One of my personal goals this year is to eat at home more often. To help me accomplish this, I’m going to start sharing our favorite meals of 2015. The recipes will be blogged in hopes that I will have them here, in a safe place, for us to enjoy again and again. This will make meal planning a lot easier for us, knowing they are tried and true and suited to my family’s tastes. I hope you find many recipes for your family to love, too!
When posting, sometimes I’ll have pictures, but most times I probably won’t. Maybe I’ll add some pictures into the posts in the future or even highlight the recipes in their own blog posts if they deserve some extra special attention.
Most ingredients for our recipes are going to be things that can be purchased anywhere. We mostly shop at Aldi, because I love inexpensive groceries that are still high quality. Also, most recipes would be easy to make with kids in the kitchen, helping out. I try to make simple, but delicious, meals. Letting the kids help out makes them feel like rockstars and helps me to eventually put myself out of a job once they’re older and can cook for ME! Right? (Okay, maybe I’m dreaming…)
This week, we had 2 standout recipes. The first, the kids loved. The second, my husband and I loved and the kids tolerated. I consider both of them a family favorite for sure!
Cheesy Crescent Dogs
You will need:
- 1 tube of refrigerated crescent rolls
- 1 package beef franks
- 4 slices of cheddar cheese
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Unroll the crescent dough and separate into triangles.
- In each triangle, place half of a slice of cheese and 1 beef frank on top before rolling the dough all the way around, starting at one corner.
- Place each wrapped dog on a nonstick cookie sheet and bake for 12-14 minutes, or until the crescents look done.
Makes 8.
*Note: If you prefer a more bready dog, you can cut each frank in half to make 2 shorter dogs and use one triangle per half instead. If you do this, you’ll need an extra tube of crescent rolls and it will make 16 mini cheesy crescent dogs.
Simple Jambalaya
You will need:
- 1 cup uncooked instant rice (we used brown)
- 2-3 stalks celery, chopped
- 1/2-1 cup white onion, chopped (we used frozen, prechopped)
- 1 Tbsp garlic powder or a few minced garlic cloved
- 1 tsp Cajun seasoning
- 1-2 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 packages beef sausage or Polish sausage, sliced (we used two 13 oz packages from Aldi)
- 12 oz frozen shrimp, thawed, peeled, and tails removed
- 1 can black beans (15 oz), drained and rinsed
- Cook rice as instructed on the package and set aside.
- In a very large skillet, saute onions and celery in olive oil. If using fresh garlic, add it in as well.
- Once the vegetables begin to soften, sprinkle on your Cajun seasoning and garlic if using powdered and saute until veggies are cooked to your liking.
- Add sausage and shrimp and saute for an additional 5 minutes.
- Finally, stir your cooked rice and beans into the mixture and saute for 5 more minutes.
- Enjoy!
Makes 6-8 large servings.
Scarlet says
I love Jambalaya. Thanks for sharing the yummy recipe ideas!
Scarlet recently posted…5 Forgotten Ways to Be Happy By Noah St. John
Jenn says
Sure thing! I hope to have a lot more yummy recipes posted soon.
Jenn recently posted…Safe Travels in the 2015 Chrysler 200C #DriveChrysler200
Katie Harding says
Yum! What a great post, I will definitely be following this! We have three growing boys and we also need to make more of an effort to eat at home, can’t wait to check these two recipes out!
Katie Harding recently posted…Mom Inventions: What’s YOUR Big Idea?
Jenn says
Yes, eating at home is such a great way to save money, especially when their portion sizes are growing by the day!
Jenn recently posted…ACCOMPLISH (My Word For 2015)