Cooking Club April 16-23

I'm always looking for meal inspiration so hopefully this Virtual Cooking Club will give you some too!  I'm all for using what you have during pandemics or normal life!  It's smart and cost effective to use ALL your food not just for one meal, or have it go to waste.  Hopefully this will give you some inspiration to look in your cupboards or fridge and see what YOU can do!  Remember don't go to the store, just make what you have work or save these recipes/ideas for later!  I'll include pictures from my Instagram stories in case you missed them.

Remember the theme for the rest of April is EASY!

Thursday- Meatball Sliders

-Frozen Meatballs (I get mine from Costco)

-Hawaiian Sweet Rolls (They freeze like a dream)

-shredded mozzarella

-Prego Spaghetti Sauce (We get ours from Costco and always have a bottle in our fridge for pizza, pasta, and sliders!)

-butter

-Italian seasoning

-garlic (Also from Costco, pre chopped and fabulous)

Cook meatballs in a little bit of olive oil in a pan, I like to use a lid to help them cook all the way through.  Once meatballs are brown add sauce, cook till hot then set aside.  Melt butter.  Add garlic and Italian seasoning.  Sometimes I add Parmesan too for extra cheese and crunch.  Slice rolls in half, put meatballs and sauce on rolls followed by mozzarella cheese.  Replace tops of rolls, and add butter mixture to the top.  Wrap in aluminum foil and bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes till heated through and golden.  

*There are no measurements for this.  Use add much or as little as you need/want.  We usually aim for about 2-3 rolls per adult and about 2 meatballs on each.

Friday-Pizza Night-Fresh, Easy Tomato Pizza

Loved this and made our own Balsamic glaze!

Saturday-Leftovers

Sunday-Chicken Pillows

Thanks Courtney for sharing this amazing recipe!! She gets all the credit for these heavenly little rolls!

Monday-Leftovers and Roasted Veggies

Tuesday-Pancakes with Buttermilk Syrup and Fresh Whipped Cream 

Find more syrup recipes and our favorite recipe for fresh whipped cream HERE!

Wednesday-Tacos

Thursday-Not-Your-Basic Canned Tomato Soup

Friday-Proscuitto Arugula Burrata Pizza 

Tonight!  Let's hope it's good! haha

Saturday-Leftovers

Things I talked about this week:

-Meal Planning-I use Notes on my iPhone and Computer, create a list, brainstorm to use up what I have on hand.  Stay in budget, don't waste food or money!  I use Smith's grocery pick up at this time! It's free during this time!

-Other tips people recommended-make a 2 week meal plan then shop every 2 weeks, buy double of a few ingredients each time to help build your food storage.

More Cooking Club Inspo from some of our cooking friends!

-Clean Simple Eats is a great resource for great, quick meals!

Dinner Ideas

-Red Lentil Dahl
-20 Minute Honey Garlic Shrimp
-Potato and Ham Soup
-Salmon and Veggies from Brie

-Cereal
-Hot Dogs
-Mac and Cheese
-Navajo Tacos
-Ranch Chicken Tacos

This weekly email is a bit scattered but I hope to refine it as Cooking Club continues.  I share a lot more tips on Instagram through IG Stories.  If you'd like to follow along you can follow me here!

Tag me in your posts if you get some cooking inspiration from me!  Feel free to share recipes, tips, etc. with me!  This is all about cooking together!! 

Virtual Cooking Club

I’ve had this idea in my head for almost a year and the timing just wasn’t right. At the starting of this year I tried to make it happen, and we all know what’s happening in the world right now so in person cooking club and parties are postponed. 

The idea for a virtual cooking club has still been in my head and I’ve decided to just go for it! I’ve been cooking more than ever before, still needing recipe inspiration and trying to use what I have in my pantry. Honestly I think this is a great time to start! 

Each month I’ll highlight a new cooking blog/topic. Throughout the month I’ll make recipes or get inspiration from that blog/topic! I’d love for you to join me. I’ll have a few Instagram posts and a blog post every month where you can share recipes or tips you learned or loved. I’ll even be sharing a few of my favorite family recipes! I think this will be a great resource as we try to cook our way through our food storage, what we have on hand, and make the most of our few and far between grocery trips. 

For the rest of this month I’m going to focus on EASY meals, recipes, and of course desserts! I’m trying to simplify! At the end of these long days sometimes the last thing I want to do is cook so it’s always nice to have go-to easy meals on hand. If you’d like to share a recipe with me feel free to email or message me! 

If you have favorite cooking blogs, themes/topics let me know!! And I’ll try to add them to the upcoming schedule! Food has always been a way to enjoy family, friends and the community for me and I think even through a global pandemic food can still bring us together! We’ve all got to eat and cook! Let’s make the most of it! Let’s get cooking! 

