So a couple of weeks ago my mother in law sent me an email with a code to receive a free box of food from Hello Fresh. I was a little skeptical, but it was free.

Here is my experience.

It arrived wrapped in the cold storage bubble wrap and on ice packs. Inside the box were the fresh  ingredients to make two meals.

That night I made the chicken with apricot glaze.

It took me a little longer to prep it, but I had the meal cooked and read to eat in about 45 minutes. 

It was pretty tasty. The kids and hubs enjoyed it too.

The nice thing is that I have the recipe, so if I want to recreate it with out ordering it I can. Will I order a box of food that’s not for free, eh. I might if they offer me a box that looks really tasty. Otherwise I will stick to buying my groceries at the store. I honestly didn’t find it any easier other than all the ingredients were in the same spot.

Now if you want to try it I do have a discount code. You won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t use it. If you do use it enjoy your food!

JUCF8Y

I have 10 days until my knee surgery. With that said I am doing my best  to have as many things as I can prepped for when I will be recovering. Thankfully I have an awesome friend who is willing to help. Yesterday she came over and we cooked for about 8 hours. We went through two bottles of wine, trashed my kitchen, and by the time we were finished we didn’t want to move. We split the goods and each family has  about 7-8 meals in the freezer.  We made deep dish Chicago pizza, chicken alfredo, pancakes, veggie soup, chili, beef stroganoff, chicken enchiladas, calzones, roast and cookies!

Some of the things we learned during the great day of cooking:

~ Make fewer meals. We were exhausted by the time we were through.

~Make simpler meals. Some of the things we made were crazy time- consuming. Simple is just as tasty most of the time.

~ It is a blast to have a cooking buddy! We danced, we sang, we cooked. We each went through a bottle of wine, and had so much fun until about hour 6. That’s when we started to crash.

I do believe that we are going to try to do the great day of cooking in the future. Each time we cook will be a great experience and we will make some awesome memories.

Hey Hay Hay! I want to dance with somebody 🙂 Thanks so much for being an awesome friend and helping me out!

I tried to make lemon bars this afternoon. It was a fail. My guess is that I didn’t whip the lemon mixture enough. It also didn’t turn out a nice pretty yellow. Then I think I left left them in to long. Such a bummer as I was really wanting one.

On occasion we will eat salads for lunch. I will boil up some eggs, tear up some lettuce, and shred left over chicken.

Did you know that 4 leaves of iceberg lettuce is 7 calories.

Shred 1 small chicken breast.

Take 1 boiled egg and dice it up.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper taste.

It is simple, low calorie and super yummy!

I had a request from B for a fluffernutter in his lunch for tomorrow. That gave me the idea to post the yummy gooey sandwich. I am originally from Illinois and it wasn’t unheard of for someone to eat one. In fact when I was in college I ate a lot of them. Now that we are in the South, I get funny looks and asked what a fluffernutter is, whenever I say that I have one for lunch.

It is peanut butter and fluff. Simple as that. Replace the jelly with the marshmallow fluff and BAM awesomeness in a sandwich. It is cheap and easy to make. Changes up the lunch routine a little bit too. Try it…seriously…go to the cabinet get the stuff out …and make one.

You can thank me later 🙂

Picture from yesterday posted today. We didn’t get home from R&H’s until around 2am. Way to sleepy at that time to post, and then shopping today with my mom for my birthday.

Frozen wine. To make this happen stick wine in freezer. Then forget it is there until about an hour later. It looks really cool, and makes for great slushi.

Picture from today is of our first snow this winter.  It didn’t stick, and there wasn’t enough to cover the ground. It made my kids super excited though. I think snow is pretty, but I don’t like the cold. So in my opinion if it is going to snow it needs to snow enough to cancel school, so I don’t have to go out in the cold. I am not a cold weather person. I get cold when it is hot out lol.

This is one of my favorite breakfast foods. My mom used to make it when I was little and now, I make it too. It is a pretty quick recipe to make

I ues a box of blueberry muffin mix. Following the ingredients on the box and cooking temp. It will have to bake for about 25 minutes.

Once the mix is made and put i a 9×9 pan I add about 1/4 cup of brown sugar sprinkled over he top and some cinnamon. I don’t do an exact measure of the cinnamon. Then I use a knife and swirl it around the top.

You can see in the above picture how the cinnamon and brown sugar are more like a topping for the mix.

Hot or cold it is delicious!

We have found these awesome beef fajita strips. We put them in our quesdaillas.  We used to use chicken but we switched over to these beef strips because they are so yummy! We eat quesadillas once a week it is our go to quick dinner.  I use olive oil and rub it on one side of the tortilla. On the inside  I put the cheese and the meat. Put the oiled side down in the pan. Once the tortilla is toasted and the cheese is melted eat them up!

For our wedding reception dinner 9ish years ago we had pork loin with apple gravy. I finally created a recipe that is close to what we had.  For starters I always rub down my pork loin with olive oil and salt and pepper before I throw it in the oven. The salt and spice really go well with the sweetness of the gravy.

Now onto the gravy.

Dice up an apple and saute it in butter.

Once they are starting to get mushy you can either mash them a little or leave them as is. It depends on my mood on what I do.

I then make a roux with apple juice and flour.

Add the roux to the sauteed apples, and stir. If it is too thick add some more juice. If it isn’t thick enough add a little more flour. I really just kind of mix it up until I get the thickness I want.

Once it is done spoon some over a slice of the roast and enjoy!

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, but are craving home made ice cream this recipe is for you.  Of course I found it on pinterest lol. I have made it a couple times. Once with the kids, and this past week with my class as a science experiment.

Here is what you need:

Rock salt or kosher salt

vanilla

half and half

sugar

zip lock bags

ice

In the first bag add 1/2 a cup of half and half, 1 tbsp sugar, and 1 tsp of vanilla. In a second bag put a couple handful of ice and 1/2 a cup of rock salt or kosher salt. Put the first bag in the second bag and shake it up. You will be able to tell when it is ready by look or feel. The bag will be frosty looking.You can add toppings as well. I left it vanilla.

Here are some pictures of how it went at school. My 2 adorable munchkins helped with the modeling.