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After college, when I moved out of my parents house for good, my dad gave me a stack of index cards held by a rubber band that was so old it was practically disintegrating. The cards were his recipe collection from way back when he was living on his own.

I love looking through them and thinking about my dad cooking some of these meals on his own so many years ago. Especially since my mom was always the one that did the cooking while I was growing up. (Except when my dad made waffles for dinner as a special treat!)

Since my mother-in-law has been asking me to post some recipes that are easy enough for my father-in-law to put together on nights that she’s working late, I thought these recipes would be a perfect place to start!

Enter Scott. Scott is my father-in-law. I love him to death, but he’s not what one would call proficient in the kitchen. In fact, I’ve never actually seen him do anything in the kitchen besides open a beer! Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that….I’m just trying to give you a clear picture of what we’re working with here.

This first recipe has a limited number of ingredients and doesn’t involve anything more complicated than boiling water so it seemed like a good place to start! Here’s the original recipe:

Here is what I did, and what you can do to make it even easier:

Turn the oven on and set it to 350 degrees. Consult your oven’s manual for step-by-step directions.

Take some frozen, pre-cooked meat out of the freezer, because we don’t want to push the limits by actually requiring any cooking yet.  In my case, it was pork tenderloin. Usually it would be chicken. Most people probably have some sort of pre-cooked meat in the freezer. If not, next time you cook some, throw in a little extra and freeze it for occasions such as this.

Next, I steamed some broccoli. Don’t panic, Scott. All that involves is tossing some pre-cut broccoli in a tupperware container, adding a little water and putting it in the microwave for 3 minutes. OR just use a bag of frozen broccoli.

Finally, the most complicated part…the onion. I’d bet that most people have a partial onion in their fridge. I almost never use all of one at one time. So all this requires is taking it out of it’s container and roughly chopping it with a big knife a few times. YOU CAN DO IT!!

Put these three things in a small baking dish:

I opted to leave out the celery because the hubby doesn’t like it. I also opted to skip cooking the onion “in a small amount of cooking fat” as the recipe says, because you’re going to bake it anyways so who cares.

Next, open a can of cream of something soup. I chose to use cream of mushroom soup (healthy request) because I was using pork instead of chicken…but either would be fine. You could also use cream of celery or something. Pour that on top of everything else.

Here’s where I changed it up a little bit. I realized I didn’t have any cheddar cheese soup on hand. I’m not sure if they even make that anymore? I contemplated mixing in some shredded cheese, but opted to just open a can of cream of chicken soup (healthy request) and mix that in too. I also opted to leave out the can of water. If you want your sauce a little runnier, all that would entail would be filling up the can that the cream of mushroom soup came out of with water and pouring it into the dish. Then mix everything together. You could add some spices here if you want to get fancy, like black pepper or cayenne pepper…If you’re a fan of rice, pull out an Uncle Ben’s 90 sec rice, tear each edge at the top, microwave for 90 seconds and dump the rice into the dish too. If you’d rather have pasta, follow the instructions below.

Put it in the oven for 1 hour until hot and bubbly.

Meanwhile, fill a big pot with water and put it on the stove. Turn the burner on high and when the water starts boiling (that means big bubbles will be steadily forming), add some noodles 🙂 Cook for the amount of time stated on the bag/box of noodles.

When everything is done, put some noodles on a plate and top with the meat and broccoli mixture!

Congrats, Scotty…you just made your first meal 🙂

Enjoy!!! (and then put your dishes in the dishwasher)

So tell me, have your significant other learned to help you out in the kitchen? What’s the first thing you taught them?

–Lindsay–

Happy Friday, friends! Today I’m going to start something new.

One of the biggest requests I got when I asked readers what they wanted to see on The Lean Green Bean in 2011 was suggestions for packed lunches. (**Sidenote, my new lunch box for this year is a Fit N Fresh and has all of those cool containers pictured above in it…it’s awesome!) As many of you know, I’m currently a student. I have class every day of the week. I’m taking classes at two schools. Most days I’m gone 7-5, just like a normal work day. While I don’t exactly get a lunch break, unless you count sitting in my car, cramming food in my mouth in the school parking lot, all the while looking over my shoulder to make sure I don’t miss the bus a lunch break. But I do pack my lunch….and I eat it when I can 🙂

SO, from now on I’m going to use Fridays to share some lunch ideas with you! Many of them will be cold lunches, since I don’t have access to a microwave most days, but some will be hot (I do get to eat lunch at home a couple days a week)! And many can be altered or added to if you want to heat them up.

Are you ready? Here we go!

The best advice I can give my fellow lunch-packers is to start early. I usually start getting my lunch components ready on Sunday.

For example, this past Sunday I:

-made a batch of Sweet Potato Hummus
-threw some chicken breasts in the crockpot when I woke up with some broth and let them cook all day. When they were done, I shredded them and made a big batch of chicken salad
-washed a bunch of spinach and sliced some red onions to be used for spinach salad
-made a batch of roasted chickpeas

This makes it a lot easier when you actually get ready to pack your lunch each night. (Please do it at night. You’re WAY more likely to actually pack it. If you wait until morning, before you know it you’ll wake up late and find yourself running out the door with no lunch!

