Have you heard of...

Mel's Kitchen Cafe?
The recipes on her blog are delicious!  After making these tonight, I immediately sent the following email to some friends.  As I was typing it, I thought I should share this on my blog.  How's that for killing 2 birds with 1 stone?  I have so many ideas in my head for blog posts, but I don't take the time to blog like I would like.  I hope this email will suffice.

Ladies,
This website has delicious and easy recipes.  www.melskitchencafe.com.  I am always pleased with what I cook from there.  Her recipes are easy and have "normal" ingredients.  I made baked chicken taquitos tonight.  Delish.  So much so, that I had to share the link with you.
http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2009/05/baked-chicken-taquitos.html

Also, I plan to wrap up extra taquitos and freeze them prior to cooking.  That way I have any easy lunch, or snack ready to go.   To freeze, just wrap them and place them an inch apart on a cookie sheet in your freezer.  Once frozen, transfer to a freezer ziploc bag.  FYI, that's called flash freezing.  You can do this with just about anything.   

I didn't defrost my chicken early enough, so I cooked them from frozen in an oven bag (Nikki taught me that.  LOL).  I seasoned the breasts with salt and pepper, garlic powder and onion powder and cooked at 275 for about 3.5 hours.  I cooked 5 breasts and then shredded them.  I used some for this recipe and I'm going to freeze the rest of the chicken.  It saves so much time to have cooked and shredded chicken ready to go.  You could also do it in your crockpot, but mine is broken.  BTW, I only used the oven bag b/c I ran out of foil.  And you know ya girl gots to make do with what she has on hand cause it's not easy to run to the store with lil ones on your heels!  You know what I'm sayin'!!

Hope you enjoy,

Some of my Faves!

I've been spending so much time reading other people's blogs that I haven't taken time to write on my own! Planning our meals and cooking them has brought me so much joy lately. I have a few sites that I browse around daily for inspiration. Here are some of my faves (in no particular order).

Joy In My Kitchen

SnoWhite is the chef of this blog. She has great pictures to go along with her made from scratch recipes. I find that her food is easy to make, tasty, and full of ingredients that normal people use. I have made several of her dishes including Penne with chicken and spinach and Smothered Aussie Chicken I've also tried two of her bread recipes. This whole wheat bread is delicious and I'm sure I won't be trying a new recipe for wheat bread as I've found "the one." This breadstick recipe was fun to make and reminded me of the breadsticks from the Olive Garden.

Life As Mom


Jessica is the Mom of this blog. One of my favorite features is the Ultimate Recipe Swap that's held on Thursdays. Each week, bloggers from around the country join this blogging carnival with their recipes that goes along with the theme for the week. Jessica also has another blog called, "Good and Cheap Eats." This is where she posts all of her recipes and tips for eating on a budget. Jessica has 6 kids, so her meals are very family friendly and full of variety. Recently, she has started a freezer cooking day at the beginning of the month. You can read about it here. Tomorrow is the twins 1st birthday! We're having a party and I'm serving pizza using Jessica's homemade pizza dough. We had it a few weeks ago and it is very good.

Lynn's Kitchen Adventures



I haven't tried any of Lynn's recipes yet, but I've spent a lot of time drooling over her pictures. Her recipes look healthy, tasty, and easy to make. I'm looking forward to trying some of her easy cheesy bread and mexican pizza.

Some websites and blogs that have great recipe indexes are Kraft Foods, Taste Of Home, Food Network (check out Paula Deen, The Neely's and Rachael Ray), Amy's Finer Things, Tammy's Recipes, and The Sister's Cafe.

Those links should keep you busy for awhile! What are your favorite sites for recipes?