At Home My Way

  I made a delicious Pot Roast last Sunday with little dumplings  ( pictured between the green beans and the bread ).  It's another of my husband's favorite meals.  I don't usually buy rump roast because it's so expensive but this was a nice one, not too high of a price, and my husband ate sandwiches from the leftover roast all week, so how can that be a bad thing, right?  (I also used the remaining leftovers for my free soup today-Thursday.) I typically make roast in the oven or in the crockpot.  I have read some information that you can use your crockpot all day and use less energy than using your oven for a couple of hours.  That sold me there so I used my crockpot. Our family loves "Little Dumplings" made with the roast gravy.  It's so easy that it's silly really.  I have, on occasion, either when I was being super frugal or didn't want to make a run to the store, used homemade dumplings (from m...

  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!...

  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...

I'm trying to get organized around my house.  No better thing to focus on than the menu plan, which saves $$, saves time, and is better over all for my family! I spent today (Sunday) making a few things to make our menu a little more lively.  I made  homemade chocolate pudding for snacks or dessert, homemade bread for supper and sandwiches, homemade croutons for salads/soup, and some  homemade ranch dressing for dipping and salads (new recipe I'm trying).  So far I have a great start to the week and that should make getting out of bed in the morning a whole lot easier! Here's my Menu plan for the week starting Sunday, January 13 - AT HOME MY WAY: Menu Plan (starting Sunday, January 13, 2013)     Breakfast items:   Homemade quick oats oatmeal with fruit/brown sugar Zucchini bread (recipe coming this week ) Small batch raisin bran muffins (recipe coming) Lunches :   Tomato soup with HM croutons (crouton reci...

One of the most dependable food blogs for recipes that I can think of is Lynn's Kitchen Adventures .  I can always depend on her recipes to turn out perfect!  Last night I tried Lynn's recipe for Homemade Cheeseburger Helper .  I had my doubts, ha!  I had seen similar recipes before but I just could not imagine that a recipe with TOMATO SAUCE in it could really taste like the Cheeseburger Helper my family LOVES from the box (eek!).  I thought maybe Lasagna Helper or one of the other flavors but surely not Cheeseburger Helper.  I decided last night to give it a shot.  It could not have been more PERFECT!  Lynn!  You really nailed it.  And, I cannot thank you enough for this delicious, easy, super cheap and EXACT replica of Cheeseburger Macaroni. I say its an EXACT replica!  But it's even better.  Ya know how? It's CHEAPER!  I figure I spent less than $1.00 on the ingredients I used to make this (not counting the...

Sticky Buns     I normally make homemade cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning at our house.  This year, I decided to take a few shortcuts.  The first thing I did was make my dough in my bread machine.  (You can use the same recipe and just do it without a bread machine, but I let my bread machine do the mixing and rising for me just to save time.)    I use the same recipe as I do for my Schoolhouse Dinner Rolls except that I add a blended egg to the liquid ingredients for a richer dough.  This is the exact same recipe that I use for my cinnamon rolls .          The only difference is that you roll the dough into balls instead of rolling the dough out, spreading on butter and cinnamon/brown sugar, and cutting them.  I made my dough balls with buttered hands, rolled each ball in cinnamon sugar, and then placed the dough balls in a pan, the bottom of which was spread with melted ...