easy recipes Archives — Thrifty Mommas Tips

Stuffed Peppers with Ground Beef and Rice: Inspired by Travel to Cartagena Colombia

Paula — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 11:06:00 +0000

Stuffed Peppers with ground beef and rice are a family favourite now and a recipe that we frequently enjoy together. Hard to believe that 20 years ago before a trip to Cartagena, Colombia, I’d never even heard of this dish. Now we have this one in the rotation routinely for dinner. My youngest daughter asks for these stuffed peppers with ground beef and rice and many nights she enjoys helping to make them too. There are a few variations you could take on these. Add cheese on the finished product if you want. Add corn into the mixture. Get creative if you want. You could even remove the meat for a vegetarian version of this and just go all in on veggies. I don’t eat corn because of the Crohn’s disease, but I know many people love corn in all of their tex mex stuffed vegetable kinds of meals and appetizers. My favourite time to buy green peppers is in the fall well before the snow. I love to get them fresh at the market and turn them into stuffed green or sometimes red peppers. I built this recipe here at home in London after a trip to Cartagena, Colombia many years ago. For our first wedding anniversary my husband Jim and I took a trip to Cartagena, Colombia. I recall the exotic beaches and stunning architecture in the old section of the city. The food was rich and fresh and unexpected. We enjoyed a week of touring the city during the day and then relaxing on the beach and indulging in the Colombian meals at night. To be clear though it was an all inclusive resort so it was big batch cooking and buffet style meals. Generally that means the food sits a bit longer and also it is occasionally less flavourful. One night we tried stuffed Bell Peppers and I fell hard for this delicious meal. It is a regular recipe in the rotation here because my entire family loves these. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do. First Steps: Brown the lean ground beef in a frying pan. Add diced onion and garlic. Add a dash of soya sauce and dash of Worcestershire Sauce and remaining spices. Follow the recipe above. Don’t forget to drain those peppers well though because otherwise they will be watery. Some people might not cook the peppers first but I do because I like them to be a bit softer for everyone in my family (mostly me.) This actually lasts us two meals sometimes so the four peppers provides plenty of leftovers unless you have huge appetites. An Affordable Family Dinner That Brings Back Memories For me, stuffed peppers is routine now and it is also a fairly affordable recipe. The only variations really are the peppers. I mean occasionally I swap out for red peppers which my kids seem to like more than green and sometimes I go with the entire rainbow – green, red, yellow and orange. The level of heat can be tweaked with a bit of chili pepper flakes. This one often reminds me of that first trip to Colombia. I have been back a couple of times since. Cook for one hour covered at 350 or 375 degrees. Scoop and serve one stuffed pepper per person. (Sometimes my kids only eat half of a pepper so we have lots of leftovers. These are overflowing typically here. So don’t be shy with the stuffing. Enjoy!

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Easy White Chocolate Pretzels with Peanut Butter

Paula — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 16:11:00 +0000

This white chocolate pretzels with peanut butter recipe will hit the sweet tooth just right! Post contains affiliate links as a service to readers. I make a small commission off of purchases made via qualifying links. Are you a peanut butter flavoured treats fan? How about white chocolate? White Chocolate For the Win I love white chocolate treats and cookies and even chocolate bars or pretzels. One of my favourite things to buy at Bulk Barn, a local baking supplies and snacks store, is Everything Pretzels. They taste delicious and are loaded with sprinkles, chocolate chips and more. In fact, their pretzels are loaded so full of sprinkles and chocolate and dipped yogurt that half of the toppings fall off in the bag on the way home. We have these Betty Crocker Cookie Sheets and we use them often. Buy them Now – > https://amzn.to/39dTSiz Expensive to Buy in a Store Every single time that I buy these Everything Pretzels which look like Everything But the Kitchen Sink Pretzels, I have buyer’s remorse. Don’t get me wrong. They are CRAZY delicious and they are also big pretzels but when you are charged by weight as this store does the pretzels end up being about $1 a piece!!! Yikes. So, I kind of feel lazy and only buy a couple at a time…I know…I know…why bother? Well, the taste is just that good. I need to have their loaded chocolate pretzels when I am there. Another Kitchen Item We Rely On Don’t Be Without Parchment Paper. We use parchment so much! It is just less mess to cleanup. Easy to Make at Home For months I have been saying we should make these at home. These look simple, we could definitely make them. Well, recently I put my money where my mouth is…not literally. But, now that we are on lockdown again I told my teenagers that we should make some white chocolate pretzels at home. In fact, I think I said this looks super easy and I was right. It is one of the easiest recipes that you will find anywhere and it is so delicious. You don’t need many ingredients or much time either. Just know that these white chocolate pretzels will be gone fast so make enough to share. Here’s the Easy Recipe: Get the Ingredients Here – > White chocolate melts Milk Chocolate chips Peanut Butter candy bits Try These Tasty Treats Trust me this recipe is tasty and so simple. Now, I crave white chocolate pretzels all over again reliving the recipe. Enjoy!

