Reese's Pieces Butterscotch Cookies

Delicious soft and chewy cookies with Reese's Pieces and butterscotch chips!

I save a lot of recipes. A lot. I save ones that I want to try and ones that I think my immediate family and even onto my extended family may like because I love to make food for people. This one had Nick, my husband, written all over it. I have such a hard time keeping butterscotch chips stocked in my pantry because he loves them so much and will grab himself a quick sweet treat if they are available to him. They were definitely a wonderful cookie - I love the method of dough being built tall before it goes into the oven because having chewy centers with crunchy edges is how all cookies should be!

One Pot Greek Chicken Risotto

This baked risotto is super easy to make with less babysitting - and it's full of Greek flavors!

I've only made risotto a handful of times, but I've watched so much Hell's Kitchen and I'm certain that this method is probably frowned upon by the pros. However, I really liked this method and I found it to be perfectly fine. It resulted in a delicious dinner and I was, of course, over the moon excited about the Greek food. I used a really wonderful feta cheese that had Mediterranean herbs in it and it's probably my favorite feta of all-time.

Queso Smothered Chicken Fajitas

Find the recipe on The Recipe Jackpot.

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Baked Chicken with Tomatoes, Basils, and Red Chillies

The easiest oven-baked chicken recipe with loads of flavor from fresh tomatoes and basil and spicy red chile peppers!

I love this recipe because it's ridiculously easy to make with few ingredients but it doesn't skimp on flavor. The chicken is tender, the bursting tomatoes are juicy, the peppers add the perfect amount of heat, and the charring on the basil leaves adds so much dimension to the flavor. It really is a great recipe and so so easy. We paired ours with roasted potatoes and steamed broccoli.

Prado's Flatbread Copycat

Check out the Mexicali and Blanca flatbread pizzas inspired by a restaurant in San Diego.

One of my favorite things to do (if you didn't know by now) is to come up with copycat recipes of foods in restaurants or that I've seen on the internet. This particular recipe is from a restaurant in San Diego called (The) Prado. My husband spent 2019 traveling to San Diego for work and he loves it. He actually lived there when he was really young for a few years and so it's a bit nostalgic for him too. One of his favorite foods he ate (outside of all the amazing Mexican food) was the Mexicali flatbread pizza at Prado. He sent me a picture of the menu and I immediately went to the Blanca flatbread pizza with goat cheese and spinach. As I have not had these pizzas and cannot speak to how close the recipes actually are...these are just loose copycat recipes that I made on what little information was given on the menu. Both were crazy delicious.

Turkey Taco Salad + Meal Prep Instructions

This is a great and healthy taco dish that is perfect for meal prepping into 6 ready-to-go portions!

I just want to start out by saying this actually supposed to be a meal prep food. However, in 2020, there was absolutely no reason for me to meal prep. I'm going to leave the instructions on how to do this for meal prepping if that is something you are looking for. We ended up just having this for dinner and it was fantastic. I have spoken here and there about how we are making the switch to subbing turkey for red meat here and there to help with my borderline high cholesterol (hereditary - yay!).

Creamy Chicken Pasta

A quick pasta dish with chicken, asparagus, and tomatoes and a homemade creamy sauce.

I have come to really enjoy pasta recipes with grape tomatoes and then another veggie. Today's recipe has grape tomatoes with asparagus and that's one of my favorite combos because I love asparagus in pasta dishes. I also really enjoy when a pasta has its own quick sauce recipe. It really isn't too much trouble to make your own sauce and, in my opinion, it always tastes way better than a store-bought sauce (except spaghetti sauce - no one can convince me there lol).

Greek Meatball Bowls

Meatballs with a secret ingredient served over couscous with a tomato cucumber salad and tzatziki sauce.

