At Home My Way

I grew up eating canned jellied cranberry sauce.  You know the kind that plops out of the can looking like a purple blob?  I LOVED it when I was little and I still LOVE it now.  I have it with everything from chicken and dumplings to baked chicken and of course a fabulous Thanksgiving Day feast.  But, the other day in making "Sunday dinner" , I was baking a chicken and went down to the basement to pull out some chicken broth I had cooked and stashed down in the freezer to make stuffing when I ran across two bags of Ocean Spray cranberries.  I think I bought those things a long time ago!  I probably intended to make cranberry bread out of them because that's my favorite way to eat whole cranberries, but knowing I had chicken baking and stuffing "in the works", I peaked on the bag to see how difficult making homemade cranberry sauce would be.  The recipe sounded easy and I had everything I needed.  In the past,...

http://www.orgjunkie.com/ Breakfasts : Toast with butter, jelly or Nutella (ahh! My new favorite!) Applesauce Bread from Heavenly Homemakers blog (from my freezer and it freezes GREAT!) Smoothies using frozen bananas, milk, strawberries or HM chocolate syrup Breakfast Burritos from the freezer (to try) HM Apple or Blueberry Fritters (to try) Lunches : Sloppy Joe or Bean Burritos from the freezer PB&J on HM Sandwich Bread, (with yogurt or fruit, and possibly some tomato juice... heard tomato juice lowers blood pressure) Suppers : Leftovers (Baked Chicken, Stuffing using leftover HM Sandwich Bread , HM cranberry sauce (will post with pics if I don't eat it all LOL) using cranberries in the freezer from Thanksgiving, and leftover HM cornbread) Bacon-Tomato Sandwices HM Chicken & Dumplings (using the same recipe for Dumplings as I used in beef/roast broth in this post ) in the Crockpot Chili in the Crockpot HM Stirfry and HM egg rolls Spaghetti, Pineapple Lettuce Salad , and...

The first day of my "pity party" (when my youngest moved to college), I was in a quandry (gotta love that word LOL) as to what to cook.  My daughter was an adventurous eater like I am and if I couldn't make homemade stirfry , kinda empanadas , or frosted sugar cookie bars , I didn't know what to make!  I boo-hooed meditated in my bedroom until I could get myself together and then decided to cook for my man!  I put some boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a skillet with a tiny bit of oil and browned them, then added some of our favorite BBQ sauce and cooked them with a lid until they were juicy and saucy!  I also made a recipe I had been wanting to try for Easy Macaroni and Cheese, which did not turn out like I hoped, so I'm going to keep working on that recipe to make it a little better before posting.  But the BEST thing I made for him was a Homemade Pumpkin Pie.  It was delicious!  My hubby has RAVED about the pie I made.  Several tim...

We were running a little low on sandwich bread last night and after a full day of work and the LONG commute home (to me), I was NOT going anywhere!  I used my favorite homemade sandwich bread recipe and my handy dandy bread machine to create this loaf.  I've used this recipe before!  During the Blizzard of 2011 I created this terrific rainbow loaf for a bake sale.  I also regularly use this recipe substituting some whole wheat flour for some of the white flour.  It always turns out great and my skeptic husband, who prefers something like the Wonder Bread that he grew up eating, even took a PB&J with this soft, perfect bread!  I slice mine with an electric knife once the loaf is completely cold.  Remember to let it cool completely before enclosing it in a plastic bag (otherwise the steam makes it a little moist).  I have found this loaf keeps about 5 days with good results and for toasting, I would say a good week or week and a half.  E...

This recipe is all over blogland and that is for several reasons.  The first reason is that it is DELICIOUS!  The second probably is that it's extremely frugal, and the third is that this is a very versatile recipe.  You can substitute all kinds of fruit and make this with whatever you have on hand, either seasonally, or from your pantry.  We love this Baked Oatmeal recipe!  We eat it hot or cold, fresh out of the oven or leftover!  If you have any friends or family who claim not to like oatmeal (the cooked kind) but do like apple crisp or oatmeal cookies, try this!  Its similar to a coffee cake.  I would say this is also gluten free since it doesn't use any flour, but I'm not a specialist in that area.  I think you have to check your oats to make sure they are gluten free.  This is how I make my favorite recipe for BAKED OATMEAL - At Home My Way! BAKED OATMEAL 3 cups old fashioned oats - not quick oats...

