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Super Easy Baked Ziti

Baked Ziti is the ultimate comfort food for a crowd or just a family night dinner, rich and gooey with layers of pasta, creamy meat sauce, and three different kinds of cheese. EASIEST BAKED ZITI YOU WILL EVER MAKE Baked Ziti is the easiest and quickest casserole dish you will ever make.  You can have a fantastic meal in about an hour, a perfect weeknight meal. As soon as the weather cools, I start cooking comfort food, like this Super Easy Baked Ziti.  Total comfort food in a bowl.   Baked Ziti is the Mother of all pasta dishes. The recipe has existed in Italy for ages.  There are so many ways to make it, including making the sauces from scratch or using a jar sauce, mixing the sauces together or not, and using ricotta or not.   I make a lot of casserole recipes from scratch, but this is one time I prefer to use the jar sauce. The recipe just became Americanized.   I like Rao's brand for the jar sauce for the Homemade Marinara and Alfredo sauce.  

Simple Broccoli Cauliflower Salad

Simple Broccoli Cauliflower Salad will elevate a meal for Kings or refresh a family potluck dinner.  The perfect salad with only six ingredients, including the creamy, tangy dressing. BROCCOLI CAULIFLOWER SALAD WITH CREAMY DRESSING My recipe for delicious Broccoli Cauliflower Salad is simple and quick to make, full of fresh broccoli and cauliflower florets, julienne red onions, and tossed in a dressing you want to drink.   Growing up, anytime we had a big gathering, Mother would cook the biggest meal, and the whole family would come.   Recipes like this classic Broccoli Cauliflower Salad totally remind me of those days of the love and care my Mother took in hosting all the family and celebrating us. Just like Mother, I keep this salad as simple as possible.  My family loves this salad year-round, especially around the holidays.   This brings up Thanksgiving around the corner, always a favorite.   I know this salad will become one of yours, too.

Baked Feta Pasta Recipe

Baked Feta Pasta became a TicTok sensation last year, becoming the most instantaneous recipe made with four simple ingredients.   BAKED FETA AND RICOTTA PASTA WITH CHICKEN Like many pasta recipes, adding chicken will indeed please and become a family favorite for weeknight meals. Creamy flavorful, and cheese, all the components you want in a pasta dish. Baked Feta Pasta is the perfect fall comfort food, creamy, tomato–y and so incredibly delicious.  It is probably the most straightforward pasta dish I have ever made. When I say simple, everything gets baked together until the tomatoes burst, releasing all their jamminess.  The cheeses get melty, and you stir it all together, making this quick creamy sauce, toss in the chicken and then the pasta.  Generously garnish with more basil.  Boom, dinner is ready.

Blueberry Gooey Butter Cake

Summertime is the season to indulge in a perfect combination of tangy and sweet desserts like this Blueberry Gooey Butter Cake.     BLUEBERRY GOOEY BUTTER CAKE BARS These delightful Blueberry Gooey Butter Cake Bars have the perfect combination of flavors, the ease of the recipe, and the ease of carrying it somewhere.   Perfect for any celebrations, picnics, potlucks, or grand enough for any dinner party. Gooey Butter Cake has been around for many years.  It all started with the made from scratch version supposedly made by accident by a man in a St. Louis bakery.  Then, in the early 70s, Paula Deen introduced her version using a butter cake mix.  Since then, there have been many versions of the Gooey Butter Cake. With the ease of making recipes that call for few ingredients, I can whip up a batch of these bars in no time.   I had a couple of cups of blueberries that needed to be eaten, so I added them to the recipe.  The tartness of the lemon zest and cream cheese and the sweetness of t

Old Fashioned Hot Water Cornbread

Enjoy these  little medallions with collard greens, purple hull peas, fried catfish, soup, chili, and the list goes on! GRANNY'S OLD FASHIONED HOT WATER CORNBREAD Old Fashioned Hot Water Cornbread just like Grandma used to make.  Hot Water Cornbread is more about the feel of the batter than a precise measurement.  The main thing is to get the right consistency with the hot water and the cornmeal mixture. Making Old Fashioned Hot Water Cornbread is more about the feel of the batter than a precise measurement.   The main thing is to get the right consistency with the water and cornmeal mixture.

