I like saying jambalaya. Jahm-bah-LIE-yah. It sounds like something that takes a lot of effort and time in the kitchen. But the truth is that it is one of the simplest meals I make. Shhhhh, let’s keep that our little secret, okay?

Even better than saying jahm-bah-LIE-yah over and over while you cook, is the fact that all the magic happens in one pan. YES, one pan! Don’t you love that? Doesn’t that make you want to cook jambalaya?

You will need*:

1 lb sausage sliced, I use mild Italian sausage
1 large onion, chopped
2 small red bell peppers, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
1 1/3 cups long-grain white rice
2 2/3 cups chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon cayenne (adjust this according to your own taste)
1/4 tsp Cajun seasoning (adjust or omit according to your own taste)
4 scallions

Step One: Brown sliced sausage over medium high heat.

Step Two: Remove sausage from pan. Put onion, bell pepper and celery into the already hot pan. Stir until vegetables are cooked thoroughly and onions are soft.

Step Three: Add sausage back to pan. Stir in rice, broth and spices. Bring to a quick boil.

Step Four: Cover pan. Reduce heat to very low and allow to cook for twenty minutes or so until all the liquid is absorbed. The same way that you would cook plain rice.

Step Five: Once cooked add the thinly sliced scallions and fluff well with a fork.

Enjoy your one pan wonder.

* I triple this recipe for our family, except for the vegetables. I use 2 lg onions, 3 lg bell peppers, and 4-5 celery stalks. I share this just to encourage you that recipe are not written in stone. You can change them up a bit and it will be just fine. Really. I promise you that cooking is not an exact science.

I am constantly on the look out for new pasta salad recipes. Pasta salad is the easiest summer side dish. It goes with anything you grill or you can even eat it by itself for meal. I love to make a large batch and serve it for a couple of meals… usually with dinner and a couple of lunches. Or for when you meet up with friends and have an impromptu dinner date.

And the best thing about pasta salad? You can make it early in the day, stick it in the refrigerator, and not think about it again until you are pulling the burgers off of the grill that evening.

You will need:

8 oz rotini pasta
1/2 c Italian dressing
1TB dijon mustard
1TB mayonaisse
1lb grilled chicken breast, cut into strips*
1 small can sliced olives
1 jar roasted red peppers, draned and chopped
1 can artichoke hearts, rinsed, drained and chopped

*I used the premade/precooked grilled chicken breast strips that come frozen at the grocery store to make the recipe that much easier. When I grill chicken breast for a meal I like to save a few breasts for using in recipes like this, but this time I didn’t have any.

Step 1: Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box. Drain and rinse with cool water until the pasta is completely cool.

Step 2: Combine the salad dressing, mayonaisse, and mustard and pour onto the pasta. Stir to coat.

Step 3: Add remaining ingredients. Stir.

Step 4: Cover and refrigerate until dinner time.

Balloon tied to your chair optional, but why not. It makes meal time so much for festive. And by festive I mean cause your children to punch the ballon into each other constantly, and whine and cry until you threaten to spear the balloon with your fork. Not that I would know this from personal experience or anything. Ahem.

It is strawberry season. I think. I am basing this purely on the plethora of inexpensive strawberries available at the local grocery store, and not upon any first hand growing knowledge.

Shortcake is so easy to make that I afterward I always wonder why I don’t make it more often.
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Looking for a new summer side dish? I have a great one for you. This recipe is so easy that I do not even have photos of the steps because I think that you know how to open cans. Right?

You can make this early in the day and leave in the fridge until dinner time. Perfect for those days when you are going to be out of the house all day and just going to grill some hamburgers for dinner.

Also, it looks so pretty. Doesn’t it?

Black Bean and Corn Salsa

1/4 c Hellman’s Light Mayonnaise
2T lime juice
1/2tsp ground cumin
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can whole kernel corn, drained
1 cup quartered cherry or grape tomatoes
1/2 c chopped red onion
2T chopped fresh cilantro (I left this out because I could not find any at my grocery store)

Combine mayonnaise, lime juice, and cumin in a medium sized bowl.

Stir in remaining ingredients.

Serve chilled or at room temperature.

This was loved by all. Except for the child who insists he doesn’t like beans, though I doubt that a bean has ever crossed his lips. So really he doesn’t count. The rest of my children said it was wonderful and that it should be made again and again. My eldest son even ate some of the leftover with his lunch, which says something because his general feeling is that leftovers are garbage that I store in the fridge.

So do you ever have questionable bananas but totally do not feel like baking banana bread?  And by questionable I mean bananas that now have slightly speckled skin and are therefore summarily rejected by the children who insist that they are rotten, even though they are not.

And do you also ever have stale bread?

Then this is the recipe for you. I have made this for people who have insisted that they hate bread pudding. Turns out they just hate dry bread pudding. Good bread pudding is just like French Toast on steroids.

You will need:

1/2 cup butter
loaf of stale French bread (or whatever) cut into cubes
6 eggs
1 cup sugar
4 cups half-n-half, (or milk if you want it to be lower fat, but really it is a dessert, a treat, and therefore should be high in calories and fat)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp vanilla
4-5 sliced bananas

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Place your stick of butter in an 11″x13″ casserole pan. Stick it into the warming oven to melt the butter.

