Cooking

What We Got In Our Home Chef Meal Delivery This Week + how to SAVE $35 on yours

May 25, 2021 By Paula 1 Comment

Home Chef is bringing people together around the dinner table.

With simplicity as their mantra, Home Chef meal delivery is designed to help you save time while still being able to enjoy real home cooking and the joy that comes with it. From online to doorstep…to your kitchen table, they make planning and preparing a home-cooked meal simple, intuitive, and inspirational every step of the way.

Each meal kit we received from Home Chef came with all the needed ingredients (except olive oil, salt, and pepper) and an easy-to-follow recipe so it was super easy to prepare a delicious meal. At the beginning of each recipe, it tells you what you will need to prepare it. For example: In the case of the pizza we needed olive oil, salt, cooking spray, a baking sheet, a medium non-stick pan, and a mixing bowl. The chili required olive oil, salt, pepper, a mixing bowl, and a large non-stick pan. But, when it was time to fix the easy prep & pan included penne bake nothing was needed to complete it.

Home Chef publishes the ingredients and full nutritional content of each meal online. So you know what you’re getting when you order. I love that Home Chef makes an effort to be eco-friendly. The box that everything arrived in is lined with recycled fiber insulation and when possible they used meal packaging that we can reuse.

With many meal delivery services to choose from, Home Chef stood out. With lots of options to customize your package, meals that are easy to prepare in under 30 minutes, and the perfect amount of ingredients they’re a great option for singles, small and large families, as well as cooks of all experience levels.

Want to join us in our culinary adventure and get $35 off your first order? You can when you use our referral link. It’ll take you to the Home Chef website where you’ll see a green “Get Started” button at the top of the page. Click it and answer a few questions to help them personalize your menu selections. Your $35 discount will be taken off at checkout.

Here’s a sample of some of the great meals you can prepare using their meal delivery service.

Home Chef Three Cheese Chicken Penne Bake

This oven-ready offering gives you great flavor at a fraction of the time and with barely any work.

After mixing the pasta, chicken, marinara sauce, seasoning blend, Parmesan, and a small amount of water in the provided tray and spreading it into an even layer I just had to top it with butter, then Asiago, mozzarella, and panko. Each of which was included and came individually packaged. I then covered the tray with foil and baked covered, 15 minutes. After that, I baked it uncovered until the cheese was bubbly. All that was left to do was eat!!! No clean-up — as this yummy dish was mixed and baked in the pan that arrived with my kit!

Home Chef Cheesy Mexican-Style Street Corn Pizza
with lime crema

Mexican street corn is a special treat south of the border. In this recipe, you take the sweet corn, cheese, and lime and placed it on the best vehicle for flavor, a pizza!

After prebaking our flatbreads and preparing our ingredients, to assemble and bake the pizzas we simply placed the flatbreads, flat-side down, on our prepared baking sheet and spread a thin layer of the sour cream-lime mixture on each. Next, we topped each evenly with our corn and chicken mixture. After baking, we divided the cheese and remaining seasoning between the two pizzas. In the future, I will put the Oaxacan cheese on before baking. I don’t like cilantro as it tastes like dishsoap to me so I omitted it from my pizza. l appreciated that the ingredients weren’t mixed together so I could do this. We will be having this pizza again as it was very tasty and easy to make.

Home Chef BBQ-Cheddar Bacon and Beef Chili with Crema

BBQ, cheddar, bacon, and beef; and it gets made in less than 15 minutes. Need I say more?!

