The concept behind 4 Meals in 4 Minutes was a simple one. Use as little time (no pre-cooking or chopping) and as few ingredients as possible to fill my freezer with lots of meals ready to go. Based on feedback, there must have been a great number of people who were willing to embrace the concept to make their own life a little easier!

I am always being asked for more 4 Meals in 4 Minute recipes. With the advent of the Kitchen Connection magazine, everyone gets a new planner with new ideas every quarter. In addition to the original 4 Meals in 4 Minutes collection and it’s planner, we now offer a Fall 4 Meals in 4 Minutes collection with yet another set of meals. With the bonus meals in each planner, that represents 96 meal ideas!

Still, the emails and phone calls continue . . . always asking for more, more, more! I am not so proud as to believe that I am the only one to create these ideas (although I must confess, we have some great new ideas coming in January!).

Would you share? I know that there are many of you that have created your own great 4 Meals in 4 Minutes recipes. Come, be the Queen of 4 Meals in 4 Minutes and let all of us share in your creativity. I look forward to hearing from you all.

Cindy

My family is a little strange, but quite frankly, with me as the Mommy I guess they would have to be. As the Coordinator for Research and Development, I have to taste test every possible new mix and every recipe before it can be published or even considered for publication. My family is forced to eat some weird combinations for dinner, depending on which recipes need to be tested. Some nights, my kids beg for something plain. “Please, Mommy, can we have hot dogs or pizza or something NORMAL and not Homemade Gourmet!” (I say yes, but in reality, the hot dogs get topped with Bonnie’s Blue Ribbon Chili and the pizza is topped with the Homestyle Spaghetti Sauce - ha, so there!)

While other women are reading romance novels, I read cookbooks. While some families are watching the Disney Channel, my kids are forced to watch the Food Network. Last night, we were watching “The Iron Chef.” My soon to be 9 year old has decided that this week, I should have to do a complete meal with a “secret” ingredient that she should get to choose. She decides that it will be “oranges” and that I will need to make a drink, an appetizer, an entree and a dessert all using the secret ingredient.

Now, as much as I cook, I didn’t think this should be a problem. I’m thinking I still have some Orange Vinaigrette Dressing for a salad (that constitutes an appetizer, right??), I have an Orange Pound Cake for dessert, I can make chicken with Kansas City rub and Orange marmalade and maybe I could add some sliced oranges in some Raspberry Tea. I figured that while she was at school, I could go ahead and makes the cake, marinate the meat and mix up the vinaigrette. OH NO! She has informed me that I have one hour to complete the meal, because those are THE RULES for the Iron Chefs. Not only that, I have to do it all while she is home, so she can be the announcer.

Part of me is quite joyful that I have a daughter with such a fun spirit, the other part of me is rolling my eyes at the “joys” of motherhood.

You know, when I was a trial attorney, she never asked me to conduct a trial here at the house! Of course, she has never watched Judge Judy, so maybe that is why, hee hee.

Have any fun kid’s cooking stories to share?

Cindy

I have a confessiong to make…last night there was not a single Homemade Gourmet item on my dinner table (GASP!!!).  My daughter called me at work around 5:00 to ask if there was something she was supposed to be doing for dinner.  It was only at that moment that I realized I had not taken a meal from the freezer to put in the slow cooker.  I had just come home from a 4 day business trip and it was the last thing on my mind that morning.  She was wanting to make open faced meatball sandwiches…but we were out of precooked Italian Mozzarella Meatballs in the freezer.  So I told her that she could use the shredded roast in the freezer to make open faced French dip sandwiches.  Great…problem solved. 

 Ring…it’s my sweet daughter on the phone again, “Mom, we don’t have any shredded roast in the freezer”.  Ugh…when did we eat that!?  I was sure we had some.  Ok…I’m out of ideas so I tell her to be creative and surprise me when I get home. 

I arrive home about 2 hours later to a teenage daughter on the phone with the latest social crisis on her hands (any of you with teenage girls knows exactly what I came home to !).   Off to the kitchen I go…surely I, the founder of Homemade Gourmet, have something to serve my family fast and easy!!! 

 Now…it is still HOT here in Texas, so soup just wasn’t something our family wanted for dinner.  In fact…salad was all I could think of that sounded good this hot Texas night.  So I go to the freezer to find some sort of precooked meat to toss with a refreshing salad.  TAco meat, cooked chicken, left over steak…something.  Alas…with all my traveling these last few weeks…my freezer has been depleted.  All except for a package of precooked breaded chicken patties from Swansons.  Into the oven they went as I prepared a salad to top with slices of the breaded chicken breasts.  Dinner was delightful, but as I sat listening to my family chat about their days since I had been gone…I was lamenting the fact that I did not have Homemade Gourmet Italian Mozzarella breaded chicken breasts in my freezer to top this salad. 

I’m off to Colorado for the rest of the week…but you can be sure the next week will be a fill your freezer weekend at the VanHoy household!!! So help me out…tell me your favorite freezer stocking ideas that I can use when I get back in town!!! 

 God Bless and Keep You!

Tami