What’s for dinner, UGH! Say that again and somebody’s gonna die! Let me just preface this post by saying, I like to cook…but not every night! Since the pandemic started, A YEAR AGO, we have been cooking, in our crap-ass old kitchen (remodeling it this fall)… getting very little take-out and we swore off fast food when a couple of us felt like shit the next day (no names…Taco Bell!), bleh!

We also have a grown-ass child living back-at-home for a bit and the kid is kind-of a foodie. He watches cooking shows… he especially loves Babish (who dat?) and Guy Fieri, I like Guy, especially his show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, makes me very hungry though. I get a lot of recipes from Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, she’s an Okie, like my husband Joe, and her cooking is the most similar to my style… a bit of canned or frozen thrown in with fresh ingredients. I just *discovered Magnolia Table, Joanna Gaines’s new *Discovery+ cooking series. She makes fairly traditional recipes, with a twist. She’s easy to follow, and doesn’t use a thousand ingredients… thank you, JoJo!

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We’re not talking super-gourmet here, but some of these recipes and meal ideas have fresh herbs, special spices, and bottled sauces that will elevate your dish and level-up your pantry.

Ree Drummond has a great list of 16-minute meals on Food Network… some have videos, very helpful for visualizing what it should look like, haha. I recently made her Snappy Stroganoff, soooo good and super easy to whip together. I used sliced pre-packaged fajita steak, added a little extra garlic powder to flavor it up, and topped it with a dollop of sour cream, we all loved it!

Ok, who doesn’t love pizza? I’m sorry… you’re weird if you don’t. We have a Hearthkit pizza stone that has sides that slide in the grooves of the bottom stone to create a brick-oven insert in your home oven… it bakes a beautiful rustic pizza in 5 minutes. You can easily use a pizza stone and fire-up the oven to 550 for a great result. Don’t want to hassle with making dough, grab the Wewalka dough in the refrigerated section of your grocery, it’s really good!

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Pizza ingredients to have in the freezer & fridge;

Something else that helps me with inspiration, besides watching Food Network… I subscribe to Taste Of Home. I get their Quick Dinners email and their Recipe Of The Day emails. Click on the links and check out the ones I received recently. I also started bookmarking recipes on a tab on my laptop, so I always have a list to go back to peruse recipes. I typically zhuzh any recipe by adding more or different spices (I’m obsessed with Slap Ya Mama seasoning, it’s so yummy!) fresh produce or herbs. Speaking of fresh herbs, I recently got the Click And Grow an indoor garden, and I love it! I need basil, cilantro, and chives on hand at all times and this grower is absolutely full-proof.

Ok… let’s talk about Trader Joe’s. If you haven’t shopped their freezer aisle, well, you cray! It’s so nice to have these on-hand for a quick delicious meal. Most of these, you just throw in a skillet, simmer and serve. I mean, DUH!
Here are some of my rec’s;

• Kung Pao Chicken – spicy and dee-lish. I add extra veggies, chopped celery, and water chestnuts-if I have them, and more peanuts, serve with rice, top with scallions.
• Brie and Tomato Tarte – light, flakey, buttery, cheesy goodness. Add pinenuts before baking, top w/basil after.
• Tarte D’Alsace – French-style flatbread with ham, caramelized onions & gruyere, SHUT UP! So good.
• Beef & Broccoli – Sweet and spicy! It’s a lot of broccoli… you mos def get your daily dose of veggies here.
• Fried Rice – I get the veggie, but they also have chicken. Add soy sauce and garlic powder and BBQ Pork, yum!
• Scallion Pancakes – OK… you have got to try these! I know they sound weird… just buy them!
• Linguine & Tomatoes Pasta – Light, flavorful and fresh. Add parsley and red pepper flakes.
• Honey Walnut Shrimp – CAUTION: Be very careful that you don’t eat the whole damn bag!

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Wrapping up… I know you’re sick-to-death of trying to figure out what to cook, what to eat, whether to use post-mates (man, it’s expensive) or pull into a drive-through (I’m sorry… but Dick’s burgers & fries is a must-have once in a while) but fresh, homemade and semi-homemade meals are always better, so suck-it-up-butter-cup, have some fun with it, have a glass of wine or mocktail while you cook… AND you can always announce “free for all night!” a couple of times a week like I do. xo–Katie

*feature photo: Amy Schumer Learns To Cook (Chef Chris LOVES fennel-hilarious)