enjoy it. Next to it, there is our ranch bread. Oh my isn’t it colorful. Can you see that that could be a great appetizer or a side dish? Either one’s fine. And then next to that, here is my quick stir fry. Oh boy. With the peanuts on top and we just added the rice around. This is very impressive, very impressive. And we just added a green salad to it and you know, something like this, just a very light dessert, maybe some jello or some pudding, something like that. You’ve got a complete meal. I mean, either of these entrees and what we have here is a complete meal. So I hope you’ve enjoyed it today. We’re always happy when you come by to visit us and be sure to join us the next time, because it just wouldn’t be the same without you here on at home. We’ll see you then.

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