Recipes - Flower Mound, TX

Hello there. My name is S. and I too live in Flower Mound. I have been a nanny for 10 years and I am 27 years old. The reason I was emailing was to see if you had a regular babysitter? I am free nights and weekends. Feel free to email me or call my cell at ###-###-####.

Thank you,
S.

Hi J.! I use www.recipezaar.com all the time for meal ideas and recipes. Some of the categories you can search by are course, main ingredient, the type of cuisine, the method of preparation, the occasion, or dietary limitations, and so on. The best recipes to try first, I've found, are the ones that are the highest rated by other "chefs". I have made the best soups, prime ribs, crock pot meals and other dishes that I would have never even attempted had I not found the easy recipes on this site. This past Christmas, I made all homemade "treat" baskets for our friends and family and all of the recipes for the goodies I found on Recipezaar. They were a huge hit and it was fun making all the cookies, cakes and candies with my husband because they were all so easy. I've used allrecipes.com as well, but I personally like recipezaar better. You may wonder what "recipe*zaar" stands for...well, it stands for "Where the recipes are!" :-) good luck!

I love using www.allrecipes.com and www.kraftfoods.com. I usually just type in what ever kind of meat I want to use and go from there. I think Kraftfoods also lets you put in other ingredients that you have and tells you the kind of recipes they have that match those ingredients.

J. - something that I have started doing is going to The Dinner Station. At first I thought it was so expensive, and not worth it, etc. - but I worked out the price to be about 3 bucks a serving, which is pretty much in line with what I spend. If you're not familiar with the concept - here's a quick rundown: You go on their website and pick your package (how many dishes you want to make and how many servings per dish), then you pick out what dishes you want to make, then you show up at whatever time you reserved, and you just go from station to station putting together your meals - it all goes into a freezer baggy or casserole dish, you slap a label on the outside with cooking instructions, and you're done!

Last time it took me about an hour to put together 8 dishes of 3 servings each - and that's while gabbing with other people there. The dishes are really good - and tend to be a little on the "upscale" side, which means you get to make really good stuff without having to buy an entire bottle of say, mustard seed, for one dish.

There are more chains than just Dinner Station - but I go to the one in Highland Village on 407. Check out the website - www.dinnerstation.com.

This has given me such a great dinner outlook - I just pull a baggy out the night before - no guesswork, no chopping!!!, just put together and cook according to directions. I highly recommend giving this a shot - I was very skeptical of the whole concept, but now I'm hooked.

Good luck - S.

I have quite a few quick but yummy things I make that are staples of our diets... email me off list and I'll shoot the word doc I created with them all to you..along with some others taht friends have sent to me over e-mail! :) I'd love to have any others you get e-mailed to me!

I use www.kraftfoods.com to get ideas. Even if I don't have all the ingredients I modify and it turns out great. I used to keep a list of the top 20 things I made that everyone would eat on the fridge.... and I'd rotate. Remember, cook for you/husband and modify down for the kids so you don't make 3 different meals for dinner.

Email me and I'll send you some ideas. Tell me what kinds of foods your family likes....or if you just want a variety of ideas. I have an in home child care and have been cooking for the kids for over 20 years, besides raising my own two daughters and now have 4 grandchildren. I think I can help you along, too. :o)

I love www.meals.com
I am always making recipes from this site that my family loves.

babycenter.com has an absolutely wonderful recipe board. It's called Cooking for your Family and recipe requests such as yours come up all the time. A wealth of recipes!!
http://boards.babycenter.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?webtag=bcus...
I'm not sure if that link will take you there, so if it doesn't, go to babycenter.com, click on community, and I think that the Cooking for Your Family board is under bulletin boards, moms and dads like you, nutrition and fitness.
Happy Cooking!

Hi J., I feel exactly the same with cooking dinner. I�ll give you a few of our often cooked dinners(not necessarily our favorite, but we eat them) and please send me what you cook often or recipes you receive from other moms.

Mondays is often spaghetti night. I brown 1 lb of ground beef(drain fat), add in minced garlic, one can of tomato sauce and one can of diced tomatoes and Italian seasoning. In a separate pot cook spaghetti and when it�s done, I dump it all together. Makes enough leftovers for my husband�s lunch the next day too.
Another fast dinner is tacos. I use the dry seasoning taco mix to make the meat sauce. Then I just cut up onions, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes and open the sour cream. The kids make their own tacos.

My favorite dinners are stir-fry type. It takes a little longer because I have to cut up everything, but often times I find frozen bags of stir-fry vegetables on sale in the grocery store to save time. I stir-fry the oil with onions, minced garlic and bell peppers first; then add the other vegetables(my favorite is green beans or broccoli) or I add the bag of frozen vegetables. After it�s almost done, I empty it all into a bowl. Then I pick either shrimp, chicken or beef for the meat and cut it if needed, stir-fry it in oil, then add soy sauce, ginger, sesame oil and cornstarch mixed in cold water. When it thickens add the vegetables back into the pot. I cook either minute rice or ramen noodles to eat with the stir-fry.

I would like to see the other recipes you get. Please email them to me ____@____.com.

Get a Southern Living recipe book. They have some great recipes and a lot of variety. That's the cookbook that I use the most.

I am ALWAYS finding great ideas at www.allrecipes.com. Once you find a recipe, you can alter the serving amounts and the site automatically calculates how much of each ingredient you'll need.

One of my "rules" of cooking is that a meal shouldn't take me more than a half hour to prepare (unless it's in a slow cooker), and I shouldn't have to go to a specialty store for ingredients. I've managed to come up with a lot of healthy, quick dishes that my family loves. If you're worried about calories and fat, you can always substitute low-cal or fat-free ingredients, and we usually use soy milk in anything that calls for milk.

Some winners for my family (me and hubby, plus a 3 yr old girl and 13 mo old boy) have been:
Easy and Delicious Chicken (a slow cooker recipe) submitted by Monika Polly
Easiest BBQ Pork Chops (another slow cooker recipe) submitted by Janice
Baked Salmon Fillets Dijon submitted by Christine Johnson
Eggplant -- Easy, Good and Tasty submitted by Bill Wade. This one was an experiment because I'd never cooked eggplant before. The recipe is actually for an appetizer, but I cooked up the whole eggplant (instead of 1/3 like it says in the recipe) and served it over pasta with marinara sauce. My 3 yr old tried it without a lot of drama, and my 1 yr old ate 3 slices (same size meal as me!)

I also have a couple of "quick and easy" cookbooks that are good. Meals in Minutes from the American Heart Association (note: a lot of these recipes are low in salt -- I cheat and add salt, or use the "salt added" versions of things like canned tomatoes) and Betty Crocker's "Good & Easy" cookbook.

Hope this helps!