cupcakes vs muffins

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=188324194655029&set=a.130825290404920.30569.130807550406694&type=1

Food Guys with Tim

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znG4_ap-d0o&feature=youtu.be

food guys with Tim

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEtQnyplStg&feature=youtu.be

loaded baked potato soup

I have made this before and we love it...I like potato soup but do not like biting into a piece of potato...
for this recipe you bake the potatoes and then mash the insides...

bought the artisan bread at Ralph's...if you have not tried their breads, you must...tonight?  honey sunflower bread, one of my favorites...my other favorites is their cranberry walnut bread...

and of course on Tim's plate is the rice ball that I made earlier...

http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/baked-potato-soup/c41d5252-b085-4ccf-9ae0-55df29ec31f7?src=SH

pepperoni rice balls

OMGosh is this the best thing ever?  I made these while waiting for the baked potatoes to cook and everyone ate them as an appetizer...

very delicious and I most definitely will make them again and again...

a small change to the recipe, putting them in frig first for a little while, might help making the balls a little better...

http://cleverhousewife.com/2012/12/ham-and-pepperoni-rice-balls-great-appetizers/

cranberry swirl coffee cake

I do not "do" breakfast, if we want something to eat that early, we usually go out...hubby likes breakfast so it seems that we go out a lot...LOL

for about a week now, this coffee cake has caught my eye and I wanted to surprise Tim and hubby with something nice for Sunday morning...

this was very good, went together fairly quickly and both guys declared it a winner...I most definitely will be making it again...


link:

http://theenglishkitchen.blogspot.com/2011/12/cranberry-swirl-breakfast-cake.html

spaghetti

man I did not feel like cooking today at all, but I had already put off cooking for 2 nights...

Thursday, I had a headache and we decided to go to Sizzler and then last night, we ended up at the mall and we ate there...

so I felt compelled to cook tonight, even though it is 90 degrees here today...summer is coming people and there is no way I can stop it...I am dying today...

I totally went off of my menus for the month as hubby said I had not made spaghetti in awhile...and it did sound good too...

I make my spaghetti sauce much the way Pioneer Woman does, in fact I was very surprised when I was checking out her recipes on how close her recipe was to mine...

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2012/09/spaghetti-sauce/

but here is where mine differs...
  1.  I do not use bell peppers
  2.  I also brown sweet Italian sausage with the hamburger (I cut the casings and use just the meat)
  3.  I add one can of Campbells tomato soup to the sauce

and we Americanize it by adding cheddar cheese to the top...I love this dish much better as leftovers...made green beans and garlic bread to add to dinner

totally yummy and maybe too much of a down home comfort meal for a day in the 90's...man I hate the heat from summer...not looking forward to this at all...tonight I am sitting down and making a plan of 30 meals that I can either BBQ or slow cook...

food guys with Tim (that I missed)

http://www.pe.com/iguide/dining/dining-headlines/20130407-video-food-guys-try-beer-onion-ring-chips.ece

food guys with Tim

today they tried oatmeal from Jack in the Box

http://www.pe.com/iguide/dining/dining-headlines/20130418-video-food-guys-try-out-jacks-blueberry-oatmeal.ece

cashew chicken with rice and asian veggies

link to dinner:

http://stephaniecooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/crispy-cashew-chicken-stir-fry.html

very good and everyone loved it...I will need to revamp a little next time, to me it was a little on the salty side...
but still very good and I will definitely make it again...in researching my recipes, found that I made this over a year ago and what I did was add some chicken broth to the sauce, maybe it would not so salty that way...

meatloaf sliders, corn cakes, roasted potatoes

when I saw this idea online, I thought it a really cute idea...but I used my own recipe for meat loaf that everyone in my family likes me to use...I use the Bisquick recipe, it is slightly sweet with a tad of brown sugar and I use BBQ sauce instead of ketchup...

this one, however tends to fall apart too easy to put as a slider...next time I will use the recipe that came with the idea of making them into sliders and see if it is better...

Tim said he loved dinner, I just was not too sure...

with it I made mini corn cakes and roasted potatoes...

will need to perfect this idea as it seems like it would make a great BBQ idea for the summer...I make meat loaf on the BBQ when it gets too hot in the house...

this is the link I first found:

http://www.plainchicken.com/2013/02/bbq-meatloaf-sliders.html  and this will be the recipe I try next...

my meatloaf recipe:

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/30-minute-mini-meat-loaves/d691ebd6-743b-4dc1-a04c-40ee7da480d5?src=SH

Panera

found out in the morning that we had a planned PTA meeting at our local Panera bakery so we decided to have dinner there also...

hubby had the french onion soup and we shared a turkey bacon sandwich...
Zoe only wanted a bagel and then decided to try potato soup and shared that with me also...

nice night out

Sunday herb roasted chicken dinner

this was not on my scheduled dinners today but it just sounded good...plus they were having a sale on 2 chickens at Sam's Club...

made green beans and rice a roni to go along side...then we buy these great artisan breads at Ralphs lately and they are so good...tonight?  we got a honey sunflower bread that was delicious, one of our
favorites...

yummy dinner

Wednesday, twice baked potatoes with ham

my favorite way to use up leftover ham...

bake potaotes ahead of time and when done, scoop out the insides of the potatoes, mash up real well,
add diced ham, as much grated cheese you want, 1 mixed up egg for every 4 potatoes, some butter and seasonings...mix well and put back into the potatoes, cover with more cheese and bake at 350 for about 20-30 minutes...

one of our family favorites...

