As I’ve noted in past posts, I’m not the biggest fan of veggies.
This problem is most pronounced when I’m cooking dinner for other people. This past December, I planned a dinner party for 13 people, so I neededsomekind of vegetable dish. What to do, what to do…
Make them as unhealthy as possible, of course! :-p
I saw a recipe for green bean fries on Pinterest, and since I love Applebees green been fries, I thought these would be a great choice for the holidays with friends. I was right – they were a huge hit. Even if we did mess up the recipe a little.
Then I went to look up this recipe again to write this post…and it was GONE! Don’t you just hate that? So I found one that was close (if I’m remembering correctly), but this is a good reminder to print out recipes you really love!
Disclaimer: I am not the biggest fan of sweet potatoes. I have an especially adverse reaction to the stick gooey that people drizzle over tip. Yuck. So when my roommate, Leighann, said she was trying a new sweet potato recipe for Thanksgiving instead of making regular white potatoes, I was a little bummed
But to be honest? These were pretty good! I would still rather have regular potatoes, like these oven roasted onion potatoes, but if your family likes sweet potatoes, this is a great recipe to test out.
Leighann pinned this recipe from Annie Hodgdon. They are originally from For the Love of Cooking.
I have a confession to make: I really don’t like to eat my vegetables.
I don’t mind some raw veggies to much on for a snack or even a salad as a meal, but when it comes to cooked veggies…blech. Peas, broccoli, green beans…yuck, yuck, yuck. I don’t even really liked cooked carrots or corn on the cob, but I’ll eat ‘em. Mostly because I feel guilty and super unhealthy if I don’t.
One cooked vegetable I do happen to like, though, is asparagus. It makes your pee smell funny, but it’s totally worth it. Especially when you combine it with quite possibly the best food of all time: bacon.
Today’s recipe for Sesame Bacon-Wrapped Asparagus was pinned from my roommate Leighann, who made this dish during our little Thanksgiving celebration this weekend! She originally pinned this recipe from Kathy St, and the dish can originally be found on How Sweet It Is.
The Calico Bean recipe is another good recipe out of a local organizations cookbook. These local cookbooks are some of best resources for recipes. Everyone likes to submit their best recipes to those cookbooks. I go to them quite often. The Calico Bean recipe is from the Klingerstown Fire Company Auxiliary cookbook.
A note from all of us Boyers: if you can support your local fire company, please do so! Many in rural communities stay afloat based on the donations they receive and fundraising money they make, and they’re often run by volunteers who give their time for free to help save lives. So, get involved! Go to local fire company-sponsored carnivals/fairs, buy what they’re selling, and get out your checkbook for a straight donation if you can. Support your local heroes!
Now back to the recipe: This Calico Bean recipe is a side dish great for picnics and is also a great comfort food. Here’s how you make it:
Brussel sprouts are a treat when made this way .No, really!
I know your first thought is YUK. And mine was too, but give them a try! They may surprise you!
This recipe is easy and doesn’t take a lot of time. The farmers market that I go to usually has brussel sprouts all year round. Like we’ve mentioned before at the PinterTest Kitchen, if you can support a local business like a butcher or farmer selling items at a market, you’re almost always going to get better quality product than you would at a chain grocery store. So buy local!
One quart size box will make about 2-3 servings using this recipe. Usually, a small serving of brussel sprouts go a long way on the plate, but these are so good that people might want a second serving!
Did you ever make a new recipe for your husband and he looked at it and said, “What the heck is that?” That’s what happened when I made this Strawberry Spinach Salad the first time. So I replied, ” Shut up and eat it.”
My husband put some salad on his plate and soon he was getting more. Now he requests this salad!
The first time I had this salad was at a church Mother’s Day banquet. I had my doubts, but I tried the salad and it was good! The salad recipe is in the church cookbook. The salad is also very easy to make. It’s the perfect recipe for those lazy summer days when you want something light for lunch and don’t feel like heating up your whole house by turning on the oven or stove.
Plus, we grow our own strawberries, so when the garden is pumping them out, this is a great non-dessert recipe to put them to good use!
I’ve been looking for a good potato salad recipe for years. I’m picky about my potato salad. It has to be white, not yellow. It has to be chunky, not mushy. It has to have a bite, but not to much vinegar.
Yes, I am hard to please.
What I’ve found is that there really was no “best potato salad” recipe out there that met my needs. So, I instead took the best parts of lots of different recipes to create my own version. I bet it will have you and your family/guests licking your plates. It’s great for parties and picnics especially, since it only gets better as it sits and the flavors blend together.
This recipe has been around for a long time. I’ve seen versions of it on the back of the dry onion soup mix box and in several recipe books. It’s simple and doesn’t take many ingredients. Sometimes that’s all we have time for.
If your oven is on, this is an easy side dish to make not taking much prep work. And you don’t have to peel the potatoes. That’s my favorite part.
Oh, and they taste great, too. This is definitely a great recipe to have on hand for those nights when you just don’t know what to make as a side dish.
I may be super picky (Allison’s note: that is a TOTAL understatement), but man do I love good garlic knots. Usually any good bread related recipe involves a lot of time waiting while the dough rises. But let’s be honest. While I’m perfectly fine baking a labor-intensive recipe, 9 times out of 10 I’m way too lazy.
The original Easy Parmesan Knots pin come from Bonnie MacLean, who pinned it from Real Mom Kitchen so definitely give them both a look for some more ideas.
When I first saw this pin, I thought that these knots look way too good to be ‘easy, easy, easy’ as the pin was captioned. But boy was I wrong…