Here are my suggestions for this week:

1) Hummus.
Easy to make, keeps well in the fridge and the lunch box, cheap! And it’s versatile. Eat it with crackers, pita chips, bagel chips (my new favorite-lower sodium than pita chips) or fresh veggies. Currently loving sweet potato hummus.

 

2) Chicken Salad.
Shredding your own chicken cuts down on the sodium vs. canned. You can make a big batch of plain chicken, turn some into salad and freeze some for another week. Or, turn half into salad and store the other half in the fridge. After a few days, decide whether or not you’re sick of it. If you are, put the rest in the freezer. If not, make another batch of chicken salad. I like to eat mine using crackers as a scoop. You can also put it on a sandwich.

All I do when I make chicken salad is add a little (emphasis on little) bit of light mayo OR some plain greek yogurt to the chicken, top with lots of curry powder and cayenne pepper, toss in some green onions and stir to combine. Super easy and super tasty!

3) Spinach salad.
You can buy big bags of baby spinach at the grocery store for pretty cheap. Prep a big tupperware of the staples (for me, spinach and red onion), then just take some out each day to pack in your lunch. You’re more likely to eat it if it’s already ready to go.

 

If you want to add dressing, put it on the bottom of your tupperware so all the spinach doesn’t get soggy, then mix it around before eating. Just don’t forget your fork, or you’ll be eating with your fingers like I did. Don’t judge me!

4) Fruit and yogurt.
This is my go-to lunch. I could eat it every day. Put some chopped fruit in a container, pack some yogurt and then mix it all together at lunch time. More apples and pomegranate arils!

With Chobani. YUM! Speaking of Chobani…i just may have a little Chobani giveaway going on next week for you guys!!! You’ll have to stay tuned 🙂 Greek yogurt is a GREAT way to get some protein at lunch time!

5) Oatmeal bowls
If you have access to a microwave then this one’s for you! Make a packet of plain instant oatmeal. Push the oatmeal to one side. Put half a container of greek yogurt (I had some Peach Chobani) on the other side. Top with some fruit (you guessed it, apples and pomegranates) and a bunch of cinnamon. Mix it all together and get some of everything in each bite! Other add-in suggestions include raisins, bananas, peanut butter, chocolate chips, granola, cereal, grapes….the list goes on!

What’s your favorite packed lunch? Send me your ideas and I can include them on future Fridays!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Happy New Year my friends! A few weeks ago, I asked for reader requests to kick off 2011! Well, it’s here now and I couldn’t think of a better way to kick it off then to go back to the basics.

When my lovely cousin asked me to do an article about pantry staples, I immediately started writing it in my head. I think it’s important for anyone, no matter what your living situation, to have most of these staples on hand. People often ask me how I have enough time to cook at home so often instead of going out. The answer is a well-stocked pantry. I usually have over half the ingredients a dish requires at home already and I try to use my grocery store trips to get fresh foods and replenish these staples when they run out.

Having a well-stocked pantry also allows you to whip up an easy meal in a hurry if you have no other ideas.  I was going to wait until after I go to the grocery store tomorrow, but then I thought wait! if this is about pantry staples…then I should have all this stuff on hand even though I haven’t cooked in my own kitchen in almost 2 weeks!

I vividly remember the first time I really stocked my pantry. I guess I must have done it somewhat during my senior year of college when I lived in an apartment…but I was living with 3 other girls and let’s be honest, I was in college and I didn’t really eat that well. A couple months after we graduated, the hubby and I moved into our first apartment. During the move, I was horribly sick with a high fever and was having an allergic reaction to the medicine the doctor gave me. The whole thing was quite miserable…HOWEVER, not even all of that yuck could detract from my excitement for going to the grocery store the first time. Armed with a list similar to the one I’m about to give you, we headed to Wal-Mart and loaded up. By the time we were done, our cart was practically overflowing and the check-out lady was looking at us as if we were slightly crazy. I quickly explained that we were building a pantry so she would quit judging us!

If the thought of building a pantry from scratch seems daunting, take comfort in the fact that many of you reading this are not going to be starting at the very beginning. You probably already have a lot of these things on hand and after reading the list, you can just fill in the gaps. If you are starting from the beginning, yes it is expensive, yes it takes a while, and yes- it’s almost impossible to find enough cupboard space to store everything….but it’s worth it! If you want to eat healthy, stocking your pantry with healthy foods and time-savers is a great way to get started.

So here we go! I’ve organized this list the way my kitchen is organized because it was the easiest way for me to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything. I have a cupboard right by my stove, a little area of the counter and a drawer where I store a lot of my spices and condiments. It looks like this:

 

Then I have a walk-in pantry where I store the rest of the stuff.

And finally, I added a little list of some of my fridge and freezer staples.

Here’s the list! I debated for a while about whether to write little asides about each thing..I feel like some of you will only want the list, while others want to glean as much info as possible…so the list is big and bold, but my thoughts are also included 🙂 I didn’t want to bore you with pictures of every single thing, but I tried to give you the general idea…don’t judge me by my messy cupboards!

