Mine turned out tender and juicy and delicious!! (TIP: use a good, sharp knife so your meat doesn’t seem tough.)
Heat up a can of your favorite green beans and a box of rice pilaf as sides and Viola! Dinner is served! (I like Near East brand rice pilaf)
Some great tips to help make getting healthy meals on the table a snap! I talk about cooking 6 meals in one day to serve for the whole week, double-baggin a second portion, freezing techniques, using Press N Seal, Reynolds Wrap, Ziplock containers and more!
I love, love, LOVE watching the food network! The chefs are always so friendly and make me believe I can do anything! I love Paula, the Neelys, Giada, and Ina! These chefs toss around words like; “you simply”, “you just” “so easy..y’all!” and I just know by their confident style and neighborly encouragement, I too can whip up Pecan Chicken with grapes or a perfectly puffed up Pear Fritter! I can stuff a butternut squash while uncorking the perfect bottle of Cabernet so my husband and I can enjoy an autumn meal. Well, let’s step in to reality, shall we? Usually, I am watching the food network on my DVR because I simply don’t have all the time these chefs do to prepare a “quick and easy” meal! In fact, I have done my share of cooking demos on my own talk show and it took 2 guys chopping, peeling and measuring for a few hours the day before we shot the segment! Then of course, they would put the measured out ingredients into matching little bowls. [Read more]
Every year we make the pilgrimage out to my mother’s home to celebrate Thanksgiving. Every year the table is set with all the traditional foods, mashed potatoes, yams, green bean casserole, crescent rolls, pumpkin pie, lime jello, pineapple salad and, of course, a 20 pound turkey stuffed with a sausage and almond stuffing made from my grandmother’s recipe… which, by the way, has never been written down! I always bring the home made cranberry sauce and a “vegetarian” dish for my older children.
This year, my husband was in the kitchen when I was in my cooking frenzy. He watched as I poured two bowls of cranberry sauce and held one into the air. “This one,” I announced, “is for us”. He shrugged his shoulders and said “OK”. He was completely underwhelmed. He stole some shredded cheese from my bowl and said very casually, “I don’t like cranberry sauce”. [Read more]
My next door neighbor, Kathy, just had her first baby a few months ago and has been thrown into the wonderful world of motherhood. She loves caring for her son, Jeremy and is relishing her new role. However, she is trying the balancing act every mother must quickly establish whether she is staying home with a newborn, working outside the home with young children in school or have preteens turning her world upside down! [Read more]
My family always knows that on a rainy day we will always sit down to a delicious home made dinner of Albondigas Soup (a traditional Mexican meatball soup) and tortillas. It’s a comfort food we all love and is rich with vegetables! It takes 15 minutes to prepare and then I just set it to simmer; filling our kitchen with an inviting aroma!
One rainy afternoon, Kathy and Baby Jeremy stopped by and she asked me what I was serving for dinner. I said, “We were having the rainy day special, Albodigas.” Kathy said she loved that soup and asked how to make it. So I promised to get her the recipe.
It is so easy to make and although it requires a good amount of chopping of fresh ingredients, it is one of those meals that can be stored and reserved throughout the week…with quesadillas for a complete dinner or just a bowl for a hearty lunch.
Here’s one of my favorites, in fact, I am making this later today for my daughter and her babysitter! I’ll have just enough for leftovers for hubby’s lunch.
Chicken Pot Pie
Frozen deep dish pie shells
1 family sized can of chicken (or you can use leftover roasted chicken)
1 bag of frozen mixed vegetables
1 can of Cambells cream of chicken mushroom soup
salt, pepper, garlic powder
Simply mix chicken, vegetables, and soup into a bowl. Add seasonings to your taste. Scoop mixture into pie shells. Here’s a hint, place the top shell on to the mixture the same way they were placed as frozen, so pie crust is sealing the chicken mixture. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 40 minutes. If you want a pretty presentation, during the last 15 minutes, brush egg wash over the pie for a golden crust. Serve with biscuits.
I keep all these things on hand so I can get this dinner together when I have a day that gets away from me. Fix it and forget it and like I said, leftovers make a good breakfast or lunch!
Like most of you, the hours of 5-7 is my crunch time! We moms face every battle and challenge from homework, to after school activities, to dinner…and for some reason, that is the time everyone needs to call me. Throw in any other from the assorted errands, and we are pulling our hair out!
I save my sanity by keeping a list of “5 Ingredients Or Less” dinner suggestions handy and I am going to share a few with you. Feel free to give me your ideas as well!
Let’s start with an easy one…so incredibly easy! Breakfast for dinner!! It’s been months since my family has had time to enjoy a great breakfast on the weekend. Dinner gives us a little more time. Fry bacon, make toast and to keep it easy for me, I make scrambled eggs for everyone. I scramble them with milk and can toss in anything I may have handy, green onions, bell peppers, shredded cheese, or ham. I slice up some fruit and we are eating within a half hour.
Ingredients:
Bacon, eggs, bread, fruit.
It’s that easy!
There are so many ideas out there by experts who are also contributors to magazines and talk shows. The problem with these experts is that they are often testing their ideas in a lab kitchen or closet, not a real one like yours and mine. My tips are used in a real home, so you know they are tried and true.
Here’s how I save time in the kitchen. First, I plan my grocery shopping to take a few hours from the time I get my coupons together, shopping, unloading and organizing my groceries for the week. I know it sounds like an extravaganza, but trust me, it’s worth it. I am a busy woman and I never know when I will be called for an audition which takes me out of town for the better part of the day. I organize my kitchen so my husband or I can make meals with little effort. But it does take time.
[Read more]
Get yourself a gallon of distilled white vinegar and be prepared to conquer common household problems for a fraction of the costs of chemical cleaning supplies.
Add 1/4 cup of vinegar to the final rinse water when washing clothes. By rinsing off dulling saop residue, vinegar brightens colors and whitens whites. It even keeps your black clothes as dark as when you bought them.
Add 1/2 cup of vinegar to laundry detergent when washing new clothes. It gets rid of manufacturing chemicals in new clothing.
Add 1 cup of vinegar to your dishwasher and run it empty for a cycle. The vinegar gets rid of any soap residue that makes glassware cloudy.
Make a spray bottle of a mixture of vinegar and water to clean and freshen counter tops, inside of the microwave, lunch boxes, plastic food containers and the refrigerator.
A mixture of white distilled vinegar and water (mixture amount depends on the size of the job) will get rid of varmints such as fleas on your dog, or ants in your yard.
I know this blog entry may seem lack luster is comparison of what is going on in the world. We have an economic crisis, two wars, a new president, and sometimes with all this going on, I feel like the only thing I CAN control is the health, and happy hum of my home!
