Saturday, January 14, 2012

Yummy!

I have been feeling as if we've been stuck in a food rut at our house.  We have a lot of go-to, kid friendly and easy to prepare favorites that we've been recycling over and over.  Don't get me wrong, they're good, but boring after awhile.  Also, one of the many reasons I was so excited to be a SAHM was that I'd get to cook more, especially things that took a little more prep.  We just never had time when we were both working. 

Sadly, we were still in this rut all the way up to this winter.  Right after I started staying home, I had the summer of surgery with my gall bladder.  It was all I could to remain upright most of the time, and NOTHING to do with food sounded good.  Except cupcakes and toast.  I can almost always eat those...Then there was wedding prep, and holiday prep...and adoption prep...

But now, I have finally hit my stride!  Reece is back in school after the break, and we have a really good rhythm going most of the time.  Also, as before mentioned, I have that nasty Pinterest addiction, and I've been "pinning" recipes left and right.  I sometimes have a problem sticking to our weekly meal plan, but since I've been excited and motivated by these new recipes, that hasn't been a problem!


garlic cheese bread

So far, we've tried Chicken Gyros, repinned from Annies-eats.com.  Even made the homemade pitas that she includes on her page.  Next up was baked ziti from allrecipes.com with awesome garlic cheese bread in the bread maker from joyfulabode.com.  I decided to break out the crockpot next and tried baked potato soup from Mamalovesfood.com.  We love chinese food, but I hate to pay for take-out, so I decided to make sweet and sour chicken from Melskitchencafe.com.  I was a little scared about this one, because I HATE to cook in oil, but it was suprisingly easy, and awesome with brown rice.  I also hate to dredge food in egg and flour, because I hate to get my hands dirty, but I have two sets of tongs now, and I used a new technique that I'm sure I read about somewhere, and it went well.


stroganoff!

If you can tell, we eat a lot of chicken, so I actually tried beef this week!  First we had squash and tomato soup from Melskitchencafe.com (I really like her site.  She has an index of the best of whatever category recipe (i.e. the best chili, the best chocolate cake) she's been able to find, and a huge variety of choices)  The soup was different, but good.  You can taste the squash pretty well, so you might not like it if you don't like squash, but it's a nice combo if you do.  Next up was the beef choice, a take on beef stroganoff from, you guessed it, melskitchencafe.com!  This was a little change from the "gray gravy and noodles" (as my sister used to call it) that my mom makes.  It has tomato paste, and of course, hamburger instead of sirloin, but it was pretty good!  One of my favorites so far was also the easiest!  I broke out the crock pot again, and made "crock pot soup."  Seriously.  That's what it's called.  So simple, and just on Pinterest, so I'll list the recipe here.  Can of rotel, can of corn, can of black beans (rinsed and drained), 8oz. cream cheese, 1 pkg. dry ranch dressing, 2 frozen chicken breasts, 1 tablespoon cumin, 1 teaspoon onion powder, 1 teaspoon chili powder. Put all ingredients in crock pot and cook 6-8 hours. Shred chicken, and enjoy! It's good as a soup, but so thick it can almost be a dip with scoop chips.

I have some more great recipes to try next week, and I can't wait to use up some of my pantry staples and search the web to find recipes to share myself, instead of just pinning other people's pins...Until then, here are some pictures of my cooking, on my pretty new plates!
chicken gyros, deconstructed!

squash and tomato soup

baked ziti--kind of obsessed with this one!

there is baked potato soup here, under the cheese and bacon...






1 comment:

Angela said...

I also love Pinterest for easy and tasty recipes. Sometimes seeing the pictures of yummy dishes is the motivation I need to actually make food instead of eating out. I can't wait to try those chicken gyros! Keep pinning!!