CHRISTEPHI

Over the long weekend, my friend Melly and I got together to do some bulk cooking!  We had a lot of fun, but boy-howdy, it was a lot of work! We pared and chopped 10 pounds of sweet potatoes, 10 pounds of red potatoes, 10 pounds of carrots, and so on. Then we assembled four one-gallon bags (two for each of us) time nine recipes for a grand total of 36 meals!  Each gallon bag is a single crockpot-worth of food, which for my family will actually be at least two meals and a lunch. I found recipes via Pinterest, made a mega shopping list, and this is what we made: Lazy Day Stew (that I re-named Busy Day Stew) from  Ring Around the Rosies . Chicken Curry from  Mama and Baby Love . Cilantro Lime Chicken with black beans and corn also from  Ring Around the Rosies . Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken from  Mama and Baby Love . Savory Chicken from  Ring Around the Rosies  again. Savory Vegetable Beef Soup from The Test Kitchen of Melissa Fallis . Stephanie's Goulash also from Mama and ...

My kids are extremely picky eaters!  Well, Miss M is anyway.  Little Guy isn’t nearly as picky as she is, though he thinks it’s “cool” to be like her and say he doesn’t like things that he’ll typically eat. I rarely buy chicken nuggets to eat at home.  I’m too cheap.  But I rarely take the time to make something elaborate for lunch either. Today, however, the kids were antsy and I thought an engaging activity was in order!  What better than an activity that also provides lunch? What you need: 3-4 chicken tenders, thawed and cut into small pieces about 1/2 cup flour seasonings of choice 1 egg, beaten about 1/2 cup Ritz cracker crumbs Miss M decided on our seasonings: salt, pepper, and garlic powder; I used about 1 t. each.  I would have used a combo of cracker crumbs and crushed corn flakes if I’d had any!  Next time I might add some corn meal in with the crackers, yum!  (Incidentally, store brand “Ritz” crackers are *...

This week I built my menu around the fresh produce in my kitchen (mostly from our CSA shares) that needs to be used before it goes bad! Monday : Eggplant parmesan Tuesday : Burritos featuring crockpot refried beans and fresh garden salsa Wednesday : Pasta salad Thursday : Grilled chicken and patty pan squash Friday : Beef stroganoff Saturday : leftovers Sunday : Chicken fried rice with carrots The eggplant parmesan will be an "experiment" meal since I've never made (or even eaten!) it before.  Most of my experiments are passable, not all are enjoyable. What are you eating this week?

Last year we went to Applefest in Weston, MO where I waited a half hour to purchase a pint off fresh, hot apple butter.  Oh, how disappointed I was when I got home and tasted it.  The nutmeg was overpowering!  I'm not a big fan of nutmeg.  I prefer cinnamon with my apples.  I vowed that I would make my own next time.  Well, Applefest is just around the corner and I won't have to buy any nutmeg-laden apple butter, because...I made my own!  (Though mine has very little nutmeg!) Half the fun was picking the apples ourselves at our favorite local orchard .  Apple picking is a yearly family tradition. Only the Galas were open for picking that day.  They were kind of ugly since most had split open, but they made great applesauce and apple butter, so who cares what they looked like before? I used a recipe my friend found online (with only half the nutmeg called for) that used up the apple peels from making appl...

Freezing just about describes life around here lately.  Not only does it feel like this bitter cold weather will never end (I admit I was spoiled by living in Southern California for 8 years..."winter" is about a week long), but today a truck arrived from Nebraska Furniture Mart to deliver this: The romantic-looking photo is courtesy of my mad Paint Shop Pro skills.  The frozen veggie distribution is courtesy of Miss M.  The freezer itself is courtesy of Uncle Sam.  It pays to have a baby right at the end of the year!  I'm very excited to have the extra freezer space.  Now I can cook large and put away the extras for those days I just don't feel much like cooking.  I may have to invest in some good freezerware though.

My grandma, my father's mother, has a tradition.  Whenever she shares a recipe, she intentionally leaves out an ingredient.  This is a tradition passed down from her mother and  her mother's mother.  Still, sharing her runza recipe with her preteen granddaughter must fall under a slightly different category, because I'm quite certain I got it in its entirety when I copied it down years ago. Runza's are very simply meat and cabbage wrapped up in bread dough and baked, but to many who have lived in Nebraska they are the stuff of legend.  The ultimate comfort food.  I hear the practice has been discontinued, but when I was a kid growing up, the local Runza restaurants had a deal going in the winter that whatever the temperature was at 6 am, that's how much runzas were that day.  (Of course, you had to buy a drink to get the deal).  So if it was 20 degrees out, runzas sold for $0.20.  If it was zero or below, runzas were free! With...

I'm happy to announce that the nilaga turned out quite well...sufficiently like my mother-in-law's to pass the critical "Hubby Test." It makes enough to feed an entire clan, so we'll be having it again a few more times this week. I based mine off of this recipe .  I added one seeded jalapeño from the garden 'cause I know my mother-in-law does.  It only stayed in while the meat cooked (which took way longer than the 1 hour the recipe says!); I took it out before adding the other vegetables.  Miss M only ate rice and broth, no veggies or meat; hubby ate a plate of rice with veggies and meat, but no broth; and what you see above is my bowl before I added rice. When I woke up this morning, the weather forecast said 90% chance of rain and while it didn't rain very hard, we did get a bit of a shower. Since there wasn't any thunder, I let Miss M play outside with her "bra-lella." She's wearing her "Wendy" dress.  Wh...