Somewhat Sneaky Mac & Cheese

Before I had children of my own, I’d listen to frustrated friends of mine talk about how their kids were such picky eaters.  They’d fight with their kids, meal after meal, to get them to put something healthy in their little mouths.  As a Mom-Wannabe and an avid eater, this made me nervous about what was to come.  Then, my oldest daughter arrived and my fears were calmed.  She couldn’t get enough of the healthy stuff, and still can’t.  When other kids want to binge on chicken nuggets and French fries, my oldest would prefer tearing apart an artichoke or diving into a bowl of edamame.

Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie

I’m an admitted picky pie person. Fruit pies just aren’t my thing, much to my husband’s chagrin.  I’m not saying I don’t like fruit desserts, that’s not it at all!  I love a good crisp, cobbler or shortcake.  I’m just not into fruit pies.  I’ll take one for the team and bake one up a couple of times a year, and I may even enjoy it (see my Salted Caramel Apple Pie post here), but my fruit pie baking days are few and far between.

I do, however, really enjoy cream pies.  French Silk, Banana Cream, Lemon Meringue…now you’re talking!

Ribollita with Spaghetti

What a strange winter we’ve had so far!  I know, I know…I live in Georgia.  “Winter”, in the true sense of the word, doesn’t really exist here.  From what I’ve gathered, though, it’s been pretty calm all over.  That’s all well and good, but one of my favorite things about chilly winter nights is being able to make a big pot of soup for dinner.  Since we haven’t had many cold nights this year, my soup making has hit a bit of an inspiration road block.  Then…last weekend happened.  Last weekend was MISERABLE! Not snowy, winter weather, but rainy, gray and gross all weekend long.  Sunday called for soup.  No, it begged for soup.  So, I complied.

Not Fried Pickles

I’ve lived in the South for a good many years and one thing I’ve learned during my time here is, they like to fry stuff.  A lot of stuff.  You name it, they’ll fry it.  I try to avoid fried foods, for the most part, but there are a couple of things that I just can’t resist when I see them on a menu.  One of those irresistibles is a plate of fried pickles.

Rosemary & Orange Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Apple Cherry Relish

Are you getting ready for a busy weekend?  Quite thankfully, I’m not!  I can’t remember the last time we had a weekend with absolutely NOTHING going on.  I’m going to savor it, every little second. (In other words, don’t call my house tomorrow in the early morning hours because I hope to be sleeping.)

Slow Cooker Cincinnati Chili

Chili is a tricky dish.  It’s not hard to make, but I’ve found that it’s a very personal, almost religious, experience depending on where you are in the country.  If you’re in or around Texas, you may prefer your chili heavily spiced and heavy on the meat (not ground…God forbid) with no mention of beans, except possibly on the side.  Other areas of the country will insist that chili just isn’t chili without beans and ground meat. Then, there’s chicken chili (which just truly offends chili purists) and even Southwestern Chili Verde.

Easy Berry-Cheese Danish

It’s Monday, but not our usual Monday.  Everyone is home from school/work on holiday and we had a slower morning than usual.  It had been a busy, busy weekend, so we enjoyed taking it a little easier this morning.  Since we were all home, and enjoying the laziness of it all, I decided to bake up some goodies for breakfast.

Crispy Smashed Roasted Potatoes

Like a lot of people, I have a list that’s, at least, a mile long of all of the things I need to do when I have the time.  Pictures to organize, closets to rearrange, clothes to go through, baby books to (finally) write in… you get the picture.  Add to this the list of recipes I’ve wanted to try for ages, but haven’t, and the list gets much, much longer.  This is one of those recipes that caught my eye ages ago and I just hadn’t gotten around to making it.  Now that I finally did, I’m irritated that I didn’t do it before because they were really good and, as far as recipes go, kind of fun!

Slow-Baked Salmon with Lemon and Thyme

Despite my best attempts, my girls aren’t big seafood eaters.  With the exception of shrimp and salmon, they prefer to steer clear of the swimmy stuff.  Their excuse is always that “it smells fishy”, which I find kind of funny because they like salmon and it always smells the fishiest to me.  Oh well.  Kids, right?  Since they do like salmon, and it’s good for all of us, I try to include it in our dinner routine as often as I can.

Orzo Stuffed Peppers

I love when I come across a twist on an old family favorite.  I also love when I make it and it ends up being really good, and thus, a new family favorite.  This, happily enough, was one of those times.

My husband had mentioned last week that we hadn’t had stuffed peppers in a while, which is a less than subtle hint to me that he’d really appreciate having them for dinner one night.  I got to thinking about it and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made stuffed peppers.  I think it might have been before our girls were born, which means he was more than right…it had been a long while.  It had been so long that I couldn’t remember where the recipe was that I had last used!  That led me on a search for a new stuffed pepper recipe to try.