I made this selection as it was a unique type of chili that we had never had the pleasure of trying. Given that neither of us eats bell peppers we would not have ordered something like this out. I know two of the three meals I choose had an ingredient that I don’t like. This is surprising given the fact that I can count on one hand the foods that I don’t like or would never try. However, the way that your ingredients come there is a lot of flexibility in how you prepare each dish. For this chili, I simply omitted the peppers and added some mushrooms that we had in the fridge. After cooking the ground beef, mushrooms, and white portions of green onions in a large skillet until there was no more pink in the ground beef it was time to finish the chili. To do this was easy, as all I had to do was add the premeasured ingredients, a small amount of water, and salt to the beef mixture. While it was cooking I made the Crema using the sour cream they sent and half of the green portion of the onions. It wasn’t long before it was done and it was time to eat. Garnishing the chili with the cheese, crema, bacon bits, and remaining onion I served us up each a nice sized bowl to enjoy. This is a very subtly flavored chili, nothing like the bold in your face flavor that we are used to. The hint of BBQ sauce in each bite was perfect!

Overall, we were delighted with each meal and are looking forward to our next Home Chef delivery this Friday!

Choose Your Plan

		On the Home Chef Plan! Every week they’ll recommend delicious meal kits that are a mix of fresh flavors and familiar favorites they think will please your palate.
		On the Fresh and Easy Plan! Every week they’ll recommend yummy meals that require little to no prep, simple cooking, and easy clean-up for fantastic dishes!

View Your Upcoming Menus
View all available menus for that week and upcoming weeks. Just use the calendar button to navigate through your upcoming orders, and click “Edit Meals” to update your selections for that week.

Select Your Meals
See a meal you want to try? Simply click Add to Order. Expecting company? The servings drop-down allows you to add servings. Many of the meals allow you to customize them. You can swap or upgrade ingredients to better suit your tastes. There are meals for the calorie-conscious, vegetarians, and those who are gluten, soy, dairy, or nut-free.

Manage your Deliveries
You can easily edit your delivery day and servings, skip weeks, or even pause your subscription on their website.

Share Home Chef and earn credit!
Earn free food by inviting your friends to sign up. They get $35 off their first order and when they receive their first order, you’ll get a $35 Home Chef credit to use on your next order, too! Bonus: The amount of credit you can earn through invitations is unlimited! And, the promotional discount recipient can freely choose to skip or cancel future deliveries free of charge once they redeem their referral credit.

I wanted to share our experience with this service and was not compensated in any way for this post. If you sign up I will earn a credit that I can use on my next order just like any other customer who refers a new user.

Each meal kit we received from Home Chef came with all the needed ingredients (except olive oil, salt, and pepper) and an easy-to-follow recipe so it was super easy to prepare a delicious meal. #mealdelivery #subscription #easymeals #cooking

What We Got In Our Home Chef Meal Delivery This Week + how to SAVE $35 on yours #mealdelivery #subscription #easymeals #cooking

Smart Tips for Online Shopping

Must Have Accessories For Your Instant Pot/Electric Pressure Cooker

April 17, 2019 By Paula 49 Comments

Congratulations, you have an electric pressure cooker and love cooking delicious meals quickly and easily with it. However, if you’re like us, you want to cook every meal in it! And thanks to the accessories that you can get for it, using the Instant Pot for more ways for more foods is easier. In fact, we use ours several times a week thanks to the various accessories that we have!

While most electric pressure cooker pots come with a few useful tools such as rice spoon, soup spoon, a rice cup, wire rack, and possibly a silicone grip there are so many other accessories available that can make using your pot even better. Here are our must-have accessories for everyone’s favorite pressure cooker!

