I am a sucker for fall. I don’t even mind the torrential rain we have been getting. Well sometimes.
One of my favorite things about fall is cozying up with all of my favorite foods. I am talking about roasts, soups, and hot dishes.
Here are some of my favorites.
Make-Ahead Creamy Steel Cut Oatmeal
InstaPot Chicken and Rice Burrito Bowl
Gluten-Free Breakfast Casserole
Ready for a bit of Midwestern comfort food? My midwestern mom’s recipe for lasagna and a bit of heaven in a casserole dish.
Lasanga was a special occasion meal at my house. Not because it was a complicated recipe, but because it was a family favorite.
It was over a steaming hot plate of this lasagna and some garlic bread that my husband officially fell in love with my mom. As we sat around the table, digging into the gooey lasagna, Jesse started to positively gush.
Mom gave one of those, “this old thing” waves of the hand and dished him out another piece.
I am sure at this point you are wondering what makes this ‘midwestern lasagna’ different from regular old’ lasagna. Especially coming from the land of hot dish (aka Minnesota).
It is cottage cheese!
PS Other than casseroles my mom taught me some other life lessons.
My hubby was scheduled off of work, so I told him I wanted a Ribeye for supper. And he quickly agreed.
Jesse has this habit of pickup up an extra load on his days off (he hauls milk) and this day was no exception. This short load ended up taking far longer than planned because of some problem at the creamery.
Jesse called me around 4 to let me know that he was not going to be home until after 10. The ribeyes that were thawed out in the fridge were not getting grilled.
Luckily I was able to reach into my pantry grab a jar of sauce and a box of pasta and whip up something to eat.
I keep the kitchen stocked with staples for quick, basic meals. These aren’t for gourmet meals, just something fast when plans change quickly, or I cannot be bothered to make anything better.
My childhood was full of Ragu pasta sauce and Creamette pasta. It makes sense why. It is easy, it tastes good, and it was cheap. Pasta with meat sauce is the ultimate comfort food for me, so I keep a stash in my pantry. Just in case.
I could eat pizza every night if I could. That is part of the reason why I keep a small stack of frozen pizza in my freezer. The other reason is that on those nights that I can’t deal, I can grab one of these, throw it in the oven and eat 20 minutes later.
If there is one thing I like more than pizza, it is cheese. My husband bought me cheese of the month club for my birthday this year. Being close to the Wisconsin border, we have access to some great cheese, so we keep a stash of cheese and crackers in the house. And yes, sometimes we eat crackers and cheese for dinner.
Like any good farm kid, I keep the freezer stocked with bacon — the good, from the butcher, thick, meaty kind. I make this, along with a few pantry ingredients to make Grandma’s pancakes, or I will take that bacon, a few eggs, and some spaghetti and make carbonara. Bacon also has the beautiful gift of making any sandwich better.
Eggs are perfect for . . . making eggs. The also the primary ingredient in spaghetti carbonara, pancakes and many other meals that come together quickly.
With just these few simple items on hand, I can whip up a quick meal (or eat a quick snack). They might not be fancy, but they work for us.
Photo by Ehud Neuhaus on Unsplash
It won’t be long before Jesse and I leave on a weeklong road trip. Preparations have been in the works for weeks. Packing lists are being created and re-written, and reservations are verified. And great road food has been planned for.
But I would be remiss if I didn’t stop for a minute and talk about food. Food is the real reason why we travel.
Since we will be spending a fair amount of time in the car this time around, I need to talk to road trip food. What to snack on in the car and how where to go stuff as you drive.
Jesse and I like to keep things simple (as you know). But here are a few tips to get great food on the road.
I have a few favorites snacks I grab for road trips: Sundrop, Combos, Pringles. My husband has a soft spot for Corn Nuts.
A few days of chips are not suitable for anyone, but when you are on the road and planning on munching in the car, your choices are limited.
So instead of hitting up the gas station or convenience store, head to the grocery store instead. I grab cut up veggies (I usually pay a bit more for the pre-cut stuff), cheese, beef sticks, apples, and oranges.