 

cheeseburger flatbread melts

http://life-as-a-lofthouse.blogspot.com/2012/04/cheeseburger-flatbread-melts.html

a very good idea for someone else not for me...and only for the fact that for the life of me I could not get the dough to roll out flat or even try to be round...Tim and I did in fact each get one flatbread that was somewhat flat and round and those were pretty darned good...

but I hated fooling around with the bread...

):

might try flour tortillas next time...

Monday chicken and wild rice casserole

what can I say?  my most favorite dinner of all times...hands down...this recipe is the reason I do not get all of my new recipes tried out...I will not have this on the menu for the month and it just sounds too good not to make...

you must try this...you will love it...

http://www.southernplate.com/2012/01/chicken-and-wild-rice-casserole-and-becoming-the-crazy-daffodil-lady.html

"cat's away" tuna melts

hubby is visiting his mom for a few days, she was not feeling well and wanted him...hey when you are 87 and ask your son to come, he goes.....

don't need a recipe here folks, just tuna, bread, cheese and grill them...

too yummy for words

Friday night Spam Pie

I have been making this dish for many many years now...my own kids loved it when they were little so at least 30 some years...hubby absolutely will not touch anything at all with Spam in it...but, I was raised on Spam and when much younger could eat it straight out of the can as a sandwich, not anymore it has to be cooked for me now (getting too old I guess)...

with all of the furor on Facebook lately about who's recipe is who's, I could take credit for this one since I have had the recipe for so long and I have tweaked it so many times to fit our family likes, but I am an honest person and will not lay claim to something that was not mine to start with...I found this recipe in a magazine so long ago...it was an advertisement for Hormel for Spam and it sounded good so I copied it down and made it...recently I looked at Hormel's web site and this was not listed...

I actually think they should put the recipe on their site and promote Spam to a new generation...
my grand daughter absolutely loves this and begs me all of the time time for her and she was so happy on Friday night when she came over and it was ready for her...

recipe:

2 rolls of Pillsbury crescent rolls, spread out into a 9 x 13 pan, sealing all of the perforations, set aside...
small dice a can of Spam, 1 cup of cheddar cheese, 1 cup of montery jack cheese and 4 beaten eggs and pour into prepared casserole pan...
bake at 250 for approx 30 minutes, until egg in middle is cooked...

this recipe is known in our house as a "cat's away" dinner...we only make it when hubby is out of town, like now, visiting his mom...

I always make an extra one and take to my neighbor, who is American Indian and was raised on Spam and loves it....

not sure (my memory is fading, haha) if crescent rolls were part of original recipe or mine...

pls try this you will not regret it, even if you hate Spam...I have had people that say they hate Spam and would never eat it, try this not knowing and they love it...you could also subsitute bacon, ham or sausage instead...

yummy

swedish meatballs

last night we went out to dinner, an early one right after Tim got off from work...I told hubby to pick where we were going to eat and he picked Jason's Deli in Mo Val...they do have pretty good sandwiches, soups and salads...there is an extensive menu to pick from...they also give discounts to military, law enforcement and also teachers...how nice is that???

Tim got the french dip, the princess got grilled cheese and tomato soup, hubby got salad bar and a pastrami sandwich and I (not being real hungry) got the ham and turkey club on a croissant...all meals come with chips on the plate...

so tonight I wanted a nice down home comfort meal for Tim and he loves Swedish meatballs and people there is no secret to mine...I have found that the McCormick seasoning packet comes out just as good as if I had made them from scratch and a lot simpler too...
so I made to go with them, buttered noodles, green beans and leftover applesauce bread..

Tim said it was a winner...if the picture will upload I always use Tim's plate and he mixes everything together...haha

we are on Spring Break here and poor princess still had to go to 2 hours of tutoring today...she was just a little upset but I think dinner will make her happy...it used to be however, where she would not eat red meat at all and then she discovered one day what she was missing...LOL

Easter dinner (one day late)

I bought all of the ingredients for Easter dinner and then I was a little frazzelled and overwhelmed and so the three of us ended up going out for a really nice dinner...

so tonight I made spiral ham, mashed potatoes (homemeade and with a special ingredient that I will use from now on), carrots and applesauce bread...

Tim also added leftover macaroni salad to his plate...

everyone was happy tonight...especially hubby who loves applesauce bread so much...

terrific new cookbook

there are some really nice recipes in here, that I cannot wait to try...

found it at Wal Mart...

pink lemonade bars

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/fluffy-pink-lemonade-dessert-with-pretzel-crust/de4eb5c6-ec81-4561-91ea-a77452983475?nicam4=SocialMedia&nichn4=Facebook&niseg4=BettyCrocker&nicreatID4=Post

I have been making this for years but not as bars...and this is what we always have for 4th of July...

cannot wait to try these...