Thai Chicken with Peanuts

Don't want to spend a ton of time in the kitchen, prepping dinner and sweating over the oven? Make a stir fry! At least once a week during the summer you can find me tossing ingredients into a big pan and pouring on different sauces. Stir fry isn't really a science. I usually don't follow a recipe and cook up whatever we have in the fridge.

Yes, the stir fry is the ultimate pre-vacation meal. You can clean out the fridge and use up any meats and vegetables. For this stir fry, had a bunch of sweet peppers and carrots, as well as a pack of chicken sitting in the fridge. With a business trip coming up on Thursday, I decided to use up the stuff in the house, rather than buy groceries this week. Also, since I tend to make a lot of stir frys, I had all the ingredients for my sauce already. My pantry is a well-stocked stir fry zone!

What is your go to "Use it up" recipe? With so many business and personal trips this year, I find that I've been tossing way more food than I would like. Resorting to eating out each night is not the best plan either, for the wallet or the waistline!

Two Years Ago: Milky Way Cake
Three Years Ago: Peanut Chicken with Asian Slaw
Four Years Ago: Banana Coconut Muffins
Five Years Ago: Indian Chicken Curry

Butternut Squash Galette

This recipe is not really summer appropriate. I wound up with a bunch of extra butternut squash and was looking for a recipe to use it all up. I came across this recipe in The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook and knew that it would be perfect. While the flavors are more suited for Fall, this dinner tastes wonderful all year long.

This meal won't keep you cooped up in the kitchen for long. You can cook the squash and onions at the same time and use pre-cooked chicken. The summer months are the perfect time to use those roasted chickens from the grocery store. The hands on time for this recipe is pretty small, especially if you use a pre-made pie crust (my savior when it comes to pie crusts are those Pillsbury refrigerated crusts).

This is the perfect dinner for four people. Have a larger group? Just double the recipe! The boyfriend and I had this galette for dinner and then enjoyed the leftovers for lunch the next day. It's just as good hot as it is cold!

One Year Ago: Neapolitan Cake
Two Years Ago: Bacon & Strawberry Pizza
Three Years Ago: Buffalo Sponge Candy Cake
Four Years Ago: Pomegranate Moon Pies
Five Years Ago: Chocolate Cupcakes (High Altitude Recipe included)

J@H - Homemade Snoballs

I'm a few challenges behind on my Junk at Home 2015 challenge, due to travel and work, so I thought I should get back to it with a bang! This week I was scheduled to make my own version of Hostess coconut snowballs and I decided to make it all from scratch.

Even though I had to made four different things for this recipe, it all came together pretty quickly. Aside from the shredded coconut, you probably already have all of the ingredients in your pantry. Well, as long as you're a baker, if you don't bake a lot you may need to head to the grocery story for a few things (unsweetened chocolate, marshmallow creme, Greek yogurt).

While you can get Snoballs at the store once again, you should definitely try making them at home. It's so much fun! Look at these adorable little purple puffs! The colored coconut is so easy to make. Simply place a bag of sweetened, shredded coconut into a large zip top bag. Add a drop of gel food coloring and squish it around until the coconut is evenly colored. Alternatively, you can add the coconut and food coloring to a food processor and pulse until the color is even and the coconut is slightly smaller.

The big question - do they taste like the original? With the combination of marshmallow, coconut and chocolate, there is no way for these to taste like anything else! This was definitely a winner in my book.

Two Years Ago: Strawberry Bacon Pizza
Three Years Ago: Pesto-Yogurt Chicken
Four Years Ago: Baked Pasta Casserole