A Cooking Baker

 I am so very thankful today. We are so blessed! We're having a great time with family, and the smells starting to come from the kitchen are intoxicating...  Here's what we're trying for the turkey this year:   Turkey with Lemon-Sage Butter .  We even grabbed some fresh sage from the garden.  It. smells. awesome.  We're keeping it really basic this year with all of the varied tastes in the extended family.  We've got mashed potatoes with gravy, Grandmother's Stuffing, green bean casserole, corn and rolls on the menu, with homemade Dutch apple and pumpkin pies for dessert. Time to go baste that turkey.... Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Pizza?  Burgers? Again?? Even my teenage boy gets sick of those from time to time.   It's true.  We're having a bunch of teenage dudes over tonight, and I decided to go outside the comfort zone of cheap, take-out pizza and do a build-your-own taco or nacho bar. This works out really well, since we have a variety of tastes and dietary restrictions - everyone can customize their own!  Here's what I did - it's so very easy: Shredded, seasoned chicken (a bunch of breasts in the crock pot with some garlic, onion, broth and taco seasoning, then shredded when cooked until tender) Seasoned beef (a.k.a. taco meat!) hard and soft tortilla shells, as well as tortilla chips and lettuce for alternatives (you can also do rice for a rice bowl or "naked" burrito) cheese - shredded cheddar, jack and cotija (you coudl also use a nacho cheese sauce) sour cream shredded lettuce sliced black olives diced Roma tomatoes taco sauce/Tabasco/salsa sliced jalapenos black...

Sometimes, re-creating a restaurant favorite does the trick! I've been struggling with the kids and their tastes lately, so I resorted to making some of their restaurant favorites.  It's an easy way to know they're going to eat their dinner - without always serving pizza, tacos, spaghetti, burgers and steak.  None of the restaurants we frequent are in any danger of losing our business, either - they still do it best - but sometimes a mom has to try to save a buck (or a few hundred calories!).  We all love Penne Rosa at Noodles, which we've sort of re-created ( see the post here ).  That one is a family favorite across the board.  Most recently we made "CBR's" (their nickname for a Chicken Bacon Ranch sub from Subway).  I hate Subway - sorry, but I've had one too many gross experiences there.  The kids, however, love this sub.  So the other night, I made my version at home, and they raved! I used a soft roll (I actually grabbed a day old lo...

I love comfort food.   With some caution, I'm going a little comfort food-crazy in the kitchen this weekend.  I feel the desire to prep some freezer meals and do some cooking, so I need to take advantage of that feeling, as it has become more rare recently.  I'm making 2 chicken pot pies a la my friend Amy, some skinny chicken parm, some more apple sauce, some cranberry sauce, some soup(s), and maybe a loaf or two of bread.  Then I want to try to find some dessert recipes to use up some of those trick or treat remains - not too much traffic at the door this year, so we had a big stash leftover. I'll be balancing the heavier meals with some lighter fare, so I'm prepping veggies and ingredients for stir fry, some light broth-based soups, and some open-faced sandwiches and things.  I'm going to attempt a meal plan for TWO weeks, and see what happens.  I'm not a fan of planning out the whole month, but I'll see if 2 weeks is the happy medium. Here's ...