Dinner Ideas

Nanette mentioned to me once about blogging about my dinners for a week or so to help give her (and others) some inspiration for their own meals. It would've been nice if I had taken pictures to go with all this but I didn't think that far ahead. Sorry about that. We've had some colder days which have been great for using my new crockpot. I love my new one- the last two Rival Smartpots I had both ended up incinerating the food and this GE crockpot I bought is working great so far. I love all the settings it has and the retractable cord is awesome. But definitely its strong point is that it doesn't burn our food. So here's some of our recent meals.

*Sweet and Sour Chicken (the recipe was on Hy-Vee's website but I can't find it now) with steamed rice. It's an easy meal (lots of prep work with cutting but the cooking goes super fast) and good for you too.

*Scalloped potatoes and ham, corn and strawberry/pineapple/banana jello salad. I am not the biggest fan of ham, but even I really liked this. The scalloped potatoes and ham recipe was from the Fix It and Forget It cookbook- one of my faves.

*Barbecued shredded/pulled pork, rolls, corn and mashed potatoes. I have to admit that one of our local grocery stores makes far better pulled pork than I ever do so I finally just gave up and only buy theirs.

*Deep pit beef, oven roasted potatoes, jello, green salad and rolls. The deep pit beef was disappointing but it was my fault because I didn't get it marinating soon enough. It was okay but it didn't really have any flavor. We started making our own salad dressing a while back- from the packages at the store, nothing crazy- and I would recommend that. It is so good and makes you want to eat more salad. Deep pit beef recipe also in the Fix It and Forget It cookbook.

*Shredded beef tacos. I reinvented the deep pit into shredded beef for tacos and that tasted great.

*Barbecue chicken, rice and salad. This is probably what we do the most during the summer. Barbecue some meat, and eat a carb/starch and a vegetable with it. We really like to use McCormick's GrillMates Montreal Chicken seasoning.

*Spaghetti, garlic bread and salad. I make my own sauce- nothing fancy but it tastes better than anything out of a jar and is really quick and easy. It makes a lot so we reuse it in our own made up dish I like to call "stuffed bell pepper casserole". Rob calls it Spanish rice but that isn't right either. You just mix up the leftover sauce with cooked rice, bell peppers and cheese and cook it in the oven just long enough to heat it all up.

We don't cook like this all the time but these are some of the highlights from the last two weeks. Hopefully this helps Nanette or anyone else come up with an idea for dinner- I know what a struggle that can be!