Sometimes kids are hard to cook for.  They get into little ruts where all they want to eat is mac-n-cheese or peanut butter and jelly.

On top of that, moms are busy!  Between taking care of the house and running kids everywhere, we need quick dinner ideas.

This easy salmon patty recipe is one the kids will eat, every single time!

This dinner idea is actually one my kids both agree on.  And that doesn’t happen often.

And it’s a perfect dinner idea for Lent.

This easy salmon recipe is so quick and easy to whip up, it will become one of your favorite recipes too!

Salmon Patty Recipe

Affiliate links have been used below.  See my full disclosure for more details. 

Ingredients:

• 1 can (14.75 oz.) of either pink or red salmon
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 sleeve of saltine crackers
• 1 egg
• Vegetable Oil

This easy dinner recipe is perfect for getting the kids to help in the kitchen.

Start by opening your can of salmon.  (I love this brand.)

Drain the excess liquid and then empty the fish into a small mixing bowl.

Remove the large backbone and other bones.  To do this, break the salmon down the middle vertically and use the tines of a fork or your fingers to remove the bones.  (I have known people who leave the smaller bones in, as they are very soft and can be digested, but I prefer to remove as many as possible.)

Once the bones are removed, use a fork to break the salmon into smaller pieces.  (Kids can do this part!)

Open the sleeve of crackers and dump them into a large plastic zippered bag.  Squeeze the air out and seal the bag, and have your child use a rolling pin to crush the crackers.

While the crackers are being crushed, dice up your onion and add it to the salmon.  Also add in your egg.

Mix thoroughly.

Add about half of your cracker crumbs to the bowl of salmon and mix.

Make patties with the salmon mixture, just as you would make hamburger patties.  I usually get 5-6 patties out of one can of salmon.

Coat both sides of the salmon patties with the remaining crumbs by patting the crumbs and patties in your hands.

Pour 1/4 cup or so of oil into your skillet and heat it on medium heat several minutes.

Gently place the patties into the hot oil and brown on both sides.

Once browned, remove from the skillet.  If desired you can drain excess oil off on a plate covered with paper towels.

You can eat the patties on sandwich buns with your favorite toppings, or eat them separately.

We usually eat them with a little bit of ketchup on top and served with mac-n-cheese and peas, just like my mom used to serve years ago.

You may also like these posts:

• Healthy Salmon Cakes Recipe from Happy Healthy Mama
• Eggplant Parmesan —  Delicious and healthy meal your kids will eat
• Breakfast Burrito Bar — Perfect for make ahead holiday breakfasts!
• STEM Activities Kids Love (Because I’m a homeschooling mama!)

Originally published July 7, 2014.

The post Dinner Recipe: Quick and Easy Salmon Patties first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

(Or maybe you’re looking for the perfect late-night snack.)

You’re in luck!  I’ve got just the treat:  DIY candied pretzels!  They’re a sweet and salty treat that’s perfect for any occasion.

Looking for a fun activity to do with the kids one weekend?

Make these yummy pretzels and enjoy them while snuggling for a movie or doing a few kids Valentine’s activities.

Affiliate links have been used below.  See my full disclosure for more details. 

DIY Candied Pretzels

To create your own candied pretzels you will need:

•  pretzels
• chocolate candy melts
• assorted sprinkles or small candies (Pastel colors are perfect this time of year!)

I used half of the 12 oz. bag of (affiliate link) Wilton Dark Candy Cocoa Melts, which made 30 pretzel twists.

I chose to use pretzel twists to dip, but you could also use pretzel rods, which would look pretty boxed up as a gift!

Before melting the chocolate, line a cookie sheet with a sheet of waxed paper.  This will keep pretzels from sticking to the surface as they cool.

I melted my chocolate pieces in the microwave, checking and stirring them every 20 seconds until they were almost all melted.  Once most of them are melted, remove the dish from the microwave and continue stirring until all the chocolate is melted.  (Be careful to not overheat the chocolate or it will get thick and unusable!)

I tried dipping the pretzels in the bowl of chocolate, but discovered that they looked better if I used a butter knife to “paint” the chocolate onto the pretzel twists.

