I make these all of the time and people always ask me for the recipe. It takes under 30 minutes to whip up, making it the perfect week night meal. It's easy to double, triple, etc, making it perfect for feeding large groups. 

It's completely versatile. 

Don't have meatballs? ... use chicken. 👌🏼

Don't have apple cider vinegar? ... use rice, wine or white vinegar. 👌🏼

Don't have brown sugar? ... use white or real maple syrup. 👌🏼

Don't have rice? ... use quinoa, pasta, roasted veggies or a bed of lettace. 👌🏼

Any brand/flavor of any ingredient can work. 

I guess what I'm saying is ... you almost can't mess this one up! 

(with the exception of over boiling)

Due to the brown sugar ... over boiling with result in crystallized sweet and sour sugar candy. 😬 

Recipe:

1 full baking sheet of meatballs (I prefer Kirkland brand)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup vinegar

2 tsp. mustard

1/2 cup BBQ Sauce

2 tsp. Soy Sauce

Cook meat according to package instructions.

Combine all other ingredients in a sauce pan over medium heat. Stir constantly while bringing it to a light boil. Sauce will thicken quickly once boiling. Do Not Over Boil! Turn/take off heat just before sauce has reached desired consistency. 

Mix meat into sauce and coat thoroughly. 

Serve over rice

xo Summer

One day I realized that kids love pizza, and that we would be eating a lot of pizza in the years to come. So I decided to get really good at making pizza. This is the result! It took a lot of trial and error.

So we can make pizza anytime, I like to buy Mozzerella cheese at CostCo and bag it up with about 2 cups in a sandwich size Ziploc bag. I keep it in the freezer, and then set it out while I'm making pizza dough. It thaws in time to make pizza.


I also love green chile on pizza. In August the stores get fresh Hatch green chile. You can have it roasted right there in front of the store. Then they put the hot, roasted green chile in a giant trash bag. While it's in the bag it steams itself. When you get it home, you get off the peels, remove the seeds and chop it up. Then you can freeze it. I usually only have to get some every 2-3 years because we don't go through it very fast.

We also keep pepperoni, sausage and hamburger in the freezer to use on pizzas.


This dough makes about two full size pizzas, so I usually scale it up by 1 1/2 batch to make three pizzas. You can also use it to make pan pizzas, or a regular sized pizza and a giant pizza on a half sheet pan. The possibilities are endless. You spread olive oil on top and sprinkle garlic salt on top. Then bake it for about 8 minutes. It won't be done, but it will be slightly toasted.
 


Cutting pizza with scissors is really easy!

When it is slightly cooled, I like to lift it off the pizza stone and then cut.


And you can cut like this to make more servings for kids.

Pizza also needs to be served with Ranch Dressing. If your bottle is running low, this is what Dad does to get out the last little bit. Hold on tight!



Our Best Bites Pizza Crust
1 1/2 cup warm (105–115 degrees) water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon yeast
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3–4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1. In a large bowl (the bowl of your mixer, if you have one), combine water, sugar, and yeast. Let stand for 10 minutes or until yeast is bubbly.
2. Add salt and stir. Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and mix well. Gradually add more flour (usually between 3-4 cups, depending on your elevation and your humidity) until dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl and it barely sticks to your finger.
3. Cover and allow to rise for 45 minutes or until doubled in bulk.
4. Preheat your oven (and your pizza stone, if you want) to 425 degrees. While oven is heating, punch down dough and shape into a disc. Spray your work surface, rolling pin, and pizza stone with non-stick cooking spray. Place dough disc onto work surface. Roll and shape into a circle. (Disregard all of this, by the way, if you’re a stinking dough-thrower). Very gently transfer the dough onto your pizza stone and continue to shape up to the edges of the stone.
5. Using a fork, prick several holes in the crust. Drizzle crust with a little olive oil and brush all the way up to the edges. Sprinkle with garlic salt. Both oiling and garlic salting the crust help crisp it up, give it a great flavor, and keep it from getting soggy in the middle.
6. Bake crust in preheated oven for 8-12 minutes or until slightly golden. Remove from oven.
7. Spread a layer of sauce (if desired) over the surface of the crust. Top with whatever toppings you like (I do the flat stuff, i.e. the meat, first). Then sprinkle with oregano.
8. Return crust to oven and bake 10-12 more minutes or until cheese is melty and the crust is golden brown. And there you have it. Beautiful pizza, completely non-doughy in the middle, a little crispy on the edges and chewy on the inside.