Stainless Steel and Ceramic Non-Stick Cooking Pot – Since you should always have more than one inner pot handy, so that you can cook another dish without having to clean up the first one first, we recommend you purchase one with your pot. Our machine came with a metal alloy non-stick cooking pot so we invested in a quality stainless steel inner pot when we placed our order. If you’re doing a lot of cooking in your Instant Pot, you’re going to want another non-stick inner pot. We suggest getting a quality ceramic one for durability and longevity.
Steamers – From baskets to stackables, there are several steaming accessory options available. A large basket with handle for easy removal is great for cooking multiple portions of a single food. We got ours in an Instant Pot accessory set on Amazon. If you need to multitask, a stackable steamer insert works great. Having one of these allows you to cook two separate things at the same time without mixing them together! They need to have about the same cooking time though.
Springform Pan – This pan is great for both sweet and savory recipes. You can use a springform pan to make a single serving size cheesecake, torte, lasagna, soufflé, or meatloaf in your Instapot.
Tempered Glass Lid – You will need this lid when you want to make yogurt, braise, slow cook, or steam food without pressurizing. Great for the sauté, slow cooker, or keep warm functions. A glass lid is also great for serving. Just remove the pressure cooking lid and place the glass lid on top.
Egg Bites Mold – Why go to Starbucks for egg bites when you can make your own in the Instant Pot? This mold is also great as a reusable storage container and freezer tray. We are loving all the uses we’ve found for the one that came in our set.
Egg Rack/Egg Trivet – Make perfectly hard-boiled or soft-boiled eggs in just minutes. To prevent the eggs from being damaged during cooking, keep them steady and upright with an egg rack. Cooking eggs in the pressure cooker not only takes a fraction of the time that it takes on the stovetop, but pressure-cooker eggs are so easy to peel. The shells practically fall off. This rack can also do double duty to lift other pans off the bottom of the pot.
Yogurt Cups and Pressure Sterilization Rack – This is ideal for making individual yogurts instead of one large batch. Most yogurt maker cup racks can also hold baby bottles, rings, lids, and nipples for sterilization. By pressure steaming them, you can kill bacteria, fungi, and viruses.
Mini Mitts or Gripper Clips – Whether you’re cooking directly in the inner pot or cooking with one of the racks, pans, baskets, or molds; things are hot! Both of these tools are great for moving hot items from your stove top, oven, air fryer, microwave, or pressure cooker.
Silicone Cupcake Liners – They are great for making egg bites, poached eggs, mini cheesecakes, and more! To make “poached” eggs, crack an egg into each cup and place them on a metal trivet/rack inside the pot. Add 1 cup of water to the bottom of the pot, cook on low pressure for 3 minutes, then do a natural pressure release. Perfect for eggs benedict!

Save and Add Versatility With A Great Set

If you want to save on the cost of purchasing these items, consider getting several of them in an accessory set. We did just that with the KITOOLBASE Mini Accessories for 3 QT or 4 Qt Instapot.

Here what we thought of the set…

Loving our electric pressure cooker, it is our goto for quick and easy cooking. So when our Instant Pot accessory set arrived we couldn’t wait to start using all the different items. In the box we found a 4″ springform buckle pan, a 7″ x 4″ loophole steamer basket, a silicone egg bites mold, stainless steel egg steam trivet rack, a bowl/dish clip, stainless steel kitchen tongs, two silicone cooking pot mitts, three magnets, and a cookbook.

The three magnets in the set have helpful information about cooking times and recipe guide includes several interesting items to cook. We found these items very helpful. And, after putting the magnets on the refrigerator, the steamer basket was the first item that we used and found that it was perfect for steaming baby carrots. With all the veggies that we will be picking from our garden, I see this item getting a lot of use! Second, we tried the egg rack and since we had such great results, I am happy that we can get rid one more item that clutters the kitchen, the hard boiled egg cooker.

The egg bites mold is not only great for making copycat Starbucks Sous Vide Egg Bites it also works great as a reusable storage container and freezer tray for things such as homemade baby food, stock, freezer jam, pre-portioning fruit for smoothies, single servings of sauces, summertime treats like ice cream or pudding pops, jello, and other molded desserts.

The small 4″ springform pan is perfect for making a single serving size cheesecake, lasagna, or meatloaf. And, we use the mini mitts to get items out the oven, air fryer, and off the stove every day. They really are the perfect size! The tongs and bowl/dish clip, while interesting items to have, they will not replace the heavy duty ones that we already owned. Not a deal breaker, since there were so many great items in this set.

Overall, we are very pleased with our purchase and would recommend this set to others.

If you are lucky enough to own a 6 – 8 Quart Instant Pot/Electric Pressure Cooker, Nice Kitchen offers a great starter set. It includes a 7 ½” x 2 ¼” steamer basket, 7″ springform pan, egg rack/egg trivet, two silicone mitts, small cookbook/recipe guide, and three magnets with cooking times.

