Quick and Easy Dinners and Cooking Hacks Inspired By YOU! Answering ALL Your Most Asked Questions

hey friends I'm Mel and welcome to my kitchen have I got a treat for you today this video is full it's full of our family favorites things you may not have seen before things that you always ask me about and today I'm answering and most of all it's full of quick and easy hacks that will give your dinners that down home flavor you've been looking for and save you time and money so let's get started tonight we're going to make some Caesar chicken and I'm going to start out just mixing up a topping that we use for it and I'm using a half a cup of Caesar dressing just this bottled Caesar that I get at Aldi and I'm going to put in about a fourth a cup of sour cream now we're just going to set this aside while we prep our chicken in most recipes I will take a regular full-size chicken breast and just butterfly it it Cooks so much quicker that way and it's just a whole lot easier now I'm just going to season my chicken with some black pepper foreign just a little parmesan cheese the grated kind in the can [Music] I'm gonna flip these Seasons side down into my little small casserole dish here then we're going to get the back side of them with the very same stuff now we're going to take the Caesar and sour cream mixture and we're just going to spread this on top of all of these chicken breasts the recipe that I'm using I actually have this recipe it calls for four full-size chicken breasts pounded out this is plenty for us so I just prefer to do it this way and then of course I also have the measurements for this little mixture that goes over the top I'm not sure if I mentioned but I did spray this casserole dish before I put the chicken in you can just about 99.9 percent be certain I spray every dish before I put anything in it the recipe says to come back over the top of this with some more of your grated Parmesan cheese but if I have some shredded parm in a bag or a little container I always like to use it I just really like that then I like to sprinkle just a little bit of parsley over the top of mine just to give it a little bit of green color made this for many years my family loves it and I'm going to put this uncovered in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes once that chicken is cooked completely I do like to turn it up to broil and brown it up for just two or three minutes keep a real close eye on it then I pull it out and I just let it set on the stove covered with aluminum foil for about 10 minutes it just helps to hold that heat in and it lets that Caesar dressing mixture kind of thicken up a little bit now don't worry you're still going to have plenty of gravy off of that if you will but it does help it to have that time to thicken up tonight's all about answering questions that you ask me one of them is how do you cook canned green beans well I like these Kroger cut green beans I really like these I've had Aldi green beans they're good I love Allen's flat green beans but this is the best way I have found to make canned green beans taste more like homemade I pour them in right with the water out of the can I've heard people rinse them or just drain that water off and put chicken broth in there you do whatever you want to do but that's how I do it I put a little bit of salt in there [Music] a little bit of pepper I'm gonna put some brown sugar and I'm probably going to put more than what most people would for one can of green beans but that's how Patrick rolls I'm also going to get me a little bit of bacon grease right out of here and throw that in if you don't have bacon grease you can just use regular cooking oil or something like that I also have this little bag of real bacon pieces and I mean there's just a little handful left in there I'm gonna toss that in then I'm going to come in with a nice big splash of Worcestershire sauce if you have soy sauce you're welcome to use that but I'm not a big fan of the soy sauce now I'm going to turn this up on a pretty high heat mix all this in I'm gonna let it come up to a real good boil I'll show you I like to cook my green beans pretty hard then I let them cook down to a lot of this liquid is evaporated out green beans are cooking really hard and that water will just cook lower and lower and it really softens those beans up and that is how we like them if you've been here before you've seen me do this but I'm making it so I thought I'd just throw it in we'd have all this in one place I have this packet of instant mashed potatoes and instead of bringing to a bowl two cups of water I bring to boil a cup and a half of water then I finish it out with a half a cup of milk or evaporated milk or whipping cream and I put that in here and then kind of get those instant potato flakes wet it all kind of dissolved in there and then you're just going to let these stand for a couple minutes this is just a really quick little way to take instant mashed potatoes up a notch and make them taste like homemade and these right here I'm really enjoying these buttery gold select I've got some red ones to try and some that it said made in chicken broth so let's just let this set and let everything do its work now you can just see how pretty those mashed potatoes have done up I love instant mashed potatoes the only thing that I do is I do come in with just a little extra salt and a little pepper and even though they're The Buttery select I like to put a little bit of butter down in there and mix that in and you've heard me say a million times instant mashed potatoes make better potato cakes those of you guys that are new have said quarter potato cakes or how do you make potato cakes stay tuned we're making potato cakes I'm so excited I just can't tell you how good this Caesar chicken is the