Once the butter is melted, remove baking dish from oven and stir in the cubed bread.

In a large bowl mix together all the other ingredients EXCEPT the bananas.

Pour the egg mixture over the bread and mix thoroughly. You want all the bread to be soaked. That is what makes it turn pudding-like. Then gently stir in the banana slices.

Place in the preheated oven and back for 40-50 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

You can eat it hot, right out of the oven, which is usually what happens with half of it,because my children do not have patience. Or you can put it in the refrigerator and let it chill, which is my personal favorite.

This entire pan was gobbled up in record time, with my children asking if I could buy rotten bananas again soon.

I am stuck in the never ending baseball hellseason here at my house. Almost every night we have somewhere to be right around dinner time. It has seriously stretched my abilities to make quick, easy, and nutritious meals for my family. Or more accurately meals fitting that description that my children will actually eat.

I hit on this incredibly easy, really too easy to even be called a recipe, recipe this week and it was a raging success. An enthusiastic 14 thumbs, albeit sticky thumbs, up. It is one that will be made over and over again at my house, especially when the summer hits.
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I love fajitas. Every time I make them I wonder why it is that I don’t make them more often.

You will need:

Chicken breast and/or steak
Marinade (recipe below)
Peppers, red and green
Onion
Tortillas (the large flour ones are the easiest to work with)
Sour Cream
Salsa
Shredded Mexican blend cheese

The first part of the recipe is to put together the marinade.

Marinade:
2/3 cup water
2/3 cup soy sauce
1 1/2 T Worcestershire sauce
1 2/3 cup honey
1/6 tsp ginger
4 cloves minced garlic (or garlic powder)

I put the meat into a ziploc bag and pour the marinade right into the bag. You can do this even if the meat is frozen and allow it to defrost in the bag while it marinates. You want the meat to marinate for an entire day to really soak up the flavors. Trust me, it is worth it.

Then you are going to grill your meat. I finally joined the rest of the world in owning a George Foreman grill. I really did not buy the hype about how great it cooked food. Nor did I think that I needed another kitchen appliance that I would have to store somewhere. But after using it, I too have seen the light. That little grill is awesome.

Slice up your peppers and onions. I like to use both red and green peppers.

Pour a couple teaspoons of oil into a large pan and saute the peppers along with your onions. You want to cook them until they turn slightly soft. If you keep cooking them too long they will turn mushy and lose some of their flavor.

Before you put your food into the tortilla, you will want to heat your tortilla in some way. You can heat them individually by frying them quickly on both sides in pan on top of the stove. You can heat them in the microwave. Or you can do what I do and wrap the entire stack in tinfoil and stick it in the oven for a few minutes.

A quick tutorial on how to roll up your tortilla so nothing falls out while you, or more importantly your children, who do not know the meaning of EAT OVER THE TABLE, are eating.

Step One:
Put your food into the tortilla approximately a third of the way down.

Step Two:
Fold the sides of the tortilla in. Both sides. I only have it shown with one side folded in because my other hand was holding the camera. My third hand was probably also buy holding back one of the ravenous children who live me. Where is that fourth hand when you need it?

Step Three:
Bring the bottom of the tortilla up.

Step Four:

Make it nice and snug. Then roll it again.

Step Five:

And again.

Now all your food is nice and contained and not spilling out of the bottom while you try to eat. Unless you are a four year old, in which case the entire thing will just explode in your hand as soon as you touch it.

This recipe got fourteen ENTHUSIASTIC thumbs up. I don’t know that you can get a rating much better than that.

It is also very, very easy.
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or as I like to call it, chicken pot pie for the lazy folks.

Did you know I moved?  Yes, yes I did.  from Connecticut to Texas.  And I am drowning under cardboard boxes and tissue paper.  I feel slightly guilty for the number of trees that gave their lives so that my crap from Target could make it here in one piece.

Unpacking really, really, no I mean REALLY, stinks.  And to make it worse, when I unpacked all of the kitchen stuff my 11 yr old  son was helping me.  That sounds nice in theory.  Having help doing tasks is usually nice. 

But I said to him, “Oh put the stuff anywhere.”  Something he took it to heart. 
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A couple weeks ago a friend of mine came over for dinner and brought this dip. All of the kids went wild for it.

Okay, so it doesn’t really even involve cooking, per se. But the kids can make it by themselves and it is a great snack for when they have friends over.

You will need:

2 blocks of cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
3T brown sugar
1T vanilla extract
mini chocolate chips
toffee bits

Dump the two blocks of cream cheese into a mixing bowl. Add the powdered sugar.

And the brown sugar.

Add the vanilla.

Use your hand mixer to blend well.

Sometimes you might need a second pair of hands to hold the bowl still. Bonus if you have a helpful older brother.

Mix the chips and toffee bits into the mixture by hand. I just eyeballed this since I didn’t want too much. I would estimate that it was probably one-third of the package.

Serve with graham crackers or apple slices.

Stand back while it is devoured.