I want to do a call out and a thank you to the ladies in Kansas City!  Rachel, Vicky, Laura…and all the wonderful ladies I met when I visited recently…you were on my mind yesterday when my family sat down for dinner.  We needed a ‘rescue’ meal at the last minute and I remembered the jar of Kansas City Barbecue sauce you gave to me as a gift.  I had made HG Garlic Lemon Pork Chops in the slow cooker the night before and because I purposefully made a double batch to have left overs…I was able to shred up that cooked pork and microwave it with some of the sauce.  We had fantastic bbq sandwiches…so thank you Kansas City! 

 You may be wondering why I needed a ‘rescue’ meal!  Well…you know how I write in our cookbooks about how important it is to keep an oven thermometer on hand to monitor your oven temperature ~ seems I took mine to the office a while back and never replaced the one at home.  So last night….after baking the HG steak and potato bake for 1 1/2 hours (2x longer than it should have!) it dawned on me that there might be something wrong with the oven! (I’m sure many of you would have come to that conclusion in less time…but I can be hard headed and determined to never give up some times!)  By then it was late and I had 4 hungry men considering cereal as an serious alternative.  BBQ pork to the rescue!  We eventually got the casserole to bake after I turned up the heat by 50 degrees (note to self…make a call to get that serviced!) 

 When has using the HG C.O.S.T. (Cook Once / Serve Twice) come to your rescue? I’d love to hear about it! 

God Bless and Keep You,

Tami

So Sunday afternoon I look at the clock and realize I have 20 minutes to get a grocery list put together before my hubby goes into town to get the kids to all of the church functions for the evening.  You have to understand…we live in the country and I am one of ‘those’ people that insists we are efficient with our time spent in town! I can’t stand the idea of the car going to town to drop off kids and then going back to town later or another day to do the shopping (it’s a personal growth issue…I know…but my husband has learned to love it after 20 years!)

 So….what am I going to do?  Twenty minutes to get the list together for a full week of meals that have not been planned yet?  I do not panic but defer to the printed grocery list we work from every single week.  We print this in our HG cookbooks and my family uses it religiously.  But today I look at my 2 boxes of casserole kits that had just been delivered and remembered that the grocery list was included.  I tear open the boxes and fill my grocery list with the items listed on both flyers.  I then take my ‘preprinted…fill in the amount’ grocery list to the pantry and go down the list looking for standard canned and dry goods that we need to keep on our shelf and fill in the blanks.  Then it’s off to the fridge/freezer.  I stand with the door open, list in hand, and do a quick inventory of what is missing or almost gone and fill in the amounts of items needed preprinted on the list.  Grocery list completed with food for a week of 3 meals a day plus snacks! And did I mention that I went ahead and used the tip from the list in the casserole kits to buy enough grocery items to make 2-3 of each casserole so I can cook ahead in the next few weeks?

 At this point the sweet daughter of the family is honking the horn to signal us that she is going to be late to praise rehearsals!  I hand off the list to my dear hubby and am confident that it will all come back to me just as listed.  Now I can turn my attention to listing the meals we will be able to choose from for the week.  I keep a running list on a chalkboard in the kitchen so any member of the family can pick a meal and make it during the week. 

Several hours later…family returns with groceries in hand.  I am ready to face a week with the answer to ‘what’s for dinner?’!  By the way…as I was looking at the reciept from the grocery excursion…I was intrigued by the amount.  I think I am feeding my family dinner for less than $2 a serving.  I will dig in and let you know what I find out! 

 How do you get dinner on the table every week? 

 God Bless!

Tami

There were several questions about freezing in the last 24 hours…so I thought I’d post a quick tip sheet for freezing meals.   

• Casseroles that are prepared with raw beef or chicken that has been previously frozen should be cooked before refreezing.  Rule of thumb…if you defrost raw beef, chicken or pork ~ you must cook it before you refreeze it. 
• a casserole that has been prepared with uncooked pasta or rice needs to be cooked before freezing. I make spaghetti casseroles all the time and freeze them.  My favorite is the chicken spaghetti with queso featured in our slow cooker cookbook. 
• Potatoes are ‘iffy’.  Raw potatoes can be hit and miss when frozen in a casserole.  Cooked potatoes fare better.  I am actually going to make our beef and potato bake this week and see how it freezes after baking…I’ll let you know!  Since it uses rehydrated potatoes…I am curious to see the difference in freezing. 
• Our Cheesecakes do not freeze well at all…the cream cheese gets to soft. 
• Our other pies freeze very well…so I always bake at least 4 at a time ~ one to serve and 3 to save and share later!
• Our cookie mixes make GREAT freezer items…especially as we come into the ‘cookie’ season.  Make extra batches of your favorite HG cookie mixes and freeze the cookie dough in balls. Just place the dough balls on a cookie sheet and cover with wax or foil.  Let freeze for about an hour or more.  Then put the hardened cookie balls in a freezer bag and label with name and baking temp/time.  Now you can have homemade cookies in an instant no matter how busy you are…whether you are entertaining guests, kids or just for yourself!
• Our soups all freeze very well…and make great individual servings for lunch at the office 

