At Home My Way

Doug and I celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary this week.  You might ask, "What on earth do I care about this lady's anniversary?" LOL.   PARMESAN CHICKEN TIME! I have made Parmesan Chicken, various ways, throughout our marriage - on our anniversary.  By now, I wouldn't want to have an anniversary without my homemade Parmesan Chicken.  (Eating out is overrated LOL.)  We have lots of good memories of me successfully (and unsuccessfully) learning to make this really good meal! Funny how as time passes you learn to roll with the punches. As a newlywed with NO STOVE, I made this meal using a microwave.  Sounds gross to me now, but we loved it.  But then, at 18 and 20 years old, we didn't know much better LOL. As time passed, I made this recipe in the oven, slaving over the stove putting "love" into it as it baked and bubbled in the oven on lazy weekends at home. Next, I found myself working 30 minutes away from home. Commuting and being...

Last night was pizza night at our house.  We were actually craving take out pizza on Tuesday (our favorite is Casey's) but - trying to be diligent about saving money, I quickly made our favorite pizza dough before leaving for work (Wednesday morning) and stuck the bowl of dough in the fridge.  I use the 5-Minute-A-Day dough which I blogged about here . Making pizza at our house involves dough, a can of plain tomato sauce spread over the dough and sprinkled with salt/pepper/garlic powder/oregano, and then topped with cheese and usually pepperoni. Tuesday we had crockpot BBQ chicken for supper so I had one lone piece of BBQ chicken in my fridge.  I have often seen BBQ chicken pizzas on menus and on Pinterest but had never really checked out what was on it.  BBQ chicken on pizza sauce never sounded very good to me.  Well... to my surprise most people don't use PIZZA SAUCE on a pizza with BBQ chicken on it.  Duh!!!  The recipes I found just involv...

Last night my older daughter had me over for supper.  When she was in college, she often went to Taco Tuesdays at the local bar and grill in her college town.  It was Tuesday yesterday and we had tacos so we definitely had some good Taco Tuesday at her house.  I'm betting hers beat the socks off what she used to eat in college! Rebecca got a new crockpot for Christmas from her grandma and had a new recipe to try in it.  She made Crockpot Chicken Tacos.  It turned out wonderful!  What a treat!  Sometimes grownup children are good for something, like having you over for supper after work AND doing all the dishes!  Got to love that!  We both agreed that we will make this recipe a lot.  In fact, we both liked it just as good (if not better) than ground beef tacos.  It was super easy to throw together!  In fact, it doesn't get much easier than this recipe!  The chicken was juicy and just perfect! H...

Do you need a super easy, "dump and go" crockpot meal that is super delicious and tastes like you are eating out?  I have a good one for you today! RECIPES AT THE TOP - CHIT CHAT AT THE BOTTOM Here's how I now make Crockpot Parmesan Chicken AT HOME MY WAY. (I have re-posted about about this recipe HERE .  Same recipe.  It is just that good!) Dump & Go Crockpot Parmesan Chicken *only FIVE ingredients plus the pasta* (Print the Recipe / View on one page:      HERE)  6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts/tenders (frozen or thawed) 1 1/2 cups (app.) of seasoned canned bread crumbs  1/4 cup of  parmesan  cheese (I use the green can.) 1 or 2 jars (24 oz each) of prepared spaghetti sauce (Prego, Ragu, etc.) (Classico is my favorite lately.) Mozzarella  (shredded) (Serve with cooked pasta.  We use penne.) Instructions : Place chicken pieces in the crockpot (as much as your family needs).  (I use frozen because my crockpot cooks ...

This is another no-brainer recipe.  But, I decided to post it in case either of my kids (or someone else) wants to know how I do it.  Baking a whole chicken in the crockpot is one of the easiest things to make.  It takes literally seconds to prepare in the morning.  The only thing you would need to remember is that you do need a THAWED chicken to do this.  You could not use a frozen chicken.  I usually make this as a Monday meal and take my chicken out of the freezer on Sunday, leaving it on a plate to thaw.  I place it in the fridge overnight and Monday morning, I'm ready to get dinner started. Monday mornings are painful.  I want to stay in bed or stay home or do anything but go to work... but duty calls and so does the bank account.  I can make Rotisserie-Baked Chicken and have several meal options for the week. We usually have it the first time with some sort of potato or fries.  Since my family is a little small t...

