Ever since I can remember, we’ve done the coloring the eggs, hiding the eggs, finding the eggs and baskets. My husband, son and I all 3 get into coloring eggs. We use regular crayons to decorate them with our names, hearts, dots, anything we can imagine. We also make our own dye for the eggs. 1 tablespoon of vinegar per cup of water and drop in food dye until you achieve the desired intensity of color. You can test it with strips of paper. (I was suprised at how many people didn’t know you could make your own colors with plain old food dye.)

Happy Easter all!

1-2 lbs stew meat, cubed 4 tablespoons flour 3 tablespoons oil salt, pepper, garlic seasoning, italian seassoning to taste 4 medium carrotts sliced or cubed 4 medium pieces of celery sliced or cubed 4 medium potatoes, cut, cubed or quartered. (add more if you need to stretch it for more people!) 1/2 – 1 medium onion chopped 1 package stew seasoning mix 1 tablespoon barley oats, quick cook ones In a zip lock bag place your cubed stew meat. Add the flour and plenty of seasonings, salt, garlic seasoning, pepper, italian seasoning, paprika, anything you normally like on your beef. Close the ziplock and toss well, making sure all the meat is coated with the flour. Heat the oil in a skillet and let it heat up a bit. Add the meat and the onion to the heated up skillet, turning frequently. Remove from heat when it’s nicely browned. DO NOT DRAIN!!!

Now, in the crock pot put in the package of stew seasoning, the carrotts, celery, barley, potatoes. Cover with water and add the meat and onions with the drippings. Add enough water to cover the whole mix by a good inch. Add more seasonings to your taste, we prefer lots of garlic and extra pepper at my house. Cover, simmer on high and enjoy in about 7 hours, 8 if you have to simmer on low for the day. You can tell when it’s close to done because it starts to thicken and become a true stew consistancy.

This recipe can be stretched by adding more of the vegetables, potatoes. Serve with bread and butter. Remember, with any recipe calling for cut up potatoes you can stretch the recipe for more people by just adding a few more potatoes.

I will use more than one packet of the crumbs, in fact I’m going to use crumbs that have no extra seasoning in them. The ones I used this time were the chicken/pork bread crumbs and they had almost a sweet taste.

Also, don’t bake them in a tin foil covered baking sheet, they stick and you lose all the crumby goodness!

Thumbs up for that recipe!!!

1 package pinto beans 2 medium ham hocks 1/2 cup chopped ham 1 small onion, chopped

The night before you make the meal, soak the beans in hot water over night. First thing in the morning turn them on high on the crockpot or in a pot on the stove on medium until they boil. Once boiling add onion, ham, ham hocks and garlic salt to taste. Let simmer all day long, adding garlic salt as needed for taste.

What you need:

Super thin turkey lunch meat. The super thin, cheap stuff works better than anything I’ve tried, including the facny, expensive turkey breast meats deli sliced.

Alfalfa sprouts. The ones you can make super easy by sprouting the seeds on paper towels and then growing in mason jars go with everything AND they’re healthy. Almost every grocery chain carries them in little containers in the produce section. Try growing some with your kiddos tho, it’s a fun learing experience you can eat!

English muffins. Cheap brand – expensive brand doesn’t matter, it’s the vehicle of the sandwich but not the driver. Make sure you toast them till crunchy, not still soft on the inside and don’t burn!

Butter, real butter, not the fake stuff.

Mayo, same thing, real mayo, not miracle whip type stuff.

Medium cheddar cheese. Not sharp, but medium. Cut thin slices that will cover the width of the muffin, enough that would cover a cracker fully. Don’t cut thick or to thin but just mediumish. Thin enough to melt a bit but thick enough to let you have a piece with every bite.

Ok now to make it. Slice and toast your muffin till crisp. While it toasts cut up the cheese and get 6-8 slices of turkey. As soon as the muffin pops up lightly butter it then apply a light layer of mayo. (not to much of either!) Put 3-4 slices turkey on each muffin, put cheese on 1 side of muffin/meat and a large pinch of sprouts on the other half. Put together and sort of flatten the whole muffin down with your palm. That will allow the heat from the muffin to not only melt the butter but soften/melt the cheese. The quicker you make it the better it is.

Enjoy!

Thumbs down on trying salsa with pork chops.

4-7 pieces of cut up chicken 1 jar salsa mozzarella cheese, shredded

Heat oven to 350. Season chicken pieces lightly with salt and pepper if desired. Place chicken in a single layer in a casserole or other covered baking dish. Cover each piece with the salsa. You don’t have to use the whole jar but it’s better to have extra in case. I use Pace mild salsa. Remember if you use spicey salsa it adds heat as it cooks more, so go a step lower in spicey than you normally would. You can always add a tablespoon of the spicier stuff to liven it up.

Cook at 350 for 45 minutes covered. Remove cover and cover with a generous helping of mozzarella cheese. Return to oven and cook 15 minutes longer uncovered.

Serve with a mexican style rice, refried beans, chips….the normal tex-mex fair!

1 lb round steak, cut into individual sized pieces 3 packages gravy mix 1/2 small onion, chopped (optional) 1/4 cup sliced mushrooms (optional)

Prepare the gravy as according to package. The type I use is 1 cup of water per package. Bring to a boil and add cut up steak, onions and mushrooms. Salt and pepper to taste. Cover and turn to simmer for 1 hour to 1 hour 30 min depending on how tender you want it. We like it really tender so I give it a full 1.5 hours. Serve with mashed potatoes! Very easy and I almost always have those ingredients around the house.

I actually hope I don’t win the contest but at least place. I would love one of the 2nd place baskets but I really don’t want to go to the Grand Ole Opry. Mainly cause I’m sure we’d end up spending to much money but also cause I hate leaving home.

Anyway, if you have a good, original cornbread recipe go submit it at their site! Good luck and may the best recipe win! (hmmm I might just have to whip up the winning recipe and review it here!)

For both types of muffins I used those super easy, tear the top off bags of premixed muffin batter. All I did was add milk or water, preheat the oven, pour into muffin cups, bake em and eat em. The first was a Betty Crocker blend that I just added water to. The strawberry cheesecake mix was Martha White brand. Each cost around 65-70 cents.

For such a low cost I’m definitely buying more. I love having healthy, fresh baked snacks to offer the kids after school but I also like being lazy. This lets me have my muffin and eat it too!