Now of course I was hoping that I had won, but I am happy for A Cowboy’s Wife too.  I knew I had some stiff competition!  I had a lot of fun participating and am thankful to Kraft for allowing me the chance to be a part of this great contest.  And not only that but I made some new bloggy friends and was able to give away some great prizes too.  So it was a blast even though I didn’t win!

I am going to be figuring out who won all of my giveaways in a couple of hours when Hailey goes down for her nap.  I’ll email if you are the winner of any of my giveaways to let you know that you won.  You can also check the individual giveaway posts (they are all listed at the top of my left hand sidebar) as I will announce on each post who the winner is.

Thank you so much to all of my supporters!  I really appreciate the time you took to stop by to vote for me every day!  And a special thank you goes out to Valmg over at I Know EVERYTHING, Just Ask My Hubby- she made me that fabulous looking “Vote Daily” button that you have seen on all of my blogs!  Thanks Valmg!!

Pretty please- go on over to the Velveeta Casserole Challenge and vote for me (today, tomorrow and Sunday).  You’ll see me and my silly smile all the way over on the right.  The contest ends on Sunday- so as soon as I know who the winner is, I’ll be announcing it.

Also, all of my giveaways end on Sunday at 11:59 pm EST.  You can enter every time you vote, so make sure you’re entering everyday if you’re voting everyday.  I’ll be contacting the winners on Monday by email.  Make sure you check your spam folder too for a message from me- for some reason, my email address just loves to sit in people’s spam folders.

Thanks for all of your support and all of your votes!  Check back Monday to find out if I won.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Anyhoo, starting today I will be going back to my usual once a week giveaways each Tuesday. And also back to my usual posting.

So, what’s been going on over the last couple of weeks while I haven’t really been doing any regular posting? Well, Hailey was really sick last week. She had the croup which then turned into an even worse cough where she coughed so much she had a hard time catching her breath. So we were stuck at home all week with the nebulizer machine and steamy bathroom.

It’s not even winter yet and I already feel like I’m going to lose my mind if I am stuck in the house all of the time. But, at this point- with how sick Hailey was last week (and she is actually still sick) I am ready to quit every mommy group and story time group we belong to and keep her at home away from germy kids.

So, as you can see you didn’t really miss out on anything while I was posting all of my giveaways anyways.

I know I haven’t been visiting all of my bloggy friends like I should be over the last couple of weeks either. Giveaways are a lot of fun to host, but they also take a lot of time- so I had to give up something from my day and it was visiting all of you. So, I’m off to go catch up on what all of you have been up to over the last couple of weeks.

Oh- and I just have to ask- pretty please- will you vote for me over at the Velveeta Casserole Challenge?

So- here it is: Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole

The ingredients

Cook about 10 oz of the Ziti noodles

Chop up 1 cup of green pepper

Chop up 1 small onion.

Cook 1/2 pound of ground beef, green pepper and onion until meat is no longer pink.  Drain it and then set it aside in a medium bowl (which will be called the “meat bowl” for the rest of this post).

Brown 1/2 pound of sausage and add it to the ”meat bowl.” 

Cook 8oz of bacon, drain and add to the “meat bowl.”

Cut up 1 cup of fully cooked ham- and you guessed it- add it to the “meat bowl.”  Stir everything in the “meat bowl” until it is well mixed.

Add 12 oz of Spaghetti sauce to the meat mixture and mix well.

By now your Ziti noodles should be done cooking so you will need to drain them.

Cut 4 oz of Velveeta Cheese into little cubes and mix it with the ziti noodles.  Be sure to do this while the noodles are nice and warm and the cheese will melt very easily.

Now add the other 12 oz of Spaghetti sauce to the noodles and cheese.  Spread that mixture into a greased 9 x 13 pan.  Then spread the meat mixture on top of that.

Then grate 8 oz of Velveeta cheese (I didn’t know you could grate Velveeta cheese, but I tried it and it actually grated pretty easily).  Sprinkle that on top of your casserole.

Then add pepperoni to the top of your casserole.  Add as much or as little as you like.  Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until cooked through.

Yummy Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole.

And again from a different angle.

And now in case you just want the recipe in regular format:

Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole

Ingredients:
½ pound ground beef
½ pound sausage
8 oz bacon
1 cup fully cooked ham
Sliced pepperoni (use as much or as little as you prefer)
10 oz Ziti noodles, cooked and drained
1 (24 ounce) jar Spaghetti sauce, divided
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup chopped green pepper
12 oz Velveeta Cheese, divided

Directions:

In a skillet cook ground beef, onion and green pepper until meat is no longer pink, drain and set aside in a medium sized bowl.
In a skillet cook sausage until meat is no longer pink, drain and add to bowl with beef in it.
In a skillet cook bacon, drain and add to bowl with other meats.
Add 1 cup of fully cooked ham cut into bite size pieces to the other meats and stir everything until well mixed. Then add half of the jar of Spaghetti sauce to the meat mixture, mix well.
After you have cooked and drained your ziti noodles- add 4 oz of Velveeta cheese that has been cut into small cubes. Be sure to add the Velveeta cheese while the noodles are warm so that the cheese will melt. Then add the other half of the jar of Spaghetti sauce to the noodles and cheese. Spread the noodles into a greased 9×13 inch dish.
Add the meat mixture on top of the noodles. Cover with 8oz of grated Velveeta Cheese and top with pepperoni slices.
Cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until cooked through.

