30 minutes or less

As always this time of year - as in late winter ah my lawdy when is Spring going to come... HALP! - I find myself growing restless with what we are eating. It seems like finally in Indiana there comes a point where I think even the fruit and veggies from Ecuador look terrible. Generally up till this point you can generally get decent stuff but the last two VERY EXPENSIVE visits to the grocery turned up a rotten cuc that I threw away because it was YELLOW inside but looked/felt perfectly fine on the outside, an avocado that was more black then green on the inside (again fine on the outside) & lettuce that seems to turn the moment I get it home plus multiple other food failures I shall not bore you with.

Oh and we need coffee - the shit they give us here at work is like black sludge that surely could kill a horse from its smell... Not only are the fruit & veggies not so great but I am sick of the same old crock pots & pasta dishes which always seem so great at the start of the winter months but have grown boring as of late. OHH, another staple: soup with warm bread & butter has even grown boring...

On Sunday, we were out running some kind of errand which we completed and I was just not ready to go home so I asked Kevin if we could go for a drive. We did drive around a little then we decided to head to Barnes & Noble to let Matthew play with the train table there. *Matthew loves that table but I also think he likes to go because he almost always ends up walking out with some new (sticker) book.

I was on a mission. To find a cook book that has good 30 minute recipes. And when I say 30 minute recipes I mean 30 minutes from prep time start to eating finish. Not 30 minutes of prep and 30 minutes of cooking because come on people that math is easy even for me - that is ONE hour and I just hate spending an entire hour of my evening cooking then another hour cleaning up. GAAA...

I had every 30 minute cookbook I could find. Kevin helped with this process. Initially I thought Rachael Ray for sure - I think I had FIVE of her book. And while her stuff seems good, it falls into the TOO many odd ingredients and longer cooking times then we wanted (plus why don't they put photos in her books?!)

We settled on the Betty Crocker Quick and Easy Cookbook: 30 minutes or less to dinner. I have not made a recipe yet but they are doable with most of the ingredients already living in my pantry!

We ended up with a bonus cookbook as well - Betty Crocker Cookbook: Everything You Need to Know to Cook Today. We had a version of this cookbook when I was kid & seriously this cook book rocks!! My mom still has her copy and I am pretty sure that one is from 1963 (the year she moved here from Holland.) Seriously it has the best pie crust recipe ever and even though I fear the pie crust from scratch thing this book makes it look easy. As an aside, I think crusts are actually super easy to make if you can follow directions and be patients but well, HA we are talking about me here BUT I am willing to try armed with this book!

Mostly, I am excited to try some of 30 minute recipes next week. I totally sat in bed reading both cook books and alternately drooling. It made me excited to cook again armed with new ideas. That will help with the doldrums that I am currently feeling though Spring coming would be really dandy as well!

Do you have favorite cookbook? If so, why do you like?

*Matthew did get a Pirate sticker book from B&N BTW - little bugger!