Meal planning has changed our lives! My dinner time meal stress is almost non-existent because all of the guess work has been taken out of the equation. I now usually know what I'm cooking, I shop for the ingredients once on Sunday evenings, and I factor the appropriate amount of prep time per meal. Our favorite meals usually fall on our Breakfast-for-Dinner nights. For whatever reason, my kids love selecting the breakfast meal that will grace the dinner table. Somehow that same un-welcomed morning food becomes highly anticipated when it's … [Read more...]
Slow Cooked Steel Cut Oats
January 27, 2012 By 7 Comments
I have been a Quaker Oats Instant Oatmeal consumer for most of my life - starting in grade school, throughout college, in my modest post college years, and most recently, as a crazed parent looking for a quick breakfast fix for my kids. But, when I purchased my slow cooker two months ago, my whole outlook on breakfast oatmeal changed. I was determined to finally slow cook steel cut oats. And so began another very steep learning curve, this time, surrounding the world of oats. My go-to instant breakfast since my youth Did you know that … [Read more...]
Coffee and Noodle Casserole
January 13, 2012 By 4 Comments
I've realized that since I've been on my comfort food kick these past two weeks, I've never saved more money at the grocery store, partly because all I've been cooking are Mom's casseroles which are extremely economical. Between the rice or noodles, the veggies and the canned soup, each casserole I've cooked has cost me under $15 in ingredients (except for the Seafood Casserole), takes less than 1 hours of prep time and, it can feed at least 6 people in one sitting! Now,what could be better? Cheap, hearty, tasty and easy to make. I came … [Read more...]
Seafood Casserole
January 11, 2012 By 1 Comment
Growing up near the Eastern Shore of Maryland, I was always exposed to seafood, most importantly crabs. Steamed Maryland crabs were my favorite variety and Mom hosted scores of crab feasts in our back yard in the heat of summer. I can still remember Mom saying she wouldn't actually eat the crabs because it was "too much work for too little reward." She was referring to the fact that sometimes it took us a good five minutes of prying and cracking and de-clawing the crab before we could even celebrate a morsel of its luscious meat. On the … [Read more...]