Leave a 🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♂️ if you’re joining in or let me know your favorite EASY meal below! 

Loaded Nachos and a Bonus Snack

I wanted to do a quick post today to share some great new products I tried thanks to My Sharing Network! They sent me a free sample of Tostitos Splash of Lime Salsa and their Simply Organic Tostitios Scoops!  

We love nachos and knew we had to make some loaded nachos to go with these new, free finds!  

So here's what we did!  Layer chips with lots of fresh cheddar cheese.  Add refried beans, rotisserie chicken, jalapeños, diced avocados, tomatoes, sour cream and salsa.  Layer the ingredients to make the nachos last even longer and broil them in the oven for a few minutes.  Seriously this is one of my favorite snacks and can be even a quick meal!  Thanks for the free sample My Sharing Network!

I also recently received some new VEA snacks for free.  I love that they have globally inspired flavors and are called 'World Crisps'.  Unfortunately I wasn't the biggest fan of the Tuscan Herb, but give them a try and see what you think of them yourself.  

Halloween Party Ideas: Games, Food and Decorations

My cute Mom has always thrown the BEST parties!  Really ever since I can remember we were planning a party whether it be a birthday, shower or holiday party.  I'm sure if you've been a follower of this blog for any length of time you know she always puts a special touch on anything she does. 

Last Sunday she had a Candy Corn Halloween Party for our family, everyone had so much fun!  Luckily for all of us she wanted to share all her fun finds with all of you too!

These party ideas are perfect for last minute party prepping or if you are in need of a fun and easy game or two!

Let's start with the tablescape.  I love that she kept it clean and cute!  And those milk glasses full of orange soda were the perfect addition.  I'll list where she got everything below!

For food she planned and prepared everything, and assigned us girls dessert.  Brittany and I created some fun candy corn themed goodies (with some help from Mom:)!

I brought candy corn rice krispie treats!  They were delicious, surprisingly easy and so festive!  I used my basic rice krispie treat recipe (you can find HERE) and made two batches.  The first batch I colored the melted marshmallow mixture yellow, formed the bottom layer of candy corn around a round cake pan.  Use a measuring cup for a nice clean edge and flat top.  With the next batch I used about 4 cups of cereal for the orange layer and 2 cups for the white layer and eye balled the marshmallow (make sure to take out the white marshmallow before you tint it orange!).  Simply keep layering until the cake pan is full and you have a ring of yellow, orange and white in the middle.  Set in the fridge till serving, pull out of fridge about 10 minutes before cutting and cut in triangles.

Just a word of advise, you may want to have more pans on hand, and make the rice krispies less thick.  We kept cutting them smaller because there was just SO much rice krispie treat.  This size was not for the faint of heart! :)



Brittany made these adorable candy corn cupcakes.  She split the batter into three and colored each one yellow, orange and white; layered each one in the baking liners and baked like normal.  It was so cool to see the layers once you took a bite!

For the main course my Mom made two different soups and had pumpkin bread bowls!

Completely delicious!

She made Taco Soup and Potato Soup.  We love my Mom's Taco Soup recipe!  The Potato Soup was a new recipe she tried and we all loved it you can find the recipe HERE!

She had a trio of toppings:  sour cream, shredded cheese, and bacon bits.

I love what she did to a basic cheeseball!  She rolled the store bought cheeseball in shredded carrots and placed a celery stalk in the middle.  Super easy and super cute! 



Here's the full spread!  Look in the background do you see those two cuties?  They were so excited to eat they were sitting at their table WAY before we even started eating.

 

My Mom even set the table for them with a Trick or Treat bucket full of crayons and coloring pages. She found the cute little coloring pages HERE!

Back to the spread! 

She had so many different vegetables with our favorite veggie dip in a perfect little pumpkin. 

She prepped all the veggies before and put them in large gallon sized bags so it was easy to pull out when we were ready to eat.



Let me tell you everything was amazing!

After eating it was time for games!  We started with Brittany's Halloween Bingo. 

Can we just take a minute to look at how adorable these are!  She is such a wizard at making things on her computer!  She has this FREE printable on her TPT store if you'd like to snag a copy you can go HERE!

My Mom filled a huge basket with all different prizes that everyone would love from candy to organizing bins, Halloween towels, money and more! 



Bingo was good to me this time around!

After Halloween Bingo we played Pass the Broom!  We all got in a big circle and started passing the broom, my Mom had Halloween music playing and my Dad would turn it off randomly.  Who ever had the broom when the music stopped got a prize from the basket.

