Fix-It and Forget-It

Here at Fix-It and Forget-It, we have an ongoing debate about sweet potatoes. Some prefer them dessert-like, mixed up with brown sugar and spices and topped with gooey marshmallows. Others like them savory, perhaps coated with a sesame-soy sauce-ginger glaze. Continue Reading...

Ok, time to play word association.

What’s the first thing you think of when you see the word “fruitcake?” Continue Reading...

I do not love chopping vegetables. Yes, I know there are all sorts of amazing kitchen gadgets and processors that do this for you in the blink of an eye. But I’m always calculating whether I’m actually saving any time when I use them because I have to wash all their crazy parts when I’m finished. And then I have to re-assemble them in the right way. (I get my French press out only on Saturday mornings since putting it together the right way takes me too long on a weekday morning when I have a schedule. Shameful to admit, I agree.)

Pretty often I need to chop just 1 onion or 3 potatoes or a single bell pepper—hardly worth the effort of hauling out the food processor or even the little buzz chopper our younger daughter gave me a few years ago. Apparently I’ve been talking about this chopping burden.

Merle and I were away all last week, and we got home too late Saturday night to go grocery-shopping. I was glad to be home and wanted to cook Sunday, but there weren’t many ingredients around since I had nearly emptied the fridge and pantry before we left. Except for the good old staples—carrots, potatoes, onions, celery. Right, things that require chopping.
Continue Reading...

We love carrot cake. Thick slabs of moist carroty cake, chock full of crunchy nuts and tender raisins (in fact this is the only way some of us will eat raisins), and topped with sweet swirls of cream cheese frosting. Yum. Nothing beats it.

However, we also like to fit into our jeans, and too many slices of carrot cake can, well, make that task a bit tricky. So we tend to think of carrot cake as one of those very occasional treats.

So here’s a recipe that satisfies our cravings for a moist, sweet, richly-flavored dense cake but doesn’t pack on the guilt and isn’t complicated to make.
Continue Reading...

My dad had a side job as a butcher. He would pick out the meat for a holiday and often prepared it himself. And ham was always his choice meat for Easter. He would present it to the family like a masterpiece before he took it back to the kitchen to carve it.

In our busy lives, I am constantly looking for recipes to make our special meals easier. We found this great recipe for ham that takes no oven space and very little prep time. And because the ham cooks as a whole ham in the slow cooker, it still can be a masterpiece, as my dad would have insisted!

If you haven’t already planned your Easter menu, consider this recipe. Or take a look at your favorite Fix-It and Forget-It cookbook for more ideas to help save you time on Easter Sunday.
Continue Reading...