Here you will find all our favorite recipes we’ve published in one convenient place. We hope to make it easier for our readers to find the recipes we talk about on our podcast. It is our hope that you’ll hop on over to our home page and listen to a few of our episodes. We love to cook but we love to talk more. Give us a listen.
We fancy ourselves good cooks with an eye toward keeping it simple for busy moms. When you have soccer practice right after school and piano lessons right after that, you need dinner to be fast and simple. But we still strive for nutritious. We have to keep those growing bodies in peak condition you know.
One of the things you’ll find we do a lot is double our recipes to make cooking on busy night easier. If the recipes are two big for your family just half them back down to a smaller size. But we find it easier to make big meals and put away half so that we have food ready for nights when we are busy. Isn’t it nice to just pull something yummy out of the freezer and not have to think too much. I know I love that. We hope this makes meal planning easier for you too. We talked a bit about this on a podcast we did a while back. If you’d like to listen, you can find that HERE We hope you enjoy it.
Tacos-doubled
This yummy dish will make your week night dinner rock!
Ingredients
- Beef 2 lb
- 2 cans black beans
- 1 medium Onions
- 4-5 cloves garlic
- Garlic
- 1 t chipotle chili powder
- 1 T smoked paprika
- 1 t oregano
- 1 t salt
- Package of taco shells
- Whatever you like on tacos. Example-tomatoes, lettuce, onion, black olives, salsa, sour cream, hot sauce
Instructions
- Brown hamburger
- Add in onions and sweat for a few minutes
- Add garlic and saute until fragrant-about a minute
- Drain and rinse beans and add
- Add spices and taste.
- Adjust spices to your taste
- Preheat oven to 350
- Allow to simmer over low for about 15 minutes to meld flavors. Add a splash of water if it is dry
- Put taco shells on sheet pan
- Fill taco and put in the oven for about 5 minutes. Watch them. They’ll burn if left too long
- Remove tacos from oven Top with what you love on tacos and Enjoy!!
Chili
You will love this tasty dish on cool nights and it is even better when you have it the second night!
Ingredients
- 2 Pounds hamburger
- 2 medium red or yellow onion
- 4 cloves of garlic chopped (at least)
- 2 14 oz cans tomatoes of your choice
- 3 cups pre-soaked dried red beans/black see notes beans or a combo
- 4 cups broth
- 2 Bell peppers
- 1 T cumin adjust after tasting
- 1 T smoked paprika adjust after tasting
- 1 T Chipotle powder adjust after tasting
- 1 t Cinnamon
- 1 T Salt adjust after tasting
- 1 Ripe avocado for serving
- 1 Bag of Mexican cheese for serving
Instructions
- Sort and rinse your beans. Make sure there aren’t any small rocks in the mix. It happens.
- Combine beans and the broth in a large stock pot.
- The bean cooking process will take at least 2 hours, add water if the beans are no longer swimming in liquid.
- Once the beans are starting to get tender.
- In another pan brown the hamburger and add that to the mix.
- Add in the tomatoes, and seasoning.
- Saute the onion, and bell peppers. Don’t cook them all the way. Add them to the stock along with the garlic.
- Continue cooking until the beans are as done as you like.
- To serve:
- Add cut up avocado, cheese, sour cream, and hot sauce.
- Or whatever combination your family prefers.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Some notes:
You don’t have to use dried beans. If you use canned beans then you only need one cup of broth. Use at least 5 cans of beans, more preferably 6. Then follow all the directions except the cooking the beans for two hours. Canned beans are already cooked and don’t require much more cooking.
Advantages of using dried beans are, it gives your flavors more time to develop and it makes a thicker kind of chili. It is cheaper, each can of beans costs over a dollar, an equivalent amount of dried beans will cost you less than .25. Don’t forget they expand as they cook. You can avoid squishy beans, if that isn’t your thing, dried beans give you more control of how done they get.
There is a faster way to do this in your instapot if you have a 10 quart. Follow the directions the same way, but start the beans in your instapot. Cook on high pressure for 30 minutes and the beans should be just about done. In a 10 quart you can finish the chili in your instapot. If you have a smaller instapot just cook the beans in it then transfer them to your large stock pot.
Presoaked beans are when you soak the dried beans for 24 hours before you try to use them. This speeds up the cooking process.
