At Home My Way

Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars   (makes an 8x8 square pan or one round cake pan)   RECIPES AT THE TOP - CHIT CHAT AT THE BOTTOM! PRINTABLE VIEW HERE! 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons all purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 stick (1/2 cup) real butter, softened 1/3 cup granulated sugar 1/3 cup packed brown sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1 egg 1 cup chocolate chips *This recipe could be doubled for baking in a 9x13 pan. (Makes about 12 cookie bars.) Instructions:   Preheat oven to 350°. Stir softened butter, both sugars, egg and vanilla until smooth.  Add baking soda, salt and stir.  Next add flour and stir.  Stir in chocolate chips last. Batter will be thick.  Spread in sprayed/prepared 8x8 square or 8" round cake pan.  (I actually sprayed my clean hands with cooking spray and then patted the dough into my sprayed cake pan.) Bake 22-24 minutes or until browning. Wait to cut until cooled a little. The Chit Chat This weekend we p...

RECIPES AT THE TOP / CHIT-CHAT AT THE BOTTOM! Want a new freezer meal idea?  Do you like toasted, cheesy sub sandwiches that are as delicious as your local deli/sub shop? How about if you can keep them in the freezer ready at a moment’s notice?  Here’s how I stock our freezer with Freezer Subs AT HOME MY WAY! Freezer Subs / Making Pizza Subs ( PRINTABLE RECIPE IS HERE ) Ingredients: French Bread Loaves (I get the skinny ones at Walmart.) Lunch meats of your choice (I used Frickes sliced ham found near the big hams in Walmart) Pepperoni (Pepperoni adds a nice spiciness to homemade subs!) Cheese (grated or sliced) Butter/margarine, softened (about a half stick per large bread loaf) OR olive oil works fine here Garlic Powder Sauces (optional) – pizza sauce, ranch dressing, BBQ sauce, buffalo sauce, etc. Foil (I prefer heavy duty foil.) Gallon Freezer Storage Bags or the bread bag the french bread came in Permanent Marker Instructions: 1.        Slice...

RECIPES AT THE TOP!  CHIT-CHAT AT THE BOTTOM! This recipe has also been shared at: Sweet Little Bluebird !  Check it out to see more great recipes just like this one! Peanut Butter Brownies -  Pantry Cooking 1/2 cup peanut butter (I used creamy "naturals".) 1/3 cup margarine, softened (try not to melt all the way) 2/3 cup white granulated sugar 1/2 cup packed brown sugar 2 eggs 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1 teaspoon baking POWDER 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup all purpose flour INSTRUCTIONS: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray or grease/flour your baking pan.  Use either 9 x 9 square pan or 7 x 11 rectangle pan. Soften the margarine (try not to melt all the way). Add in all other ingredients except the flour.  Stir well.  Add the flour.  Stir again to incorporate all of the flour. Spoon into a sprayed (or prepared/greased/floured) baking pan.  Spread around.  I had to use the back of a spoon to...

In my office at work lots of people, young and old, are standing in line for the microwave!  They are often warming up those tasteless little boxed meals you find in the freezer section of the grocery store.  Eek.  There are better options out there than those things! I found a great money and time saver that gives me better food and more bang for my buck.  Also, no trash since I reuse the jars!  Another winner-winner, chicken dinner... or stir fry dinner, chili dinner, or pasta dinner... Leftovers make great frozen dinners!  Here's all you need to do it AT HOME MY WAY: Frozen Micro Meals in Jars Leftovers, such as meals with rice, pasta, chili, soups Jars with lids.  I use pint canning jars because those offer similar amounts like Lean Cuisine type dinners, but if you are a big eater, by all means use quart jars. Lids.  I keep a stash of recycled peanut butter lids which are plastic for using with freezer/fridge food.  Th...

Here's how I made QUICK PIZZA CRUST At Home My Way: RECIPES AT THE TOP -CHIT CHAT AT THE BOTTOM. QUICK PIZZA CRUST www.AtHomeMyWay.blogspot.com 1/2 cup warm/hot water (like hot bath water) 1 packet (or 2 teaspoons) active yeast (only use one yeast packet even if doubling this recipe) 1 teaspoon sugar (optional) 1 1/2 cup All Purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons oil (I used olive oil.) INSTRUCTIONS: NOTE:  You can double this recipe if you want a thicker crust.  If you double the recipe, you still only need to use the one packet of yeast.  No need to double the yeast measurement above.  Measure very warm water in a measuring cup.  Add yeast (and sugar, if using) to the water in the measuring cup.  Stir gently.  Let the yeast do its thing for about 5 minutes.  It will get cloudy and/or form some a little foam if the yeast is working.  Now add only 1 teaspoon of oil to the water/yeast mixture.  Stir. Measure flour i...

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...

Sometimes you just need a quick meal idea - to get some food on the table.  Sure, you can run to your favorite burger or pizza joint, but all of that food you have in your pantry/cabinet is already there, right?  You might as well cook it and be $10+ richer in your pocket?  That was my theory the other night, anyway... I really wanted to go out for supper.  I get home from work 6PM-ish and had managed to force myself to go for a run.  My only problem is that after a supper-time run, I am really famished by the time I get home!  I tend to gravitate to takeout food in times like these, but I took a deep breath and a long look in my refrigerator and this is the meal I came up with. It was DELICIOUS!   It immediately brought me back to the days when my dad was a long distance truck driver and my mom made us quick and easy suppers like these to stretch her budget.  A meal like this can be stretched with more or less hotdogs and more or less c...

I don't know about you, but I'm always lacking lunch inspiration!  I don't have much time in the mornings since we have to be on the road by around 7AM each morning so even if I normally would have inspiration, probably I'm not having it at 6:30 AM. I was browsing around blogs the other day looking for supper inspiration when I ran across a mom who makes her own pigs in a blanket.  We make pigs in a blanket at our house too but we use canned biscuits.  I just couldn't imagine the combination of homemade bread and hot dog.   Let me be the first to tell you that these are the best, most delicious things you could ever put in your mouth!  No more, will I wonder what to take for lunch!   These are pretty easy to make (I used my bread machine for the dough), and I simply let them cool and placed them all in a gallon bag in the freezer.  My morning lunch prep involved opening the freezer, getting one out, and sticking it in my lunch container. ...