Link to Our Best Bites: https://ourbestbites.com/cooking-class-pizza-101/

This is a great pantry meal. Only three ingredients! I keep the meat and buns in the freezer. We like to serve with frozen french fries.

French Onion Burgers
2 pounds ground beef
2 cans Campbell's French Onion Soup
1 package hamburger buns

Cook burgers in a skillet until almost done. Drain grease and then add canned soup. Simmer until done. Serve burgers with onion soup juices.

There's that sad toddler again! They always know when dinner is 20 minutes away and think they will starve to death before dinner is served.


 You can toast your buns. Just butter them up and broil them in the oven.

This is NOT Manwich from a can. I've never had it, and the thought of ground beef in a can is not appealing to me. This is the funny name we thought of for the manliest meat sandwich ever. We love it! We started making two of these giant things at a time and they still go fast. It's really just a fast and giant sloppy joe.

Jason's Manwich
1 lb. ground beef
1/4 c. chopped onion, or onion powder
1 can tomato soup, undiluted, 10 3/4 ounces
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 loaf french bread, 1 pound
8 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded

1. In a large saucepan, cook beef and onion until meat is no longer pink; drain. Add soup, garlic salt, salt and pepper. Simmer, uncovered, for 5-10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, slice the french bread in half, like a giant sandwich. Hollow out the bottom half to make room for the filling. Place both halves of the loaf on a half sheet pan and broil until lightly browned.
3. Spoon beef into the french bread bottom loaf; arrange cheese on top. Broil 2-3 minutes longer or until cheese is melted. Replace bread top and slice into sandwich portions (about 8-10 sandwiches).
4. Leftovers can be refrigerated and reheated in the microwave.

My sister taught me the greatest way to make pizza. It's so amazing that I don't even make homemade pizza anymore. Naan bread pizzas! CostCo sells Naan bread in the refrigerator section. You can store it in your fridge, or freezer for later.



Preheat your oven to about 425. Lay about 6 Naan breads on a half sheet pan. Add sauce (I love Trader Joe's Pizza Sauce), mozzarella cheese (see tips for how I keep it in my freezer), and whatever toppings you like! Bake for about 5-10 minutes until perfectly toasted.

Here is our go to list of pizza toppings, mostly inspired by the Dion's Special, which is the greatest supreme pizza of all time.
Mushrooms
black olives
green chile
red onions
green/red peppers
Italian sausage
ground beef
smoked ham
pepperoni

I like to precook a lot of green and red peppers, onions and mushrooms. I keep them in the freezer and then add them to our Naan pizzas.

I love this Chicken Soup recipe because it's very fast and easy, but homemade. When I'm not feeling well, and there is no one around to cook for me, I can still pull this soup together. Whenever I have leftover chicken or turkey that won't get used up, or onions or celery, I chop it up and freeze it. It works perfect for this recipe.


Best Chicken Soup Ever
4 cans chicken broth (not condensed), 14.5 ounces each (I like Swanson's brand)
1/2 cup celery, sliced
1/2 cup carrot, sliced
1/4 cup onion, diced
1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/4 teaspoon thyme
2 chicken breasts, cooked and cubed (or see step 2)
1 1/2 cups dry egg noodles

Combine broth, celery, carrot, onion, poultry seasoning and thyme.  Simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes. If chicken is not already cooked, use 1-2 cans broth from this recipe to poach whole chicken breasts (simmer for 10-15 minutes).  Then add broth to soup. Add egg noodles and simmer for 6 minutes (the noodles with be a little underdone but will continue to cook in the hot soup). Add chicken and serve with french bread or rolls.

Dave loves Sloppy Joes. This week he ate two pounds of Sloppy Joes in three days. Here is our favorite recipe. Some of the amounts aren't an exact science, but it's fun to have a recipe that's made to taste.