 

 

 

 

 

So there you go, my friends. Hope this helps get your New Year off to a great (and organized) start!!

I’ll leave you with this image that the hubby noticed in his beer while we were eating dinner today…do you see the bird on the branch?

So tell me…what’s on your pantry staple list that I forgot to mention?!

–Lindsay–

Hello My Friends!

As promised, here is the recipe for Grandma’s Jello!

This is probably the best jello you will ever make…so prepare yourselves. SO GOOD! And so easy. It has been a Thanksgiving staple in our house for as long as I can remember.

To begin, purchase strawberry jello. I chose sugar free but you can use regular. You need two of the big boxes. It’s that good. Just trust me.

Then gather your supplies. Here’s what you need:

 

Do yourself a favor and make sure the bowl is big enough…I cut it close as you can see.

While the jello is setting, move your cool whip and strawberries to the fridge to thaw. I used fat-free coolwhip but any kind will do. Usually I buy a container of pre-cut strawberries from the store, but this year I happened to have a GIANT bag of frozen strawberries in the freezer so I just thawed some out and cut them up. Your choice.

When the jello is set and the coolwhip is thawed,  mix up the jello and then scoop the cool whip into the jello (I usually use about 1/3 of the container). Insert the mixer and blend away:

 

Stir in the strawberries and consume:

 

Enjoy!

–Lindsay–

Here’s a secret family recipe for you- my Mimi’s cornbread. So delicious.

I made a half batch for just the hubby and I, but I’ll give you the full quantities to make a 9×13 pan.

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

P.S. I also made a small batch of this but shhhh, don’t tell…I didn’t follow the directions. I just mixed the squash, cranberries and apple together, added a tsp of butter, cubed and a tsp of sugar and threw it in the oven with the cornbread. Sometimes you gotta cut corners when it’s 10pm and you haven’t eaten yet 😉

Hi friends-

Starting a food blog is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a long time. I’ve been avoiding it because I am lazy, scared and pretty much unconvinced that there’s anyone out there that would actually care enough to read it. But I finally got tired of people telling me to start one, so here goes.

Let me start by saying a few things:
1) I picked blogger.com for no good reason other than the fact that I recognized the bright orange “B” logo that goes along with it from some of the other blogs I have read in the past.
2) I started by googling “how to start a food blog”…the results were a little overwhelming and all I really found were lots of instructions telling me to “do this” and “don’t do that”…After reading a few of these sites, I decided that I don’t really care if I make the same “mistakes” that other beginning bloggers did, so I quit wasting my time reading the “how-to’s” and just dove right in.
3) A lot of the things I make don’t have recipes…I’ll do my best to tell you how much of each ingredient I put in, but if you require exact measurements…you may get somewhat frustrated with me! And I’m ok with that…no one is making you read this!
4) Some of the things I make don’t turn out well…that’s not going to stop me from posting them. In fact, I consider those the greatest opportunity aspect of this blog…those are the recipes where I need suggestions from you! Read what I did, and then tell me what you would do differently…one of us with eventually get it right!
5) I’m not here to impress anyone. If you get bored reading my blog, quit reading it…you won’t hurt my feelings.
6) I’m not making any promises about how often I will make new posts…I’ll get to it when I get to it…and if I don’t, well then this blog will probably come to an end 🙂

As many of you know, I’ve been posting food pics on facebook for a while now. My first few posts will probably be me trying to figure out how to get those pictures onto here, and then seeing if I can remember the recipes. We’ll see how it goes!

–Lindsay–

Hi friends-

Starting a food blog is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a long time. I’ve been avoiding it because I am lazy, scared and pretty much unconvinced that there’s anyone out there that would actually care enough to read it. But I finally got tired of people telling me to start one, so here goes.

Let me start by saying a few things:
1) I picked blogger.com for no good reason other than the fact that I recognized the bright orange “B” logo that goes along with it from some of the other blogs I have read in the past.
2) I started by googling “how to start a food blog”…the results were a little overwhelming and all I really found were lots of instructions telling me to “do this” and “don’t do that”…After reading a few of these sites, I decided that I don’t really care if I make the same “mistakes” that other beginning bloggers did, so I quit wasting my time reading the “how-to’s” and just dove right in.
3) A lot of the things I make don’t have recipes…I’ll do my best to tell you how much of each ingredient I put in, but if you require exact measurements…you may get somewhat frustrated with me! And I’m ok with that…no one is making you read this!
4) Some of the things I make don’t turn out well…that’s not going to stop me from posting them. In fact, I consider those the greatest opportunity aspect of this blog…those are the recipes where I need suggestions from you! Read what I did, and then tell me what you would do differently…one of us with eventually get it right!
5) I’m not here to impress anyone. If you get bored reading my blog, quit reading it…you won’t hurt my feelings.
6) I’m not making any promises about how often I will make new posts…I’ll get to it when I get to it…and if I don’t, well then this blog will probably come to an end 🙂

As many of you know, I’ve been posting food pics on facebook for a while now. My first few posts will probably be me trying to figure out how to get those pictures onto here, and then seeing if I can remember the recipes. We’ll see how it goes!

–Lindsay–