flavor is so good and it holds such moisture in and it makes that beautiful little gravy for your mashed potatoes too so that would be hack number one is learn how to doctor up your convenience Foods look at these green beans that looks like it has simmered all day long just regular green beans doctored up a little bit and find your favorite convenience foods like I found the mashed potatoes that I love that I can always count on to cook up and taste good I've got some greens in here I don't think I pointed out but they're Margaret Holmes brand seasoned greens I love those better than any homemade greens that I've ever made so don't be embarrassed to try convenience foods you can make them taste great I just wanted to jump on here and introduce you to my friend Megan her channel is Megan's kitchen and we're collaborating on videos today and if you have never seen Megan you are going to love her Channel she does weekly grocery hauls and a weekly what's for dinner and Megan is a wonderful Southern cook but she makes things that I never touch things you'll never see here wonderful Asian Cuisines and Sushi and things like that she is a great all-around cook and just a super nice girl so I will leave her video and her Channel linked down in my description box when you're finished here today be sure and check out Megan's kitchen and if you're coming over from Megan's Channel thank you so much for stopping by I hope you enjoy your time here and we'll come back real soon tonight I'm making a family favorite this is my aunt Kathy's cowboy beans and I've got a pound of ground beef and onions Browning up over here and and we're going to preheat our oven to 400 degrees I've got a two quarts splitted casserole dish this is like a bean pot you could use a dutch oven I do like to spray up around the sides especially so that it won't be too hard to clean up next I'm going to put in two 15 ounce cans of pork and beans you can also use one of the big cans I think it's 28 ounces also going to put in one cup of ketchup I'm just going to go ahead and use what's left in here I'm gonna add in one tablespoon of chili powder and we're going to put in three tablespoons of apple cider vinegar just a little bit of salt to taste I'm just going to combine all this [Music] now that my ground beef and onion is all done up I just drained it really well we're just gonna combine the beans and the ground beef and onions and all this and like I was telling you this is a family favorite this is my aunt Kathy's recipe I grew up eating this at her house absolutely loved it and I've not changed one thing about it I have this in a Pinterest link and it is actually a picture of a recipe card from my freshman year of high school my home egg recipe box this is one of the recipes that I put in that and I just took a picture of that and made a Pinterest link out of it for this recipe this is also one of these recipes like tonight we're having it for a main dish but it makes great sides it's good for cold winter days and it's good for hot summer picnics you do want to cook this covered and I'm putting it in that 400 degree oven for one hour covered the whole time all right friends tonight we're making potato cakes my idea in planning this menu for this week like I said was to show you a lot of things you've been asking me about planned on using some leftover mashed potatoes I just made one packet last night we did not have enough so I made a whole new envelope or package of instant mashed potatoes the reason I like the instant it's just more firm and you definitely want these to be very cold and very firm you can see I did put one egg in here this kind of helps serve as a binder since I have a good amount of mashed potatoes I need a good amount of green onion I love the green onion in my potato cakes good put a little bit of black pepper in here and I'm gonna put in some of my auntie no no seasoning it is salt but it also has onion powder and garlic powder in it those are all flavors that I love in my potato case now I'm going to throw in just a little handful of cheddar cheese potato cakes is something that you just have to really feel the mixture mine are too runny right now you can see this you got to put a little bit of flour in them to help them kind of stick together this is a half of a cup scoop [Music] I've maybe used a third of that let's see what they look like and as long as I've been making potato cakes I still mess them up sometimes I'll put them in there and they'll just be too runny and you can tell almost immediately I think I'm going to put in just a little bit more [Music] I've got my cast iron pan on about medium Heat and I'm going to use a generous helping of olive oil and this is a pretty large Skillet oh yeah I got out because I got a lot of mashed potatoes here I got a lot I always just like to put a little off in here to test it and it's sizzly I'd say we're ready to rock and roll now the way I do mine is I just slide them out by the Spoonful then I kind of like mush them down a little bit and then I don't touch them I've seen people Patty them out if you want to do that I've seen that it looks like that works fine but I just prefer to do mine this way and not Patty them out they do kind of expand when you get them in here and they start cooking up and you flip them so you gotta leave a little bit of room in between [Music] you can see that just slid right around my uh oven for my stove here is a little bit off-centered so my grease likes to get down here in one corner you don't want to move them you don't want to touch them you want to give them a good two or three minutes right here on this side to get nice and crispy on the bottom that way when you go to flip them they're not going to stick on you they're going to come off nice and easy when I flip