Crock Pot BBQ Country Style Ribs

Using my crock pot in the summer is one of my favorite ways to save time, conserve energy and beat the heat.  A couple of years ago I found a recipe for BBQ crock pot country style ribs and after a couple of tweaks, it quickly made its way into our meal time rotation.  Country style ribs are a great meat alternative to chicken or beef/turkey and they are generally inexpensive and not very fatty so you get more meat for your money.  We've use this recipe for our own family, but it works equally as well when serving larger crowds.

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Mother's Day Dinner Menu 2017

Ever since my husband and I got married, we spend at least half of our Sunday evening meals each month at a family member's home.  The family hosting plans the meal and then asks those who are coming to pitch in and bring something to share.  It's been a great way to both save on the cost of food and enjoy time with family.  With Mother's Day coming up, I know many people, including my family, are going to be getting together to celebrate mothers, wives, sisters, aunts, grandmothers and other special women in their life.  This year, my husband and I will be hosting Mother's Day dinner at our house, which means we get to plan the meal. 

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One Pot Taco Pasta

One day I was browsing through my saved recipes on Pinterest and found one that looked promising.  It was a one pot dish that only took 30 minutes to make.  If you've been following me for long, you know that those two things are like magic words.  I love cooking, but don't usually have a lot of time to devote to it so the majority of meals I make take about 30 minutes or less to prep and then leave all day in the crock pot or take 30 minutes from prep to table.  This new one pot taco pasta I'm sharing today will have you jumping for joy because it's quick, easy and delicious.  Plus it uses basic ingredients that I always have on hand.

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5-Ingredient Chicken and Rice Casserole

Growing up, we had a lot of casseroles for dinner.  It was one of the fastest, easiest and most inexpensive ways to feed a family.  I danced and played other sports and had a high metabolism which was the perfect combination for needing to consume a lot of calories each day.  Forget boys, I was a growing girl!  *wink*  As a mom now, I totally understand why my mom made casseroles as often as she did.  I just don't have time to slave over a meal that takes hours to prepare.  The recipe I'm sharing today is perfect for an easy weekday dinner, a Sunday meal or when you need to feed a lot of people without spending a lot of money.

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Crock Pot Pork Roast

Sunday dinner in my house means enjoying time with family.  Sometimes it's just dinner with my husband and two kids.  Other times we eat with my siblings and parents or my in-laws.  When it comes to Sunday dinner, I try to make it as easy on myself as possible so I have more time to spend with my family and less time in the kitchen.

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Parmesan Chicken

A week after my husband I were married, we drove from Utah to New York so he could do some summer sales.  As a new wife, I wanted to practice my domestic skills and make food for my hungry and tired husband after a long day knocking doors.  One of the meals I made quite often was Parmesan chicken because it was easy and inexpensive to make, plus it provided leftovers for a couple of days.

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20 Minute White Bean Chicken Chili

Over the weekend, I saw a lot of Christmas in July sales and it kind of freaked me out for a minute!  I feel like the summer just started, but if I think about it, my daughter is going to be starting her second year of preschool in about 6 weeks, which means fall is just around the corner and then it's Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas!  If there is one thing you need to know about me, it is that I don't like the cold. And living in Utah, we get some cold winter days.  I'm definitely not ready for it to be cold any time soon.  Give me 90 degree weather and a pool and I will be one happy camper.

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Broccoli Cheese Potato Soup

When I was doing my meal planning this week, I was happy to see that I had all the ingredients needed to make a family favorite for dinner: Broccoli Cheese Potato Soup.  However, when I went to make it, I realized that while I had everything I needed, it wasn't necessarily in the most convenient form: baby carrots instead of pre-shredded, frozen broccoli instead of fresh (I forgot to pull it out to thaw) and some potatoes that were starting to go bad.  So the prep time for this meal took a little longer than planned.  When my husband called to give me the heads up that he was on his way home from work, he asked what we were having and was excited when I told him.  This is a soup that my family cannot get enough of and we rarely have leftovers because everyone just keeps going back for more.

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One Pot Chicken Noodle Pasta

When my husband and I were first married, we went out to Buffalo, NY, where he sold security systems for the summer.  As a new wife, I was determined to make good, balanced meals for him, ready when he came home at the end of the day.  If you know anything about summer sales, you know that the time when your day ends is varied.  On average, my husband didn't get home until at least 6 (if he was lucky) and sometimes as late as 10 (not so lucky).  As much as I wanted to provide a good, hot meal for him, I realized that trying to plan a time to have dinner ready each night was pointless and it was better to have something that was easy to reheat that still tasted good.  I made some winning dishes and some that were not so great.  This dish actually started out as a casserole, but has evolved into an easy one-pot dish that takes about 20 minutes from start to finish.  There are some dishes that I come back to time and again when I'm doing my meal planning and this is one of them: one pot chicken noodle pasta.

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Crock Pot Minestrone Soup

It's been a crappy week or so in my house.  Everyone got sick with this yucky cold, which then turned into acute bronchitis for my husband and I.  Yeah.  Fun stuff, let me tell you.  And when I'm sick, I really hate having to put too much effort into cooking.  So I was relieved when I opened the fridge and found a big plastic container full of one of my favorite soups: Minestrone.  It was leftover from Christmas Day when we had dinner at my in-laws home and we ended up with about half to bring home.

So today I'm sharing this recipe with you in hopes that you'll find it as delicious as me and my family do.  I wish I could say that I made up this recipe and take all the credit for the yumminess that it is, but I’d be lying and that is generally frowned upon…  The truth is that I found the recipe on Pinterest on a blog called Yummy Healthy Easy who adapted it from another blog (Foodtography).  I have adapted it a little more to suite me and my family.

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Chicken Noodle Soup with Homemade Egg Noodles

Growing up, my mom would regularly make meals that were so yummy we'd all ask her to make it again.  She'd then shrug her shoulders and tell us that she just made it up and didn't write down the recipe, so the odds of duplicating it exactly as we'd had it that night were slim.  It became a running joke in the family to ask her if she'd remembered to write down the recipe, or at least all the ingredients, when we'd sit down to a dish we'd never had before.  One of the meals we had many times growing up, and that my mom did have a recipe for, was chicken noodle soup with homemade egg noodles.  We knew if we saw a whole chicken going into the pot that chicken noodle soup was on the menu.  My family loved (and still loves) it, especially in the fall and winter or when we were sick.  There is just something about the homemade stuff that can't be poured out of a can.

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