Dave & Mary's Sloppy Joes
2 pounds of Ground Beef
Ketchup
Mustard, about 2 tsp.
Worcestershire Sauce
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder
Brown Sugar, about 1 tsp.
Hamburger Buns

Brown the ground beef, and drain off the fat. Squirt in ketchup until its the consistency you like. Add about 2 tsp. mustard and a generous sprinkle of Worcestershire Sauce. Sprinkle on onion powder, garlic powder and only 1 tsp. brown sugar. Season to taste! If it tastes too sweet, just add more Worcestershire. Serve with toasted buns.

After 14 years of marriage I had an epiphany while making taco meat.  If you add beans it stretches the quantity to twice as much.  I will now present you with the most multipurpose, easy, budget friendly dinner of all. Get ready to save money!

Brown your beef (I'm using 3/4 of a pound), and drain the grease.  Then drain one can of black beans and add to the ground beef.  My beef was from the freezer and the beans were in the pantry.  No shopping required!


Add 3/4 cup water...

Add 3-4 tablespoons of McCormick Taco Seasoning.

Simmer until the sauce is thick and delicious.

Here's the multipurpose part...Make it into a Burrito!  Jason added salsa, lettuce, tomatoes and a little bit of shredded cheddar cheese with a "Daddy" flour tortilla.

Or make it into taco salad!  Heidi put her taco meat on a bed of corn tortilla chips with lettuce, tomato, cheese and a dollop of sour cream.

Or make it into a taco!  You can toast your taco shells in the oven using the directions on the box.  It makes them so much more delicious than right out of the box! Liz is a taco purist, she added taco meat and cheese.  She's often anti-vegetable.  But that's okay because so am I.  We get our vitamins so don't judge us!


If ground beef is $1.99/pound and a can of black beans is about $0.50-$0.79 than the beans are half the price of the meat.  It may not sound like you've saved much, but if I cook Taco Meat once a week for 14 years of marriage, here's some math fun for you.

Budget Friendly Taco Meat:
3/4 lb. ground beef = 1.99*3/4 = $1.50
1 can black beans = $0.50 (thanks to the caselot sale at Smiths!)
Total =  $2.00
Once a week for 14 years = $1,456

NOT Budget Friendly Taco Meat:
1 lb. of ground beef instead of 3/4 pound = $1.99
another pound of ground beef instead of a can of black beans = $1.99
Total = $4.00
Once a week for 14 years = $2,912

Savings = $1456 over 14 years or $104 a year

What would you do with $104?  And this is just the money saved on one meal.  Imagine if you had a whole collection of budget meals?  Never underestimate how much you'll save by being wise for every meal.

And what if I bought dry beans and cooked them?  One pound of dry beans is about a dollar and makes a huge quantity of cooked beans.  I also have a recipe for homemade Taco Seasoning!  Let's save those recipes for another day...

Multipurpose Taco Meat
Serves 6 (that's $0.33 per person, not including toppings)

3/4 or 1 lb. ground beef
1 can black beans
3/4 c. water
4 T. McCormick Taco Seasoning (or more or less depending on how hot you like it)

Extras:
Taco Shells or Flour Tortillas or Tortilla Chips
Lettuce, chopped
Tomato, diced
Cheddar Cheese, shredded
Salsa
Sour Cream
Guacamole

1. Brown and drain ground beef.  Drain beans and add to beef.
2. Follow directions on Taco Seasoning (mine is McCormick, it's 3/4 c. water and 4 T. mix) and add to beef and beans.  Simmer until thickened and heated through.
3. Prepare extras and serve with hot taco meat.
4. Plot how to use all your extra money...

This recipe is fast, easy and cheap.  It was invented by my Mom, and I tweaked it a little bit.  Time to get New Mexican for dinner!

I mentioned before that I almost never cook with fresh meat, it's usually frozen.  For chicken, I like to buy 10 lb. bags of frozen chicken breasts from CostCo.  These are boneless and skinless and cost $2/lb, or $20 for the whole bag.  This is a great price for NM stores and it means I always have frozen chicken in my freezer.

Depending on the size of the chicken breasts, you'll need 2 or 3 or 4 chicken breasts.  It really depends on how much meat vs. vegetables you want.  I like a 50-50 mix.  Put your chicken breasts on a plate and thaw in the microwave for 2-3 minutes.  You may want to flip them over halfway to help them thaw evenly.