mine then I'll smush them down a little bit on the side that's kind of browned up [Music] put my newer cast iron skillet I think it's 12 inches it is the biggest one that I have Cali got it for me at the South Pittsburg cornbread Festival down at the lodge Factory one year she got it like I think it was like ten dollars if you ever get to go to the cornbread Festival be sure and tour The Lodge cast iron Factory down there they close it down and let people come in and tour that being said the reason I said that is that you know every piece of cast iron to me has its own like personality and Cooks a little bit different you wouldn't believe what just a couple inches difference in size makes when cooking in these you can see where I flattened them right around here they need to get brown so I always flip them over and give the other side another little fry that leads us to hack number two is to let your food do double duty for you I love to cook once and eat twice my mom made these potato cakes for us growing up all the time and I love them Whoever thought of that it's a wonderful way to use up leftovers like I said a lot of times I just make instant mashed potatoes and put them in the fridge to make potato cakes they're delicious make plenty of something so you can have it another night that week it really helps you out and our beans are coming out of the oven now and you see how they are piping hot in there let them sit covered and rest there for about 10 minutes when you take that lid off look at that rich goodness these beans have the best flavor it is a Savory but a little bit of sweet and it's just so good this is one of my very most favorite meals that leads us to hack number three is ask your family for those recipes those things things that you love that they make all the time or that you used to have as a kid not only do they taste delicious but you are going to be passing those memories along and keeping that alive for another generation and I absolutely love that about cooking is all the memories that are involved with these recipes and just the quick and easy tips that your mom or your grandma can pass on to you it makes such a difference in your cooking now we're going to move on to another favorite of my family and this is our take on salmon patties but it is tuna patties and I use just two small five ounce cans of Chunk light tuna just really the cheapest one but I do like to make sure that I really have it drained well I want this to be very dry and chunky when I start out put in about three big tablespoons full of mayonnaise then I'm gonna season it up with a little black pepper and I'm going to use my anti-nom no seasoning and that is salt and it also has garlic and onion powder in it also going to break in one egg and then mix that up just a little bit now I'm going to add in a diced green onion you can also just use a regular onion I'm also going to put in about a quarter cup of cornmeal mix like what you make cornbread with and about a quarter cup of flour I love the crunchiness that the cornmeal gives it I'm going to give that a little stir and I'm just going to put that in the fridge for a little while this has become my new favorite way to make potatoes I've just got some diced up Golden potatoes here and I've just drizzled them with olive oil and I'm going to season them up with my auntie no nose also going to give it a little bit of paprika and I love to put Italian seasoning on my potatoes too [Music] and I'm just going to stir all these up in this bowl to coat them really well and I'm actually going to cook them in my airfryer today and I like to line it with parchment and then I just try to spread them out as an even layer I cook them a total of 20 to 25 minutes on 400 degrees and I do stir them about halfway through now we're going to pull those tuna patties out and cook them up I've got some butter and oil heated in my cast iron skillet and I do like to put a little flour on my hands and Hattie these tuna patties out you can see I just put a little extra flour down in that bowl and then I'll just roll a little ball of the tuna mixture around and then pull it up and Patty it out and this just takes a couple minutes on each side it fries up really quick just like the potato cakes did again I think cast iron is so good to fry in I just use the same technique as I did with the potato cakes I make all different sizes I'm not real good about um making everything even but hey it's just us around here we're not too worried about it and just look at that golden color that that cornmeal gives them I really love the cornmeal in the tuna patties I'm just going to mix this up a little bit of tartar sauce to have with this start out with some mayonnaise put in a little bit of yellow mustard just a tiny bit of lemon juice and some sweet pickle relish give that a mix and stick it in the fridge and let it get nice and cool too this is one of our favorite meals you can see here we've got leftover cowboy beans and leftover greens and tip number four is to think outside the box with your proteins I know canned salmon is getting more expensive especially if you're like me and you like the kind that already has the bones out of it that is why I started using tuna for this and I love it so don't be afraid to try something different maybe a cheaper cut of meat prepared a different way in season season it here's a little something I kept promising you and I kept forgetting we're gonna make sweet tea today this is just a really thin Kettle cheap got it at Walmart or somewhere but like you can hear it's just aluminum then I like it because it heats up quick and I don't cook anything in this pot only emergency situation if I have to pull this out this is just for making tea fill this with cold water I didn't get it all the way