Oven Smoked Brisket

Oven Smoked Brisket is tender meat that tastes like it has been smoked in a smoker for hours.  You don't need a smoker to enjoy this mouthwatering oven smoked brisket. Beef Brisket Smoked In The Oven The best Texas style brisket is tender without falling apart while slicing, and it has that thick layer of smoky, peppery bark surrounding each slice.  This recipe meets all of those standards. Brisket was a new cut of meat, you might say, at our house growing up as a teenager. When my mother first started cooking brisket, she would cook them in the oven at first, and then, when she got a smoker, she started smoking them. The best part about my mother cooking brisket was not how she cooked them but how she selected the one to buy. The briskets you buy in Texas are usually known as a packer cut—this means that it’s the entire chest muscle, and most of the time covered with a generous layer of fat and weighs anywhere from seven to eleven pounds. 

Very Blueberry Muffins

These blueberry muffins are made with simple, straightforward ingredients and bursting with fresh blueberries.  To taste even better, they are topped with a sweet streusel topping. Classic Blueberry Crumble Muffins These classic blueberry muffins are always a welcomed treat for breakfast or an easy grab and go snack.  They are so easy to make you will be making them often. These are my husband's favorite muffins—so much so that I decided to update the recipe and add a streusel topping. They are extra fluffy, soft, and moist—just like the ones you get in a bakery.   If you are a fan of these blueberries, try my recipe for  Very Blueberry Breakfast Cake ,  Lemon Blueberry Squash Bread , and  Blueberry Scones .

Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Pancakes

Chocolate Chip Pancakes with mini chocolate chips are sure to please everyone for a special occasion or any day.   These melt in your mouth chocolate chip pancakes are rich, buttery, light, and fluffy, and incredibly easy to make.  Top them with whipped cream, and fresh fruit, then drizzle them with warm pure maple syrup. Buttermilk Chocolate Chip Pancakes If you want to wow your guests with big smiles on their faces, tell them you are making Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Pancakes for breakfast. We love pancakes at our house, but when special occasions come, we pull out all the stops. Birthdays and sleepovers are some of our favorites. My buttermilk chocolate chip pancakes are fluffy, sweet pancakes with the tang of buttermilk seeping through, giving them the perfect morning dream come true. What I love about making pancakes is there are no crazy ingredients to come up with.  I mostly just need to make sure my buttermilk is fresh.  I use full fat buttermilk in my pancake recipe, yieldin

Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies

Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies are a fast and easy recipe that is perfectly sweet with brown sugar and loaded with oatmeal. Oatmeal No Bake Peanut Butter Cookies This is a classic cookie recipe for those who can't have or just prefer not to eat chocolate. These Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies are a version of the famous  Chocolate No Bake Cookies  using cocoa powder that I grew up eating in the 50s.  I am especially a fan of no bake cookies during the summer months.  Not having to turn the oven on is a big plus. They always satisfy the craving for something sweet.  I love the moist, chewy texture and rich peanut butter flavor that just takes minutes to make, and the hardest part is waiting for them to set up so you can eat them. When my children were small, I would give them a spoon to scrape the sides of the pan and get all that yummy peanut butter mixture.

Sesame Ginger Bone In Pork Chops

Juicy, tender pork chops marinated with a sesame ginger vinaigrette and baked in the oven to perfection. 2-Ingredient Baked Sesame Ginger Pork Chops  A brief time in the refrigerator gives the bone in thick pork chops loads of flavor while tenderizing the meat.  Even if you don't have time for the pork chops to hang out in the marinate, skip the marinating and pour the sesame ginger vinaigrette over them just before you bake them in the oven. Still delicious. I like to cook thick cut porterhouse pork chops with the bone in them because there is so much more flavor.   Other cuts of pork chops will work, like boneless pork chops, sirloin pork chops, and thin cut pork chops, sometimes called rib pork chops.     There is no need to complicate dinner when you can make this simple meal that everyone will enjoy.  You will only need two ingredients,  Maria's Sesame Ginger Vinaigrette and pork chops. Once they go in the oven, you can have a wholesome meal on the table in less than 45 mi