Home Sweet Homemaker

If you need to feed a small army, this is the recipe to use. Or eat half and freeze half for later.

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef, browned and drained
1 package taco seasoning
1 package dry ranch seasoning
1 can Ro-tel (diced peppers and tomatoes)
1 can (30 oz) tomato sauce
1 can (30 oz) tomatoes
2 cans hot chili beans
1 can black beans, drained
1 can navy or great northern beans, drained
1 can kidney beans, drained
2 cans corn, drained

Instructions

Pour all ingredients in large pot and simmer until hot.
Serve with tortilla chips or rice.
Top with cheese, salsa, olives, and sour cream.

One day when I have all kinds of time, I can design my own printable coloring pages (yeah, right) until then I will enjoy the free ones available over at www.coloring.ws. My kids are completely enamored with anything that is printed from the computer. Another benefit is not having to deal with coloring books and the endless request to “tear this out for me”. Our current favorites are the alphabet pages available here.

I was looking for something I could make for book club without having to go to the store. All I had on hand were strawberries. I found this recipe in the Totally Muffins cookbook which my girls love because it is shaped like a muffin. I had some leftover batter that I poured in a small Pyrex pan and baked. It was just as good as the muffins. The strawberries make it a chunky batter so I was worried about overflow. Next time I will try all of the batter in the muffin pan and see how it turns out. Everyone at book club took an extra muffin home with them, and my family enjoyed them as well.

Ingredients

1 stick butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup milk
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups strawberries, hulled and chopped

Streusel Topping

1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt
2/3 cup all-purpose flour

Instructions

To make streusel, cream together butter and brown sugar until smooth. Mix in cinnamon and salt. Add flour and mix with fork until crumbly. Heat oven to 375. Line muffin tins with paper cups.

Cream together butter and sugar until light and smooth. Add eggs, vanilla and milk. Beat until smooth.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Add to liquid ingredients and stir just until flour disappears. Gently stir in berries. Spoon into muffin cups and sprinkle tops with streusel. Bake 25 minutes or until done.