Site Admin Saturday: Your Favorite Home Ec 101 Recipes?

I've made Tomato Pie three times this summer: yummy! I also made Chicken Pilau and Ground Beef & Cabbage Skillet for my mother-in-law when she was recovering from knee surgery. I made the cabbage dish in the crockpot, but next time I'd make it on the stove instead, as it was overcooked.

I've made the Crock Pot Pulled Pork twice. FWIW, the second time, instead of getting rid of the juices I skimmed the fat and reduced the juices with some brown sugar to make a sauce and poured it back in with the meat. No need for BBQ sauce. IMO, way better than with the BBQ sauce.

We've made:
Beans and Rice-awesome!
Caramelized Garlic Chicken-OMG, FAB!!! (and sooo easy!)
Sweet Cornbread-a STAPLE in our gluten free house! (just made it yesterday!)
Garlic and Soy Chicken Thighs-super easy and YUM!
Pineapple Grilled Chicken-FAB! Easy!
Simple Chicken Curry-QUICKLY becoming a staple...very versatile...great leftovers!
Taco Soup-DELICIOUS...gives pregnant women heartburn....but it's so good, I don't CARE! (SUPER EASY!)

I just LOVE how so many of these recipes are naturally gluten free or are EASILY adapted to be GF...I'm forever checking out your new recipes because they're REALLY helping me expand our gluten free menus! With gluten free cooking, it's SO easy to get stuck in a rut and end up making the same stuff week in and week out....Home-Ec 101 really keeps me from getting stuck!

Oh yeah, and eggplant parmigiana...mmm. :)

I used the idea of the oven baked chimis, but with a different filling, I make the stove top mac & cheese often. I've also made the garlic soy chicken a few times -- tasty and EASY!

I'm not here so much for the recipes as the other stuff, and most of all the....atmosphere :-)

I've made the chimmis, oven chicken parmigan, and Texas pulled pork. All have become big favorites around here! Thanks.

I am trying out the Salmon with rosemary and lemon on Wednesday night.....excited.

LOVE the chimichangas. We've made them w/chicken and also with beef. Next, we're going to try putting pulled pork in them (minus barbeque sauce...lol). Oh, and there was a chocolate oatmeal cookie recipe we made a couple times last Christmas...I was addicted, so we had to stop. :)

It sounds like the macaroni is the unsung hero of this site. I had no idea that y'all liked it so much. If anything was going to be mentioned, I thought it would be the tomato pie.

I call your mac & cheese "crack & cheese" because it's so addictive. When hubs has to bring something into work, that's what he asks for and I've directed others to your site on many occasions for the recipe because they liked it so much too.

The calzone recipe was/is a fave of my families... I've made it twice now.
I modified it a bit (used crescent rolls for the dough and butter spray instead of oil) and it is definitely one of our "repeats"!

My absolute favorite is the Tomato Pie. It's sooooo yummy and ! recommend it to people all the time.

I make the mac and cheese all the time. Its one of our favs! I will have to try the tamale pie since everyone seems to loke it so much.

I loved the albondigas soup. It was especially great when I had the flu during winter. I wonder whether it would work with ground turkey...

I've made the Tamale Bean Pie several times- it's a huge hit! Julie you should really try it meatless, it's SO good and many meat-lovers have endorsed it! And so easy too.

I've been dying to try the Tomato Pie but haven't gotten a chance yet- unfortunately my main cooking partner (we get together and cook once a week) doesn't like tomatoes.

Once I also used your refried beans recipe to get some ideas on how to spruce up an old can of black beans I found buried in my pantry. It was a shopping from the pantry situation so I had to make do with what I had on hand (which wasn't much). Luckily I had bacon grease! :)

Thanks and keep them coming! All of your recipes are DOABLE which is why I like them. If the list gets over a certain amount of ingredients (like 10) I start getting leery. It's the chopping of vegetables that kills me! It takes me so long! I'm getting better at it but I'd rather just have recipes with only a few veggies to chop. After garlic and onion only 1 or 2 more are allowed. :P

I've made the oven baked chimichangas, they are an easy go to when we have tortillas, but don't want tacos.

I've made a number of the recipes, listed below. The recipes I've made several times are listed with three +++ plus signs.

+blackened beef tips
+++alfredo sauce
+++fake and bake pork chops
+croutons (this was how I found you, by searching for such a recipe)
+breaded fish
+buttermilk pancakes
+++teriyaki chicken thighs
+++spatchcock chicken
+++dilled salmon

I'd like to make lox and the oven-fried chicken fingers, spinach salad, the wine-braised potroast, cheese sauce, among a few others. I would have made the mac and cheese, but I have a recipe of Alton Brown's that I like and use, and it wasn't so different from yours that I felt the need to switch. I'm sure it's just as good though. Also, the ones I haven't made several times I still liked and would make them in the future, I just haven't yet. I like the idea of the fake and bake pork chops, but I confess that I've altered the recipe so it's not so spicy and more garlicky.

I hope that helps.

I am making the chicken today, and am excited about that. I make your mac and cheese a lot. I have also tried the carrot salad, and who know what else. I know my list of to try thing is big!! LOL

Now that I think about it I have tried 2 recipes from here-I made the tamale pie but had to add meat cause my hubby won't do "meatless" LOL-I made it for the first time about 3 weeks ago and he's already asked for it again like 3 times LOL...so it's definately a hit! I also made the meat for the chimichangas--I cooked a roast in the crock pot and instead of using broth/water like normal I added the rest of the veggie juice (from the tamale pie recipe) and some chili spices to make it spicy...it was a hit too.Instead of wrapping like chimichangas I made spanish rice and served it over that.Hubby isn't too fond of rice but at it happily!

julie
meridian,ms