Roughrider Electric Cooperative members Mike and Sara Steier balance a busy work schedule with family life. Mike, a journeyman co-op lineworker, and Sara, a kindergarten teacher, are raising three wonderful kids – and feeding them, too!
They share favorite family recipes, including a crunchy, creamy, comforting zucchini casserole. This recipe was given to the Steiers from Sara’s aunt, Tami Ballard. The Steiers typically have an abundance of zucchini during garden season.
“It was the only thing we could keep alive!” Mike remembers of their first garden.
The on-the-go Steiers also keep their freezer stocked with breakfast sandwiches and breakfast burritos with homemade sausage, made with Mike’s grandpa’s original sausage recipe.
“Ever since I was a kid, we always made our own sausage. Grandpa never bought any storebought anything,” Mike says.
6 cups zucchini, chopped
¼ cup onion, chopped
1 cup shredded carrots
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
2 12.5-oz. cans chicken, drained
1 cup butter, melted
2 boxes Stove Top chicken stuffing
Shredded cheese
Sauté zucchini, onion and carrots in a little olive oil until soft. In a large bowl, mix soup, sour cream and chicken together. When veggies are soft, add to bowl and stir.
In a separate bowl, mix stuffing with melted butter. Prepare a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Layer half the stuffing, then chicken and veggie mixture and top with the other half of the stuffing. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Top with shredded cheese and put back in oven until cheese is melted. Serve as is or over rice.
NOTES: Add more onion if your family likes it, like our test kitchen cook and editor, Cally Peterson, does!
RECIPE by the Mike and Sara Steier family, Roughrider Electric Cooperative
1 lb. sausage (homemade is best)
2 c. peppers, sliced
12 eggs, beaten
1 cup (or more) shredded cheese
Tortillas
Brown sausage, then remove from pan, reserving drippings. Sauté peppers in sausage renderings. Once cooked, return sausage to pan to combine. Scramble eggs (add a little milk for fluffier eggs and season with salt and pepper, if desired). Divide burrito fillings – sausage, peppers and eggs – evenly among tortillas. Top with cheese (use as much or as little as you want). Roll up like a burrito, wrap in tinfoil and freeze.
To eat, remove tinfoil and microwave for 1 to 2 minutes or until heated through.
TREYTEN’S TIP: For the perfectly cooked burrito, Mike and Sara Steier’s son, Treyten Krohmer, recommends microwaving for 1 minute and 45 seconds. But “it’s going to be really hot,” so he wouldn’t recommend eating it right away!
RECIPE by the Mike and Sara Steier family, Roughrider Electric Cooperative