I usually have a reason for trying most recipes and these two are no different. I am including most of this rationale so in the future I can have a good read and occasional laugh.

I am always on the look out for quick and easy or anything that can be made ahead of time. Chocolate Chip Sheet Pan Pancakes. I actually followed the recipe exactly but they came out a little dry for our taste. Everyone ate them and it was a simple way to make pancakes but just not good enough to try again.

I am not even positive if this counts as a recipe but today (Saturday) we are trying to use items on hand and avoid the grocery store in order to stay under the grocery budget for the month. If we are successful then it will be the first time this entire crazy year! We had been given a baked spaghetti and several containers of what I thought was pasta sauce. My plan was to make a homemade pizza and use the sauce on it along with pepperoni and mozzarella cheese. After the dough was made and placed on our pizza pan we discovered the sauce were actually containers of spaghetti noodles and sauce. Zach suggested we just go ahead and add the whole thing to the pizza. We did and it was a HUGE hit. Matt even talked about making this the regular way we make pizza with spaghetti noodles. Double win, no need to purchase or even use our sauce and EVERYONE LOVED the pizza!

The official count is
Repeating 25
Maybe 8
No 17

I am so excited that we should actually finish this challenge with just two more recipes!

I did return to work this week so I was attempting to find some different crock pot recipes to use and this sounded really good. Crock Pot Ranch Pork Chops . The plan was to assembly the night before and simple put in the crockpot and cook on Friday. I also used fresh basil and dill from the garden to make this a little easier. First thing Friday morning, I moved the container from the fridge to the crockpot. Opps forgot to plug it up and start it. Luckily Matt was still home and he was able to start before he left for work. The pork chops were really tender but the flavor really stopped at the top layer. We all ate the pork chops and we actually have enough to make pork fried rice on Monday. This is not a repeat unfortunately.

Saturday morning after picking tomatoes we needed something to do with them so I decided to try and make salsa. This was also a good thing because I can control what goes in the salsa so Lily does not have an reaction. Decided to try the Pioneer Woman’s version! I am really pleasantly surprised. I did not add the additional jalapeno pepper and we used two cans of rotel and no cilantro. It was awesome and a definite repeat.

The official count is
Repeating 24
Maybe 8
No 16

This is a recipe that I have had printed for a long time. I found it in my recipe file and decided to give it a try. I am going to be really honest up front and say that I probably made enough changes to this recipe to just call it my own. First, of course I did not go out and buy horseradish cheddar or even white cheddar cheese for that matter. I used a cup of sharp cheddar and a cup of shredded colby jack. Another 1/2 cup of sharp cheddar was placed on top. Second change, I doubled the amount of onions the recipe called for and added a 1/2 cup of green peppers to give it more flavor. I also tripled the breadcrumbs that I used on top.

The results from this recipe are mixed as well. Gourmet mac and cheese describes the overall taste. Everyone ate the meal and some even had seconds and thirds. One suggestion was to cut the stew beef into smaller pieces, another was to add garlic and more green peppers. Personally, I actually think it tasted better after sitting for an hour. Another plus to this dish is that it stretched one pound of stew beef into a meal for 6 with enough left-overs for probably a lunch for three. A huge down side to this is the amount of effort and time it took to complete the process from start to finish. I spent over an hour in the preparation not counting any cook time and all the kids ended up helping me pull one part or another of the recipe together. Based on time (one hour for gourmet mac and cheese) I am placing this one in the no category.

The official count is
Repeating 23
Maybe 8
No 15

Now only 6 additional recipes to meet my goal!

One of foods that I was having the most difficulty finding a good use for from the school supplied lunches was sweet potatoes. We enjoy maybe one baked sweet potato a month but I was struggling to find another use. It occurred to me yesterday to try and find a recipe for sweet potato fries. After some research, I ended up combining several of the recipes that I had read. I managed to get exactly what I did on this page. We tried a batch at lunch today and they were AWESOME! In fact they were so good that Matt helped me make 5 additional bags to freeze. We did not add the oil and will do this just prior to baking! This is a huge huge win for us!

The official count is
Repeating 23
Maybe 8
No 14

Now only 7 additional recipes to meet my goal!

