Remember the roasted veggies that I made
with the Herb Crusted Flank Steak.

They are easy easy easy.

I only do easy in the kitchen. That’s why I love DreamDinners.

Well here you go. The easiest veggie side ever.

Take a bag of frozen veggies. Any variety.
I love a good California mix of carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower.

Spray a roaster pan (this time I just used a cake pan) but roaster works better at keeping the veggies from going soggy. Spread out your frozen veggies. Drizzle with olive oil and your favorite seasonings. I love anything Mrs. Dash as we try to limit our salts.

Throw in the oven on a low broil for 10 minutes or until you smell the veggies and they start to get a little brown just on top. (This is a great option for when you are already using your stove top on other foods and you don’t want to wait to steam. I prefer the crispiness of the oven roasted veggies over what you would get in the microwave.)

Serve. Yum. Enjoy knowing that you just gave your family some good vitamins and minerals.

The cook’s assessment:
Everybody was full and happy.
Definitely better than my own tacos.

Time
I love the flank steak options with DreamDinners. They are so easy to do and they cook up so fast. I am begging my hubby to buy a grill so we can do these all summer long outside, but broiling the flank steak in the oven is so easy and fast. Serious. 15 minutes and it’s done. This meal was super quick. Broil the steak, and cut up some veggies and we were done. You just have to remember to give it that marinade time beforehand.

Portions
My family LOVES DreamDinners Steaks. They cannot possibly make a steak big enough for my whole family. A whole cow wouldn’t be big enough for my family, but this steak is plenty big. We added in some of our own freshly cooked tortillas with this meal and there was enough steak for four of the six of us to have two big tacos each. The younger two couldn’t even finish their first one. Yeah I know, we should all be full with one, but we are taco loving white people and are still learning portion control.

Taste
Yummy. Juicy. What else do you need to know?

Serving Suggestions
They suggest some sourcream as the yummy pico de gallo comes with the meal. BONUS! And way better than just the plain tomatoes that I would usually serve.  On top of the sour cream, we added in some avacado, lettuce, and cheese. That’s a trick to making the DreamDinners even healthier and more filling: always add in more veggies. We also had a side of some sliced mangos. I love to push the fruits too. This was a delicious meal. I think it would be great as is really. A smoothie would be a great easy side also.

This week’s pin put to the test is jello cookies.

I decided that I will be giving percentage type score on our pinterest proven product reviews.

Of course 100% would mean that all 100% of you should definitely give this one a try.
On those chocolate chip cookies that I did last week, the score is definitely 100%.

Jello cookies, however, only earned 75%.

I would never give something only 75% without explaining why.
So here we go:

The first batch of these cookies turned out flat. They dough was too runny, but we made it exactly as instructed. The second batch magically turned out more firm (perfect actually) and the detective in  me figured out that it was because all my kids had added in much more jello between the batches.

The flavor of these cookies was not fantastic. It was not enough jello to really infuse the dough and too much to just be able to enjoy a colored sugar cookie.

Lastly, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I like my cookies to be sanitary. This recipe touts that it is kids’ jello play-doh turned into cookies. The play-doh part was a hit with the kids at my house, but really I would just prefer to make salt dough and keep the cookies clean and separate.

The only reason I would make these cookies in the future is if I had 75 kids running around and I was desperate to let them mess up my kitchen. I would need that many kids to eat the cookies because there is no way I would be handing these out to my friends and there is also no way that my kids and I will eat them all ourselves.

Oh, I thought of one more reason I would make these cookies. If you are in real need of colorful food to serve, like for a rainbow party or something, but really I could think of much tastier ways to infuse my party with some color. And just so you know, the jello doesn’t make them that colorful, it’s the food coloring that has to be added.

Let us know if you disagree or agree.

I asked each of them to write one word on a piece of paper
that would explain what they love most about DreamDinners.

I was astounded by two occurrences:
1-every single one of them had a very hard time picking just one word.
2- they each chose a different word.

DreamDinners is a lot of things to a lot of people,
but I do believe our VIP’s said it best:

“We provide a variety of quality delicious
wonderful convenient and easy meals
that give our guests much needed relief in the kitchen.”

How is that for a mouthful?

