While I was in Wisconsin a few weeks back, I got sick (for the second year in a row) and my mom cooked up a storm. One night she had family over and made Stuffed Manicotti, which she refers to as String Cheese Lasagna, Spinach and Chicken Alfredo Lasagna and her famous Garlic Bread. I asked…
Category: classic dishes
Prize-Winning Quaker Oats {turkey} Meatloaf
You may or may not be stunned to know there are a ton of meatloaf recipes floating around the internet. This is good news for me because I am constantly searching for new meatloaf recipes to keep my old pup Nathan happy. When you’ve made a variety of meatloaf recipes, you come to realize there…
Ground Turkey Meatloaf
Well, folks, it’s back to meatloaf at our house. We had a good run with dog food for about a month or so. At first Nathan would eat the dog food with renewed veracity, but that veracity died down as the weeks passed and now he has informed me that he’s off dog food and…
Paula Deen’s Old Fashioned Meatloaf
I was chatting with my coworker the other day about the fact that the only thing that my dog will eat is meatloaf. I was explaining the complexity of his taste buds and how after he eats something too much he gets sick of it and refuses to continue eating it. It’s been this way…
Classic Meatloaf
When I was growing up I wasn’t much into meatloaf. The only meatloaf I ever tried was the every day meatloaf with ketchup spread across the top and I was never really a big fan of ketchup as a child. As an adult, I find myself on the opposite end of the meatloaf love-hate spectrum….
BLT Sandwich {w/peppered balsamic mayo}
If I had a crystal ball when I was a child and someone would have shown me that I ended up owning a condo a few blocks from the ocean in California, I wouldn’t have believed it. If someone had shown me a vision of me making and eating a BLT sandwich, I wouldn’t have…
Classic Cobb Salad
If ever there were a salad I could claim as my own, it would be the Cobb salad. And by “claim as my own” I mean it’s the only salad I continuously reach for. And by “continuously” I mean that I eat it a handful of times a year. at work when I forgot to…
Shepherds Pie {paleo}
I’m not sure why I settled on paleo a recipe for Shepherd’s pie because I generally do not care for Irish food and I’ve never made a traditional Shepherd’s pie. I’ve made what I would consider to be fun twists, like a Thanksgiving Day Shepherd’s Pie and Southwest Shepherd’s Pie but the regular variety never…
Classic Sage and Sausage Dressing
Do you know the difference between dressing and stuffing? There’s very little. It depends on how you cook it but people use the term interchangeably unless you are in the South. Then apparently it’s “dressing” no matter how you cook it. Stuffing is dressing that’s “stuffed” into the turkey and cooked. Dressing is cooked in…
Perfect Mashed Potatoes {pioneer woman}
If I could chose only one side dish for Thanksgiving it would likely be mashed potatoes. I always pile a large amount on my plate. They are the best thing ever. Truly. Thanksgiving and Christmas are normally about the only time I make them so to me they are an extra special treat. Which naturally…
Creamy Stove Top Mac and Cheese
There’s this debate raging about Mac and Cheese and whether it is considered a must-have Thanksgiving dish. I’m here to settle that debate. The answer is a resounding YES. At least in my house. Nearly every year that I’m hosting Thanksgiving dinner I serve Mac and Cheese. I normally serve it at Christmas too. In…
{made from scratch} Biscuits and Gravy
I felt foolish when I announced to my friend that I made biscuits and gravy similar to that of which her grandma had made for us when we were in high school and she informed me that her family makes bacon gravy, not sausage gravy. I had never heard of bacon gravy! Admittedly, the recipe…
Easy Biscuits and Gravy Bake
The first time I ever ate biscuits and gravy was in high school. It was the first time I’d ever really heard of or paid much attention to the dish and didn’t know it would eventually become a breakfast favorite of mine. One of my high school friends had been born in Texas; they…
Southwest Shepherd’s Pie
I have an overwhelmingly large amount of ground turkey in my home. I bought two pounds today on sale at Smart & Final along with a pound of ground turkey breakfast sausage. When I came home I discovered I have four more pounds of ground turkey in my freezer. So I set out to find…
Southern FATTY {inspired} Chocolate Chip Shortbread {w/cornflakes and pecans}
I’m not really a big fan of shortbread. It’s OK. But to be quite honest I don’t like dry cookies and shortbread cookies, by basic definition, are a dry cookie. So I don’t make shortbread cookies that often. I think I’ve maybe made three different recipes in the last 5 years or so. Well…
{lower carb} Broccoli Cheese Rice Casserole
I guess you could say I’m a little bit obsessed with cauliflower rice recently. I keep thinking of ways I can sneak it into dishes as a substitute for regular rice. So I got to thinking about the traditional broccoli cheese rice casserole dish my mom makes and the millions of variations of the dish…
{light} French Toast with Greek Yogurt and Berries
I LOVE breakfast. It’s my favorite meal of the day. I could eat breakfast for every meal if I had the time. I especially love anything bread-y like pancakes, waffles or French toast. I have been obsessed with making something I call “Greek Yogurt Fluff.” I mix Greek Yogurt with a bit of cool whip…
{low-fat} Lasagna
I’ve become one of those people that I hate. One of those people I said I would never become. I’ve become someone who cooks low-fat meals (instead of full-fat). Sigh. What’s happened to me? Well, let’s make a list: age, weight gain, stress, high cholesterol and wrinkles. Yep. I have wrinkles around my eyes that…
{low-fat} Cheesy Tuna Casserole
Folks, I never thought I would be doing this. Honestly. When I started this blog I pledged (in the back of my mind) to only make good-tasting and (for the most part) completely unhealthy recipes. There was a time when I would take healthy recipes and make them unhealthy. (Recipe calls for low-fat milk? I’ll…
Cauliflower Fried Rice {with ahi tuna}
The first time I tried substituting “cauliflower” for rice in an Asian dish, I liked it enough but didn’t love it. There was something about the texture that didn’t thrill me. It was a great substitute and a great way to make a dish healthier but it was missing something. About a week or…