Once the pretzel is coated in chocolate, immediately press it into your colored sprinkles or candy pieces.

The chocolate will cool and set within 10 minutes or so on the prepared cookie sheet.

Our pretzels were covered in red sugar sprinkles and small pink candies.  

The sugar sprinkles didn’t stand out as well on dark chocolate (I’m a dark chocolate kind of girl!), but they would look lovely on white chocolate.

The small pink candies also look pretty tasty on white chocolate!

Stick some DIY chocolate pretzels in a basket with some shredded paper “grass” and you have a cute DIY gift!

Or, stick a few in DIY candied pretzels in a small bowl and surprise your sweetheart when he gets home from work.  (That is, IF the kids don’t eat them all first!)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make up a batch while the kids are asleep so I can get a few to myself!

You may also like these posts:

• DIY Holiday Popcorn Ball  — Perfect for Valentine’s Day, Easter, or anytime. 
• DIY Heart Gifts, Cards, & Treats — With over 40 ideas, there’s something for everyone.
• 20 Delicious Meals in Under 30 Minutes — Because life gets busy!

The post DIY Candied Pretzels first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Who wants a banana chocolate chip muffin?

Around here banana chocolate chip muffins are a HUGE hit!

And what’s better than just eating the muffins?  Getting to bake them with the kids!

Originally this was a recipe for banana chocolate chip bread given to me by my mother-in-law.  Over the years I have tweaked it to make the most delicious banana chocolate chip muffins!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup shortening

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

2 bananas, mashed

2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions for Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins:

Cream sugar, shortening, and applesauce in a large bowl.

Add eggs and mashed bananas; mix.

Add flour, baking soda, and salt.  Mix until combined.

Fold in chocolate chips.

Bake in greased muffin pan at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 18 minutes.

Makes 12-16 muffins.  

If you’re lucky, the kids may just spare you one or two!

I like to make a batch of banana chocolate chip muffins and put half in the freezer.  That way I can pull out a couple for the kids (and myself) whenever the mood strikes.

What’s your favorite type of muffin?

Shared on these sites.

The post Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

 When I married, I continued the family tradition with my husband and eventually our children.

This year, though, time got away from me, and I decided if it was between making goetta and spending time just relaxing a bit before the big day, relaxing was going to win.  And a new tradition was born:  goetta for New Year’s Day.

Wait, you mean you don’t know what goetta is?

Well, dear readers, let me introduce you to the yumminess that is goetta!

Goetta (pronounced get-ta) is a German-American breakfast sausage that consists primarily of pinhead oats, ground beef and ground pork.

Growing up we always looked forward to our first batch of goetta on Christmas morning.

Today I am going to share with you the recipe that my mother taught me; it is the same recipe that she learned from my grandmother.  (But, in truth, most goetta recipes I’ve found are strikingly similar.)

Goetta Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef (I’ve also done it with just 1 pound)
• 1 pound ground pork
• 2 1/2 cups pinhead oats (sometimes called steel-cut oats)
• 8 cups of water
• 1 large onion – diced into small pieces
• 3-4 bay leaves
• 3 tsp. salt and pinch of pepper
• Several handfuls of instant oatmeal

Directions:

1. Bring the 8 cups of water to boil in a large pot with a heavy bottom.  Add salt, pepper and pinhead oats.
2. Turn the mixture down to low, add lid, and cook the pinhead oats for 2 hours, stirring often (every 10-15 minutes) to keep it from sticking.
3. Thoroughly mix the ground beef and ground pork together.  (I usually use my hands to ensure it is evenly mixed.
4. Once the pinhead oats have cooked for 2 hours, add the meat mixture, onion, and bay leaves.  Make sure you mix it together very well!
5. Continue to cook your mixture on low, with the lid on, for one more hour.  Once again you will need to make sure you stir the batch often.
6. Once the meat has been cooking for an hour, you will notice some liquid resting on top of the goetta mixture.  This is where the “handfuls of instant oatmeal” come in to play.  Toss in several handfuls, stir, and wait a few minutes.  The idea is for the oatmeal to soak up some of the extra moisture so it will rest up well later.  If it still has quite a bit of moisture, add another couple handfuls (only add 2 handfuls).  This year I think I wound up adding 6-7 handfuls of oats in, to give you an idea.
7. Now, before you can put your goetta into pans, you need to find those bay leaves!  Make sure you get each and every one out!  (Bay leaves can cut the sensitive areas inside the mouth.)
8. Tired yet?  We’re almost done!  Now you will spoon your goetta into pans to set up.  Mine fit into 2 loaf pans and one 8X8 pan this year.  Cover with foil and refrigerate.

