List #9: Great Recipes I've Wowed the Family With In the Last Little While

Let me preface this by saying that I did not make up any of these recipes. Other, more creative, people came up with these and I merely followed their directions.

1. Greek Pitas with Cucumber Sauce. I made these with both beef and chicken (I prefer the chicken). I also add lots of feta cheese.

2. Fettucini Alfredo, restaurant style. This is so not a low-calorie dinner, as the sauce uses cream cheese, parmesan, butter and cream. The kids love it.

3. Pizza Hut Pan Pizza, homemade. A friend sent me an e-cookbook that has reverse-engineered recipes for many popular restuarant dishes. I use it so much I just printed it all out (all 400+ pages of it). This pizza recipe is so good I could eat it every day, and it tastes just like Pizza Hut.

4. Eggrolls. Okay, this I did make up. I've made them so many times that I just throw stuff together without measuring and add seasonings and spices, throw the mixture into eggroll wrappers and deep fry them. There is much rejoicing when I make eggrolls.

5. Firehouse Roasted Chicken Pasta. This has penne pasta mixed with chicken and a wonderful white sauce, topped with mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, green onions and lots of cheese, roasted in the oven until the cheese melts. Husband even had thirds, and he doesn't usually do that with anything.

6. Sweet and Spicy Sesame Noodles with Shredded Jerk Chicken. When you jerk the chicken yourself, using your own ingredients, it's fantastic.

7. Mock Cafe Rio Pork Salad. I love Cafe Rio's pork barbacoa, and now I can make it whenever I want. I put this filling into tortillas and topped them with sour cream and that yummy Creamy Tomatillo Dressing. This was one of Husband's favorites.

8. Cheesy Ranch Potato Bake. This is really a side dish, and it's a riff on the classic Funeral Potatoes that are so popular in Utah. I prefer this dish by far. I made two pans of this and it was gone in 24 hours after people had leftovers the next day.

Along with these wonderful-tasting, time-consuming meals, my family also had to endure my lack of ambition in such meals as spaghetti with canned sauce, pork tenderloin with nothing else but cooked frozen broccoli, and things along that line. I wouldn't want you to think the family eat like kings every night of the week.