When I first discovered Doña María’s Ready-to-Serve molé sauce I was really, really skeptical. Molé, a spicy chocolate sauce, is one of those things that I’ve tasted done really, really well and really poorly. And, quite frankly, my expectations were so low that I actually reserved some of the sauce and only made half my [...]

Tastefully Simple makes some really great sauces. When my friend Angela hosted a Tastefully Simple party a few months back, I picked up a number of things. Their Garlic Garlic has become a new staple in my house, and the beer bread has been a longtime favorite.
The Bayou Bourbon Glaze was appealing immediately, even though [...]

CONFESSION: By stereotypical “Mom’s home cooking” standards, I overseason everything. At least, that’s what it seems like when I read recipes in church and family cookbooks. I need a lot of flavor in my food and I don’t use much salt at all, so I compensate for [...]

CONFESSION: I was afraid of making my own stocks for a long time. It was tedious, quite frankly, and I’m all about the shortcuts, right? Well, who knew that spending a little time to make the stocks could be an awesome shortcut?
When I made my Shrimp Scampi a couple weeks ago I knew I’d be [...]

Italian restaurants and I have a tricky relationship. It’s because I make REALLY good Italian food. I’m better at some cuisines than others, but Italian is easily the one I understand the most completely. Because of this I find a lot of Americanized Italian food bland, often salty, and usually end up saying “My lasagna/ravioli/pesto [...]

Chicken piccata is something I’ve never tried to make before. I used to love Lean Cuisine’s Chicken Piccata back when they had it (I think it might be spookily similar to the Lemon Chicken now)  so when I saw that Trader Joes carried a jarred chicken piccata sauce, I was ecstatic to try it. The [...]

Trader Joes, how do I love thee. I don’t care that you’re Aldi in a fancy dress. In fact, I love that you’re Aldi in a fancy dress and your delicious foods are priced accordingly. And I do love thee. Let me count the ways.

First there’s their Garlic Naan, in the freezer section for < [...]

Rotisserie chicken is probably my husband’s favorite thing that I make. It’s also fun because it always looks terribly impressive to the people at work when I bring in a tasty 1/4 chicken meal for lunch and they ask “Where’d you get that?” They ask even though they know better, that I make my own [...]

CONFESSION: I was unimpressed by Frontera Grill. I’ve been fortunate to eat at Rick Bayless‘ Chicago restaurant twice, and while the ceviche is incomparable with any other, everything else was way too smoky for my taste, which is sad because Mexico: One Plate at a Time is one of my favorite cooking shows and I [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]