This set includes the same recipe guide and magnets as the one for our 4 qt pot. The larger 7″ springform pan is perfect for making desserts or main dishes for two to four people. And, with a second set oven mitts, we will always have a pair handy. We only wish the steamer basket was as deep as the one for the smaller pressure cooker.

Throw the BEST Cinco de Mayo Fiesta!

April 5, 2019 By Paula 25 Comments

Cinco de Mayo, which literally means May 5th in Spanish, commemorates the victory of the Mexican army against French forces during the Battle of Puebla on this day in 1862. The significance of the defeat of French forces at Puebla is that it gave Mexican forces a significant morale boost since the French army was much bigger and better equipped then they were. However, it was only a temporary boost and the French army eventually prevailed in later battles. Even so, it did mark the end of European aggression in the Americas by military force. For more about the Battle of Puebla visit this Warfare History Network post.

In Mexico, Cinco de Mayo is primarily observed in the state of Puebla, where Zaragoza’s unlikely victory occurred with military parades, recreations of the Battle of Puebla, and other festive events. Although other parts of the country also take part in the celebration for many Mexicans, May 5 is a day like any other. Because it is not a federal holiday, offices, banks, and stores remain open.

The holiday is more popular in the United States and has been celebrated nonstop since before the Civil War. Today, it is not only seen as a source of pride for both Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, but also gives us an excuse to indulge in the food, drink, and music of Mexico.

Grab these free Cinco de Mayo coloring pages, Pinata and Mexican Dancer, from Crayola.

Mexican Hot Cocoa Fiesta Drink

For this festive Mexican Hot Cocoa Fiesta Drink, simply brew one Mexican Hot Cocoa Single Serve Cup on the 4 oz setting. Then, transfer into Margarita glass and fill the remainder of the glass with chocolate milk. Top with whipped topping and lightly dust with cayenne pepper powder or paprika.

Will you be throwing a Mexican fiesta for Cinco de Mayo? After sending out Mexican-themed party invitations you’ll need to plan your menu. To help you, we’ve compiled some of the best Mexican recipes from all over the web and put them on the linky below. Once your menu is set, it’s time to plan the rest of the fiesta. Using the colors of the Mexican flag which are red, white and green are a good choice for your decorations. Photo booths are a fun way to commemorate the celebration. Here are some fun free printable photo booth props. Of course, no Mexican fiesta is complete without a piñata.

Got a great recipe? We’d love for you to add yours to the linky.

Ultimate Holiday Side! The Best Baked Macaroni and Cheese EVER!

April 2, 2019 By Paula 43 Comments

There are a lot of southern and classic baked mac & cheese recipes out there. And, we’ve tried a ton of them over the years. We always come back to my Mama’s recipe because none of them are as good. The addition of eggs, evaporated milk, eggs, butter, and mustard powder in its recipe gives this custard-style baked Macaroni and Cheese dish lots of cheesy gooey goodness.

Best Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients

- - 1 pound dried elbow macaroni
  - 1 tablespoon butter, plus some for buttering the dish
  - 4 eggs, beaten
  - 1 tablespoon dried mustard powder
  - 2 teaspoons salt
  - 1 teaspoon pepper
  - ½ teaspoon garlic powder
  - ½ teaspoon onion powder
  - 2 cans evaporated milk
  - 6 cups sharp grated cheddar cheese
  - 2 cups grated colby jack cheese
  - Paprika, for sprinkling

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350° F.
Boil macaroni in water and 1 teaspoon salt until al dente.
While macaroni is cooking, pour milk into a large bowl. Stir in eggs. Add mustard, pepper, garlic powder to the milk. Mix remaining salt in 1 tablespoon hot water and add to milk mixture. Add cheese, reserving enough cheddar to sprinkle on top.
When pasta is done, drain thoroughly and return to pot. Stir butter into pasta.
Add milk mixture to macaroni and stir.
Pour macaroni into a large buttered casserole dish or lasagna pan, and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Sprinkle with paprika. We also bake in two smaller pans similar to these from Le Creuset. One works well for a half recipe, too.
Bake for about 50 minutes, or until custard is set and the top is crusty. Let stand for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Copycat Chick-Fil-A Chicken Sandwich and Dipping Sauce Recipes

