• Macaroni and cheese (no béchamel required)

    macaroni and cheese with cheez its

    I think we can all agree that homemade macaroni and cheese is awesome. But it can be a bit of a pain (and a mess) to make. This recipe gives you the deliciousness of homemade mac and cheese, with significantly less work, less mess and less stress than a version that involves making a huge […]

  • Banana bread oatmeal

    banana bread oatmeal

    Breakfast may be the most important meal of the day, but I have never been very good at eating it. Besides the fact that I am rarely hungry in the morning, I also disliked nearly every breakfast food you can imagine when I was growing up. I was a pleasure to deal with, I’m sure. […]

  • Cranberry-apple fluff

    You can have your raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. My favorite things run more along the lines of cranberries, green apples, marshmallows and glitter. And this side dish has the first three. Plus sugar and Cool Whip. It’s basically perfect. If you read my old blog, you’ve seen this recipe before, and you […]

  • Wassail

    Here we come a-wassailing out in the snow so white   Here we come a-wassailing late into the night Love and cookies come to you, to you and your grandma too And God bless you and send you a happy new year And God send you a happy new year. {end singing}   We had […]

  • Award-winning bourbon chili

    Toby doesn’t cook much, but he does make chili. In fact, he was already an award-winning chili chef when I met him. Of course, the award may have had a little to do with the fact that the judges were Marines and the chili contains bourbon. But this chili IS good. And pretty easy to […]

  • Slow-cooker pulled pork and coleslaw

    When I started thinking about our Super Bowl party, I immediately decided I wanted to make pulled pork and chili. Toby has an award-winning chili recipe and will be posting that later. But I thought the slow-cooker would be perfect for the pork. We had slow-cooker pulled pork sandwiches at Matt and Hilary’s house a […]

  • Extremely advanced gourmet dessert

    Sorry that swimming post was depressing. Let’s try something a little more cheerful. As you may recall, I recently made PB&J bars for a Navy football tailgate (or tailgater, as they call it). The midshipmen thoroughly enjoyed them, and apparently asked if I was making them for the next home game. Unfortunately, I learned this […]

  • Chalupas – shredded pork and beans

    We here at ESS are big fans of baked goods, obviously. But we are also very fond of spicy foods, anything involving tortillas, and pork products. Add the fact that this is a slow-cooker recipe that requires limited effort and it’s close to perfect. These are called chalupas, but they have nothing to do with […]

  • Ridiculously easy chicken tacos

    You are going to need some very special skills to make these chicken tacos. Namely: the ability to open a jar (or find a cute boy to do it for you) and the ability to push a button. So, those without opposable thumbs, sorry. Seriously, these are so easy to make it is almost embarrassing. […]

  • Southwestern pulled beef

    I grew up in Arizona and love Tex-Mex food. And there is this salsa chicken I make frequently that might be the easiest thing ever (recipe coming soon). So the plan for my birthday party was to make chicken tacos. But I figured people would also want some beef. I was trying to figure out […]