Hawaiian haystacks – Pile it on and enjoy
The girls always love when I make haystacks, or rather, they get to make them, because the ingredients are rarely the same twice, and they each get to customize their “chicken sundae.”
Hawaiian haystacks aren’t even from Hawaii, by the way. It’s just that pineapple is a common ingredient and that’s connected to the Hawaii name.
Anyway, if you’ve never made them before, you should. Haystacks are a great way to finish off a bunch of ingredients that you only have a handful of, and if you have picky eaters, no problem…..only add the items each person wants.
Hawaiian Haystacks Recipe:
- Rice
- Chicken, chunked or shredded (leftover chicken works great)
- Chicken sauce/gravy (recipes below)
- Any number of diced/sliced/chopped ingredients including pineapple, olives, green onions, green peppers, chow mein noodles, mandarin oranges, cheese, avocado
Pile on in order and enjoy. Yep, it’s that simple.
Chicken Sauce Recipe Ideas:
(The links are to recipes that don’t use canned condensed soup, if you’re like me and try to avoid it….but the canned soup version is tasty and fine if you’re okay using it)
- 1 cup chicken, 1 can cream of chicken soup, 1 cup water, salt and pepper (you could also add sour cream, cream cheese, chicken broth, or milk in addition to or in place of various ingredients….really, it’s not an exact science….work with what you have)
- Mel’s Kitchen Café
- Real Mom Kitchen
- Your Sacred Calling (this one uses coconut milk
Here’s some of the ingredients from another time I made them:
So colorful. The second item on the top row is chopped almonds, by the way….they give a nice crunch.
Shared with Blog Hop
Mini wonton lasagnas – Dinner, bentos, or midnight snacks
What does it mean to find a huge tub of ricotta cheese on clearance for under 3 bucks? Lasagna time, of course!
Knowing that we were limiting dairy, I assumed I would toss these lasagnas straight into the freezer. Instead, I only used a thin layer of ricotta and no other cheese, and they turned out too good to not eat fresh.
Wanna make your own? Just use your favorite lasagna recipe and sub in eggroll or wonton wrappers. As Squirrel Bread says, wontons are the new black, and I use ‘em like crazy around here. For these, I just cut my wrappers in half, layered as usual, and skipped the fuss of precooking noodles or wondering if I cooked the dish long enough to avoid crunchy pasta.
When I originally bought these tins (on major sale, might I add), I thought they’d be great to fix all sorts of mini-this-or-thats in. I assumed I’d cut them in half and be able to toss various dishes into the girls’ lunchboxes.
Instead, I realized they’re roughly 2-cup tins and they’re perfect for building fast bentos right in them. Maybe not the most creative, but it opened up a whole new set of ideas of foods I could bake, toss in the freezer, and have ready in a flash for lunches.
And yes, I snacked on these a few times. Leaving them cold or barely heating them up turned them into easy, hand-held craving-satisfiers. Yum!
You went to a Chinese restaurant again?? – Bento boxes
Another challenge I had with making bento boxes was being concerned they might get teased for taking nontraditional lunches. Of course their nutrition is more important than some silly kid drama, but kids have it hard enough with peers who make fun of pretty much anything they can. I didn’t want to add to that.
I started making the boxes with more traditional items like a fair bit of rice, for example, but have shifted to some more “American” items to help balance some of it out. This is why it made me giggle even more when B told me a story about her friends.
Yeah, I got out my lunch and Jacky yelled “You went to a Chinese restaurant AGAIN??!!”
Talk about an American mindset, huh? Hehe. I had sent spaghetti that day even, and nothing “weird” but B said she didn’t think her friend believes that I make the food. And we don’t have Japanese cuisine here where I live, so it makes sense that the assumption was Chinese takeout.
Some more boxes, mostly very far from Japanese food
- Saltines
- Tuna salad
- Pretzel sticks
- Homemade pineapple mango fruit rollup leather
- Grapes
- Frozen mixed fruit
- Leftover pasta
- Bacon!
- Pretzel crackers
- Carrots
- Frozen apple slices
- Bean and rice burrito
- Crackers
- Cauliflower
- Raisins and grapes (“Uh, Jessi, those are like, you know, the same things….” Yeah, I know, sorta, shush it.)
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