Hope this helps with some of the questions posted…let me know if you wanted to know specifically about certain recipes or HG products.  

The following is a general list of items that do not freeze well:

· Raw salad vegetables
· Raw eggs in their shells or hard-boiled eggs (egg whites and/or yolks freeze well out of the shell)
·Raw potatoes or boiled white potatoes
·Cottage cheese
·Jello
·Icing made with egg whites, boiled frostings, or cakes with cream fillings
·Instant rice (regular rice can be frozen)

God Bless and Keep you!Tami

Welcome to my first posting in our brand new Homemade Gourmet^® blog!

We’ve called it Around the Kitchen Table because so many good things happen around kitchen tables, all across America. Besides a place for sharing great home-cooked meals, it’s usually the place where most families also share their hopes, dreams, and even their deepest disappointments. There’s just something about breaking bread together that opens up our hearts to one another. Kitchen tables are often where new beginnings are “hatched” as well.

Our old family table is no exception. This table not only reflects the history of my family, but the history of our family business, Homemade Gourmet^®. Just like this old table, our company started to fill a simple need in our family’s life. This time it was a need most people are familiar with … a way to make that monthly income stretch just a little bit further.

I had a passion for cooking and helping families find their way back to the dinner table, so God moved me to begin making mixes using old family recipes and selling them! Our family gathered around this hand-tiled table and scooped herbs, spices, sugar and flour into plastic bags to allow others the ability to create the fast and delicious meals we had grown up with.

From our smallest child of two, scooping up cups of dried beans to put into a bag, to my four-year-old who could use his newly found powers of counting to ten to keep us on track with our inventory, to our seven- and nine-year-olds keeping pace with mom and dad in the remaining tasks, our family business began … and it was a hit! Who knew work could be so fun?

Before we knew it other families were joining us in our mission to Bring Families Back to the Dinner Table. Eventually this success meant we had to move outside the four walls of our kitchen, but the table came with us!

It became the centerpiece of our business…moving with us every time we expanded. Its evolution is remarkable: it went from a garage sale cast off, to the family dinner table, to the original ‘manufacturing’ table, to where it now resides as the company’s ‘family’ table. Now it finds its place as the inspiration for my blog Around the Kitchen Table!

From this space, I will share with you many of the meals our family loves, tips and ideas for getting dinner on the table fast (without fast food) and treasures found around our table through our kitchen time spent together. Along the way I will learn from you too as you share your ideas and experiences and, together, we will influence a positive generational change!

I know, without a doubt, that family time at the table has more power than any government funded program, any multi-million dollar initiative, or any other activity we can plug our children into. Those precious few minutes of conversation around the table can lead to better choices made by children when they are away from the home.

This is how we influence generational change around the dinner table! So whether yours is a table for two, four, six or more, there is value in gathering around the kitchen table and spending time together. So pull up a chair and join us! I can’t wait to hear your point of view.

Are you one of thousands who would love to be able to cook but are intimidated by words like … sauté, julienne or even boil? Or maybe the words slow cooker, sauté pan or chef’s knife require a trip to the dictionary! Then this is the place for you! Look here for easy to learn tips for cooking great meals that taste like Grandma made them, but are not as hard to make as she made them look! This will be a great place to send college students out on their own for the first time … or young couples ready to turn their kitchen into a place that is producing meals instead of refrigerating take out meals.

Whatever you want to know … we can answer it! Just post a question and let’s watch as other members of the HG family write in with ideas, tips and simple suggestions to get cookin’ with ease! In addition, I and members of our Cooking Team will offer answers and solutions as well. Tami

We see the magazine articles and TV specials all the time, telling us that family time together makes a difference in how our children grow up. The stories inspire us to make time for family time … but sometimes we don’t know how to do it or what to do with it! Here is a great place to spur one another on and share our family time ideas. Do you have a great meal time game you play? Do you have a weekly family tradition that gathers the family together? Let’s share and make our family time priority time and see generational change happen one family at a time.

