I'm planning the 3,565th menu of my life, and looking for cheap, yummy recipes.  Luckily the internet is brimming with neat, new tastes with inexpensive ingredients and I have lots of fun ideas for things to cook. Unfortunately, my children are stuck on "boring" foods and trying to get them to eat anything remotely adventurous is an absolute chore and generally and unpleasant experience.  Last night I sauteed some left over angel hair pasta and added some spices and fresh tomato a...

The wind is howling a bit outside and it's certainly cold outside, but my insides feel nice and warn thanks to a large serving of Jello pudding (cook style, not instant...) I hadn't had a serving of warm Jello pudding in quite some time, but every now and then I get a hankering for some and thanks to a sale at the local grocery store, I was able to satisfy my cravings for something warm and almost healthy (choice between the pudding and some Nestle toll house cookies ) tonite. Good s...

Ryan made this absolutely delicious dinner last night, and if you like Mexican with a little kick, you should DEFINITELY try it. It's also made with things that you'll PROBABLY have on hand, so that's nice, too. Southwest Smothered Chicken 4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (or, you know, however many you need for your family) 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper 1 tbs vegetable oil 1 cup fresh or frozen corn 1 cup salsa 1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese 1/4 cup pi...

Pinch me, I must be dreaming! Say it isn’t so because I can’t believe that next week IS Thanksgiving?! I knew it was ‘around the corner’, the days have been ‘flying’ by, but this is ridiculous! I’ve thought about what I’m going to cook but haven’t really given the thoughts much detail yet. I know I’m doing turkey; after all, it is turkey day, it’s a honorary custom that we do have turkey on Thanksgiving. You know some people don’t do turkey; they’ll do some other meats? At m...

This is some advice on family Cooking. If you have children most of them won't like Spinach. I'll admit that as a Child I loved it but most Children won't. Now that that's out of the way I'd like to say that they'll like Meat and Cheese and stuff like that. That's a positive side. On Christmas they'll like Candy of course. Especially if they missed out on Halloween. Speaking of which the soft Ghost cookies will probably be a hit. That was a favorite of mine as a Child. If you don't provid...

I bought an Arabic language cookbook recently, and have started to read over it as a way of getting in some light practice. "The Complete Cooking Guide for the Modern Woman, More Than 560 Arabic and international recipes." There are some weird things in there... like this. Ingredients: 1/2 kilo of ground meat 1 cup of dried "Afgani" bread crumbs 1/2 cup chopped onion 1/2 cup tomato juice 1 well-beaten egg 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp pepper Method: Mix all ingredients well and shape ...

Yeah, I said caramel apple pizza.  Don't turn your noses up, it's not what you think - there's no tomato sauce involved, although there is some cheese. Ok, here's what you need: 8oz cream cheese (one whole block of Philly or Cooper will do) 1/3 cup caramel apple dip (can be found in the refrigerated section of the produce department) 1 14oz pizza crust (Boboli or some other brand; any kind of pre-baked crust will do) 2 large apples (I prefer a Gala, Jonagold, Jonathon or Gran...

I wish that the internet had a smell feature, because the smell wafting out of my kitchen right now is just divine.  I'm baking blackberry and peach crumbles (separate ones, not blackberry and peach mixed together) and they smell good enough to make my tummy rumble. We went to Brautigum's orchard this morning and picked our berries right off the bush.  Brautigum's is smaller and makes the other local 'country' orchard look like an industrial conglomerate.  Mr Brautigum let us w...

Let's just say that JD was always raised as a meat and potatoes kind of guy. There is Polish in my blood, so there was always a steak or sausage at our dinner table. In the spirit of branching out to try new things, and in the quest to get back down to the college fighting weight, JD has agreed with the Wife to try some vegetarian dishes. Now of course I laid down some ground rules:1. No fake meat - If we are going to have soyburgers, lets just have a burger. There is no reason to try and fak...

Preheat oven to 275 Ingredients 3 eggs beaten 1 and 1/3 cup sugar 2 TB all-purpose flour 8 TB butter (1 stick) melted 1/4 cup buttermilk 1 tsp vanilla 1 cup pecans (little package of already chopped pecans works pretty well) Pie shell (unbacked) Directions Beat eggs. Add sugar and flour and beat well. Add melted butter, buttermilk and vanilla. Stir. Sprinkle pecans on bottom of pie crust. Pour on egg mixture. Bake for about an hour or golden brown. If it jiggles in ...

So I found a recipe at cooks.com for chicken parmesan. I think I could've figured most of it out without the recipe, except the baking times. I suck at baking times. But besides that, I'm a pretty good cook. I normally just avoid baking, but how can you with chicken parmesan? I used store-bought marinara sauce, and wal-mart frozen chicken breast product. I ignored the quantities for everything, so that it would feel more home-done. I only had plain breadcrumbs, so I sprinkled in some...

Crap of course!

There was a time when pizza was done just one way, regular, seasoned according to some secret recipe, the more secret the better the pizza, and enjoyed with every finger-lickin enjoyment. These days there are so many different variety, there seems to be a new type invented every month! Now there are thick, or thin or stuffed crust. There are also the 'quadrillion' diffent toppings that you can have on your pizza, as well as the different combinations! Robin Kleven Dishon in...

From Men's Health, JAN/FEB 07. Not sure if I had posted this, but the Lady Cleve asked about it when it showed up in one of my accountability logs a few days back. Ingredients: 1 small acorn squash, about 2lb 12 oz boneless, skinless chicken breasts, chopped 1 red bell pepper, chopped 1 Tbsp mild yellow curry powder 1 Tbsp olive oil Salt and pepper 1 medium yellow onion, choped into 1/2" pieces 1/2 c milk or heavy cream 1/4 c golden raisins 1/4 c chopped cilantro Directions: ...

I have a gas grill that I "inherited" in a somewhat convoluted way... On a side note, it is apparently Canadian, which substituted, for a while amongst my friends, for the common derogatory "gay." As in, "That's so gay," which could also be, "That's so stupid," or more correctly, "I don't like that but don't want to try to come up with a rational reason to dislike it." So we would say, "That's so Canadian," or, "Dude, don't be so Canadian." We intended no disrespect for our friends north ...