We moved our "baby" to college this week, two hours away from our small town to the big city (Kansas City).  It was a very busy week but I wanted to make some sort of special "last supper" for her before she left.  She's my partner in crime for trying new recipes, taking blog pictures for me, and eating just about anything I put on the table.  Her favorites are Hawaiian Chicken and Parmesan Chicken, but she was starving when I called her on my way home from work and she wanted something faster than those other two dishes.  Since I had chicken thawed in the fridge, I made fried chicken, mashed potatoes (instant for my hubby), white long grain rice and leftover pinto beans (she and I ate this instead of the potatoes), fried zucchini, and my all time favorite dessert as a little girl, which my daughter also LOVES - Puddin' and Biscuits!   When I was crying and boo-hooing over my sweet girl being so far away, I told my husband, "but now I don't have...

Last night we had one of my husband's favorite meals for supper.  (I did not have to slave in the kitchen all day, thankfully.  I just used some leftovers I had in the fridge and he was happier than if I had served him a fancy feast!)  What did we have?  We had a typical midwest diner favorite, ye ole Hot Beef Sandwich.  Here if the midwest, they take white bread, scoop on a big pile of hot, fluffy mashed potatoes, and ladle on some good old roast beef and brown gravy.  This is a huge pile of deliciousness and will definitely leave you craving your recliner!  But, it was easy, fast, and we both really enjoyed it.  In fact, it was so good, that we promptly jumped in the car and took my husband's mom a plate (she was having Cheerios for supper - eek)!  She loved it too.  This is how I make an Open Faced Hot Beef Sandwich AT HOME MY WAY: Open Faced Hot Beef Sandwich (DINER FOOD) Sliced roast beef from the deli or leftover r...

I am claiming my blog on Technorati.  My code is V43SFWWGVPUD. :)

One of my favorite blogs mentioned a recipe that I posted in her "comments" section of a post about zucchini fritters.  I figured I should at least post this on here so it would be easier to find this recipe, that is... until she posts it on her blog because SHE IS GOING TO LOVE IT and you will too!  My 23 year old daughter could not tell she was eating zucchini and she is my pickiest eater! Kim's blog is here:  http://jabezfarm.blogspot.com/ If you like apple cobbler / pie, you're gonna love this: Any naysayers should see this discussion board where I posted the recipe.  They all went "hog wild"  LOL! http://forums.organicgardening.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/5541078301/m/5651069627?r=5651069627#5651069627 ZUCCHINI COBBLER recipe AT HOME MY WAY Ingredients: 8 cups chopped seeded peeled zucchini (about 3 pounds) (peel the zucchini first, then slice lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and slice the zucchini.  These little slices, when seeded and peeled ...

This is a salad that my mother-in-law regularly makes at her house.  I was probably married to her son 10 years before I got brave enough to try it LOL.  Something about pineapple, cheese, and lettuce just DID NOT sound good to me.  Boy was I WRONG!  This is now my favorite salad and she makes it for me often.  I'm wishing I hadn't waited all those years to try it!  I wasted some important pineapple salad eating in those 10 years!  Whenever we have spaghetti or lasagna, I always have to have this salad!  Also goes terrific with ham dinners LOL!  This combination may sound a little strange, but trust me when I tell you, it is delicious!  Also, I think this is a great recipe for cooking from the pantry.  Give it a try! "Pineapple Lettuce" (This is what we call it!) Ingredients for the salad : 1 head rinsed, drained, and chopped lettuce 1 can chunk pineapple 1 ½ cups grated cheddar cheese Dressing : ½ cup ma...

We have a friend who makes kettle corn at craft shows, festivals, and community gatherings.  We LOVE when he shares a few extra leftover bags of this delicious stuff with us!   Who can get enough of that sweet and salty snack?  Its addictive, for sure!  I was rummaging around in my recipes the other day and found a recipe for making small amounts of kettle corn in your microwave using a lunch sack.  It sounded TOO easy and I had to give it a try!  It works great and I will definitely be making it a lot!  Whether or not you are adding the sugar for kettle corn as I did here - or just popping as regular popcorn in a paper bag in your microwave, NOT USING commercial microwave popcorn HAS to be a good thing!  Seems like I read somewhere something in the bags of commercial microwave popcorn is terrible for you!  But,whether or not that is true, I think making microwave popcorn using recycled lunch sacks (I used recycled fast...