HomeMadeMadeEasy

It’s been a month since Home Made Made Easy started here in Charleston. In that time, I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback and a lot of potential clients…for the fall. So, we’ve decided to take a break for the summer and relaunch in a few months. In the meantime, I’m available for parties when the need arises. And keep checking the blog as I will be posting recipes and menu ideas throughout the summer. I look forward to hearing from you with any ideas you may have to improve my services and of course I look forward to cooking dinner for you soon!

It’s that time of the week again…time to know you DON’T have to worry about what’s for dinner next week! But first, a referral special. It’s simple. Tell some friends about this business. When they call and order a week’s worth of meals, you get a free dessert! Choose from chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter banana chocolate chip muffins, brownies, oatmeal cranberry walnut cookies, or fruit cobbler. By the way, if you’d like to add an extra dessert to your order, it’s just $10 per dozen cookies/brownies/muffins (or $10 for the cobbler, baked in an 8×8 pan). And now that the best part is out of the way, here’s the rest of this week’s menu. Remember to place your order by Thursday at 6pm by email at michele@homemademadeeasy.com or by calling 843-730-3631. You can order as much or as little as you like and it’s only a $25 delivery fee for your entire order. I look forward to cooking for you soon!

1. Chicken Paprikash

-tangy tomato based sauce with a hint of heat served over dumplings, with a side of green beans. Can be heated in the oven or microwave. $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion.

2. Lemon chicken

-lightly breaded chicken breast cooked in white wine lemon sauce with capers, served with garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli. Can be heated in the oven or microwave. $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion.

3. Pork tenderloin and butternut squash risotto

-Parmesan crusted pork tenderloin served with butternut squash risotto and roasted asparagus. Can be heated in the oven or microwave. $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion.

4. Low-cal chicken enchiladas

-shredded chicken rolled in flour tortillas and covered in spicy yet sweet home made enchilada sauce, served with rice and black beans. Can be heated in the oven or microwave. $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion.

5. Chili and cornbread

-chunks of sirloin with kidney and pinto beans in slightly spicy tomato chili served with home made cornbread. Can be heated on the stove or in the microwave. $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion.

6. Meatball subs

-fresh ground beef and pork meatballs cooked in home made tomato sauce, served with a baguette and provolone cheese. Should be assembled and then broiled in the oven. $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion.

7. Pot roast

-beef slow cooked with carrots, celery and potatoes. Can be heated in the oven or microwave. $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion.

8. Pasta with cauliflower

-penne rigati noodles, cauliflower, potatoes, and sweet apple chicken sausage. Can be heated on the stove top or in the microwave. $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion.

The menu for next week is here! Please feel free to email michele@homemademadeeasy.com or call 843-730-3631 for orders or with any questions.

1. Spanish Roundsteak

-Beef cooked in tangy tomato based sauce with green olives served over white rice. Can be heated in microwave or oven. $12 adult portions, $6 kids.

2. Oven fried pork chops

-Breaded and oven fried pork chops served with scalloped potatoes and roasted broccoli. Oven heating recommended. $12 adult portions, $6 kids.

3. Eggplant parmesan

-Sliced and breaded fried eggplant topped with tomato sauce and cheese, served with pasta. Oven heating recommended. $12 adult portions, $6 kids.

4. Lasagna

-Layered noodles, tomato sauce, ricotta cheese, spinach, crumbled sausage, and fresh ground beef and pork. Served casserole style, oven heating required. $35 per pan, serves 4-5 adults.

5. Risotto

-Creamy risotto with chicken sausage and asparagus. Can be heated in oven or microwave. $12 adult portions, $6 kids.

6. Lemon chicken

-Lightly breaded and pan fried chicken served in creamy lemon sauce with capers, sides of green beans and garlic mashed potatoes. Can be heated in oven or microwave. $12 adult portions, $6 kids.

7. Chicken pot pie

-Home made chicken pot pie with shredded chicken, carrots, peas, and green beans in a creamy sauce. Pie will be par cooked, oven baking required. $25 per pie, serves 4-5 adults.