I feel like I'm posting a lot of foods that are Greek or Mediterranean and I cannot get enough of it. I am always craving tzatziki sauce. As long as I'm not making the boys eat tzatziki or feta, they are okay with Greek food. Well, Matthew also doesn't eat the cucumber and tomatoes either, but he's fine with the protein and the grain LOL. I only have one other couscous recipe on my blog which is crazy to me because it's from January of 2020 and it took me this long to post the next one. That likely means that we had couscous for the first time in 2018 and then we had it again in 2019 (this recipe). I cannot think of a time in 2020 that we had it and I'm definitely going to remedy that in 2021. Alright enough boring rambling, check out this awesome recipe!

Chicken Madeira

Sauteed chicken pan-basted with a sweet wine reduction - topped with cheese and broiled. Seriously fantastic.

Alright guys, here is another delicious recipe that originally has mushrooms in it. The only one in our immediate family who likes mushrooms is my daughter, Cami. Nick and I will eat mushrooms if they are small and mostly on pizza, but we will not eat them when they are in a large quantity at all. So for this recipe, the mushrooms went away. I thought this was a great recipe with a wine glaze type deal going on. You are supposed to use Madeira, but I used a local sweet white wine that we had on hand. I love the asparagus with this and the broiled cheesy topping. The original recipe noted to serve this with mashed potatoes, but honestly do your potatoes any which way. You can't go wrong with a baked potato or roasted potatoes!

Wonton Chicken Salad

A quick salad recipe with seasoned chicken, green onions, crispy wonton strips, and a lovely light Asian dressing.

I adapted down this recipe from homemade dressing and wonton strips because I didn't feel like doing that tedious work. Salads can be some of my favorite meals because of how quickly they can be thrown together. I seasoned my chicken with salt, pepper, garlic, and ginger when I cooked them. I think it was the perfect tie-in with the dressing. I will say that I don't feel this is a super filling recipe so we did have ours with egg rolls.

BLT Wraps

These wraps have all the best elements of BLTs and a delicious cream cheese-based sauce to boot.

I kept putting off these wraps over and over again and then finally made them. They are a really good lunch recipe in particular because they are fairly quick. I love that they aren't just bacon, lettuce, tomato. They have this delicious cream cheese sauce that has a tang of mayo and dijon mustard in it. It really compliments the wrap as a whole. To be honest, I can see myself making the sauce with regular BLT sandwiches from here on out!

How I Meal Plan + Meal Planning Tips

I first started meal planning when I was 16. I was in charge of buying groceries and I only had so much money to spend with my part-time job, so I had to learn how to stretch my paycheck to feed myself, my mom, and my brother. We didn't have access to internet unless we went to the library, so I didn't really know meal planning was a thing at all. I just realized that I had to buy just what we needed for each meal and some breakfast and snacks, but nothing extra. I figured out that I had to check what we had on hand at any given time, so I didn't buy extra.

 

So even before adulthood, I was meal planning and I did it in an effort to stick to a budget. Throughout my adult life, I have continued to meal plan as a way to not waste food and money. So I always highly recommend meal planning to anyone. It truly is a good habit to adopt. It saves money, you don't waste as much food, and it also saves time as well because you don't have to figure out what's for dinner.

I started sharing my meal plan regularly in 2014, so I have shared 6 years of weekly meal plans! If you noticed last Monday's post, I shared that it was my final MPM. Of course, I'm going to continue to meal plan, but it's a lot of work getting it all on the blog and I'm switching to a new schedule of 3 posts a week to minimize all the time I spend on this hobby. I don't want to quit because I love blogging but I need to limit the amount of effort it takes to run this blog. I decided to make a comprehensive meal plan post.

Countdown to 2021: Fantastical Faves

Counting down my favorite recipes of 2020 to ring in the new year!

Happy New Year! Here's to hoping 2021 is much kinder to us than 2020 was. I think this is my favorite day of the Countdown is today because I get to share the best of the best, in my opinion. I decided to switch things up and do my favorite from each month. Even that was hard to do so I have a few honorable mentions. I also will mention Nick and the big kids' favorite foods that were posted in 2020.