Family Foodies

This link love has some delicious recipes, some tips and coupons for you this week. I hope you enjoy them.

Since we are experiencing tough times, I found it encouraging that My Wooden Spoon has some great information about  online couponing and freebies.  A Cowboys Wife makes a good point about taking advantage of these offers to help our budgets.

When I read this recipe from At the End of the Day…Are We There Yet? I was intrigued that the instructions say to put the bisquits in the pan gravy. I’ve never heard of this, and it sounds very good. It’s another way to get rid of your bottles of BBQ sauce too!

Chronicles of a Curious Cook has a simple recipe with sausage, fried potatoes and fried apples and onions. I’ve always wanted to taste fried apples and onions. It looks like a ‘stick to the ribs’ type meal.

Kate with Cooking During Stolen Moments came up with a quick snack that’s a winner.  It’s a real fast snack that curbs the sweet/salty cravings, and will be fun to make with little ones.

Jenny at Picky Palate came up with these luscious candy bar cookies. She calls them “Butterfinger Milky Way Chocolate Chunk Cookies” To me, it looks like they will feed the cookie monster in us.
Jen at Skinny Habits has this delish weight watchers friendly pizza that not only satisfies your pizza craving, but is only 6pts per serving. She has some awesome ideas and recipes for eating healthful.

At Pantry Eats, I found this recipe for whole grain bread that is cooked in the crock pot. It’s nice to know I can have fresh bread without a bread machine or going through the whole process of making bread. I never knew we could bake bread in the slow cooker.

Click around these sites and see for yourself how informative and creative these recipes are.

It was like Christmas when the door bell rang. The box I’d been waiting for from Amazon.com had come, finally!

I was so excited to organize my spice cabinet with the Spice Clips I found at amazon.com. When I ordered them a couple weeks ago, I felt they would be the answer to “all my spice organizing problems”.

I won’t have to go through the ‘cumin toast’ episode ever again.

Now it was time to organize that spice cabinet.

When I opened the clips I noticed they were four clips across. My spice cabinet is too narrow for that.  Upon examination, I noticed the manufacturer had conveniently put deep grooves between the clips. It was very easy to bend the plastic and take one clip off.

The instructions are very clear that only the smaller spice jars should be used, and none that were over 4 inches long.

I could deal with that.

I grab that size of jar regularly anyway.

It was very easy to stick the bar of clips on the cupboard with the sticky foam type tape they had mounted to the back of the clip rows. Then I began adding my spices.

The hardest part of the whole project was deciding how I wanted my spices organized. I decided the ‘sweet spices’ would be on the bottom, the peppers in the middle with the bay leaves and alternative spices on top.

It all came together perfectly.

Notice my cinnamon is not on the same row as the cumin?  No more “Cumin Toast” for me!

What type of kitchen organization do you think would make your life a bit easier?

Well, my crock pot amazed me again!

Last Sunday I was in a funk – have you ever been there? You know, just not sure what to make for dinner and the freezer seemed so ominous? I’m there a lot. It was 9 a.m…. hmmm I was looking into the freezer like a deer in the headlights….I knew I needed to make at least ONE nice meal this week…. But what should I do? I really didn’t want to cook.

Taking my “I didn’t know my crock pot could do that” thinking to a new level, I decided to throw four (4) FROZEN boneless pork chops into my crock pot.  I turned it on HIGH. Then I chopped an onion, put in 4 or 5 smashed cloves of garlic (took the back side of my spatula and gave it a good smack to totally smash the garlic then peeled it and threw it in), and a bottle of old BBQ sauce that’s been sitting in the fridge. I’m keeping it VERY real here, aren’t I??

Then I left it for the rest of the day. I spent time with my family, played with the grand daughters a while, and enjoyed my day knowing I didn’t have to think about dinner.

About 4 p.m. my house smelled heavenly!  And the crock pot looked great with simmering beads of steam dripping from the lid. I opened it up to a great reward – soft, moist pork chops. They were so tender, they broke apart with a fork. The onions had carmelized and the garlic was tender.

I shredded them easily with a fork and made hot shredded meat sandwiches for dinner. They didn’t need anything extra, just some mayo and a little dijon mustard to top them off.

So, if you have a whole day to let your crock pot do its thing, you can put frozen meat in it and let it go!

The finished sandwich was absolutely scrumptious.

Now that the days are getting warmer, it’s time to fire up the old grill that’s been sitting all winter. I have the perfect barbecue meal for you to make! It would be great for Mother’s Day, a birthday or any other special occasion. Most everything is made right on the grill. So if you choose to do this mid summer, your house won’t heat up!

Now, let’s talk about the Best Ever BBQ Meal, shall we?

Green as in profits, that is!

Do you love to cook? Are you looking for an internet based business idea?  Combine the two!

I want to let you know about Just Add Sweat. It’s a great eGuide that has been released catering to people who are interested in cooking, recipes and making some money on the internet.

Have you been looking for a new and unique way to serve your family chicken? These Chicken Stuffed Shells look so beautiful, I wouldn’t want to mess them up by eating them. What a different way to have stuffed shells, too. It makes it’s own gravy too.

This recipe for Freeze and Bake Biscuits is a perfect addition to freezer cooking. What a great quick weekend staple. I was thinking they would be great with brown sugar and walnuts melted with butter in the bottom of the pan too.

I’ve always used a Secret Ingredient when cooking, but this one deserves an Oscar! The step by step picture guide for making home made pizza is awesome too.

Have you ever craved chocolate terribly? I have.  This ultimate fudgy Brownie Recipe could be called heaven on earth. I usually have all these ingredients in my pantry too! I feel a binge coming on!

I love rice, especially brown rice. However, I have a hard time getting it just right. Here is a brown rice recipe that you will want to keep on hand. I had never thought to put as much liquid in as is recommended, but it makes sense.

My mom used to make what she called “hobo dinners” where she put everything in a 13×9 pan and baked it together. I think this layered crock pot dinner would be the new millennium version of Mom’s hobo dinner. I’m looking forward to trying it out.

This blog post doesn’t have anything to do with food, however, if you are thinking about blogging, you want to read it. As a new blogger, I’m always second guessing myself. At WAHM 2.0 there was a great guest blog post from author Jen Singer that really helped cement my determination and inspired me to continue blogging.