8. Chicken noodle soup and home made bread

-Home made chicken broth with pieces of chicken, carrots and celery and noodles served with home made bread. Soup can be heated on the stove top or in microwave. $12 adult portions, $6 kids.

Has the task of planning a week’s meals, shopping, and cooking become more daunting with each passing week? Home Made Made Easy has the solution! Please see the menu below and place your orders for May 7th delivery by this Thursday at 6pm. Prices for each meal are listed below and every order has a flat $25 delivery fee to cover containers and delivery to your door. Orders can be placed over the phone at 843-730-3631 or by email at michele@homemademadeeasy.com.

1. Baked rigatoni with mini meatballs – rigatoni with tomato sauce, ricotta cheese, and mini meatballs topped with mozzarella cheese. (oven baking required)

>> $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion

2. Chicken Parmesan – lightly breaded and fried chicken breast topped with tomato sauce and parmesan cheese, served with a side of home made pasta. (oven baking recommended but can be microwaved as well)

>>$12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion

3. Italian macaroni and cheese – baked macaroni with fresh grated cheese, home made cream sauce, and topped with bread crumbs. (oven baking required)

>>$12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion

4. Lemon chicken – lightly breaded chicken breast in a white wine lemon sauce with capers served with green beans and home made black pepper pasta. (can be heated in the oven or microwave)

>>$12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion

5. Sweet and sour pork – lightly fried in tempura batter and tossed with broccoli, carrots and home made sweet and sour sauce, served with white rice. (oven baking recommended but can be heated in the microwave as well)

>>$12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion

6. Barbecue meatloaf – fresh ground beef and pork with barbecue sauce, served with garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli. (can be heated in the oven or microwave)

>>$12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion

7. Chili – chunks of sirloin, kidney beans, and tomato, served with home made cornbread. (can be heated in the microwave or on the stove top)

>>$12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion

8. Italian wedding soup and salad – soup is home made chicken broth with home made fresh ground beef and pork meatballs, spinach and pasta, salad is fresh lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and a home made blueberry vinaigrette dressing. (soup can be heated in the microwave or on the stove top)

>>$12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion

I look forward to cooking for you soon!

A lot has happened since business was starting up 2 years ago.  Our little family (who was then just me and my husband) moved from San Diego, CA, to Charleston, SC.  In December 2010 our precious son was born.  Then in September 2011 we moved into our house.  I finally have my dream kitchen where I can prepare meals your whole family will love!

So here’s how it works…below you will find a list of meals that I will be preparing and delivering on Monday, April 30th, 2012.  Pick what you like, how many people (adults and children) will be enjoying each meal, and either send me an email at michele@homemademadeeasy.com or give me a call at (843) 730-3631 to place your order.  We’ll briefly go over any food allergies or other requests you may have and set up a time for your meals to be delivered.  I will deliver anywhere in greater Charleston (Mt. Pleasant, West Ashley, Summerville…), and there is a $25 delivery fee per order which covers containers for your meals as well as the delivery itself. Please place your orders by 6pm on Thursday, April 26 to allow time for me to plan, prep, shop, and most importantly, COOK!

1.  Lasagna — tomato sauce, ricotta cheese, spinach, sausage, and fresh ground beef and pork; topped with shredded parmesan

• $35, serves 4-5 people (casserole style, oven baking required)

2.  Lemon Chicken — lightly breaded, cooked in a white wine sauce; served with roasted brussel sprouts and home made black pepper pasta

• $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion (can be heated in the oven or microwave)

3.  Chicken Paprikash — served over home made dumplings with a side of green beans

• $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion (can be heated in the oven or microwave)

4.  Stuffed Peppers — large bell pepper stuffed with harvest grain blend, fresh ground beef and pork, and tomato sauce; topped with provolone cheese and extra tomato sauce

• $12 per pepper (1 to 1 1/2 per adult, 1/2 to 1 recommended per child) (oven baking required)