One of the best thing about road trips is you can bring along pretty much anything you want. Or at least as much as your car will carry.
To be clear, I do not recommend this.
But road trips are a perfect time to save some money by bringing some food from home.
Plan out all your meals if that is your jam. Or bring along a few things to keep on hand for those days when all of the driving and site-seeing leave you exhausted.
I usually bring along a handful of things: enough eggs and sausage or bacon for a breakfast or two, cheese and summer sausage to snack on while driving, and some burger or brats and fixing for a quick grill out. If we have room in the cooler, I even throw in a frozen pizza, just in case.
I don’t know about you, but I cannot go to a chain restaurant for a salad without feeling like crap afterward. Feeling good is pretty important when you have a day of activities planned or have a 10 + hour drive ahead of you.
When you are out on the road, look for a Mom-and-Pop diner, an old-school supper club, or any restaurant where it seems like has been around for 30 or 40 years.
There is a reason these places have stood the test of time.
The service is usually excellent, and the food is actual food, not questionable items that came frozen in bags or out of a can. Not to mention that you get a pile of food for cheap and leave feeling pleasantly stuffed, not like you ate a bad burger.
That’s it, friends, with a little bit of planning (and a whole lot of self-control) you can get some great food while on the road.
Meal planning is a boring topic. It makes me think of structured suburban moms with their full calendars that have to ‘put their face on’ before going to the store.
Not the hip woman without kids that I am. (LOL, I am so far from hip, I could barely type that).
When I started meal planning a few years ago, I noticed how it made my life so much easier. I sit down with a pad of paper, take a look at what is leftover in my cabinets and fridge, and start planning.
It has freed up so much brain space for me. And it can work for you too.
I don’t wander around the grocery store looking for what tickles my fancy when grocery shopping. I get in, get my stuff, and get out. When you know precisely what you are cooking for the week and have it all written down, it makes trips to the store so much faster.
You might be one of those people that likes to walk up and down the produce section looking for the perfect carrot. I would much rather spend my time reading.
There is nothing worse than buying a bunch of fruit and veggies only to have it rotting away before you get to use it. I grew up pretty scrappy, and there was nothing my mom hated more than wasting food. Every time I need to throw something out (or compost) something just because of my lack of planning, I can feel my mom’s disapproving gaze.
When I started planning out my meals, I was pretty simply able to use up leftover food. I can make a roast chicken on Monday and use the leftover chicken in burrito bowls later on in the week. I also make veggies as sides and eat them twice.
With a bit of forethought and planning, you can choose meals for the week that the ingredients are on sale. It may just be saving you a few bucks on your grocery list, but over months and years it can add up.
Have meals planned out and a list in hand will also help you from buying things at the store that you don’t need.
If you are following a special diet or trying to lose weight, meal planning is critical. Without a plan, you can easily be stuck doing a Whole 30 with only carbs in your cabinet.
I was able to lose almost 30 pounds by planning out my meals, so I didn’t stress eat a whole pizza because I had nothing else in the house to eat.
Meal planning doesn’t have to be a drag. Sitting down one evening with a pad of paper, and your Pinterest boards can be an easy way to simplify your week. Try it for a week or two.
I am working my way through an online business class. One of the modules talks about getting laser-focused on your niche and who you are writing for. So, being the good student that I am, I pondered over this for a few days.
Spoiler alert: it has to do with intentional living.
From the beginning, I knew there were two things that I knew I would talk about in some form or another: remodeling our old farmhouse and food. I feel strongly about being intentional in your life. And what you fuel your body with and the place that you choose (or don’t choose) to spend your downtime is a big part of being intentional.
But there is one thing: I am not a food blogger. I don’t want to develop my own recipes and food styling and photography seems daunting to say the least. I do, however, want to share my love of food.
But that makes sense because –
It is a bit ridiculous that I didn’t realize it years ago. My family’s love language is food.
That is relatively common, though. When a friend has a baby, you might swing by to hold the little cutie and bring a casserole. Or when your neighbor’s dad dies, bring a bunch of cookies and some sandwich fixings.
Food is how we tell someone that we love them, care about them, or are thinking about them without having to say those words because some of us have a hard time saying those things out loud.