My Mom was a Room Mom for as long as I can remember in our elementary school classes.  She would always play this with the class and if they were older she would add another broom stick, both going different ways to make it even more exciting!  When the music stopped for the class the two people with the broom would be out, they would keep playing till it was down to one or two people depending on how many brooms you are using.

Next game Pumpkin Toss!  My Mom has these cute pumpkin containers with numbers on them but these would be a cinch to make. To play just determine a line and toss!  Whoever gets the highest number wins.

 

I loved these eyeball balls my mom had to toss! 

My Mom packed a little treat bag for each of us full of chocolate!  Our favorite! 

With a cute little candy corn on the back too. She thinks of everything! 



Here's where she found everything, if it's not listed below feel free to leave a comment!

-Trick or Treat products including plates, napkins, cupcake signs, and favor bags: Hobby Lobby (all were 40% off!)

-Milk bottles:  Michael's (use 40% off coupon)

-Black and White straws:  Target $1 Spot

-Pumpkin Bread Bowls:  Harmon's

-Cheeseball:  Harmon's

-Chalkboard signs:  Target $1 Spot

-Candy corn cupcake liners:  Hobby Lobby

-Halloween Bingo:  Brittany's Halloween Bingo-Free Printable HERE

-Pumpkin Toss bin:  Target

-Eyeball balls:  Michael's (50% off)

-Little candy corn on back of favor bags:  Michael's (40% off)

Parmesan Rolls

If we aren't having our favorite easy breadsticks you bet you can find these rolls on our dinner table!  I found this recipe at Your Homebased Mom and we absolutely love it! 

 

 

This recipe is super simple and only requires a few steps and ingredients. 

 



 

Parmesan Rolls

 

1 bag of frozen dinner rolls

Mayonnaise (amount depends on number of rolls you are making)

Melted Butter

Freshly shredded Parmesan Cheese

Garlic Powder

Dried Parsley

 

Place mayo, cheese and butter in separate bowls.  Take frozen ball of dough, dip the top half into each bowl starting with the mayo, then the butter and finally the cheese.  Work quickly so your fingers don't get too cold!  Place roll into a well greased muffin tin (cheese side up).  Sprinkle with garlic powder and dried parsley and let rise according to the directions (usually 5-6 hours).  Bake according to package directions. 

 

You can find the recipe on Your Homebased Mom as well HERE! 

BBQ Turkey Sandwiches

Ever since we found these sandwiches on The Red Headed Hostess years ago, this recipe has been a staple in our house. It seriously is the perfect combo of everything delicious all wrapped up in one toasty hoagie!

 

 

Even though there aren't exact measurements you can judge it off of how many sandwiches you'd like to make/need and how saucy you'd like it!  We love to use up things we have on hand to make these sandwiches any time.

BBQ Turkey Sandwiches
Recipe from The Red Headed Hostess

hoagie rolls
BBQ sauce
mayo
Deli turkey
coleslaw mix
coleslaw dressing
swiss cheese
red onion, sliced
avocado, sliced
tomatoes, sliced
salt and pepper

Slice your rolls in half and toast under the broiler.  While that is toasting chop up your turkey, and mix it with some BBQ sauce.  Pull the rolls from the oven. Mix up the coleslaw and coleslaw dressing and pop that in the fridge.  Spread some mayo on the top halves and BBQ sauce on the bottom of your toasted rolls.  Now you can put some swiss cheese on the mayo side and the BBQ turkey on the BBQ side, put it back in the broiler till it's hot and bubbly.  Layer on the rest of ingredients to your liking, season with salt and pepper

Ham and Cheese Sliders

These sandwiches are so delicious, Brittany has mastered them and she found the recipe at Pearls, Handcuffs, and Happy Hour.  These little sandwiches have the perfect mix of flavors and are so great for company!

 

Brittany has one secret though, she started using these...

 

 

King's Hawaiian rolls! And let me tell you they do make a difference!

 



 

 

Ham & Cheese Sliders

 

Recipe from Pearls, Handcuffs, and Happy Hour

 

Sliders

 

24 King's Hawaiian sweet rolls

24 slices of ham

24 slices of swiss cheese

1/3 C. mayo

1/3 C. Miracle Whip

 

Poppyseed Sauce

 

1 T. poppyseeds

1 1/2 T. yellow mustard

1 stick butter, melted

1 T. minced onion

1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

 

Slice your dinner rolls in half crosswise.  Mix up the mayo and Miracle Whip and spread a little on both the top and bottom of each roll.  Place one slice of cheese and one slice of ham on the bottom of each roll, place tops of the rolls back on each one.  Whisk together:  poppyseeds, mustard, melted butter, minced onion and Worcestershire sauce in a small bowl.  Make sure to place sliders on a baking sheet with edges lined with aluminum foil and place them close together.  Take the poppyseed sauce and pour it evenly over all the sliders.  Let sauce sit for about 10 minutes for butter to set in.  Cover the sliders with foil and bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes (or until cheese is melted).  Uncover and bake for an additional 2-5 minutes or until tops are golden and crispy.