5.  Italian Wedding Soup and Salad — soup is a chicken broth with home made fresh ground beef and pork meatballs, spinach, and pasta; salad is fresh lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, and a home made blueberry vinaigrette

• $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion (microwave or stove top heating recommended for the soup)

6.  Sweet and Sour Pork — lightly fried in tempura batter and tossed with broccoli, carrots and a home made sweet and sour sauce; served with white rice

• $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion (can be heated in the microwave or oven)

7.  Home made chicken pot pie — filled with green beans, carrots, shredded chicken and a creamy sauce

• $25 per pie, serves 4-6 people (pie is par-cooked, oven baking required)

8.  Fresh Salad with Breaded Chicken — fresh lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers, and crumbled goat cheese; served with breaded, pan-fried chicken tenders and a creamy cucumber cilantro dressing

• $12 per adult portion, $6 per child’s portion (recommended to serve chicken cold, no heating required)

Let me know if you have any questions.  I look forward to cooking for you soon!

When coming up with a meal to make for a huge group, there’s nothing like going back to the classics.  I grew up with food being such a central part of life and family and have a lot of great recipes to draw from with that experience.  A favorite of mine is stuffed peppers.  I’ve made them several times for my husband and now they’re a fave of his too!  And they’re easy to make….

Bell peppers of any color are fine, but green ones are usually the easiest to get.  You want to make sure they’ll be an easy size and shape to stuff – large, round, and flat on the bottom.  If I can find yellow or red peppers that fit the bill, I’ll use those too, but you’re much more likely to see green bell peppers in the store that will work.

Start out by preparing your peppers.  Super simple.  Cut off the top and dig out the seeds.  Wash the pepper.  You’re done. 

Next, make your filling.  Tradition for my family was rice, ground beef, and tomato sauce.  It works best if you make it in 3 separate pans and mix after everything’s cooked.  For the rice, you just want to add some extra flavor since it’s the main filling of the pepper.  Onion, garlic, salt and pepper will do the trick.  Season the ground beef with the same; add in whatever you have on hand that suits your fancy as well – basil, marjoram, oregano, thyme (take your pick!).  With the sauce, you’ll do pretty much the same.  It’s ok here to make a “chunky” sauce using fresh tomatoes (make sure you’ve removed the skins) or canned diced tomatoes.  The chunks of tomatoes will do well to break up the filling of the peppers.

Once all your filling ingredients are fully cooked, you can mix them together and add to the peppers.  It’s good to leave a little sauce on reserve for later.  Just spoon the filling into your already prepared peppers.  Fill to the top.  Arrange them in a baking dish.  You can spoon the reserve sauce on top of the peppers.  That will help keep them moist during cooking.

If you’re going to be eating these right away, go ahead and cook them in the oven at 350 for about 45 minutes.  That will get the filling nice and hot and cook the pepper.  If you keep your baking dish covered with foil for all but the last 10 minutes it will keep the moisture in nicely.  If you’ll be serving your peppers later on, I recommend baking them just before serving.  You can keep an uncooked stuffed pepper in your fridge for a couple of days if necessary.

That’s it!  Enjoy! 

Book a Private Party in April and receive a 20% discount off our normal prices.  That’s only $24/person and includes an appetizer, entree and dessert.  Check out the website http://homemademadeeasy.com for more details or call me 858-736-4259.  Let’s get your party booked today!

So I’ve had these pictures for about a week and just kept forgetting to add them.  We’ve been working so hard on getting the website published that I’ve been slacking off on my new blogging habit.  So here goes…

First is Chicken Paprikash served over dumplings.  I’m not sure why, but dumplings have always ranked pretty high on my absolute favorite foods list.  My birthday is New Year’s Day and my parents always wanted to have the traditional meal of pork and sauerkraut.  The only thing that made it ok for me as my birthday dinner was the fact that it came along with a triple batch of Aunt Angie’s Dumplings.  I had a go at them last week and they came out just as yummy as I remember.

