Recent Recipes

I have recently found a few dinner recipes that we Marylanders have been loving this past month! I figured I would share. Ironically (or not) all four dinner recipes below are from the Heavenly Homemaker's blog. She is definitely not paying me for talking up her recipes (in fact, she does not know that I exist and probably never will!), I am just a sucker for wholesome dinner options that are also easy to put together, which is pretty much everything on her site.

Layered Cheesy Salsa Enchiladas - we have made these as written (with beef) and with shredded chicken from a whole chicken. Both versions were so good! And only 5 ingredients? Yes, please! I have been making this dish with tortillas made from my friend Emily's homemade tortilla recipe mentioned previously. If I have a batch of these tortillas already made up (in my fridge or freezer), this dinner is the ultimate convenience dinner! I have been getting different types of salsa but have been mostly buying varieties of Muir Glen salsa.

Rice and Veggie Stir Fry - we have made this dish as written with the addition of chicken shredded chicken from a whole chicken. Great way to get veggies into our dinner! I think it's great when veggies end up in the main dish...cuts out a little bit of work for me in making an additional side of veggies.

Pizza Casserole - I love pizza. There's no question why I am digging this recipe right now! I choose to make it with organic brown rice pasta instead of whole wheat pasta because of a taste preference.

Calico Beans (Crock Pot Recipe) - this is really the recipe I cannot get enough of. We have made it twice, and both times we had company over. It was definitely a crowd pleaser both times and  - bonus - it was made in the slow cooker, so I was not stressing about getting the main dish on the table at a certain time. Next week I am actually making it for us when we are not having company over, and I will get to enjoy this dish for two nights in a row! Yippee!

Other recipe news:

Wow! These Super Easy Whole Wheat Biscuits just came out of my oven and they are so yummy! I tried making homemade whole wheat biscuits once before and they were gross. These, however, turned out tasting delicious. Because my previous biscuit recipe ended up with dense biscuits that didn't rise, I decided that even though this was my first try at this recipe, I would go ahead and use 1 cup King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour + 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour to make sure they had some fluff. The recipe calls for 2 cups whole wheat flour, but the combo of whole wheat flour and whole wheat pastry flour turned out great. The dough was really sticky but I read that this is normal. I think I will oil the counter top, my hands, and the cup next time after reading some comments on the blog the recipe originally came from.

We have been loving this Better Than Butternut: Roasted Delicata Squash. It's a winter squash, so you could make this all winter! I am sad that summer squash is gone from the farmer's market, but I can get over that pretty easily when I pick up a few of these Delicata squash. It really does have a naturally buttery, potato-y flavor that is so delicious!

Do you have a favorite source for recipes? I get easily overwhelmed by the amount of food blogs and recipes online that I mostly stick to www.heavenlyhomemakers.com or www.100daysofrealfood.com. Anything else I make is either a family favorite, a friend's recommendation, or out of Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions cookbook. I have printed out all our favorite recipes and put them together in a binder where I can flip through them in my kitchen. They are in those clear page protectors, which has been great when I splatter on them while cooking! Do you have a particular method for organizing recipes?