recipe round-up | March

I just reorganized my spice and baking cabinets. In case you missed it, check out that post here. I has made a world of difference with my cooking time and helped me feel like things are cleaner and more organized. It has also made me want to cook and bake more.

So I’ve been searching the web for some recipe ideas. And now I’m in recipe overload. There are so. many. recipes. out. there. But I subscribe to a few cooking and baking blogs so I thought that was a good place to start. And then I researched meals I have always wanted to try and found a bunch more. Now comes the fun art – trying these newfound recipes out. Luckily my family are always willing guinea pigs!

Once I got to making some of these recipes, I realized how nice it was to try something new and even though I might not be a great cook, I do love to create things. That’s kinda how I’m looking at this.

So after all this searching the web and testing out recipes, I thought it would be a good idea to share them with you. And go even further and make it a monthly feature on my blog – 4 new recipes every month. A recipe round up! Maybe this will help you feel a little inspiration to try something new and improve your cooking and baking skills too. Or at least expand your recipe horizons.

I did have a few criteria that I had to stick with:

1) the recipes had to be easy to moderate on the difficulty scale. I don’t have the time, patience – or skill – to do anything too crazy.

2) I have to feed a family of 5. All with different likes and dislikes. So, the recipes have to be pretty flexible. I have to be able to change a few ingredients if I think my family will like it better. For example, one recipe called for a whole can of green chilies, but I only used half. Basic stuff like that.

3) The ingredients have to include things I would use again. Sometimes that’s how I research recipes – by the ingredients. I didn’t want to buy a new spice only to use it once. Not in my new, pretty, organized cabinet!

4) I’m not going to pretend any of these are my recipes. I will link directly to the original sources. But I will give my two cents on what worked and any tips on what I did to change it or make it better for my family.

Here are my 4 recipes that I rounded up for March. All really good, easy meals that you can make with limited time. One even uses a crock pot – love that!

Crockpot Shredded Beef Enchiladas from Iowa Girl Eats. Meat cooks in the crockpot and then it’s a simple wrap and bake. Loved the avocado and sour cream toppings. I only added half the green chilies and went light on the chili powder. Two thumbs up from the kids – even my picky pasta-only eater.

I made this as my husband’s birthday cake and it was de-lish. We’re not big cake people so this was a nice change. One note: the streusel makes way too much. You could easily cut ingredients for that portion in half. This is from Ina Garden at the Food Network.

Another Iowa Girl Eats recipe {she’s good}. Bacon and Brussels Sprouts Spaghetti Carbonara, yes please.

Baked Eggs from White Gunpowder. I’ve been trying to eat more eggs and this was such a yummy alternative to the scrambled option. I cut down on the heavy cream and butter a bit. Also, I use dried spices versus fresh herbs so I just reduced the portion of dried spices to accommodate for this. But a big yes to freshly grated Parmesean Cheese!

I hope you enjoy these March recipes. And I’d love to get your feedback and comments.

Continue to look for my recipe round-ups each month. Manja-manja!