March 20, 2019 By Paula 28 Comments

At $3.79 each, taking a family out for one of these sandwiches can wreck your weekly budget. Not wanting to give up enjoying these delicious sandwiches I set out to find out how to make them at home. Thanks to the Copycat Chick-Fil-A Chicken Sandwich recipe below and stocking up on boneless chicken breasts when they are on sale for $1.99 per pound, we can make eight sandwiches for less than $10!

It feels great to feed the entire family without emptying our pockets of all their cash. And, this chicken sandwich gets its flavor from a yummy pickle brine just like the one at our favorite fast-food restaurant.

Copycat Chick-Fil-A Chicken Sandwich

Ingredients

1 8-ounce boneless, skinless chicken breast
½ cup dill pickle juice
¾ cup milk
1 cup vegetable oil for frying
1 egg
¼ cup flour
1 teaspoon powdered sugar
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
2 hamburger buns, toasted
6 dill pickle slices
1 teaspoon of Tabasco sauce for a spicy sandwich

Directions

Place a chicken breast on a cutting board. With your hand flat on top of it, carefully slice the chicken in half horizontally to make 4 thin cutlets. So that the breasts cook more evenly, pound them out so that the breasts are of equal thicknesses. I do this by placing the cutlets between 2 pieces of heavy-duty plastic wrap and pounding with a mallet (or heavy skillet) until they are ¼-inch thick.
In a large resealable plastic bag, combine chicken, pickle juice, and ¼ cup milk (add a teaspoon of Tabasco sauce for a spicy sandwich). Chill for at least 30 minutes.
In a large skillet preheat oil to 350° F.
Meanwhile, in a shallow dish combine remaining ½ cup milk and egg. In another shallow dish combine flour, powdered sugar, salt, and pepper.
Drain chicken. Dip chicken in egg mixture, allowing excess to drip off. Dip in flour mixture to coat. For extra thick crispy crust REPEAT this step with each piece.
Add chicken to hot oil and fry 4 to 8 minutes or until golden brown and internal temperature reaches 165° F, turning once. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate.
Place chicken on a bun and top with pickles, and top bun. Serve with waffle fries, if desired.

You can even buy straight pickle juice by the gallon—absolutely no pesky pickles included.

For baked version: Substitute Panko bread crumbs for the flour and coat as directed. Bake at 375° F for 10-15 minutes until cooked through.

For air fryer version: Add 2 Tablespoons Potato Starch to the flour mixture and coat as directed. Grease basket/pan of air fryer well. Place the chicken in air fryer and spray the chicken with oil. Cook at 340° F for 6 minutes. Flip the chicken and spray with oil. Cook for 6 more minutes. Increase the temperature to 400° F and cook for two minutes on each side.

Nuggets: Cut breast into ¾-inch pieces and coat as directed. Cook at 365° F for 4 – 6 minutes turning once.

Copycat Chick-Fil-A Dipping Sauce

Did you know that Chick-fil-A Sauce is a magical blend of Honey Mustard, Barbecue and Ranch Sauces? Mixing up some to add to your sandwiches is easy!

1/2 C Mayonnaise
1/4 C Honey
3 TBSP Yellow Mustard
1 TBSP Dijon Mustard
1 TBSP Lemon Juice
1/4 C Smokey BBQ Sauce

Whisk all ingredients together and ENJOY.

Tips:

If you find that your dipping sauce isn’t as smokey as the real sauce, add a drop or two of liquid smoke.

You can also make with just 2 ingredients, Ken’s Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce and any brand of honey barbecue sauce. Our favorite is Sweet Baby Ray’s honey bbq sauce.