full and I just use these these are a Kroger brand tea bag but this is a pitcher size tea bag and I use three of these to make one gallon of tea just going to put them in here and let them get good and boiling while we're waiting on our water and tea bags to boil I'm coming to the sink with my tea pitcher and I'm going to put in one and a half cups of sugar [Music] I like to dissolve my sugar in just a little bit of water just a little bit right down here at the bottom so that whenever I pour my tea over into this it is good to go the thing about tea you cannot let it get cold if you want sweet tea you need to sweeten it when it's hard right off of the stove and the longer that you let it set the sweeter it gets you don't want it to sit too long it gets bad like a week but like if it sits overnight or if you make it early in the morning it's going to be better this I put you know a full cup and a half of sugar because we're going to drink it right now but you can get away with a little less sugar if you're going to let it sit a little while and let's talk about the elephant in the room this big ugly spoon this is only used for tea tea will discolor things and this is my big scrunchie teaspoon and everybody here knows this is only for tea right here's what you're looking for a hard rolling bull when it gets to this I just cut it off and I just let it sit here and I mean just a few minutes I don't like Let It steep long I just let it kind of cool a bit and right here is what I'm talking about it's still got just a smidge and a bubble to it but it's good to make forgive me I might be going about this wrong-handed but I just kind of hold my tea bags in here pour it over and if you don't make as much tea as I do you could use any pot you have there's nothing magical about these scrunchy utensils I just make a lot of tea so I don't like to mess up my good stuff something I do is stream some cold water over these tea bags get every little bit you can out of them [Music] stir and go and always go to the top there you go sweet iced tea put it in the refrigerator get it good and cold it's wonderful with lemon in it or orange or even just by itself Iris we're gonna drink it tonight with dinner so I may just leave it out we just had to put a lot of ice in it and who doesn't love a refreshing glass of iced tea that would be hack number five is do learn to make some things at home you can spend a lot of money buying pre-made tea in The Jug and it is so easy and cheap to make at home and it tastes so much better you know I love convenience foods but they're not always the cheapest so if you can learn to do homemade biscuits and things like that just knowing that if you need to make something from scratch you can that's peace of mind starting with a pound of hamburger meat I've got brown enough with some onion and we are going to make us some chili it's turned off to I guess Redbud winter here in East Tennessee and this right here is the star of our chili show going in with the 29 ounce can of Luxe pinto beans [Music] using two 15 ounce cans of mild chili beans going in with one can of diced tomatoes and green chilies and I'm not draining anything or rinson any of the beans putting in a 15 ounce can a tomato sauce and I just realized that was not Rotel I always fill this can up with water and add it in star of the show is this chilio chili seasoning I've used this for years my mom turned me on to this and it takes your chili over the top and I am using a half a cup out of here that equals what's in one envelope of this [Music] which chili gets back at before it's born I like to give it just a little bit of stir then I'm just going to put the lid on it and I'm gonna let it sit here and simmer for 10 minutes is fine but if you can go 30 minutes or longer it makes it even better I'm really sad that I mistook those tomatoes for Rotel but I'm sure this will still be delicious I've never tweaked this recipe from when I first started making it but you for sure could you could replace any of these beans I just know that my hubby does not like those big red kidney beans and he doesn't like really big pieces of tomato either but whatever your family likes put it in here you could definitely cook this in the crock pot just Brown your ground beef up beforehand and put everything in there and let it cook all day but I tell you what there's something so homey and so old school about just putting a pot of chili on top of the stove I love it I love that smell I just love hearing it Sizzle and Bubble Up In Here I just think that is one of the most comforting things in the world and the most important thing to remember when you want that down home Southern flavor is that these are the people you loved that you're cooking for and it doesn't matter what it is if it's a bologna sandwich or if it's a T-bone steak you're cooking for them out of love share those meals together as a family there's going to be nights we're busy there's going to be nights we burn it but you're going to be making memories thanks so much for being here this week don't forget to check out Megan's Channel and until next week I send you love from my kitchen thank you

Channel: In The Kitchen With Momma Mel

Views: 156,934

Keywords: momma mel, in the kitchen with momma mel, easy recipes, budget friendly meals, easy dinner ideas, easy weeknight dinners, quick and easy meals, Quick and easy dinner ideas, mama mel, momma mel cooking videos, kid friendly recipes, family favorite meals, Easy budget friendly meals, What’s for dinner, cheap meals, easy budget friendly meals, comfort food, cozy comfort food, potato cakes, tuna patties, sweet tea, cowboy beans, chili, caesar chicken, cooking hacks

Id: O9Vaq9EPSEE

Length: 27min 48sec (1668 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 27 2023