Seriously. Chicken Helper. I know. Doesn’t it look awesome? Yeah, it was.
I make a mean jambalaya from scratch. But Tuesday night isn’t the night to make things from scratch, especially on Fat Cat Tuesday.
Tonight we added a new member to our family, our newly adopted fat cat Pippen, so naturally we needed some cajun goodness [...]

Tonight’s dinner had me pretty concerned. Remember that ham I talked about? Well, it was time to use it up, so I decided to improvise. I was skeptical about my choices until my first bite, but it turned out really delicious! All the tasty goodness of pot pie and surprisingly quick to make.
INGREDIENTS:

4 cups [...]

CONFESSION: I make the best lasagna. It’s true. Whether it’s my vegetarian lasagna or my combo, I do it best. I can’t order lasagna in Italian restaurants because all I can think is “mine’s better.”
The problem is, there’s no recipe for me to share. It’s different every time. But while I don’t have a recipe [...]

There was something about the Chilaquiles Verdes (think Mexican lasagna) recipe I saw on Daisy Cooks that inspired me to try it from scratch before I attempt to design some shortcuts around it. And believe me, from the fresh salsa verde to frying my own tortillas, this was a labor and time-intensive dish. There are [...]

About a month ago we got a great deal on a whole ham in the discount meat bin. $7 for a TON of ham. The up side? A lot of really good smoked ham. The downside? That’s a lot of ham, and for us, ham is a sometimes food, which means getting creative. I’ve been [...]

Perhaps my favorite part of shortcut cooking is calling a dish something more impressive than what it actually is. But Velveeta cheese sauce just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Jalapeño Cream Sauce.
This meal was thrown together on a whim. My husband craved Velveeta chili dip the previous night, leaving us with a [...]

How to make delicious little balls of cholesterol… seriously, YUM.

Hardly as impressive as Meatcake, this strangely light recipe is sort of a miracle of science taught to me by my friend Samm. The concept is simple: Replace the eggs and oil in a standard box cake mix with a can of diet soda; ANY diet soda.
To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure I [...]

More than a few people have asked me to post the recipe secrets for my sushi. My maki rolls have been known on many occasions to make sushi lovers out of both fearful sushi virgins and those who’ve had bad sushi experiences, but for the most part my secret is “practice” and a couple [...]

There are no shortcuts to ropa vieja, a Spanish-inspired dish from Cuba that translates literally to “old clothes”. I’ve tried modifying it for the crock pot, but this is a meal that takes 4 hours to make, plain and simple. But boy is it worth it.
Our friends Tracy and Derek were coming by for the [...]

Sunday dinner this week was a team effort, pairing my pot roast with Samm’s unbelievably creamy “Wallpaper Paste” mashed potatoes. And so here are two recipes for you!
Slow Cooker Pot RoastINGREDIENTS:

1 4-lb. Pot Roast, well marbled, cut into chunks
3–4 large carrots (or two ENORMOUS carrots, like I used)
1 parsnip, peeled and cut into [...]

Today was a lazy day if there ever was one, but I went into it not knowing what I was making for dinner. After talking my husband into putting some rice into my Black & Decker Handy Steamer and thawing some chicken, I was committed. Remembering a lonely can of cream of chicken condensed soup [...]