While you're waiting for your chicken to defrost, slice up 1 yellow onion, 1 green bell pepper and 1 red bell pepper.  The onion and green pepper are both very affordable.  The red on is the more expensive item in this recipe.  If you don't want to pay twice as much for the red pepper as the green pepper, you can substitute a green pepper for the red pepper.  I usually see green peppers for 50 cents, and red peppers for $1.69.  A great sale price for a red pepper is usually $1 or less in NM.

This recipe is also a great freezer meal.  If you see red and green peppers on sale, buy several.  Slice them up and put each one in a sandwich baggie.  With frozen chicken and peppers, half your meal is ready in the freezer anytime you feel like fajitas.

Put a couple tablespoons of oil in a skillet and heat to medium high or high.  When it is hot add all three vegetables (frozen or fresh) to a skillet and saute in oil until caramelized and tender.  Here is how they look when you start sauteing.  If it looks dry in the pan just add in some more oil by the tablespoon.  Stir the vegetables occasionally so they won't burn.  Slice up your chicken while your vegetables are cooking. 


Here is a picture when they are done.  You can see a little bit of char on the peppers and the onions are light brown.


Remove the vegetables from the pan, add some more oil and then add the chicken.  Some of that caramelized goodness will still be on the bottom of the pan so just stir around the chicken and it will pick it up and flavor the chicken.  Sometimes frozen chicken lets off a lot of moisture.  If you have a lot of moisture in the bottom of the pan, take a paper towel and soak it up (just like soaking up hamburger grease in the previous post).  When the chicken is just done, add about a cup of your favorite salsa.


Let it cook for a minute or two at a simmer to thicken the salsa and coat the chicken.  Use a salsa you really like since the flavor will condense.  If you have people in your family that don't like a lot of spice, use a milder salsa.  You can also use less salsa, or none.  Then other people in the family can just add salsa to their finished fajita.  We like it mildly spicy so 1 cup of a medium salsa pleases everyone in my house.

Then add the vegetables back in until they reheat.  Time for fajitas!


There are three kinds of flour tortillas.  Let's call them Daddy, Mommy and baby.  Daddy size (also known as "Burrito") and Mommy size ("Homestyle") are great for this recipe.  Baby size ("Gorditas") are a little too small for this recipe, but would still be delicious.


Warm your tortillas in the microwave until heated through.  When top with your chicken mixture, shredded cheese, sour cream, guacamole and/or more salsa.


Let's have a fajita folding lesson!  Fold up the bottom (to catch the deliciousness, you don't want that goodness dripping on your plate, then you have to lick your plate like Jason).


Then fold one side...


Then the other!  How easy is that?


Now who can tell me the NM state question?

Easy Fajitas
Serves 4-6
2-4 chicken breasts
1 yellow onion, sliced
1 green pepper, cut in strips
1 red pepper, cut in strips
1 cup salsa
6 tortillas

Toppings:
Salsa
Sour Cream
Cheddar Cheese
Guacamole

1. Defrost chicken breasts.  Cut vegetables.
2. Heat oil in a skillet to medium high or high.  Saute vegetables until tender and caramelized.  Remove vegetables to a bowl.
3. Cook chicken until just done.  If there is a pool of liquid in the pan, drain it or soak it up with a paper towel.
4. Add salsa and simmer for a minute or two until salsa is thickened and reduced slightly.
5. Add vegetables back to pan until heated through.  Serve with warm tortillas and toppings.

I've made Spaghetti Sauce from scratch.  It was delicious, but it was also time consuming.  My family is big on pasta.  Since we eat Spaghetti about once a week I had to find a better way.  This is the better way!  It's also very college friendly and budget friendly.  Enjoy!

Anytime you're making pasta for dinner, your first step is to get your water on the stove to boil.  There's no sadness like having a pot full of spaghetti sauce ready to eat and you're still waiting for your water to boil.