Keep your eyes peeled because soon we will be featuring each one of these VIP’s in their very own blog post. I can’t wait to tell you a little about each of them. They are really wonderful people. In fact they (like DreamDinners) are a “variety of quality and wonderful.” No wonder why we get a long so good.

Just click on your photo to see yourself on the full-screen.

Thanks to all who came out for the fun.
We look forward to spending our menu launch’s with you and your families every month.
See you in June.

You VIP’s keep on the lookout.
You will be getting a special post of your own in the very near future.

The family rating: One thumb up.
The cook’s assessment:
Loved by all. Just like my own, but better seasoning

Time
This is the fastest chicken I ever cooked. When the instructions said to cook for 20 minutes, I was dumbfounded and worried that it would be raw, but not only did it cook through, it was tender and juicy. If you remember to take this dinner out the night before, you will be good to go a half an hour after arriving home from work.

Portions
The chicken breasts were huge. The adults only at half and the kids only ate a third. It filled us up and left plenty of leftovers for lunch the next day.

Taste
Like I said above, the seasoning was great. I loved how it came with a crunch, but whatever they seasoned these suckers with was very tasty, especially when combined with the bread crumbs and Parmesan.

Serving Suggestions
I just steamed some broccoli and served it all with some 3 ingredient simple fruit salad. It would have been good to add a dinner roll, but I didn’t have any and the chicken was so wonderful we didn’t need the filler.

The family rating:
One thumb up.
The cook’s assessment:
Yummy. Loved all around.

Time
This meal was super quick. However the shrimp had to be marinated so I took it out a day ahead. It took about 15 minutes from stove to table.

Portions
I usually add in extra pasta to make the meal go further, but in this case it wasn’t a good idea. The pasta needed the given amount of butter sauce to make it taste good. The 6 portion would have been plenty to feed my family of 6 without adding in the extra pasta. The shrimp is generously portioned.

Taste
Yummy yummy yummy. Shrimp + butter. What could possibly be wrong with it?

Serving Suggestions
I cannot remember what the suggested side was, but I did stir-fry veggies. I quickly steam-fried zuchinni, squash, onion, mushroom, and bean sprouts. I wanted to add in some nutritional value to the protein and carbs.  I pre-cut all the veggies the night before so I was able to serve it all up fast together. As long as you have 3 eyes on your stove, you can do the pasta, shrimp, and stir-fry veggies all at the same time.

On a busy night that I would usually just go buy tacos, we were able to eat like royalty. In fact, on the left you can see my hubby giving me his thumbs up in the car. He grabbed his plate and ate it in the car on the way to a church meeting.

It is our goal to not just pin things we think sound good, but to try them out and let you know if they actually worked.  We will write our reviews right here on the blog and then add them to our pinterest board appropriately titled Pinterest Proven.

Our first trial run was with Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies from our Dessert board.

No long review is necessary. Let me just tell you that I have referenced this link every time I have made chocolate chip cookies since my first trial. I have NEVER been happy with my chocolate chip cookie abilities in my almost 30 years of experience. In fact, at one point I resorted to just buying the pre-made dough. Now my chocolate chip cookies turn out perfect every time. Thank you pinterest.

This pin is definitely one you want to use.
Make sure you have a glass of milk ready for when the cookie are hot out of the oven.

She created this visual picnic on her dining room wall.
She used vinyl lettering and a cute pin board.
Simple, but profoundly inclusive.

I think the idea was her own,
but I can’t say for sure.
Either way, feel free to make one just like it for your family.

I love my mother-in-law’s kitchen.
She has a combined kitchen/dining room.
She usually also has two couches on the surrounding walls.
There are always people crammed in this room,
enjoying good food,
but more importantly,
enjoying one another.

When I looked over her photos, I became emotional. I remembered so many good times. I remembered people who have passed on who are enjoying even bigger gatherings on the other side. I remembered the moment that as a newly married I saw for the first time a very silly side of my husband. I laughed until I cried. I remembered the gatherings associated with the births of our children. I remembered the holidays, birthdays, church conferences, cook-outs, canning projects, and especially the Sunday evening feasts. So many good times have happened around the table.

I am very grateful for this visual reminder of the love that surrounds me, and I’m infinitely grateful for a mother-in-law who makes it all happen. Around the table.