But I take it a bit further than that.
A few years ago Jesse and I planned a trip to St Louis to eat ribs and tour Anheuser-Busch. Jesse had a work trip to Kansas City, and I took the day off and came along because I wanted some authentic KC BBQ. A few years ago, we had a California vacation planned (which we scrapped because of wildfires) that involved whale watching and eating tacos.
I didn’t realize it until I read Kirsten’s post, but I also don’t care about cooking, I like to eat.
Have you read any Ruth Reichl books? I just love her.
She first came into my orbit because I spent lots of time watching PBS and her Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie was in the Saturday line up. Someday I will have to tell you about my weird fascination with This Old House.
Most of her books are memoirs that also revolve around food and have recipes sprinkled in them. Food memoirs and very much in my wheelhouse.
It was one of her books (I can’t remember which one) where I came across a spaghetti carbonara recipe, and I thought maybe I should try this. I am sure I had come across a recipe for this before and not given it a second glance because, to be fair, the ingredient list seems weird. At least it does for me as a child of sturdy Germanic stock.
What got me is how simple the recipe is and how all of the ingredients are generally things I already have in the kitchen. I also though, all of the components are awesome separately, they have to be good together, right?
I still remember the first time I made this. My dad was there, sitting in the kitchen, watching me cook and asking a million questions. He was a little freaked out when I cracked the eggs in the bowl and he put it all together.
I told him it would be fine and to shut the hell up. I used a nastier word, but don’t bite the hand that feeds you, Dad.
A few weeks later he was asking me to make spaghetti carbonara again.
I have been making this for years now, and it has morphed from the original recipe slightly, I use an extra egg and a lot more bacon.
Obvs.
Photo by Pinar Kucuk on Unsplash
I love breakfast food more than anything else in the world. If my house was burning down and I had a beautiful stack on French Toast or pancakes with warm maple syrup and my husband and I would only have time to save one of them. . . . Well, I would really have to think about it.
JK, French Toast I love you.
What I don’t love is standing over the griddle, making pancakes while the stack gets cold next to me. That is one of the great things about this recipe; everyone gets to sit down to a nice toasty pancake at the same time.
Summertime is potluck time in the Midwest. We tend to get a little nuts about it. We have only a few short months to enjoy the warmer temps so we really have to live it up when we can. So that means brats, beers, and salads.
One of the funny quirks about Minnesota is that you need to specify the kind of salad. A green salad is an actual salad like Cesar or Cobb. But that my friends, is only the beginning.
Green salads are great and all but the most common and beloved are Jello and Pasta salads. My husband for one has not found a ‘salad’ that he hasn’t loved. When I lose him at the grocery store, he can be found at the deli counter checking out the options and getting himself a little container.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good pasta salad as good as the next Minnesota gal. But they all start to taste the same after awhile. I have a suspicion that is really just the same few recipes with various kinds of extras thrown in.
This recipe is one of those.
PS A favorite at my inlaws is Snickers Salad. It is basically whipped cream/pudding hybrid with chopped up candy bars mixed in. But there are apples in it too, so it is healthy (wink)! I will have to get Aunt Marie’s recipe and share it with you.
My mom ran an in-home daycare for 30-ish years. Along with making money to support us and the farm she did this, in part, so that she would be there when we got home from school. I didn’t realize what a privilege this was, until many, many years later.
We would get off the school bus (with a gaggle of daycare kids) and have cookies, muffins, popcorn, and homemade bread with fresh jam for afterschool snacks. Yes, yes this was as amazing as it sounds.
This poppy seed bread recipe was a staple in those days.
She kept the pantry stocked with the ingredients and would whip up something during nap time. And when I dug her recipe box out of the cupboard a few months back, I was happy to find the recipe written in my mom’s super vague style.
As you can see this is semi-homemade baking at it’s finest. But when you have 3 daughters and who knows how many daycare kids at your house at any given time, you gotta do you.
No shame here. Especially ’cause it’s good!
PS. The recipe is at it’s best when it is completely cool. The cooled bread has a wonderful crust.