Remember those bags of frozen hamburger?  Get one out, defrost it and brown it in a skillet.  Mine is 3/4 pound but meat lovers will love a whole pound or more.  I know how to drain the fat off hamburger meat without a strainer (that dirties a dish, and dishes are a pain).  After browning, if there is some fat in the bottom, scrape all the meat to one side, drop in a paper towel and then tilt the pan to the empty side and sop it up with a paper towel.  If the paper towel gets saturated just get another.  Then use your spoon to scrape the paper towel around the bottom of your pan.  No more grease!  Then throw it away, it's not an ingredient in our recipe.



You know how regular canned sauces are watery?  I hate it when there is a pool of tomato water until my pasta.  This ingredient will fix that problem and change your sauce woes forever.  Add one can (6 ounces) of tomato paste.  Mix it around (it will be paste-y) and let it cook for a minute.


If you're doing it right, your toddler will look like this.  Todders know when you are less than 20 minutes from dinnertime and usually decide starvation has come for them.  Resist to urge to feed it!  Don't look into those sweet eyes!  Focus on cooking!  Hang on, little buddy!


Next, add one can of spaghetti sauce.  Both Hunts and Del Monte are good, I have Hunts since I bought 24 cans at a Smith's Case lot sale.  Your pasta water is probably boiling about now so add your pasta in your pot of boiling water (not in the tomato sauce!) and let it boil.  The Spaghetti sauce can simmer on low heat until your pasta is done.  I usually cover it with a lid.

 How about some bread sticks with that?  Check out my fancy bread.

Yes, it's hot dog buns.  Whenever we have hot dogs inevitably my kids want it bun-less.  We always have leftover buns.  I just throw them in the freezer and wait until Spaghetti night.  This recipe also works perfectly with a loaf of french bread cut in half lengthwise. No waste here!


Jason made up this recipe and we love it.  You'll need butter (preferably at room temperature), Garlic Salt, Parmesan Cheese and Oregano.  I once tried fancy, grated, fresh Parmesan Cheese for this recipe and it wasn't as good.  The kind you see in the picture works great.  Save your money and go with this stuff.


Butter your "bread sticks", sprinkle on Garlic Salt, then Parmesan Cheese, and then Oregano.  It's not a science.  Just imagine yourself eating it and that's how much you put on.  If it's too bland, next time add more garlic salt.  If it's too salty, next time add less garlic salt.  Channel the inner scientist in you and experiment to find out what your family likes.

Then broil it either in a toaster oven or in a real oven for 2-5 minutes.  Don't walk away!  Watch it closely!  Don't answer the door!  Set a timer!  It can go from pale to "call a fireman" in a minute.  You'll want it golden brown, like this:

I put it on a paper towel to keep it from getting soggy while it's warm.  Serve your pasta, Spaghetti meat sauce and garlic bread with a side salad and some steamed vegetables.  So easy!

Since your toddler didn't starve to death, he can join you for dinner.  This is what a happy, well fed toddler will look like after surviving those last 20 minutes.

You may not know it, but many of you ate this sauce when we stayed in the house in St. George for Summer and Stuart's wedding.  I doubled it and made two loaves of french bread into garlic bread.  I even brought frozen hamburger with us to cook.  You all liked it!  This recipe is great for a Harper crowd.

No toddlers were harmed in the making of this recipe.

Mary's Spaghetti Sauce
Serves 6-8
1 pound dried spaghetti
3/4 - 1 pound ground beef
1 can tomato paste, 6 ounces
1 can Spaghetti Sauce, 15 ounces

1. Start a pot of water boiling for your pasta.
2. On high heat, brown your ground beef.  Drain (or use your paper towel to sop it up).
3. Lower the heat to medium or medium high.  Add tomato paste and mix well.  Let cook for 1 minute.  Be careful that it doesn't burn.
4. Add spaghetti sauce and let simmer, covered, on low heat until pasta is ready.

Jason's Garlic Bread
Hot Dog buns, or French Bread, or whatever leftover bread you have
Butter, at room temperature
Garlic Salt
Parmesan Cheese
Dried Oregano

1. Lay out your bread on a cookie sheet covered with foil (for easier clean up!).
2. Spread with butter.
3. Sprinkle with garlic salt, parmesan cheese and oregano, to taste.
4. Broil for 2-5 minutes (my oven takes about 3 minutes, my toaster oven takes 5) until golden brown and delicious.