I am a lover of fried chicken!  I love it from a grocery store deli, fast food, or buffet restaurant.  But seriously, who can tell you they don't love one of those southern comfort-type Sunday dinners that involve fried chicken, real mashed potatoes, summer squash, green beans and lots of homemade desserts?  You know, the kind we all ate at our granny's house when everybody was getting together? Sadly, I don't have a granny to make those type meals for me anymore... Although I only remember MY granny typically frying chicken LEGS for some reason LOL???  My mom doesn't really care for chicken so its a rare occasion that we eat chicken at her house (although I do beg her sometimes for a favorite meal that I grew up eating called "Chicken & Yellow Rice").  But, I digress. Last night I had some gardening to do to beat the next downpour that is sure to arrive here in Missouri late tonight.  So, I had the extra time required to make this oven baked ...

  I decided to scratch the Hawaiian C hicken that I had on my Menu Plan this week  in favor of Parmesan Chicken which my husband and daughter are particularly fond of.  I also served some salad with Homemade Ranch Dressing ( homemade croutons ) and used some leftover buns for garlic toast. This recipe has a history and I cannot post about it without mentioning the memories attached to this recipe. My husband and I married young.  He was 20, I was 18.  We had only lived at home with our parents so needless to say, cooking wasn't something he nor I had much knowledge of.  Another teeny problem was that we only had a microwave (a wedding gift) and we did not have a stove for many months after our wedding.  In the cookbook that came with the microwave I found a recipe for Parmesan Chicken.  My very picky hubby somehow agreed to try Parmesan Chicken.  He had never even eaten spaghetti.  We're talking some serious food issues LOL!...

One of my most favorite blogs is www.joyinmykitchen.blogspot.com .  She always makes lots of "real" food and always cooks in a healthy way.  She inspires me when I can think of nothing to cook! I tried one of her recipes this week as I made Crockpot Chicken Teriyaki!  It was a huge success!  It was not sweet at all and made a great "take out chinese food" meal at home.  I think you could sweeten it up by increasing the honey but we liked it just like it turned out.  The sauce was rich and thick, thanks to the corn starch, and we loved it! SnoWhite at Finding Joy in my Kitchen used only chicken legs when she made this dish.  Some of the members of my family prefer only white meat so I used both legs and boneless, skinless chicken tenders that you buy in the bag frozen.  Since they were tenders, I didn't thaw them first but if you are using a large piece of meat, you should start with thawed meat.  The legs, however, WERE thawed ...

Hello!   I’m back. Hurray!   This week I’ve received some comments to former posts which made me realize how long it’s been since I’ve posted anything.      Recently I took a new job and that brought lots of sheer exhaustion to my day.   I worked at school for five years which allowed me to be off at 3:00, and then worked for a law firm 8-4 for about four years.   Cutbacks forced me to be laid off at my most recent position which left me landing a very exciting position as a paralegal.   The only problem?   I work 8-5.   I haven’t worked until 5 for years and years.   And since my husband and I commute together, the trip across town to pick him up sometimes takes 30 minutes by itself.   You wouldn’t think an extra 30 minutes tacked on to your day would wear you out but that coupled with leaving early to get us both to work on time has left me exhausted, mentally and physically.   My new job is exciting but taxing and ...

I'm sure I have told you many times that my husband is a seriously picky eater.  I know you are NOT going to believe this, but this is one of his favorite meals!  I do not remember how I got him to try it.  But, we love it.  I realize there are no VEGETABLES on this plate.  This is my husband's ideal - white plate food (carbs). (My mother would croak.  She liked a colorful plate of food. LOL.)  But, I didn't have any broccoli, peppers, etc. and definitely I wasn't going to the store when I got home.  Also, we had leftover corn in the fridge from Christmas dinner so that was a re-heat. The Hawaiian Chicken is a recipe I got from my sister-in-law.  Its really yummy!  This is how I do Hawaiian Chicken AT HOME MY WAY: Hawaiian Chicken Ingredients You Need to Make This : (6-8) Boneless, Skinless Breast Chicken Tenders (or breasts)  1 to 1 1/2 cup (app) Pancake mix, flour, biscuit mix (I had some waffle mix I was ne...