This looks incredible! I was so excited to try this recipe for Tomato pie. The recipe itself was also very easy to follow. Spoiler alert……. not going to be making it again anytime soon. I just fell flat somewhere along the way. I did not use any onions in the pie because I knew my family would not like that aspect of it. This is probably the third recipe I have tried over the years so maybe we just don’t like Tomato pie?

The official count is
Repeating 22
Maybe 8
No 14

Eight more recipes to try this year, I will be very honest and say that I doubt this is accomplished before I go back to work in a couple of weeks.

This week has been busy but a normal kind of busy so I am choosing to be thankful! We did manage to squeeze in two new recipes both of which are repeating so that is the best of everything.

First is Instant Pot Cheeseburger Macaroni, let me start by saying that I have found very few things that I absolutely love the instant pot for. I did learn to use the saute feature for this recipe so that is a plus as well! This is is a quick and easy replacement for hamburger helper. A bonus was it used alot of ingredients that I have on hand. The one exception was the cheddar cheese soup. I am going to place an order with Amazon to get this stocked up now. I decided to use jumbo elbow as well to improve the texture. I did not measure the last cup of cheese and was actually told that it might could use less cheese. I am going to use this again for a quick filling meal during the school year.

A bad storm on Friday night left us with a couple of broken tomato plants which meant was had a couple green tomatoes. Matt decided to try and make fried green tomatoes. Everyone but Lily decided they were good. This will be a good way to use up tomato if we need to. I thought they were really good but just not something I would attempt to make.

The official count is
Repeating 22
Maybe 8
No 12

Only 9 more new recipes to try before reaching our goal!

It is hot outside YAY! We are moving toward more summer type meal which means some good old fashion salads and pasta salads. So this week we only have one new recipe. But on the bright side it is one that was cool and definitely a repeat!

Easy Pasta Carbonara is from the site Southern Savers This is probably one of the sites I use the most for finding awesome deals. During the last year, she has begun to include recipes. This one will definitely by a repeat. Lily made the recipe and used elbow noodles as her pasta. The only complaint that was given was that the noodles were barely done. So next time she will cook the noodles even two minutes longer and it will be perfect.

The official count is
Repeating 21
Maybe 8
No 12

I am surprised to see that we are averaging 50% approval rate for this. Some things I really did not expect!

First only 12 more recipes to try and I will have met my goal! WOOT WOOT WOOT WOOT! It has been fun trying new things and I am really enjoying trying to find recipes to use the items we have on hand. This week we tried 3 new recipes of which two were definitely to use fresh produce on hand so that it would not go bad!

Garlic Parmesan Sugar Snap Peas- We are definitely coming to the end of growing for our sugar snap peas and I had about three cups sitting in the refrigerator. Kendall is try of eating them raw! These were just ok. Most of them got ate but it is definitely something I would not do again. I used them as a side dish for egg roll in a bowl. Which is also a fairly new recipe that I have made maybe once before. I had purchased an extra bag of cole slaw mix for BBQ chicken salad last week not sure how much I would need. This was a great way to use that bag of mix along with a couple of extra packs of carrots. The egg roll in a bowl, I actually finished for lunch but everyone else thought it was kind of of bland but their favorite part of an egg roll is the outside anyway.

Slow Cooker Pear and Ginger Applesauce The school lunches have significantly improved in both quality and variety for the summer. We are receiving alot of fresh fruits and vegetables. Pears for some reason were the item of the week for the first week. We received a total of 12. Apples appeared to be a runner up as we received 10. We did use most of the apples for fried apples but the second week brought another batch of apples. I decided to try this just to use 6 pears and 6 apples. It is awesome, everyone ate it hot the first day and I have tried it cold the second day. This is a definite repeat when we get more pear. My mother said her pear trees are loaded so this may be something to freeze in the fall.

Cheesy Corn Dog muffins I have actually printed this recipe three times. I discovered when I was trying to organize recipes. I made it on a baseball day! Everyone but Matt seemed to really like them. So I will put them in a repeat stack. They will be a great think to eat at the pool or beach or even in the car as they don’t make alot of mess.

The official count is
Repeating 20
Maybe 8
No 12