Joy in the Kitchen!

Summer is coming!!!  It's time to start thinking cool meals for warm summer days!  Salads are always a hit in our home and my teenage girls especially love pasta salad.  This delicious pasta salad is packed with flavor and pretty simple to assemble.  It travels well in a cooler to those summer potluck holiday meals.  Perfect! Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad 1 12-16 oz. package of shell pasta (Large or small), cooked until tender and drained. 2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked, cooled, and diced (We like it grilled best but boiled is great too!) 2 C. Ranch Dressing thinned w/ a little milk - appx 1/4 cup. 4-6 slices of bacon, fried until crispy and crumbled (I like to use 6 slices of precooked bacon) 1 C. celery, sliced 1 avocado, peeled and cut into chunks and sprinkled with lemon juice to prevent browning. 1 can black olives, sliced Green onion, Optional Mix all of the above ingredients together saving a few pieces of avoca...

Pretzel Dogs are a fun twist to using hot dogs for an easy meal!   Add a fresh fruit and vegetable tray and you've got a filling meal!  This is a perfect recipe to work with your kids in the kitchen!   Our family really loves the soft pretzels and pretzel bites we've been making.  Dipped in cheese sauce or just by themselves, once a batch comes out of the oven it hardly has a chance to cool before it's gone. These Pretzel Dogs use that easy Soft Pretzel recipe.   Enjoy! Pretzel Dogs 1 batch of Soft Pretzels dough  (Recipe HERE )  prepared up to the point of shaping the pretzels. 8 bun length hot dogs, patted dry with a paper towel. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Divide the dough into 8 pieces.  Roll one piece of the dough into a long snake-like strand about 12 inches long.  Flatten the roll with your fingers.  Place the end of one hot dog at the end of the dough strip and roll at an angle until hot dog is...

Summer is coming bringing warmer weather and the stronger desire for cool salads.  This sweet and tangy Poppy Seed Dressing is perfect drizzled on your choice of greens.  Last night we enjoyed this on a grilled chicken salad and today I've just tossed some sliced strawberries and almonds on romaine.   This recipe is SO inexpensive per batch, particularly if you have the ingredients already on hand.  The only thing I had to buy this time was the poppy seeds.  I figured it cost me somewhere around $1.60 and it makes a generous 3 cups of dressing. My sweet Mom shared this with me several years ago and I've no idea where she found this recipe but it has certainly become my favorite!    Perfect Poppy Seed Dressing 3 T. chopped onion 2/3 C. white vinegar 2 tsp. ground, dry mustard 1 tsp. salt 1-2 tsp. poppyseeds 1 C. sugar 2 C. oil Blend the first 6 ingredients well in the blender.  Slowly add the oil while...

I used to love Reece's Peanut Butter Cups but they've changed somehow since I was in love with them and it seems that they just don't have the same flavor. This recipe for a similar treat is much more like I remember the flavor of the old candy bar!    My brother shared this recipe with me before I was even a teenager!  He got it from someone he met while serving a mission in Kentucky and Tennessee for our church.  It was easy enough for me to make by myself that my Mom let me mix it up even before I learned to bake cookies.  I pressed this into an 8x8 pan but if you like a thinner peanut butter base to go with your chocolate, press this same amount into a 9x13.   If it's more than you can use, it freezes nicely but be sure to cut it into squares before freezing. Chocolaty Peanut Butter Squares 2 C. Creamy peanut butter 2 cubes margarine or butter, melted 4 1/2-5 C. powdered sugar 1 12 oz package chocolate chips Blend peanut butter and marg...

Years ago my Mom found a little paper in a new shirt that said "Inspected by 14".  She saved that paper and then put it in Dad's lunch the next day with a bite out of the sandwich.  What a fun memory that has been for my family as an example of keeping the fun in a marriage. Today I did my own quality control for Dave's lunch!  He'll get a kick out of it and won't have a choice but to think of me while he's away at work.   Perhaps sandwiches like these will show up in lunches for April Fools!  Surprise!

Born and raised right in the middle of Idaho potato country has allowed me to enjoy potatoes almost every day of my life.  We can grow potatoes in our garden but when there are fields and fields of them all around us it's so easy to buy bulk potatoes from a nearby farmer and store them for the winter.   This year I bought from my cousin who has a field just a mile from me.  This field is part of a farm my grandpa bought and farmed with his boys many years ago. Good soil for growing potatoes and families.  I grew up hearing stories of hand picking potatoes out of the rows in the fall harvest but with modern equipment harvesting is much easier!   There's nothing like the earthy smell of potatoes fresh out of the ground.   Freshly dug Idaho Potatoes heading into the cellar for storage. Big beautiful spuds!!! I like to store 200-300 pounds of potatoes through the winter.  If I pull them right out of the field and put them in gunny sacks or box...

Every Sunday we have a nice family dinner after church.   Right now I'm busy with extra church meetings some Sundays so my family pitches in and takes care of dinner preparation while I'm gone.  Yesterday I had planned a nice pork roast, mashed potatoes with gravy, fruit salad and brown sugared carrots.   My older daughters decided to make rolls as well.   Here is my beautiful daughter Keeley with her new calling in life:    A Roll Model! They used my favorite recipe for 60 Minute Rolls.   Go ahead!  Give them a try!  The world needs more good Roll Models!