Lately in the Kitchen

I should title this How Brittany Got Her Groove Back because it’s only just now, almost a year after moving in, that I’m getting back into my full kitchen routine. Maybe it’s being inspired by the fall season or just feeling more settled, but it’s really nice to be feel in my element.

Yesterday, for example, I spent a couple hours in the kitchen to set us up for the week ahead. I made:

• Wellness Shots – doubled the recipe and put them in these bottles for us to have over the next two days
• Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup – I make it without noodles so I can freeze it in souper cubes and then I have it for whenever we get a sore throat
• David’s Chili – our seasonal favorite
• Easy Cornbread – this was super easy; it’s a sweet and cakey cornbread. I prefer skillet and thin, but the fam enjoyed it
• Pumpkin Bread – recipe worthy of: Hailey: Mom, you make the best pumpkin bread.
• Sourdough Sandwich Loaf from this cookbook (go for the spiral version)

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Now let’s talk lunches. Lately I’ve really been enjoying soups that I make of Sunday, freeze in cubes, and stick in the mini slow cooker in the morning to be hot and ready for me by lunch. Another winning lunch option when I’ve done some prep work, are veggie, grain, and protein bowls. The combo I most recently enjoyed for a couple days in a row was quinoa, roasted butternut squash, roasted beets, sauteed onions and beet greens, with chicken. Then I put my favorite Emily G vinegar sauce over all of it.

Speaking of chicken, I use canned chicken a lot. It’s so convenient as a lunch protein. However, a high quality canned chicken can be hard to come by so I am going to try to make my own with this new digital pressure canner. I am so excited to try this raw packing method for canned chicken so I can buy chicken when it’s on sale and make it shelf stable. I’ll let you know how it goes!

A recipe I feel like you need to know about are these bakery style blueberry muffins. These are not an added-protein or low sugar kind of recipe, but if you want your family and friends to say omg these are so good, then this is your recipe. I made them again on Saturday before the girls’ soccer games and they were a huge hit.

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A final note about food for now- football Saturdays. Not all our neighbors are as into college football as we are, but we’ve been forcing them- ahem – inviting them to experience all the delights of football Saturdays by luring them with food.

This is obviously a bit of an exaggeration but I will say it’s been fun to host friends on a few occasions, put out a big snack spread, and teach them how to bark at the TV (I kid, I kid). One of the best parts is having so many neighborhood kids join in so all the snacks get devoured. It seriously makes me so happy to feed people and with the kids around, no snack goes uneaten.

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The biggest snack hits have been: grapes, sweet potato chips, French onion dip, pimento cheese, and any sweet option. I stocked up at Trader Joe’s on some of their seasonal pumpkin cookies and pumpkin batons. I’m such a sucker for seasonal treats.

And that’s a peek into what’s been happening in my kitchen lately! What have some of your recipe wins or cooking routines looked like recently?