Recipe Suggestions

The way I learned to cook is by trying to make my favorite restraunt foods at home. I only paid $20 for Cajun shrimp pasta at Red Lobster once! Then I went home, boiled some linguine. Sauteed Shrimp in cajun seasoning, added cajun seasoning to bottled Alfredo and voila! I can feed the whole family that dish for $15 Think of what you would order if you were going out, then go to Allrceipies.com and search for it.
Another tip is to look on the back of the box/bag of an ingredient you love. I found a great recipe for tortilla soup on the bag of frozen corn. It's s cans of Rotel, and tomatoe sauce plus bags of frozen corn, and black beans. Add leftover cut up chicken. Serve with cheese and tortilla chips on top.
The back of the pasta box always has good recipies.

Cooking.com's website is a great resource I use often. You can put in a few ingredients and it will show recipes using them. My husband and I also enjoy Rachel Ray's recipes (sometimes I simplify if the more exotic ingredients are available in my area). I also have the Good Housekeeping and Betty Crocker cookbooks-which are full of good staples.

www.allrecipes.com
www.weelicious.com

Those are both great sites for recipes and ideas for new meals!

I also write for a mom's blog, and we have a few recipes on our site - paella, potato soup, zucchini-carrot muffins (my kids love those!). Check us out at www.morethanmothers.com.

Good luck! It's fun experimenting with new flavors!!
Jen

I highly recommend Cooking Light magazine. I was a novice at cooking when we got married 11 years ago and wanted some easy recipes that were also healthy. My MIL suggested this magazine and I've kept renewing my subscriptions ever since. We've yet to have one bad recipe, and my husband can be pretty vocal when he hates a recipe. You can check out their recipes online to see if they'd match your tastes, but they usually do offer a wide variety of foods.

Sloppy Joes
Serves 8
Ingredients
• 2 pounds ground beef (or turkey)
• ½ cup chopped green bell pepper
• 2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 4 teaspoons prepared yellow mustard
• 1 cups ketchup
• 3/4 cups brown sugar
• 2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• Buns
In a medium skillet over medium heat, brown the ground beef and green pepper; drain off fat. Stir in the garlic powder, mustard, ketchup, & brown sugar; mix thoroughly. Pour into crock pot and simmer for (at least) two hours. Season with salt & pepper.

We have these once a month. It's even better the next day for lunches.

This is one of my husband's favorites, its easy, can be frozen, and had tons of veggies:
Italian Wedding Soup
@ 1 pound italian sausage, out of casing
@ 1 zuccini - sliced in rings
@ 1 summer squash - sliced in rings
16 oz can of tomatos (chopped, stewed, whatever)
1 onion, chpped
Several cans of chicken broth (@ 3-4)

Bag of spinach
Package of Tortelini (bertoli?)

Steps:

Saute onion, brown sausage,

add squash, zucini, tomatos, and broth - add more water as needed. simmer.

Boil another pot of water, add tortelini and cook @ 8 minutes.

A couple of minutes before serving, add spinach tortelini to the soup. Stir. (if you add those earlier, tortelini soaks up the soup and the spinach gets too dark. Its still good - just better if you do it at the end)

Garnish with parmesean cheese and serve with garlic bread.

I LOVE to cook and I make 4 to 5 new meals every week...love trying new things...I have a menu list of all the meals that are keepers to rotate through and be able to keep track of to look at in future in case I forget some lol...I highly suggest looking up recipes online...this is a daily hobby for me and its fun!! When you find some that look/sound good add to your favorites so you can look back through them. I suggest kraftecipes.com, allrecipes.com, campbellsouprecipes.com, and tasteofhome.com...just to name a few lol...but there are so many great recipe sites :) I made apple country ribs from taste of home last week they were AWESOME!!! Also have made several different pork recipes that are great such as orange glazed pork chops, apple cherry pork chops, and ranch smothered pork chops all 3 very tasty and easy!! Feel free to pm me if you want any other recipe ideas/info...I love to talk about cooking :) Have fun!!

I suggest a great marinia sauce. We are huge on italian food and great red sauce is a perfect meal, and easy. Pasta, garlic bread and a good salad!

I agree with what the other two ladies said, those are good starting places for ideas!

Some of our new [easy] favs:
-sausage and rice
-veggie lasanga (with no-cook noodles)
-chili (or anything in a crockpot!)
-burgers (with a mix; try cream cheese and diced jalepenos instead of your regular favorite cheese!)