At Home My Way

We hosted a baby shower at our house last weekend to welcome the birth of a new great-nephew.  I'll post later on about the wonderful theme we used (books) as well as all of the wonderful food that we served to match the book titles.  It was a blast! One of the things I served was BBQ meatballs.  When I saw the price of a bag of frozen meatballs, I knew I would be making them homemade.  What I didn't know was how easy and inexpensive they were to make!  I turned to a favorite blog ( Lynn's Kitchen Adventures ) for a meatball recipe that I could depend on to be delicious and easy.  The link to Lynn's recipe is HERE .  Lynn's recipe for the meatballs is perfect!  Most recipes I've seen for homemade meatballs use lots of ingredients and spices.  Lynn's recipe is very simple - ground beef, egg, and oats.  It can't get much easier than that!  Lynn uses bottled barbecue sauce on her BBQ meatballs.  Since I've made BBQ...

Pizza boats are one of the easiest and most frugal meals you will ever put on the table.  They are also great to make with ingredients you can keep on hand, either in your freezer or in your pantry.  Pizza boats are made with only four basic ingredients:  bread, sauce, cheese & toppings.  You can keep bread rounds, hamburger or hot dog buns, sections of French bread, or an assortment of any of these in your freezer.  I usually keep either pizza sauce or those small, 8 ounce, cans of tomato sauce in my pantry.  I also usually keep either grated or blocks of mozzarella in my freezer since there are so many things I can do with it.  Pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers, olives, all are optional.  Great if you have some but not required. Last night I made pizza boats and garlic cheese rounds for supper along with a salad.  It was great, cheap, and better yet, fast! This recipe is really not a recipe.  It's just using some stuff you ma...

RECIPES AT THE TOP - CHIT CHAT AT THE BOTTOM! Here's how we make Buttermilk Biscuits AT HOME MY WAY: Buttermilk Biscuits (just like Cracker Barrel) (Makes about 8 biscuits.) PRINTABLE RECIPE HERE Ingredients: 2 cups SELF RISING flour  (self rising flour gives the perfect taste to homemade biscuits) 1/3 cup shortening  (cold real butter also works here) 1 1/4 cup buttermilk*  *NOTE:  (If using regular milk combined with lemon juice vinegar referenced below, you only need 1 cup of milk because thinner regular milk uses less by volume than the thick real buttermilk.) Directions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. (Make sure your flour is "fluffed" not straight from the bag;  Dump it in a larger container and stir using up and down motion to fluff it up a little bit-THEN measure out 2 cups).  Measure 2 cups SELF RISING flour into a mixing bowl.  Add shortening and cut it until small and crumbly. A fork works fine for this purpose ...

I'm trying to get a game plan for the week and thought I would post a menu to keep me on track. Here's my plan: Monday: Breakfast :  Yogurt ( homemade-small batch  recipe) with fruit and homemade Perfect Granola (pecan & almond) Lunch :  Salad with homemade ranch dressing using this Mix and the homemade yogurt) Supper :  Crockpot-steak w/ mushroom gravy & noodles, leftover toasted homemade biscuits , and a vegetable Tuesday: Breakfast :  Lemon Poppyseed Muffins - trying this recipe HERE . Lunch :  Peanut Butter Sandwich Supper :  Sloppy Joes/Juicy Burgers with oven fries Wednesday: Breakfast :  leftover muffins Lunch :  tortilla with leftover Sloppy Joes Supper :  Make potpie with leftover beef/gravy using this recipe ( Potpie with Batter Crust ) but using the leftover beef. Thursday: Breakfast :  Oatmeal Lunch :  Leftover potpie Supper :  Hawaiian  Chicken Friday: Breakfa...

I'm not much of a cookie baker, but I decided to try a new recipe over the weekend.  They turned out great!  They are super fudgy and nice, fat little cookies.  They will be perfect for a valentine treat so I will definitely want to remember this recipe!  They would also be great to pack for lunch treats, for potlucks, and for sharing with a friend. Here's how I made Chewy Brownie Cookies AT HOME MY WAY:   Chewy Brownie Cookies   1 1/2 cup brown sugar 2/3 cup all-vegetable shortening (Crisco or generic)  1 Tablespoon water 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 large eggs 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour 1/3 cup cocoa powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1 to 1 1/2 cup chocolate chips (I only used one cup.)   Directions:   Preheat oven to 350 degrees.   (I used a big wooden spoon and mixed by hand.)    In a mixing bowl, mix the brown sugar and shortening until smooth.  Add t...

We have a new favorite breakfast treat!  Vanilla Scones! I found this recipe last week and since it said "just like Starbucks", I knew they had to be good! I have a confession.  I have never had Starbucks Vanilla Scones.  I guessed that since the chocolate muffins I had at Starbucks were super delicious, so would be the Vanilla Scones.  I was so right!! This recipe uses ingredients that I usually keep in my pantry and refrigerator.  I like to keep recipes on hand for items just like this - that require no trips to the dreaded grocery store. My mom came over just as these scones cooled on my kitchen counter.  We dove right in!  They were so delicious that we really couldn't believe it.  My mom told me that they rate right up there with my homemade donuts.  She loves my homemade donuts the most of anything I make so I will take her comments about these scones as a serious compliment, ha-ha. My husband and ...

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...