What's for dinner? Potato & Corn Chowder

Because of my crazy busy internship, Brad ends up making dinner almost every night. That can be a little stressful for him, since he is super busy too and isn't very comfortable with making much more than pasta {although he does make a great stir fry}. I've been looking for ways to make it less stressful for him and help me feel like I'm contributing more. Pinterest is full of links to blogs that sport "25 freezer to crock pot meals" so I thought I would give that a try, but I'll let you know how preparation for that goes after Saturday.

In my hunt for crock pot meals, I found this Potato and Corn Chowder recipe.  Since almost all of the ingredients are canned, I thought it would be pretty silly to try preparing it early, freeze it, and then defrost it in a couple of weeks. But I wanted to try it so Brad threw it together this afternoon and made a loaf of bread in our bread machine to go with it. He said prep involved a lot of opening cans and dumping. It was a perfect meal after a snowy day.

What's for dinner? Pizza!

I really want to be a food blogger. I take pictures of the food I make sporadically but I have a hard time just blogging about everyday stuff let alone trying to make my food look as visually appealing as real food bloggers do. But that's ok, maybe when I don't have to balance work and school and being married and all the other stuff I try to do... Or when I have a better camera. Maybe.

Anyways, pizza from scratch has become one of our go to meals. It's fun, pretty easy as long as I remember to start the dough early, and helps use up things in the fridge.

Chicken, bacon, artichoke, tomato pizza

It helps that I have a great tried and true no-fail pizza dough recipe. In stead of setting the oven to 500, I set it to 400-450. It takes a little bit longer but we've found that everything gets cooked properly.

Barbecue Chicken Pizza

If we don't have left overs, I usually cook up some chicken using this recipe. It makes the chicken really moist and goes with everything. If I don't have time to make a lot in the oven, I'll cook up a breast on the George Foreman.

Cheese rolls

Also, that picture. The cheese rolls. I totally forgot about those. I have gotten used to making cheese sticks from the pizza dough recipe blog post, but you can also make the extra* dough into cheese rolls by rolling the dough into a rectangle, covering it with the butter, garlic and cheese, then rolling the dough up like cinnamon rolls then cutting it into one inch slices. Let them rise for a bit, then bake them until they are golden brown.

*the original dough recipe makes two pizzas. we usually make one into a pizza and one into cheese sticks.

What's for dinner? Ribs!

Last week was finals week and I started my new job. This semester was pretty much the pits for a lot of reasons, so we are very happy to be done! After eight months of being jobless, I was very happy to be starting work, and ecstatic to be working in a place that gives me experience that applies to TR.


To celebrate, I decided to make Brad's favorite meal: ribs! They're actually really easy. We also had mashed potatoes, broccoli, and garlic bread. I splurged and picked up some IBC cream soda to make it a real celebration :) Of course, no day celebration in the Spendlove household would be complete without chocolate! I found a yummy molten chocolate cake on everyone's favorite blog!

Brad "that looks like a caveman meal"

For the mashed potatoes, I added some left over ricotta cheese instead of sour cream, which turned out yummy!

If I had had more time I would have made this artichoke feta garlic bread I found on pinterest instead of the store bought garlic bread.

Ribs {I got this recipe from a cookbook I got at my bridal shower}
8 boneless ribs {less if you are using ribs with bones, we used five beef short ribs this time}
1 jar/bottle of your favorite bar be cue sauce

Pour 1/3 cup sauce on the bottom of the slow cooker. Place ribs in slow cooker and top with sauce. Make sure the ribs are covered with sauce. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
{In a hurry? Cook on high for 1-2 hours, then 2 hours more on low.}