The Best Funeral Potatoes EVER!!

I'll be honest I have always HATED funeral potatoes.  My Mom happened to find this recipe at Lil' Luna and it totally changed my view of the dreaded funeral potatoes. 

 

This recipe is a total hit!  Every time my mom makes it it's gone within minutes.

 

 

You can find Lil' Luna's recipe HERE!

 

My mom likes to use Mr. DEE'S Frozen Hash Brown Potatoes.

Sweet, Sweet Chicken

 

This sweet chicken is SO delicious.  Thanks to my mother in law she shared the recipe and boy are we glad!  Sadly this is the only picture mid cooking we got of the batch we made, but let me tell you it is incredible!  You can serve this on a salad (Café Rio style) or with tacos or burritos. 

 

Her original recipe is HERE!  She told us to add a few things while we were preparing that are not listed on that original recipe that I included below.

 

Sweet Chicken Tacos

4 – 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 can green enchilada sauce
2 cans Mexican style tomato sauce
1 can chopped chili peppers-green chilies, drained
1 onion, chopped
1 chopped green or red pepper
1 ½ cup brown sugar

1 jalapeno pepper, chopped

1 Anaheim pepper, chopped (If making for a lot of people include this!)
Sliced mushrooms (optional)

Put chicken in crock pot with a little water. Cook for about 1 to 2 hours until chicken falls apart. Shred chicken. Add enchilada sauce, tomato sauce, onion, pepper and chili peppers and brown sugar. Continue cooking on low for about 6 hours (or on high for about 4 hours).

If it is too runny, cook a little longer with the lid off.

Serve with
Corn or flour tortillas
rice (recipe below)
black beans
grated cheese
lettuce
tomatoes
avocado or guacamole
sour cream
fresh cilantro
salsa
fresh squeezed lime juice

Tomatillo dressing

Rice

2 cup brown or white rice
4 cups chicken broth or water
½ onion chopped
¼ cup butter
1 Tbsp minced garlic

Combine rice, butter, onion and garlic and sauté on medium heat until onions are transparent. Add the water and allow rice to come to a boil. Simmer on low until all liquid is absorbed (about 20 minutes for white rice, 40 minutes for brown rice).

Our favorite Syrup Recipes: Buttermilk and Coconut

I have been loving waffles recently and my absolute favorite is Nutella with Strawberries and whipped cream.  Just like Waffle Love!  We are still looking for a good Waffle Love knock off waffle recipe but until then, good old Bisquick works wonders! :)

Here are some of our favorite toppings!  The two syrups are just too good to pass up!

Sweetened Whipped Cream

 

This is amazing with hot chocolate too!

 

Recipe from Chef In Training 

3 C. heavy whipping cream

3/4 C. granulated sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

 

Beat heavy cream on high and gradually add in sugar and vanilla until whipped cream is formed. You want it someone on the stiffer side.

 

Coconut Syrup

 

I got this recipe from a Stake Relief Society presidency member, I still remember she had copies of the recipe on hand because she knew everyone would love it.  Thanks Sister Reese!  I'm not even kidding it puts any waffle over the top delicious!

 

1/2 C. butter

3/4 C. buttermilk

1 C. sugar

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. coconut extract

 

Place butter, buttermilk and sugar in a medium saucepan.  Stir over medium heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves.  Bring to a boil and boil one minute.

 

Remove from heat and add baking soda and extract, stirring constantly.  It will bubble up, so if you pot is small, hold it over the sink to avoid spillage.  Continue to stir syrup and let it rest for a few minutes before serving.  Serve over almost any breakfast food:  waffles, pancakes, French toast, crepes, etc.

 

Buttermilk Syrup

 

We first had this syrup at a family breakfast with the Strong's and I still remember just wanting to put it on everything! It's that good!  Make sure to make it in a large soup pot, because it will bubble quite a bit when you add the baking soda.

 

1/2 C. buttermilk

1 C. sugar

1 stick of butter

1 tsp. corn syrup

 

Mix over medium heat then add:

 

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. vanilla

 

 

We love to smear on some Nutella while the waffle is still hot then pile high with strawberries cream and loads of syrup!  We've also heard of Biscoff butter, peanut butter, bananas, and raspberries!