Tag Archives: food

Roasted Green Veggies

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My husband and I are trying to be more intentional about eating our veggies. These two recipes have helped! They are super simple, healthy, and tasty. I found both of them on Pinterest.

Roasted Green Beans

skinny-roasted-parmesan-green-beans

Source: Skinny Taste

Ingredients:

  • 12 oz green beans, trimmed (make sure they are dry)
  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/4 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 1/2 tbsp shredded Parmesan

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with aluminum for easy clean-up. Lay green beans out on the baking sheet and drizzle oil over them. Season with salt, pepper and garlic powder and toss to evenly coat.

Bake 10 minutes, shake the pan to turn; bake 5 additional minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with grated cheese.

(Click here for the original recipe.)

Roasted Asparagus

Ingredients:

  • Same as the roasted green beans, just use asparagus instead.
  • (I didn’t use garlic powder in this recipe.)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Season the asparagus with everything except the cheese. Bake for 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven and add the cheese.

(Click here for the original recipe.)

Chicken and Rice

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Earlier this week I made up a chicken and rice recipe. Surprisingly, it actually turned out really well! I forgot to take pictures of the finished product :/. Here are some of the ingredients, though:

Chicken and Rice

You’ll also need chicken, rice, and broccoli.

Continue reading »

Dirt Cake

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This was delicious! I made it for a Christmas party we had (Yes, I know, I’m a little late posting this :/).

Anyway, I followed this recipe (I also copied it below), but did not add the gummy worms or chocolate rocks. Instead, I put red and green M&Ms on top. If you decide to use M&Ms, I would recommend putting them on top right before you are ready to serve it. Otherwise, the color runs into the dessert (I learned from experience) .

I also recommend only making this for a big get-together! If you have much of this leftover you will want to eat it ALL, and it’s extremely unhealthy. Continue reading »

Meat Loaf Muffins

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My husband and I love the meat loaf recipe on the back of the Lipton Onion Soup Mix box. The only problem is it takes a whole hour to bake. Who has time for that? I’ve seen several posts on Pinterest showing meat loaf in muffin tins, so I decided to give it a try.

They were delicious! And, they only had to bake for 20-25 minutes! We made mashed potatoes and a cucumber and onion salad as sides.Meat Loaf Cups

Here’s the original recipe, along with my muffin tin variation:

  • 1 envelope Lipton Onion Soup Mix
  • 2 lbs. ground beef
  • ¾ cup plain dry bread crumbs
  • 2 eggs
  • ¾ cup water
  • 1/3 cup ketchup
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl, combine all ingredients.
  2. In 13×9 inch baking or roasting pan, shape into loaf. (Or, put into muffin tins. For me, this recipe made 15 meat loaf muffins.)
  3. Bake 1 hour or until done. Let stand 10 minutes. (Or, if you put the meat loaf in muffin tins, cook 20-25 minutes or until done.)

Seeding Cucumbers

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I’ve discovered a way to seed cucumbers!

Ok, so most cooks out there probably already know how to do this, but I’m relatively new to this whole cooking thing, so I was super excited when I discovered this little trick ON MY OWN! 🙂

I love pasta salad. When I make it, I typically put cucumbers in it; however, I’m not really a fan of the seeds. Well, now I can easily put cucumbers in the pasta salad with no seeds…I just use a spoon!

Peel the cucumber (if you choose). Cut it in half lengthwise. Then use a spoon to scrape the seeds out. I know, I know, most of you cooks out there are rolling your eyes at me – but I was so excited when I thought of this trick! 🙂

Slow-Cooker Time Conversions

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I planned to wake up bright and early one day a few weeks ago to make beef stew in the slow-cooker. However, that ‘bright and early’ plan didn’t quite work the way I planned. By the time I was ready to throw everything into the slow-cooker, I didn’t have time to cook the food for 10-12 hours on low as the recipe called for (unless we wanted to eat supper at 10:00pm, which wasn’t very appealing to me!). Instead of eating at bed-time, I looked for a slow-cooker conversion chart online and discovered a couple helpful websites.

This website simply gives you the high/low slow-cooker conversions (pictured to the left), plus other slow-cooker information that is probably helpful, I just didn’t have the time to read it.

 

This website gives you time conversions for a conventional oven, in addition to the high/low slow-cooker conversions, which I thought was super helpful!

I just love the slow-cooker. It makes cooking sooo easy! I’ll share some of my recipes one of these days.

What slow-cooker tips and tricks do you know?

Cream Cheese Jalapeno Corn Dip

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This is another simple, yet really good, recipe with only three ingredients. A coworker of my dad’s gave him this recipe, and then my dad passed it along to me.

You actually need two cream cheese packages even though the picture only shows one.

  • 1 can of corn, drained (or a little less)
  • 2 8oz packages of cream cheese, softened (I typically use regular, but you could use low-fat or fat free instead)
  • Jalapenos from the jar (to taste), finely chopped

Make sure the cream cheese is somewhat softened before making the dip, either leave it on the counter for a while or put it in the microwave for a few seconds (take OFF the foil wrapper before doing this). The cream cheese is nearly impossible to work with if you try using it right after pulling it from the fridge.

I probably use 1 to 1.5 tablespoons of finely chopped jalapenos for my dip. I’ll also add a little, maybe a teaspoon or so, of the jalapeno juice from the jar to spice it up. I’m not a fan of super spicy food, so my dip is pretty mild. Just remember, you can always add more jalapenos, but once they’re added, you can’t take them away!

Mix all the ingredients together and eat with crackers – I use Ritz crackers. It might be good with tortilla chips, too.

Try it out. Let me know what you think!

Tasty (& Simple) Fruit Dip

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I’m all about easy recipes, and this fruit dip is no exception. It’s something I make often when having company or going to a cookout.

Three ingredients:

  • 1 Vanilla Instant Pudding Packet (just the powder, do not make the pudding)
  • 1 Tub of Cool Whip (or less, but who would want less Cool Whip?!?)
  • 16 oz Vanilla or Plain Yogurt

Mix all ingredients together and enjoy!

I usually eat this with strawberries and grapes. It’s good by itself, too. Others have put it on their brownies and said it was tasty; I have yet to try that.

You could make this in a low-fat version as well by using low-fat/fat-free Cool Whip and yogurt.