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Green Bean Casserole (Gluten Free!)
Green bean casserole has always been one of my favorites on Thanksgiving. Fun fact – it was also the topic of my informative speech during public speaking class in college – how to make a green bean casserole – ha! But once I started getting funny about cream of whatever soups (trying to avoid MSG), I thought my relationship with green bean casserole was over. Until I found Alton Brown’s Best Ever Green Bean Casserole, that is. What I love most about his recipe is the homemade cream of mushroom sauce that makes the casserole. I’ve made this several times, first exactly as he wrote it, then I tweaked it…
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Dominate Dinner
When you take a girl who loves to cook, loves to write, and loves to help and encourage people – and let her do all those things – fun stuff starts to happen! It’s crazy how a simple idea for sharing my meal planning process – which turned into a book idea – which turned into an experiment – which dozens of people are actually doing – is actually helping folks gain control of their dinner routine. Y’all, I can’t even with how freaking excited this makes me! So I have a few updates: First, I am writing a book. I’m actually a few chapters in already. This thing is…
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How to cook a weeknight meal
Hot off Jen Hatmaker’s Of Mess and Moxie, thought I’d give my own “How To” a whirl! How to cook a weeknight meal in 1 hour and 53 minutes and 36 easy steps… Meal plan while hungry and decide to make a Greek dinner – grilled chicken and your fav orzo salad will do Overlook the fact that the orzo salad requires a TON of chopping – you like chopping! When it’s time to cook, get out ALL your ingredients and your printed recipe! You’re ready to go! Stop to get child a glass of milk. Start marinating your chicken, then boiling your water and chopping your veggies. Half way…
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Raspberry Scones
It’s a low-key weekend in the Stembridge household, which means getting caught up on housework… and baking! And since telling you all about the yummy raspberry scones I just made is much for fun than housework, alas, here I am, and the housework can wait! I first made these scones for my daughter Berkley’s tea party birthday back in December. I was a scone newbie, and so I scoured Pinterest for what appeared to be a delicious – and beginner-appropriate – scone recipe. I lucked upon this recipe and it delivered on its promise to be easy and so good. I made these again for a brunch baby shower, and…
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Mushroom Stroganoff
We’ve been trying something new in the kitchen lately – adding some vegetarian dishes to the dinner rotation. And the craziest part of this menu modification is that it was my husband’s idea [gasp!]. The meat eater of all meat eaters actually suggested that we add some vegetarian meals to the line up (thank you Netflix and the documentary Cowspiracy). While I love meat, I like to mix it up and so I saw this as an opportunity to try out some new recipes. Yay! So let me introduce you to Mushroom Stroganoff. This dish is ahh-mazing. I’ve always been a stroganoff fan, but mine had always had beef. I…
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Gluten Free Banana and Chocolate Chip Muffins
Baking – ohh, how I have missed you. Ever since earlier this year when we learned my youngest son Beckett had food allergies (the most serious being gluten), I’ve put my baking on hold. Weekends used to mean homemade muffins and pancakes and biscuits, but trying these things without regular flour was more hassle than I felt like dealing with. It was unknown territory, and frankly with the baby, I didn’t have much time for experimenting. But a few weeks ago I wanted real pancakes and so I googled “how to substitute gluten free flour for regular flour” and was amazed by what I found – it’s actually pretty simple. Add…
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Bacon Wrapped Pork Roast
A bright spot in our allergy struggles has been that we can all eat bacon. And so we eat bacon a lot. So when I was searching for a recipe for a pork roast I had bought, and came across a bacon wrapped pork roast, I was pretty excited. Turns out, it was for good reason. The roast was awesome and I’m already plotting how long I must wait to put this on the dinner menu again. Next week too soon?? Below is the whole dinner… it’s gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free and nut-free. I cooked it all in the same oven (once it went to 425), and there were very few dishes…
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Chicken Tikka Masala
I have to admit that I’m no expert in Indian cuisine. But this dish is one that I’ve loved since the first time I tried it a couple of years ago, and so I finally decided to make a from-scratch version myself. Total success – despite the fact that new baby Berkley needed mommy’s attention about 58 times during this meal preparation. I persevered and 3 hours later I finally had the spices measured and the chicken marinating. Not to worry, while this recipe does contain a lot of ingredients, it’s really not too complicated to make, especially if you measure out the spices for the marinade and sauce at the same…
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My Thanksgiving All-Stars
I typically spend my Thanksgivings alternating between my grandma’s house and Blake’s family. And so while I haven’t hosted turkey day at my home but once or twice, I’m usually making half a dozen sides to contribute to the meal and so I’ve acquired my favs over the years. My office also has an annual Thanksgiving lunch, and so I get another opportunity to try new recipes and perfect the tried and true. Ever since I began eating cleaner and cutting out all the “cream of whatever” soups, I’ve been on a quest to find recipes that are just as flavorful, but truly made from scratch. So far so good. I’m…
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Slow Cooker Red Beans and Rice
A couple of years ago I went through a crock pot phase. I got all excited about making freezer meals and cooking them in the crock pot while I was at work and thought I had solved all my weeknight cooking problems. It didn’t work out so well for me. First, I’m gone too long for most crock pot dishes and even on low with a timer (that turns it to warm), most of my meat was way over cooked. Second, the meat started to get a funny taste that I can’t really put my finger on, but I just didn’t like it. Seemed like everything I put in the…
