While this may seem like a time consuming meal to prepare (for some reason it always does to me), it really isn’t bad at all.

Periodically, I’ll buy ground beef in bulk. I’ll brown and drain it all, then separate it into baggies marked with the date made. Either freeze or plan to use in the next couple of days. Doing this makes this recipe run much smoother during preparations… while the pasta shells are cooking on the stove, I prepare the meat and cheese stuffing.. it takes me almost as long to make the stuffing mix, while cleaning up after myself as it does for the shells to cook.

1 package of jumbo pasta shells
1 jar of favorite spaghetti sauce (I actually use tomato sauce usually)
1 lb browned ground beef, drained
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
3/4 cup shredded cheese (mixed or mozzarella)
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbs parsley (I used dried, but fresh would be best)
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook pasta shells as package directs.

While pasta is cooking, add together all ingredients EXCEPT the spaghetti sauce and a little extra shredded cheese to use for a topper.

In a large casserole dish, spread some of your pasta sauce on the bottom of the dish.

Once the pasta shells are done cooking, I drain and rinse under cold water so handling the shells is easy to do - not hot.

Using a large spoon, scoop the cheese and meet mixture into each shell, then placing it into the casserole dish.

Pour more sauce on top of the stuffed shells and place in over for about 45 minutes. In the last 10 minutes or so, top with the remaining shredded cheese. Once melted, remove from oven and enjoy!

Serve with salad and bread.

I love egg salad sandwiches.  Egg salad is such a simple thing to make, so easy with quick and easy ingredients.

How much I make depends on who is eating lunch with me.  I prefer to make enough to eat at the time and maybe enough for extra sandwich or two later.

Ingredients:

Eggs
Miracle Whip (Real Mayo works, but I prefer the sweetness of the Miracle Whip)
Salt
Pepper
Bread

Boil the eggs for about 5 minutes to get hard boiled eggs.  Once done, rinse under cold water to cool the eggs enough to handle.  Crack the egg shells all over and gentle peel the shell and inner membrane off (dry out the shells and use in the garden later).

Put the de-shelled eggs in a bowl and using a fork, mash the eggs.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Use miracle whip to taste.  Some days I like it a little more creamy, while other days I prefer it to be tad on the drier side.  Standard, I probably use about 3 TBS Miracle Whip to 4 eggs.

You could also add in some sweet relish.. again, to taste.

Toast your bread lightly, spread on some egg salad with a fork and much with a sweet pickle.  Enjoy!

Ranch dressing is my favorite dressing.  But I don’t care for the ‘out of the bottle’ dressings.

My daughter gave me this recipe and I’m sure credit must go to Outback directly as it tastes exactly like their yummy ranch dressing.  I made it, and immediately had to have a salad - it was yummmy!

1 cup of real mayo
1/2 cup of milk
1 TBSP Buttermilk Ranch Dressing Mix (powdered)
1/4 tsp cracked pepper (I used fresh)
1/8 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp garlic powder

Mix it all together and top on your favorite salad fixings.

I happened to have 1/2 of a petit filet from Outback (dinner the other night.. we splurged!).. so I sliced off a few slices, heated it in the microwave and put my salad greens right on top of it.  I wish I’d had a few grape tomatoes to add to it, but as it was, with the dressing, I ate it up.

Typically, I like my salads diced up really neat.  Chop the greens into easy to manage bite-size bits, diced tomatoes, diced cucumbers, shredded cheese, and chopped bacon.  I also like fried chicken fingers on top.

One place we like to get salads use to put oriental crunchy noodles on the salad instead of croutons.  We loved this.  Now that I have a good ranch dressing recipe, I may have to stock up on some of the simple salads fixings - like maybe some homemade croutons… oh yum!

Don’t feel like a salad? Chop up some veggies and use it as a dip.. it’s just as tasty.

I see bags of cranberries in the store and wonder to myself… what are those for? I searched through so many recipes.. mostly the same thing over and over. Most recipes contained cranberries, water and sugar. Simple enough… but I wondered about the flavor.

Then I found a recipe posted on allrecipes.com again with just 3 ingredients.. rather than water, it calls for orange juice.

Ingredients for Cranberry Sauce
12 oz package cranberries
1 cup white sugar (or, add another ingredient and do 1/2 white sugar, 1/2 brown sugar)
1 cup orange juice

Combine sugar and juice in pot over medium-high heat, stirring sugar until dissolved.

Stir in the cranberries, cooking about 10 minutes until the berries begin popping.

Remove from heat. The sauce will thicken as it cools.

My girls love corn casserole. My mom always makes it for our gathering holidays - Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas and any other time it’s requested. I thought I’d buy the ingredients and give it a go for home this year. In searching for recipe, I came across both corn pudding and corn casserole.

Rather than try to decipher the two… I found a recipe for each that was basically the same. It only has 5 ingredients and sounds easy enough.

Ingredients:
1 can cream corn
1 can corn
8 oz container sour cream
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 8.5 oz package corn bread mix (Jiffy brand works well)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Lightly grease a casserole dish.
Mix all ingredients together and pour into baking dish.
Bake 40-45 minutes.
Remove from oven when a knife slides out mostly clean.
Let stand 5-10 minutes before serving.

We will be serving with turkey (but would also go well with pork, chicken, etc), stuffing, potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls and lots of good cheer and appetites!

A favorite casserole side dish especially around the holidays has always been green bean casserole.  At least, in my family it is.

It’s a simple, easy recipe to make, too.

Ingredients:
2 15oz cans of green beans
1 can mushroom soup
1/2 c. milk
1 small can French’s French Onions (about 1 1/3 cups)
pepper to taste

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a square casserole dish mix mushroom soup and milk, until blended.