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Spring Bird’s Nest Cheerios Treats

Paula — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 14:30:12 +0000

It’s the month for Easter baking around here and my sweet tooth has not been disappointed. So today I want to share another great, super simple Easter recipe we made recently. These Easter Cheerios Bird Nests are really chewy and sticky and oh so good. I call them Chewy Cheerios treats. You can also call them Marshmallow Easter Bird’s Nests if you want. Again these are simple to make so the kids can easily get involved baking them and sharing with friends. All you need is a few bulk food store ingredients and you can pull this together in 15 minutes. The only challenging part really is making sure the marshmallow fluff coats the dry ingredients and doesn’t harden too fast. I supervise my kids when doing that part. Any excuse to use my Fiesta bowls makes me happy! Start with marshmallows (they needn’t be the rainbow miniatures shown here.) I bought the rainbow ones and then used them in a few recipes. But when you melt these you lose the colour anyways so go ahead and get the plain ones. Melt them just as you would if you were making marshmallow and rice cereal treats. Cheerios are a staple here and have been ever since the kids were old enough to start eating solids. My husband eats this cereal almost every day so I always have them on hand and sometimes I feel like building something new with Cheerios. I had planned to leave these just with the jelly bean toppers as decoration but then my one daughter saw a chance to add sprinkles to the food and voila. Sprinkles sometimes make everything better. [tweetthis]What are you baking this spring? These are simple to make and tasty too. [/tweetthis] I hope you and your family enjoy these and I hope you have a great Easter and a wonderful spring season too! Easy chewy Cheerios Treats that can be served as nests and are great for spring bake sales I have a few other Easter treats this year to share and don’t forget to check my recent kid’s Printables posts for some free colouring pages and word searches to share with kids.

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Best Halloween Rice Krispies Treats #RiceKrispiesHalloween

Paula — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 01:52:28 +0000

Halloween Rice Krispies treats are so easy to make with kids and super fun too. I mean who doesn’t love Rice Krispies treats? They couldn’t be simpler. It’s the spookiest time of year and my kids love to bake so the other day we decided to see what we could come up with by combining Halloween and Rice Krispies treats. But for this batch of Halloween Rice Krispies treats you need a few adornments to make them festive. Pay close attention to the simple details here and you will have some of the best Halloween Rice Krispies Treats. Kitchen Time is Family Time If you spend any time at all here then you know we love to bake and spend time in the kitchen together. That’s one of my favourite things that we do here. The girls both enjoy cooking time with me and one is really super into baking. Happily, they are both capable and willing to learn a few recipes. My kids love this time of year. Mostly they really get a hoot out of dressing up and getting candy for Halloween. If you asked Ainsley, well she’d tell you it’s her favourite time of year right after Christmas. Candy is magical that way. Last year we got a beautiful package of ingredients and goodies to make some Halloween Rice Krispies treats. The kids LOVED that so much. They actually were asking a few weeks ago if Kellogg’s might send something like that again this year. And then the package arrived. Ainsley, not one to wait or be patient, had to make them fast on a night right after she got in from school. That said, these don’t take very long to make. The decorating is the longest part. Ainsley plots out her costumes and her candy strategy every single year months in advance of the event itself. But I always have to be careful with that because my kids have been known to change their minds last minute. That is a total pain in the neck when that happens. Making Memories in the Kitchen Food is so clearly tied to the sense and memories. I love that about some recipes. I have a few things here that forever remind me of my Mom. That will never change. The sky is the limit when it comes to these easy Rice Krispies Halloween treats. Bloody Halloween fingers Rice Krispies treats to cute little bats – it’s all fun and really for me the kitchen is a place to make memories. See the recipe below. Super simple to make and takes no time at all really. But I bet you they disappear just as fast. If you love this then you should also take note of these Rice Krispies pecan treats. Super tasty and fun Halloween Rice Krispies treats. More Halloween Ideas and Printables: I have a zillion Halloween printables for you to print and share. Here’s my Halloween Zombies colouring book. And if you are interested in Halloween Trivia then here you go. Happy Halloween! We received product here for consideration. My opinion is all my own and it is also truthful.

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