Welcome!

Lately I feel like we are in a big-time recipe rut...we seem to make the same thing over and over again! Then Heather sent me a recipe for an orange chicken that she tried on Pinterest, and I got excited to try something new!  I thought that this would be a good way for us to stay in touch (I am not going to name names, but I have heard that living far away from loved ones year, after year after 7 years can stink!) Anyways... I recently stumbled across the Pioneer Woman's blog and I got excited to try some of her recipes, I also have several Pinterest recipes that I need to try out and I thought that this would be a fun way to make us try new things every once in a while and share what we liked or didn't like!  I was thinking that I would try something new at least twice a month (every other Thursday or something.) If we rotated and had 3 of us try something one week and then the other 3 the next week we would have 3 new recipes each week and 12 new ones each month, but we would each only have to make 2 new things a month so that we wouldn't be overwhelmed. If you don't have time, or if you don't want to one week that's fine!  If you did a craft and would rather show that instead of a recipe that's fine!  If you never want to do this and think it's a waste of time... you guessed it, that's fine!  I will start us off.... (are you all so excited that you can't stand it, drum roll please...)

Roasted Red Pepper Pasta Sauce (from Pioneer Woman)

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2013/05/quick-and-easy-roasted-red-pepper-pasta/

You can click on that link (I hope that it works, if not... Keri I will need your help my friend) and she has great pictures to go with the recipe.  I have never tasted, bought or used roasted red peppers before, but I actually really liked this recipe.  It was fun to try something new and the kids didn't mind it, because it was red and looked like spaghetti sauce to them anyways.  I  just used a tiny splash of cream and you could have gone without it.  I didn't even use exact measurements because I had a few green onion left, there wasn't much garlic left in the can that I had in the fridge, and I used basil (dry) instead of whatever herb she used and I only used half of the jar of peppers so that I could make it twice and it still turned out yummy.  I also used whole wheat pasta and the 2nd time that I made it (that's right, it was a 2 timer for me!) I chopped up chicken with it.  Tonight Ryan is at Prom for those graduating.  The youth are out of town for youth conference, we don't live by family and anyone else that I would trust with my offspring are out of town... so Ryan went STAG!  I am home in my polka dot pajamas (thank you for them, Sharon!) I microwaved some hotdogs for the kids, but was not super excited about that prospect for my dinner so I made a small batch of this tonight.  Since I don't have a food processor, I use this bad boy which is an imitation Magic Bullet that I got at jcpenny for like 20 bucks. I took a picture of what the peppers look like, because I had no clue what I was looking for when I bought them, I also thought you might enjoy a picture of my children's fantastic meal.  I also thought that I would share this little gem with you that I found at Costco (actually my mom found it at Costco and sent it to us in a package, and we loved it so we went to our Costco to buy it and they don't sell it...stupid Iowa... just kidding Shirley we love Iowa!) Point of the story... since you guys live in Utah, and if you would like a little treat, this was delicious and our favorite flavor was the original caramel corn! See, even if you don't have a recipe to share you can share something else!  Maybe you will be going on a cool trip to DC (ahem... Kristi...) and you find a delicious street vendor treat, or snap a great picture that you want to share!  I typed this really fast, because I want to get downstairs and watch a show... any show that I want on the DVR because I NEVER get to do that!  (so no judging with spelling or grammar!) I will email you the password so that you can all post (just make sure to sign your name at the end so we know who posted what.) Make sure to leave comments if you try a recipe and if you like it or didn't like it.  It won't hurt my feelings if you don't like something that I liked, because trust me... I didn't make up the recipe and I surely won't be making any of them up in the near future! Love you all!
Shae