Drain green beans and add to casserole dish.  Dash with pepper.

Mix in about 1 cup of the french fried onions.

Cook in oven about 45 minutes.  Or until bubbling.

Remove from oven and top with remaining onions.  Bake another 5 minutes.

Serve with meal (like Thanksgiving Dinner!) or, if you are like me and my daughter, dish it up alone and eat it up!  Yummmy!

Chili is so simple to make, a few basic ingredients and before long a big pot full to eat on for a couple days.  We eat chili plain, with spaghetti, over fritos with cheese on top (and sometimes sour cream), with crackers or bread and butter, topped on hotdogs and probably more ways I’m forgetting.

Here’s how I make a simple recipe that suits my whole (picky) family.

2 lbs ground beef
2 cans chili beans (we prefer mild)
2 cans tomato sauce
1-2 TBS Chili powder
1-2 cans water (after cans are open) maybe more, depending on your preference

Brown ground beef in a soup pot (I use my multi-purpose 6 quart pot).  When the beef has been browned, you may need to drain a bit of the fat and juice off.  If you want to leave it in, go ahead - my husband says it gives it more flavor! I like to add the chili powder as soon as the beef is done browning - after I drain it (unless I don’t drain at all).

Once the beef has been browned, add the beans and sauce.  Stir it up.

Add the water slowly so you don’t add too much.  It’s always easy to add a bit more… to get the consistency you like in your chili.

Let it cook so the flavors blend.  Once it’s hot throughout, eat it up.

With chili, there are many ingredients you can add to it… my recipe is super simple because of my family.  But many chili’s have onions and/or peppers.  I use to use lentil beans instead of ground beef.  Or try a package of mixed beans - cooked to package directions.

Chili is another yummmy soup for cold weather.  Enjoy!

Cold weather always brings with it cravings of soups and stews.  Hearty meals that fill our bellies and warm us up, inside out.  Vegetable soup is a big favorite around our house… kept on the stove to keep warm and we nibble on it all the cold day long.

2 bags frozen vegetable mix for soups
1-1.5 lbs cubed beef for soups and stews
1 large can tomato sauce or a can of V8 Juice
3-4 beef bouillon cubes (optional)
1-2 TBS flour
2 TBS Olive Oil, or other favorite cooking oil
water

You may wish to add a few extra veggies.
- I like to add a can of diced potatoes, or if I feel like it, I’ll peel and dice 1-2 potatoes.
- Extra corn, green beans or whatever veggies you like in your soup.

It’s your soup… add what you want!  If you want to add pasta, add it at the end of cook time.  The pasta will cook, but won’t get really large and mushy.  I prefer to keep my soup on the stove, on low, most of the day, so I don’t add pasta.

In a soup pot, add your oil and turn stove on medium or medium high.  Add beef to brown.

You could use a skillet to brown your meat.  But when I am making soup, I like to brown the meat right in the soup pot… one less pan to wash.

Once beef starts to brown, it will get juicy in the pot.  At this time, add your bouillon cubes and give them a bit of time to melt down.  Then add some flour.  Enough to coat your meat.  You may need to add just a bit of water so things to burn.. you want all browned to give it good flavor.

After the meat has browned and made the house smell yummmy, add a few cups of water and your veggies.  Pour in your tomato sauce (or juice).  How much water to add comes to personal preference… if you want it soupy, add a bit extra.. if you want it a bit chunkier, don’t add so much.

Bring to a boil then turn down to simmer - stir periodically to keep from burning the bottom.  It’s done when the meat and veggies are tender.  The longer is sits on simmer, the more blended and rich the flavor.

We gobble this up on cold days with lots of buttered bread.

This beef stew meat, cooked tender in beef broth (turned gravy) is a simple and inexpensive recipe I made a few weeks ago, then again yesterday (and both times, I forgot to take pictures - will remember next time).  I’ve been looking for inexpensive meals that will make more than 2 people at a time happy in my family (I have picky eaters!).

When I cook, I generally always make enough so we have some extra for the next day.  Someone almost always eats it up.  With that in mind, and considering this recipe was just “made up”, adjust this to you and your family’s needs.  Also, I always remind myself that a recipe is usually just a guide..

With all that in mind, here’s my recipe for my stew beef gravy:

2.5 pounds of cubed stew meat
2 cans beef broth - I use Swansons
2 - 3 bouillon cubes (high in sodium, so don’t add any extra salt!)
1/8 -  1/4 c. flour to thicken
2-3 TBSP oil
A couple TBSP of water

- Put oil in pan and brown the cubed meat over medium-medium/high.
- Add a few tablespoons of the flour and brown with the meat.
- Pour in cans of beef broth and add bouillon cubes.
- Bring to boil, then turn heat down to simmer and cover.
- Cook 1.5 - 2 hours, until meat is tender.
- Make a paste with the water and flour, mixing until there are no lumps.  Pour into the stew meat.  This will thicken the broth to make more of a gravy, than a thin soup.  If you want it thicker, add a little more flour.  Let it come to a boil again, but then turn it down.. it will thicken up nicely this way.

Serve with mashed potatoes or rice… either way is tasty.  Heat up so rolls and whatever veggies you want and dinner is served!

Actually, I bet adding some quartered potatoes to the main dish while it’s cooking would be yummy.  Hmm.. I may try that next time.

If you have a variation on this recipe, I’d love for you to share it here

Homemade Whipped Cream is SO easy to make and it tastes SO good! Sure, it’s quick and easy to pick up some whipped topping from the store, but this… this is just heavenly.

1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Whip cream until thick and stiff.
Add sugar and vanilla.
Continue beating until it holds peaks.

Goes on Pies, Cakes, Apple Crisp, Fruit… or by it’s self! and more!