   

Goetta can be stored in the refrigerator for about one week.  You can also freeze it for several months.  (The goetta we had in July was actually from December, and it tasted yummy still!)

To prepare the goetta for breakfast,  slice 1 inch thick slices and place in a hot skillet with butter (some people use bacon fat).  Fry on both sides until browned.  You have to have patience when frying goetta!  If you turn it too soon, it will fall apart.

Here we serve our goetta with ketchup, jellied toast and oranges or orange juice.  (Another family tradition — I just can’t eat it without toast and orange juice or oranges!)

Goetta is a delicious winter breakfast! (And a labor of love…)  

You may also like:

• Breakfast Burrito Bar — A tasty make ahead breakfast for busy holidays
• Simple Salmon Patty Recipe 
• Quick and Easy Dinner Ideas

The post Goetta Recipe first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Tired of the same old turkey yet?

If you are looking for something to spice up those  turkey-day leftovers, you’ve come to the right spot!

Last year I shared with you a simple recipe for potato pancakes, using leftover mashed potatoes.  And for that leftover turkey, I shared a quick recipe for turkey barbecue.

This year I used some of our leftovers to make what I’m calling “Thanksgiving Casserole.”

It’s pretty easy.

• Spray a 2 qt. baking dish with Pam cooking spray. (By the way, if you want to know how much is in one of those cans, check out this funny post.)
• Then add leftover mashed potatoes.  (I had about 2 cups I used.)
• Mix 1 cup of leftover stuffing, 1/2 cup or so of gravy, and shredded leftover turkey (I had about 1 1/2 cups) together.  Then layer this on top of your potatoes.
• Cover and stick it in a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes.

I’m thinking if you have leftover veggies they would be pretty good in this, too.  For more of a Shepherd’s pie type of dish, put the potatoes on top.

If you don’t feel like eating it right now, you can wrap it and freeze it for a future quick dinner (which is exactly what I did; I love having a fast meal on those days where you just don’t have time or energy to cook).

Do you have a recipe using Thanksgiving leftovers that you want to share?

The post Thanksgiving in a Casserole first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

That’s how it’s been here.

I didn’t feel like toting the kids to the store with me the day after we got back, but I still wanted to cook a home-cooked meal and not just heat up a can of soup for dinner.  So, I hunted around…  We had one chicken breast in the freezer upstairs (not enough for 4 of us), and no fresh veggies, spaghetti, or other “quick to fix” items.  I headed downstairs to check that freezer and found a box of pierogies.  Usually I serve them as a side dish, but then I found a pound of frozen ground turkey and decided to get a little creative.

I browned the ground turkey in a skillet.  Then I added some spaghetti sauce.  I mixed the frozen pierogies and ground turkey mixture in a cake pan and stuck it in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.  Then I covered it with the last bit of shredded cheese we had in the refrigerator and baked it another 10 minutes.

It was smelling pretty good — even my oldest came out to investigate what smelled so good.

What came out was a little like lasagne…and oh, so yummy!

I dished up a cheese-covered pierogi and a little meat for each kid.  My youngest likes to turn away anything “different,” so I told him it was lasagna and reminded him how he liked lasagna.  He took one bite, and said, “Yum!”

After my oldest had 3 helpings, I had to tell her we needed to save some for Daddy.

Next time I’m hoping to have some onion to add to the adult half, and maybe some mushrooms or green pepper…. But this is definitely going to be added to my quick meals list!

Shared on My Romantic Home and Blessed with Grace

The post Quick and Yummy Dinner first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.