As mentioned in earlier posts, pasta of any kind is my weakness.  I love it.  It’s the Italian in me.  Well, I had a bunch of random ingredients in the fridge and needed to make a dinner out of it.  So what does any good Italian do?  Put it over pasta, make it look yummy, take a picture, and post it on the blog.  (The last 2 steps are optional )  So here we have chicken, zucchini, and grape tomatoes over bucatini.  It was my husband’s first taste of bucatini and at first glance he thought it was just a more expensive name for spaghetti.  He quickly learned the yummy difference.  And for those of you about to Google it because you, also, have no idea what bucatini is…it is just like spaghetti except it has a hole in the center of it.  What good does the hole do?  Makes slurping more fun, that’s for sure, and it also is just another place for sauce and yummy flavors to be absorbed.

That’s all for meals right now.  Happy Eating!

So I have a group of guinea pigs – friends that are testing out my service and helping me to decide what meals reheat well, how the presentation is, and make those “fine tune” adjustments necessary for my paying clients to be fully satisfied with the service I provide.

Yesterdays meal consisted of salad, risotto, chicken and zucchini.  First, the salad.  It was mixed greens with diced red and yellow peppers, grape tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, and green onions (which were omitted for those families that do not like onions) served with blueberry vinaigrette.  The vinaigrette had a few new additions this time around…a splash of fig balsamic vinegar in addition to the traditional balsamic and I used Australian olive oil.  I also used my flake sea salt as opposed to the usual crushed rock salt.  All feedback so far indicates that was a huge success!

The risotto was a pretty traditional recipe using chicken stock for most families and vegetable broth for the vegetarian crowd.  Cooked slowly, adding lots of liquid, and finished with a bit of Parmesan cheese.  Always a hit.

Zucchini was a pretty standard offering.  Cut into bite-sized pieces, steamed in some vegetable broth (that adds a bit more flavor than just using water) and lightly seasoned with some salt and pepper.  I was tempted to use some olive oil on this one, but I’m glad I didn’t.  Let the natural flavor of the vegetable really shine through.

Lastly, the chicken.  It was a lightly breaded pan-fried boneless skinless chicken breast.  I really prefer a light breading on chicken rather than a heavy “KFC” type breading.  I pretty much just use the natural juice from the chicken to get some of the flour mixture to stick.  Much of it falls off in the pan during cooking but it’s more for seasoning than to be a breading anyways so it works really well.  I pounded the chicken breasts out before frying them but was a bit disappointed when they sort of puffed back up during cooking.  I think next time I am going to try to find a brand of chicken breasts that adds less broth during the packaging process and see if that makes a difference.  Just the ponderings of the cook, I suppose.

Sorry no pictures to post on this one.  I forgot to take some before I delivered all the meals.  But I’ll be doing another meal delivery next Monday as well so hopefully I will remember to take some pictures then.  And depending on what I make here this week, I might have something to add before then.

Until next time, happy eating!

Yesterday I “catered” my first party with the help of my awesome husband.  So many friends of mine are having babies, and yesterday my friend Karen had her baby shower.  Such an amazing story of strength, perseverance, and faith in that woman!

Anyways, about the food…we had 2 different salads – The McClory Salad (mixed greens, dried cranberries, crumbled feta, and candied walnuts) and an Asian Beef Salad.  There were 3 varieties of sandwiches, chicken salad, egg salad, and cucumber.  I’m not usually a fan of egg salad, but even I thought this one was good.  And the hit of the party?  Spinach artichoke dip with homemade tortilla chips.  That’s the one thing I know I will keep as a favorite.  They’re so easy to make!  Take corn tortillas and cut them into chip-sized pieces.  (If you buy the smaller taco size, you can just cut it in fourths.)  Deep fry, drain on a paper towel, toss with some salt, and you’re done!  The cost is about the same as if you bought a bag of chips, but they taste SO much better.

If you’ve never tried making your own chips, I highly suggest it.  You’ll want to use a deep fryer…it’s really not worth it to try to do it in a pot on the stove.  You can buy a small deep fryer for $40-$60.  I’m sure you’ll find other uses for it…we sure did.  French fries, chicken tenders, we even tried cannolis!  I’ll blog on those next time we make them.