School Lunches Made Easy

School Lunches Made Easy

The one thing I dread every school year, aside from the early mornings, is back-to-school lunch battles. Don’t laugh, the struggle is REAL!! My kids refused to eat school lunches (unless it was pizza day). So every day I would pack five lunches. Trying to remember which kid liked peanut butter and jelly this week, or which kid would only eat veggies if they were drenched in balsamic vinegar. Food Advertising by After having one too many uneaten lunches return home, I announced to my kids that I was DONE. If they didn’t want hot lunch, they were responsible for making their own lunches from now on. This system has been working out for the past two years, and now the only complaints I get is when we run out of …

25 Fresh & Tasty BBQ Side Dishes

25 Fresh & Tasty BBQ Side Dishes

Summer is here and grillin’ season is in full force! No backyard barbecue is complete without a side. Make sure your have all the fixins at your next party with this list of 25 fresh and tasty BBQ Side Dishes. Be the star of your next cookout with these hot-weather eating foods! Greek Pasta Salad – The Lemon Bowl Black Rice Risotto with Roasted Butternut Squash – Pastry Chef Online Grilled BBQ Chicken Potato Skins – The Recipe Rebel Garlic Parmesan Corn on the Cob – This Girl’s Life 5 Minute Tequila Lime Coleslaw with Cilantro – The Chunky Chef Tangy Apple Slaw – Life of a Ginger Dill Caprese Bruschetta – Pastry Chef Online Balsamic Grilled Vegetables with Goat Cheese – NeighborFood Roasted Poblano and Charred Corn Guacamole – The Chunky Chef BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger Buns Recipe – …

Tasty Tuesday – Tangy Apple Slaw

Tangy Apple Slaw

Two years ago I was fortunate enough to be a participant in the Food Lion Cook Off. The cook-off was like Master Chef, blogger edition. There were two teams of three bloggers who battled it out for the best plate of food. We had no idea what ingredients we would have to work with until we got onto the stage! It was nerve-wracking, but so much fun! We ended up choosing pork chops, which was awesome because I was able to make my Iowa Pork Tenderloin Sandwiches, and for sides we made my Tangy Apple Slaw, and Spicy Mexican Corn. While everything we made was delicious, we ended up losing by 1 point to the other team of bloggers. I blame the monotone color of our plate (see photo below). We didn’t have …

25 Sweet and Sassy Summer Cocktails

I don’t know what the weather is like where you’re located, but the summer heat has already made an appearance here in North Carolina. We had the hottest day of the year on Wednesday, and it’s only mid-June!! (It WAS a perfect day to enjoy some nice cool summer cocktails!) I’m a little scared of what it will be like in August. There is one nice thing about the summer heat, you’ll find no shortage of yummy cocktails to help cool you down. Food Advertising by I’ve compiled a list of 25 Sweet and Sassy Summer Cocktails for you to check out. Any one of these drinks would be perfect for your next party or barbecue. Some you may need a blender to make (check out my recommendation below), others …

How to Make Pretzel Rolls from Scratch

Skip To RecipeI have been obsessed with pretzel rolls since I tried one when we lived in Virginia a few years ago. I’ve purchased them from bakeries many times, but never attempted to make my own. I always thought they would be too difficult to pull off. The other day I came across a recipe for soft pretzel sticks and I asked my friend Jenni Field from Pastry Chef Online if I could use the recipe to make pretzel rolls. She told me yes it would work, but she had a yummy pretzel roll recipe on her website if I wanted to check it out. Since EVERY recipe I’ve ever tried from Jenni has been amazing, I decided to go with her’s. I had to make a few tweaks because I …

burgermonth 2017

Avocado Overload Chicken Nacho Burger

This “Avocado Overload Chicken Nacho Burger” post is part of the #burgermonth celebration happening all month long at GirlCarnivore and across the interwebs with 100 other talented foodies!! Be sure to follow #burgermonth to check them all out! While this epic burger creation is my own for #burgermonth 2017, I would love to thank American Lamb Board, Anolon, Beef, It’s What’s For Dinner, Char-Broil, Curly’s BBQ, Cuttingboard.com, Melissa’s Produce, Primal Stone, Spiceologist, Thermoworks, and Veal Made Easy for the kick butt grill prize packages! Enter to win here. Food Advertising by I like to consider myself somewhat of a foodie. I love to try new foods and visit new restaurants… fancy places, diners, dives, I don’t discriminate (well, I kind of discriminate against chain restaurants, but that’s another story). While …

Homemade Caterpillar Rolls, North Carolina Style

Homemade Caterpillar Rolls, North Carolina Style

Disclosure: “Homemade Caterpillar Rolls, North Carolina Style”  is sponsored in partnership with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services (NCDA&CS) but all opinions are my own.  I love sushi (so do three of my five daughters). To clarify, when I say sushi, for everyone except my adventurous 16 yo, I mean the “safe” rolls, specifically anything that doesn’t have raw fish in it. The closest to raw I will get is seared tuna. The thing is, sushi isn’t cheap (and if it is, be afraid, be very afraid). Food Advertising by Last week I took my girls to a local restaurant that serves half-price sushi at lunch, our bill for 5 people was STILL $70 (not including tip) shh… don’t tell my husband. Since I had such good luck making California Rolls and Vegetable Rolls a …

Lazy Baker Cheddar and Bacon Potato Biscuit Bread

Lazy Baker Cheddar and Bacon Potato Biscuit Bread

I love biscuits. What’s not to love about a biscuit? All that flaky-tender goodness in a little round package! But I’m a lazy baker. I really don’t like to turn out dough or cut out biscuits, and I HATE to clean up the counters after making any kind of rolled out dough. It’s such a mess! One day when I was craving some biscuits I decided to try a “lazy baker” method and just put the finished dough in a baking pan. I was really happy with how they turned out. The first time I made Cheddar and Bacon Potato Biscuit Bread they came out a bit salty. So I played around with the recipe until I found the perfect combination of dough, cheddar, and bacon to create a moist “biscuit” bread. It has …