We love to use conversation cookies at our family table. These conversation starters are printed on cardboard cookies and make for amusing table conversation. Now mind you … I have 3 boys and 1 girl, so the conversation starters can generate some “interesting” feedback! Somehow all questions seem to eventually end up on one of the following topics: bugs, squishy things, gross things, or dead things! Inevitably the giggling leads to a spilled beverage or a child falling from a chair and always it is a great time. We don’t use these conversation starters every night … but when the tales of the day are few and uneventful, conversation cookies get us talking! So what do you do with your family time? Tami

I LOVE to be creative in the kitchen and enjoy seeing other original recipes and ideas. This section is where you can participate in new recipe contests with First, Second, and Third place winners who will each receive a FREE Homemade Gourmet product! Winners will be judged by a panel of judges including the R&D staff and other guest judges. The winners and the winning recipes will be announced here at the end of the contest periods! Come here monthly to be inspired by past winning ideas and learn new ideas as well.

This month’s contest: What is your favorite Halloween Treat using a Homemade Gourmet product? Post your recipe here, to give everyone inspiration, and you will automatically be entered. Join in the fun! The prize for October will be Homemade Gourmet® Carrot Cake with White Chocolate Icing Mix! Tami

If meal planning is something you need help with … you have come to the right place. This is where you will find tips and ideas of all kinds to help you manage the “costly” question … “What’s for dinner?!”

Did you know that the most common cause of overspending in the typical family grocery budget is lack of planning? It makes sense when you think about it. If you come home at the end of a long day and have to answer the question—“what’s for dinner?”—you had better have a plan or the answer is going to “cost” you. Drive-thru, take-out, and even a quick run into the grocery store will cost you more than a meal planned ahead and waiting for you to serve.

One of my favorite tools in meal planning is using the “Cook Once to Serve Twice” method of cooking. It is so easy that anyone can do it! Not only will it save you preparation time, it will save you money too. A great example of this is preparing ground beef for tacos, casseroles, soups, etc. Instead of heating up the stove to brown one pound of ground beef for a single recipe, just use a larger skillet and brown and season 5 pounds at one time!

Use what you need for your meal tonight and divide the rest in 1 pound portions into quart- sized freezer bags for use later (2 cups cooked ground beef = 1 pound). Be sure to mark on the bag what type of seasoning is used and the date.

This pre-cooked and reserved ground beef is a quick addition to spaghetti sauce, casseroles, soups, and even quick burritos. In the morning, just place the frozen bag in the refrigerator to defrost or defrost it in the microwave when you need it. Buying the meat in bulk also saves $$$ and helps with the grocery budget. Do you have some great tips for planning meals? Tell us about them! Tami

The kitchen is the place in a home that can produce more than a warm loaf of bread that is eaten in an instant. It can nurture warm memories that will last a lifetime. It can foster self- esteem and self worth in children of all ages as they create something of value for others. It can be a place that aids in raising up children who learn to nurture those same family values and ideals in their families, therefore building a legacy that will last generation after generation.

Eventually, as the years go by and the children grow, you may find that you are doing the “helping” jobs and the children have grown into preparing the meals all themselves. You never know! It happened for me and I love coming home to a meal prepared by my teenagers.

Here is a place to share the joy and priceless memories that are created when you cook along with your children. To get it started, here are a few tips to let little hands help in the kitchen by performing tasks that are appropriate for their age. Kids 2-3 years old can “smoosh” marinades and meat in zip tip freezer bags and help wipe up messes, 4-5 year olds love to stir things and set the table “by themselves” while 6-8 year olds are great at washing fruit and vegetables and adding ingredients with supervision, 9-12 year olds can prepare simple meals by themselves, and 13-17 year olds can help with meal planning and making grocery lists. Cooking with kids … it’s time well spent. Tell us what YOUR kids are doing–and saying–in the kitchen! Tami

I travel a lot and hear a lot of ‘favorite’ recipe ideas wherever I go. The challenge is that when I get home … I can’t remember what I heard. So let’s share our recipes here and inspire others to give them a try!

One of my favorites is to use the Homemade Gourmet Tomato Basil Soup to make a sauce over cheese tortellini. I always cook a double batch of the soup for a meal early in the week and use the leftovers as a sauce by stirring in a little cornstarch and whisking it over medium heat on the stove top. While this cooks, I boil some fresh or frozen tortellini and in minutes … an elegant yet simple dinner is on the table. What are some of your favorite recipes? Tami