At Home My Way

Sunday I put a little ham in my crockpot (... because my husband LOVES ham) but since he totally wears the rest of us OUT on ham, I decided to also bake a meatloaf.  I don't make those very often because I haven't always found a recipe that turns out so great.  But, I hit the mother load this time!  This meatloaf is delicious!  The loaf tastes great and the sauce is even better!  Thick and rich and yummy!  I did bake this in a meatloaf pan (the loafpan itself has an insert with another loafpan that has little holes for drainage in it).  I don't have a picture for this.  My pictures don't always look great and there was just no way to get a good picture of the meatloaf.  But the taste?  Oh my!!!!  It's terrific and I know that if you have meatloaf lovers in your family, this will be "the go-to" recipe for you! Here's how I made the "Best Meatloaf Ever" AT HOME MY WAY: Best Meatloaf Ever 1 1/2 lbs ground beef 1...

These are the sugar cookies my mom made most often.  We had them EVERY Christmas and just in general when we wanted cookies.  I love these.  They are easy!  They use simple ingredients that I most generally always have in my pantry.  They use oil instead of butter or margarine.  The dough doesn't have to be chilled and they are dropped with a spoon.  Couldn't be any easier!  They can be sprinkled with whatever colored sugar celebrates a certain holiday or birthday and they pretty much taste fantabulous!  They are puffy little crunchy yet moist cookies and I think they're perfect. Here's how we make Mom's Sugar Cookies AT HOME MY WAY: Mom's Sugar Cookies 2 eggs, slightly beaten 2/3 cup oil (I use canola or vegetable) 2 teaspoons vanilla 3/4 cup sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 cups all purpose flour Colored sugar for sprinkling In a med mixing bowl, slightly beat the eggs.  Add in the sugar and oil. ...

Homemade Chicken & Dumplings As strange as it may seem, one of the first comfort meals I learned to cook was Homemade Chicken & Dumplings. (Although this is not how my mom makes chicken & dumplings.  Hers are dropped and are fluffy like a biscuit.)   As a young married couple we spent lots of time with another young couple.  We laughed, cruised many a country road, and had little structure to our lives (those were the days LOL).  A few times we ate dinner with them and one of my friend's specialties was this recipe for Chicken & Dumplings.  My very picky husband must have felt pressure to be nice and taste her dish (he would never have tasted it for me), but he instantly fell in love this creamy comfort dish.  Since learning to make this I have enjoyed many a plate of chicken & dumplings at Cracker Barrel restaurant knowing the entire time that mine is every bit as good as what you get in this restaurant. For years I have cooked...

(my camera has died - maybe Santa will bring me one - HINT) Last night I made a terrific supper.  We've been eating lots of leftovers and trying to eat up what's in our freezer but we wanted some real comfort food for our Sunday Supper so I kind of went "all out."  I made baked "fried" chicken strips (this is our favorite way to make fried chicken - will post this soon), mashed potatoes, homemade sweet cornbread , and veges.  I had some sweetened strawberries from my friend's garden in my freezer so I also made a little cake (the Busy Day Cake) to go with the berries. At first I was going to make garlic cheddar biscuits and sugar cookies instead of cornbread and the cake. But, after seeing that my flour supply had taken a serious hit when I made Homemade Sandwich Bread , I figured I could instead make the cornbread (it uses only 1 cup of flour) and this terrific Busy Day Cake recipe that my mom used to make for us all the time.  This ca...

Our Thanksgiving leftovers were divine, but I craved something a little different and yet still was in the mood for comfort food last weekend.  I ran across a terrific site called " Deep South Dish ."  Every single one of her recipes looks like something I want on my dinner table!  When I copied this recipe down, I thought it would taste like BBQ round steak.  She has it named " Barbeque Round Steak ", but really, this dish tasted like round steak turned into meatloaf (if you can imagine that).  This was a wonderful solution for me because my husband has never tried meatloaf (imagine that?) and never will.  He claims he doesn't want stuff all mixed together and that he likes his meat to taste like meat.  He's a little finicky to say the least.  So, I made this recipe (a version of it anyway) and told him (because I believed it to be so) that it was like homemade BBQ sauce on round steak.  It didn't taste like BBQ to me.  But it did taste...