At Home My Way

Recipes at the Top; chit-chat at the bottom! EASY FRENCH DRESSING Uses Pantry Ingredients  & Saves a Trip to the Store! 1 cup oil (I used olive oil.) 1 cup ketchup 1/3 cup sugar  3 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar 1 teaspoon table salt 2 teaspoons onion powder 1 teaspoon soy sauce Instructions:  Mix well until smooth and then place in a jar/bottle for keeping in the fridge.  Should keep for a while! Hello everyone! Staying home is hard, isn't it?  Sometimes we all get tired of going here and there and rushing all of the time but this pandemic thing is keeping even the trips I WANT to go on - down to a minimum.  As a society, we have all been super lax about expecting instant gratification. It used to go like this: "What sounds good for supper?"-me "I don't know.  Maybe throw something on the grill?"-Doug "I'll run to the store and grab some meat and stuff for sides!"-me Well,...

We have some friends who have an annual Firework Frenzy each year around July 4th.  It's a great chance to visit with my husband's friends from high school.  They gather together and enjoy each other's company more than just about any high school class I have ever heard about. In addition to old classmates, the party is filled with family, friends, friends of friends, work friends, and LOTS of delicious food!  This much anticipated party offers the best side dishes you will ever find.  What a bunch of great cooks!  Our friends have it down to a science!  They set up big tables labeled "desserts" and "sides" so that you know immediately where to put your dish.  Love that idea! I go to this party excited to see my friends, excited to try the food, and we ALWAYS bring home lots of good memories and at least one recipe that we can't get enough of.  This recipe for Mexican Coleslaw was THAT RECIPE this year.  I love the combination of blac...

Mondays.  Ugh.... If it's not enough to have to go BACK to work and leave the comfort of home, you have to PLAN stuff, like breakfast, lunch, and supper.  What to have? Usually on Sundays I spend some time brainstorming what "sounds good" for meals for the next week.  Definitely having my blog helps because I can use the key words at the right of my blog to sort some easy ideas for things we have liked in the past. I try to take my lunch every day.  I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I have bought lunch since I started at my new job a year ago.  In fact, the girls at work sometimes laugh at the stuff I bring.   Some of my old standby lunches are: corndog muffins - (oooh baby, I loves those!)       homemade frozen burritos (so quick - much better made at home)     Sometimes I'm so LAZY and all I do is take two pieces of this bread that I keep sliced in my freezer.  I t...

We barbecued burgers again this weekend.  My niece was in from out of state and we all wanted to get together to get a chance to visit with her (and each other!).  I took this delicious salad to the BBQ.  Every single thing was just so delicious!  After a long winter (that refuses to let go of us), BBQ just taste extra special and we can't get enough!  I first found this recipe at a great blog called The Prudent Homemaker.  Check it out HERE! This salad can be used to incorporate your favorite seasonal fruit, like strawberries, apples, pears, oranges etc.  It features your favorite lettuce, green onions, sugared pecans, fruit and feta.  It's a delicious combination! I had mandarin oranges on hand and I particularly like the orange contrast next to the salad greens and feta so that is what I used on Sunday.  My mother-in-law commented that she could make a meal completely out of this salad alo...

We celebrate birthdays with a potluck luncheon once a month at my office.  I never know what to make.  As much as I love to cook, I have a hard time deciding what to bring.  We usually have tons of desserts (which I LOVE) so I try to bring something other than sweets.  We also eat the leftovers at work until every last morsel is gone so we like something that is good the next day. I decided to bring Easy Cole Slaw for today's meal.  Since I get home from work at nearly 6PM every night and have to leave the house by 7AM, I find very little prep time for making a potluck dish so this Easy Cole Slaw was perfectly easy, simple, and frugal.  I mixed the dressing last night in mere seconds and this morning dumped my cole slaw mix in a bowl, chopped some onion, and stirred it together. I think this will be a perfect recipe to have handy these last days during Lent.  Our town is predominantly Catholic and there are lots of fish fries this time of ...

  Homemade Croutons   The other day I splurged at Panera.  I bought a delicious loaf of Asiago Bread.  Oh man!  It was wonderful and made delicious sandwiches with turkey, honey mustard, and lettuce/tomato.  (I need to further my quest for being able to make this AT HOME MY WAY!)  I had a few slices left that were a little TOO crusty and stale, but I just couldn't let that wonderful sharp cheesy bread go to waste.  I decided to cut it into cubes and toast it into croutons.  This way my bread would never need to be tossed out.  It would forever be in the holding pattern for bread that is known as Homemade Croutons. Ha! Homemade Croutons are super easy!  This bread already had plenty of flavor so I didn't butter it, drizzle it with oil or season it in any way.  I just cubed the bread, spread on a baking pan and baked until crunchy. These croutons will go great with a fresh green salad and some Homemade Ranch Dr...

I have been seeing homemade ranch dressing recipes all over the place.  I love the idea!  I just never seem to get it done.  This weekend I decided to tackle it!  Especially after seeing the reviews at this blog post (at the Crafty Blog Stalker)  which I saw pinned on Pinterest. I had all of the spices I need except parsley and garlic salt.  I grabbed the cheapest generic spices I could find, which by the way was not at the biggest box store we all know of!  I stopped by this big box store because it's closest to my house but WATCH OUT.  This store wanted 20 cents more for their generic spices than for the name brand.  The generic spices were way down on the very bottom rack and I almost had to lay down on the floor to see back in the rack (grr!).  I picked up the name brand spices and headed to the dairy section and they were out of buttermilk - none!  Not a carton to be found.  One more item...

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...

This is the very best pasta salad EVER!  It is not made with mayo so it can stand the heat better than other dishes you might take to a BBQ or picnic.  I get the most requests for this recipe!  I posted the recipe for this dish here , but wanted to add these pictures because it is so beautiful.  Sweet & Sour Pasta Salad (a/k/a Peggy Jean-ish Pasta Salad) I mix up the dressing in a quart canning jar and heat to boiling in the microwave, but you can heat it on the stove if you like.   This recipe will be a great one to include all of those fresh garden vegetables coming in hot and heavy now... (tomatoes, red onion, cukes & bell pepper)  

I am back among the living - blogging!  Hurray!  We have had a very, very BUSY (did I say busy?) couple of weeks at our house.  My older daughter graduated from college a couple of weeks ago and this past weekend my younger daughter and one of my nieces graduated from high school.  To celebrate, we had two separate graduation parties and even though it was a TREMENDOUS amount of work getting our Central Missouri yard presentable for guests, we had a great time!  Each party had different foods and we did a pretty good job representing each graduate's favorite dishes.  At my older daugher's graduation celebration we served, this pulled BBQ pork (I baked it in the oven and made six times the recipe of BBQ sauce), and this Super Easy Slaw recipe , and, of course, her favorite deep fried crinkle-cut french fries, some of these  Frosted Sugar Cookie Bars  (which were a HUGE HIT) and lots of other stuff.  At the most recent graduatio...

I made some cole slaw to have with fish the other night. It turned out great. I could just make a small amount and will use the leftover cabbage for egg rolls. SUPER EASY COLE SLAW You will need: 1/2 cup Mayo/Miracle Whip (I had generic Miracle Whip also known as "salad dressing") 1/2 cup sugar 2 Tablespoons vinegar (I only had cider vinegar) Mix the ingredients for the dressing. Add to about 3 cups of grated cabbage or half a bag of cole slaw mix. Stir well and let sit in the fridge for an hour so the dressing softens the cabbage. I loved it!