Cheeseburger Soup
This is a yummy Fall soup with hardy chunks of beef and potatoes will warm up your bones after a day spent outside.
Ingredients
- 3 pound chuck roast
- 3 lb potatoes
- 4 big carrots
- 1 large onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 32 oz containers of chicken stock
- ⅓ cup flour
- 2 T olive oil
- 1 T mustard-more if you like mustard
- ¾ cups cream
- 2 cups sharp cheese
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375
- Salt and pepper outside of chuck roast
- Roast until tender. Usually about 1.5 hours
- Remove from oven and allow to cool
- Cut up vegetables into bite size pieces
- Saute onion and garlic in olive oil for about 10 minutes
- Add flour and allow to soak up olive oil-add a bit more olive oil if there isn’t enough to give the flour somewhere to go. The flour should pretty much disappear.
- Add chicken broth and stir to mix in flour
- Add potatoes and allow to cook to soften
- While that is happening, cut chuck roast into bite size pieces. Cut against the grain
- Add chuck roast and cook a little longer to meld the flavors
- Add cream
- Add cheese a little at a time and allow cheese to melt between each addition
- Don’t let soup boil after adding cheese or it will get grainy
- You’re done! Enjoy!
Notes
Ground beef works well in this dish also. Just brown well as your first step.
Feel free to mix up the cheeses. Cream cheese is delicious. Use what you have on hand.
I sometimes add green beans or corn to this. Again use what you have on hand
If you low carb, try riced cauliflower instead of potatoes.
Spaghetti-doubled
Try this yummy dish for a bit of nostalgia
Ingredients
- 2 pounds hamburger
- 5 links of hot of mild Italian sausage-we prefer hot
- Spaghetti 23 Oz jars of tomato sauce
- 1 T Italian seasoning
- 1 t salt
- 3 cans diced or stewed tomatoes
- 2 8 ounce packages of mushrooms sliced
- 2 onions chopped
- 2 bell peppers chopped
- 5 cloves of garlic minced
Instructions
- Brown sausage on all sides and remove from pan-slice once cooled
- Brown hamburger
- Add mushrooms-brown for a few minutes
- Add onions and peppers
- Saute for about 10 minutes
- Add garlic
- Saute until fragrant-2 minute or so
- Add Sauce and tomatoes and stir
- Add sausage back in
- Allow to cook for 20 minutes to bring flavors together. Longer if you have the time.
- While this is happening cook pasta using package directions
- Serve you spaghetti sauce over your pasta and enjoy!
Notes
Serve with warm bread and Parmesan cheese
On the second round of this meal feel free to mix it up and add sauce to frozen ravioli and bake. Top with mozzarella cheese in the last 10 minutes. Delicious
Korean Beef
This spicy sweet recipe will make your whole family beg for seconds.
Ingredients
- 3 pounds low fat hamburger
- 1 medium cabbage cut into strips
- 1 ½ red or yellow onion
- 4-5 cloves of garlic
- 3 t korean pepper flake
- 2-3 cups broth
- 2-5 T soy sauce to taste
- 2 T molasses or 1 T honey, or if you have neither of those 2 T sugar
- 2 T rice vinegar
- 1 T pure sesame oil
- 1 T fresh grated ginger
Instructions
- Brown the beef. Use a colander to drain and hold the meat while you start the onion cooking. After a few minutes add the hamburger and all the rest of the ingredients back to the pan.
- Cook until the cabbage is as cooked as you want it to be.
- While that is cooking, start two cups of rice according to the package instructions.
- If you prefer to make all your rice at once to save for the next meal you will want to cook 4 cups of rice.
Notes
You don’t have to use cabbage, you can sub in cauliflower, broccoli, green beans or zucchini. Or you can add all of these veggies in with the cabbage if you want.
Cabbage cooks down, it is hard to fit it in all in the pan at first, but don’t worry it will cook down into a more manageable amount.
Remember your goal is to have enough for a second meal, so guard the leftovers.
Taste your food, you may like more juice, salt, or you may want it to be more spicy. Add whatever you want to make that happen.
If you want to take a step toward making it more authentic go down to your local Asian food store and get yourself some hot pepper paste link here if you aren’t fortunate enough to have a local Asian store. https://amzn.to/49djSY7 . This is a sweet spicy paste that comes in a tub and goes in place of the sweetener of your choice, and the Korean pepper flake. Use one big tablespoon of the paste.