Domestic Diva ... or not

So, I know I told you that I would only share recipes that cooked themselves and hopped onto the table, eagerly anticipating your arrival home. Regrettably, I still haven’t had success with that one. However, this could be one of the easiest, most delicious meals I’ve made in awhile, so I must share (drumroll please) Crock-Pot Stuffed Peppers.

I made a couple of minor adjustments. I used brown rice instead of white, ground turkey instead of ground beef, and only red peppers because I’m difficult like that. One short cut I tried to make was mixing the filling the night before. Safe yourself the mushy rice and don't mix the rice in, store it individually. Duh. It was easy and healthy for a crock-pot recipe. (Isn’t is disconcerting that spellcheck caught crockpot and tried to replace it with crackpot?) The family loved it, which is a major accomplishment, as it isn’t easy to please a picky toddler and a husband who is leery of dinner being served in a vegetable. No one went to bed hungry, got violently ill, or sprouted any additional appendages as the result of this expedition in the kitchen, thus classifying it an overwhelming success.

Do you have any great crackpot recipes to share? My family would thank you.

Winner winner chicken dinner

Let's see who can name that movie ...

Last night I made dinner. Now pick your jaw up off your keyboard, I am capable of such work. When I was making dinner it occurred to me that I must tell the Internet this. The Internet knows my domestic skills lack and I am certain envisions me feeding my family canned ravioli, ramen noodles, and string cheese. However, in the rare chance that I have time, energy, and groceries, I can make a decent meal. As long as I am being honest here, I will admit that Craig cooks dinner more often than I do. I think he considers that job security.

Anyway, I made salad. I love a good salad. I pretty much toss in whatever we have around. In this salad I used some organic greens, a diced green apple, dried cherries, mandarin oranges, feta cheese, pecans, and chicken. Craig loves it when I make dinner like this. He calls it the What Else Are We Having For Dinner Dinner, the That's Not Dinner Dinner, or the I'm Hungry Again 15 Minutes Later Dinner.

As Craig was walking to the other side of the table to sit down, I snapped this picture. Without any advance warning, he suddenly turned around, his elbow making contact with the camera and the camera making some SERIOUS contact with my eye. This was all due to the insane need to prove that I can be domestic. Does a black eye fit in that criteria?

For the record, Craig wants to make sure that I tell the Internet that this was a camera injury. I am a little accident prone and I'm certain it makes him a little nervous about his, errrr, reputation. Two years ago, right after I started a new job, I fell down the stairs. Twice. In one month. You can't blame the guy for being a little cautious.

It's no DiGiorno

Dinner has been a battle in our household (making it, eating it, you name it). As a matter of fact, I don't find much is easy with a two year old! Anyway, I don't claim to be an expert in the kitchen. We don't have a normal repertoire of meals. We get home at 5:30 most nights and really only have two hours for play, cooking, eating, and bath. The last thing I want to do is spend all that time in the kitchen. I've tried semi-successfully to increase my crock pot use. I do have to say that for a family that tries to eat healthy, most crock pot recipes are in sheer protest of anything health related. I did find a great crock pot website here that I use quite a bit.

Otherwise, it's normally a quick throw something together at the last minute act. Over the past few weeks I've taken a big step and enlisted a dinner helper. Yeah, helper, I'm an optimist.

Okay, so maybe it's more work than help, but we've had so much fun! Kate loves helping. It's a great way to spend time in the kitchen together, while still getting something accomplished. Tonight we made pizza. It was so easy. All you need is the following:

Pre-made whole wheat pizza crust, pizza sauce (we love Mid's), cheese (we used a blend of mozzarella, asiago, and romano, but I'm a cheese snob), and your toppings (we used fresh chopped basil and two large sliced tomatoes). Oh, I'm also a big toppings on top of the cheese person, but to each their own.

Easy peasy. Put it in the oven, I'm a guesstimator so about 375 degrees in the convection for about 12 minutes, or until the cheese is melted. It was super quick, healthy for a pizza, and best of all, Kate couldn't wait to eat the "Pizza I made!"