Baked Rigatoni

I have several recipes for Baked Ziti (or whatever noodle you use), but this one is my favorite so far.  I think there's something special about spaghetti sauce from scratch, although I do appreciate Newman's when I'm in a hurry on a school night!  This sauce is very Italiany, and I love mixing the noodles with cheese!

Greek Orzo and Shrimp Salad with Mustard-Dill Vinaigrette

Orzo is such a delicate pasta, and every time I serve this people think it's rice.  If this tastes like rice, then it's the most awesome rice I've ever had!  This is my favorite side dish because it goes with everything and it's super easy to prepare ahead of time.  Just make the pasta and toss everything together except the cheese and the dressing, then add those just before serving.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Layer Cake

If I drop one more Wilton decorating tip down the garbage disposal, my husband is going to leave me.  I know it.  He hasn't said as much, but I can feel it in his long-suffering sighs.  If only there were some way I could repay him...

Championship Bean Dip

This "Championship" Bean Dip was a contest winner for Taste of Home in 1998.  My mom found this recipe and has been making it for as long as I can remember, maybe even since 1998!  I'll have to ask her, but I think she got it from the original magazine.  It's now a staple at every family event and we usually double this recipe for parties, serving it with pico de gallo and tortilla chips.  

Amaretto Fruit Dip

Amaretto, Cool Whip and vanilla pudding powder.  Those are the ingredients to this magical fruit dip.  This is my Grandma Price's recipe and I gotta hand it to you Grandma, this is sinfully delicious!  The fruit is merely the vessel that brings this goodness to my lips.  You could also use a spoon, I suppose.  Or a finger.

Honey Yeast Rolls

NEVER again will I be intimidated by yeast.  At least not when making these rolls.  It still intimidates me in other recipes.  When to proof, when not to proof, how much to knead...it's daunting.  But if you have a Kitchenaid stand mixer, you will rock the hell out of these dinner rolls, and everyone you know will love you for it.  I'm not kidding.

Team 2's Famous Pasta Sauce

My office had an event at Sur la Table where we split into 2 teams and in an Iron Chef-like competition, created our own 3-course meals.  Guess whose team won?  Mine!  We were graded on several factors including cleanliness, originality, and taste.  Even though we may have permanently ruined a frying pan, I think our attempt to clean it up really endeared us to the cooking staff.

Strawberry Cream Muffins

I love this breakfast muffin recipe because it is a very light muffin with a natural sweetness from the strawberries.  Plus, it's CRAZY EASY and super fast to make!  The sour cream and lemon give it a tart flavor that set it apart from similar recipes with cream cheese and streusel toppings, which only make me feel like I have to diet for the rest of the day.

Crockpot Jambalaya

Mmmmmm...Crockpot Jambalya! Smells like Taco Bell--according to my kids. Once I set out all my ingredients, this took 28 minutes to prep--although I blame my unpeeled shrimp with tails for some of that. I used EZ peel shrimp, and I still think it would be worth paying a little more for someone else to do the dirty work for me.

Crockpot Chalupas

I made several mistakes in this recipe, and it still came out fah-bulous! It just proves how dummy-proof crockpot cooking is. (No insult meant if you've messed it up before. I certainly have. And I had to buy a new crockpot because there was no coming back from it.)

6 Crockpot meals in 1 hour 49 minutes

A few weeks ago I used an empty Sunday afternoon to prepare 3 casserole dishes for later in the work week. The feeling of coming home to almost NO dinner prep was pure bliss. I used the time to read to my kids, cure cancer, and find world peace. Or maybe this just left more time for me to harp on them to finish homework, clean the play room, and to stop jumping on the couches. Either way, I appreciated one less thing to do in my busy evenings.

I've been lucky enough this year to have hoarded some extra vacation days that allowed me to take some quality time off this holiday season. I knew it would be hard to go back to a 5-day work week after all this vacation time, so to re-create the feeling of bliss I previously felt, I chose 6 appetizing crockpot recipes to prepare in advance and store in the freezer for my first stressful week back at work.

1) Crockpot Chalupas - prep time was 15 minutes
2) Manly Chicken - prep time was 8 minutes
3) Crockpot Tortellini - prep time was 13 minutes
4) Chicken Alfredo with Mushrooms and Spinach - prep time was 11 minutes
5) Curried Chicken Stew - prep time was 34 minutes, lots of chopping!
6) Jambalaya - prep time was 28 minutes, but I blame the shrimp I had to peel and de-tail