Gluten Free Butterscotch Scones

Another recipe I found on the Tea Time website in my search for gluten free scones was one for chive and goat cheese scones.  I made them with feta and ate the whole batch by myself in a week.  Oh my goodness, they were so good!  Feta is one of my favorite cheeses.  It added such a nice saltiness to the scone.  One night for supper we even had Nana's Sausage Gravy.  While the boys had their gravy over store bought biscuits, I poured my gravy over one of those scones.  Divine!

Baked Brown Rice

In addition to both me and the 9 year old ending up with 6 weeks of bronchitis the end of October through November, one of the reasons why I took a blogging break was because my husband decided he needed to lose some weight and eat healthier.  Even though I try to cook healthy for supper, and we don't eat that much by way of processed foods, he wasn't eating healthy through the day.

Easy Pizza Sauce

Before I went gluten free, we used to have homemade pizza a couple times a month.  To help us eat as healthy as we can and to save money, I decided I should start making my own pizza sauce.  After all, I'm making my own marinara, pizza sauce couldn't be difficult either.  And it isn't.

I found a good sauce we liked from Kitchen Treaty.  This recipe had everything we wanted in a pizza sauce.  Full of tomato flavor? Check. Just a hint of heat? Check.  Super simple? Check.  Easy to adapt? Check.  Freezes well? Check.  I adapted this sauce slightly to accommodate our tastes and my cooking style.

Gluten Free Orange and Cream Cheese Scones

Two of my closest girlfriends from college are both big tea drinkers.  One of them even throws beautiful tea parties for her friends.  I was honored enough to be invited to one back in November for our other friend's birthday.  The table was set with heirloom china, crystal, and silver.  She had a savory course and a sweet course, four different blends of tea, and was even kind enough to make sure I had some apple cinnamon gluten free scones perfect for fall so I could enjoy my tea to the fullest.

Yellow Rice

I realized the other night when I made this fantastic dish by Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom that I had never shared my yellow rice recipe with you.  It's such a simple recipe, it's easy to overlook, but it's such a versatile side dish and good starter for more substantial recipes.  The best part about this is, it's cheaper and healthier than those boxes or bags of yellow rice mix in the grocery store.  I know exactly what I'm eating when I make it myself and it takes only an extra minute to or two.

Ham and Cheese Corn Muffins

The 8 year old has decided that he's tired of sandwiches.  Since he takes his lunch to school, this is a bit of a problem.  So I set out trying to find something that would be filling, have protein, be reasonably healthy, and would be packable for his lunch.

Meal Plan Camping Style

Things have been a little stressful in good ways and in not so good ways around the Now Things Are Cookin' household the last few weeks, which is why the blog has been quiet lately.  My husband and his best friend have known each other literally all their lives.  They lived across the street from each other from the time they were babies until they graduated from high school and even roomed together in college.  Two weeks ago my husband's best friend's father passed away.  Both the family and my husband have been taking it hard.

Two days after the funeral, we took our annual  four day/three night (car) camping trip with three other families. We've taken this trip ever since the 8 year old was the 3 year old,  It's always a trip we look forward to every year, even after the disaster of a trip four years ago when it was 100 degrees every day and none of our campsites had any shade!

Bread and Butter Freezer Pickles

As I'm working on this post, I'm also chatting on Facebook with one of my parents' long-time friends, Marian, whom I haven't seen in more years than I can count.  When I was little, for a few years my parents, Marion and her husband, and another family all shared a large neighborhood garden.  It was quite large with lots of space for experiments - I remember the year they tried to grow peanuts! - and standbys.  Zucchini, anyone?

Vacation Meal Ideas

Later this summer when our family goes on vacation to Virginia Beach, we're planning on eating most of our meals in the hotel room to save money.  We did this last year on our vacation too, but I wasn't quite as prepared.  This year I'm already making food to freeze and take with us on our trip.  My husband and I are already talking about eating out at the two restaurants we tried last year, but for the most part, we'll make all our meals in our room or pack picnic lunches to be enjoyed on the beach.

Bolognese Sauce with Linguine

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I keep the 8 year old's best friend after school until right at supper time.  On Tuesdays we go to our house, and on Thursdays we give the boy an opportunity to be at his house.  Unfortunately on Thursdays this means the 8 year old, and I don't get home until almost 6:00p.m.  So Thursdays are almost always "slow cooker night."  That way when I get home all I have to do is set the table, do some last minute prep, and put dinner on the table.  

Salisbury Steak

One of my goals this year is to clean out my cookbook collection and get rid of cookbooks that I am never going to realistically use.  While I've been working on this process one book at a time, I've realized that most of the cookbooks I'm keeping are the ones that have simple, wholesome, time tested recipes.  The ones that generally get the boot are the ones with fancier, trendy recipes.