Voting will start tomorrow and go until November 23rd over at Velveeta Casserole Challenge and I would love it if you would vote for me and my yummy Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole.  And you know what?  You can vote every single day. 

Also starting tomorrow and going through November 23rd I am going to be having all sorts of giveaways going on.  A new giveaway will start every couple of days as my way of bribing you to vote for me!  So make sure you come by here every day so you don’t miss any of the fabulous prizes I have lined up.

So, after much thinking (and wondering what I had gotten myself into), I planned out my recipe.  Since Rich and I both work from home, and clearly don’t get to spend enough time together, we all headed off to the grocery store together.  And I’m sure you ladies know how much fun grocery shopping with your husband and toddler can be.

The highlight of the grocery shopping trip happened when Rich and I had an argument about which Velveeta cheese to get.  Now you know if it’s Velveeta it’s going to be good, right?  Right.  That wasn’t the problem.  The problem is that when Rich goes grocery shopping with me we have to compare the per pound or per ounce prices of every single item we buy.  It drives me absolutely crazy.  Because sometimes I don’t want to buy 20 pounds of beef just because it’s cheaper per pound.  Or 50 rolls of toilet paper just because it is cheaper per sheet.

Anyhoo.  Where was I?  Oh, yes- the Velveeta Cheese.

Since part of the challenge was that I had to spend under $20 that meant I couldn’t buy things in bulk, like Rich prefers.  There was one package of Velveeta Cheese that was 16 oz for $3.99.  That size seemed reasonable for my recipe.  So, I put it in the cart.  Then Rich found a 32 oz package for $4.79.  Clearly a much better deal per pound, but when you’re trying to keep things under a certain price every penny counts.  And what would I ever do with that much cheese?

Well, Rich won and we bought the bigger package of cheese.  In exchange for that- we had to put the ground sausage back and settle on the boxed kind of sausage because it was cheaper.  And what did we do with all of that extra cheese?  It makes fabulous grilled cheese sandwiches, tastes good on broccoli and mashed potatoes, and goes great on pretty much everything you can think of.

Here is my receipt from our fun filled shopping trip, and as you can see I came in at $19.33.  BUT- I didn’t use all of my ingredients.  I could have made almost 2 casseroles with my ingredients, I would have needed a bit more of a few things- but most of the items I only used about half of what I had.

On October 30th I am going to post my recipe- and you’re not going to want to miss it because it was delicious.  And the voting will start over at Velveeta Casserole Challenge so I’m going to be begging and pleading for your votes.  And, I’ll also be bribing you with all sorts of fabulous giveaways that I have lined up.  So, be sure to come back!

I am taking part in a fun and fabulous Velveeta Casserole Challenge.  I was selected (and also paid!), along with four other bloggers, to be a part of this challenge.  I wasn’t allowed to say anything until today, so I have been practically bursting trying to keep this news in.  So, what is the Velveeta Casserole Challenge exactly?  I’m glad you asked.  I had to create a casserole- yes, make up my very own recipe- that would serve 8 people, cost less than $20 and use Velveeta Cheese.  Now you may be aware that my cooking abilities are, shall we say, lacking.  But you know what- this casserole that I came up with- it’s really good.  I mean- really, really good.  When Rich took his first bite of it he said, “That’s really good.”  And the last time he said something like that about my cooking was… well… never.  (Although, I have to be perfectly honest and tell you that Rich helped me quite a bit with my recipe.)

Now for the best part about the Velveeta Casserole Challenge: The five of us who were picked- we get to share our recipes.  Then we will all beg our readers to vote for our recipe so that we can win the challenge.  The winner gets some fabulous Cuisinart cookware and a $500 grocery gift card.  And you know what?  I really want to win.  But you know what else?  The other ladies really want to win too.  Now the voting doesn’t actually start until October 30th, so I have plenty of time to come up with ways to bribe you into voting for me. 

Throughout October I am going to share with you how I came up with the recipe that I made.  Here’s a little hint about my recipe- we love pizza and we also love meat.  But if you want to know anymore than that, you’re going to have to stay tuned.  Then once the voting begins on October 30th I will start my begging and pleading to get you to vote for me.  Oh- and I’ll have some fun giveaways too, so it won’t all be begging.

Just in case you’re curious- and I’m sure you are- here are the other 4 participants:

Confessions of An Apron Queen
Miss Zoot
My Wooden Spoon
Suburban Bliss

Be sure to keep coming back because you’re going to want to try the recipe when I post it. And of course, you’ll want to enter my giveaways and vote for me.