Sometimes I make a recipe exactly as it’s written.  Maybe because I’m not familiar with the dish.  Or because it’s a baked good that will just work better if I follow directions.  Or because I like the results of that specific recipe.

But other times, I use recipes as a jumping off point.  I swap out ingredients for what I have in my pantry or fridge.  This is how I cook most often.  I love to read comments from readers that say something like, “I loved this recipe.  I used chicken broth instead of beef, added more veggies, skipped the green chilis and topped it with cornbread.”  It’s not the same recipe at all, but the reader loved it! She used her creativity and shopped her pantry to serve her family a meal that they all liked.  Success!

One reason I like enchiladas so much is that they are a prime candidate for substituting.  These enchiladas are a recent result of shopping my pantry and fridge for ingredients.  They are simple to make and my family loved them.

Here’s what you’ll need.  Feel free to substitute as needed.  The recipe makes about 9-10 enchiladas.  The picture above only shows part of the recipe.

Do you feel comfortable substituting ingredients or do you stick to the recipe?

I didn’t think I liked ribs.  I only made them because I had them in the freezer and I knew the men and boys in the house would like them.

But, oh my goodness!  These were delicious.  Perfect summer meal.  4-napkin meal.  Wow!

I asked all of you how to fix ribs back in May.  You came through with all kinds of great recipes and methods.  Check out the comments in that post.  Readers also emailed me and added recipes to Facebook.  Someone mentioned a dry rub from Pig Stand, a restaurant in Oklahoma.  My family was *this close* to making a detour on our Colorado trip in search of Pig Stand.

I took parts of many recipes to come up with this method of cooking the ribs.  It was easy, but does take several hours.  Here’s what you’ll need:

• 4-5 lbs. spare ribs
• 1 1/2 Tbs. Homemade Seasoned Salt
• 1 1/2 Tbs. McCormick Grill Mates Hamburger seasoning
• 1/2 cup apple juice (not in photo)
• plenty of Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce (I also really like Jack Daniel’s BBQ sauce)

Heat the oven to 450 degrees while you prep the meat.

Mix the seasoned salt and McCormick seasoning together and rub on both sides of the ribs.  Place them, meat side up in a pan.  If you have a big slab of ribs you can cut them to fit or use a large foil pan.

Pour apple juice in bottom of the pan and cover tightly with foil.  Place in the oven, turning the heat down to 325 degrees.  Bake for 2-3 hours.

Remove from the oven and fire up the grill.  Grill over low heat for about 30 minutes.  Slather top side with bbq, flip and slather second side.  Flip again and slather top again.  I recommend watching them close during this time.  I walked away, got distracted and charred one side.

Take them off the grill and wrap in foil.  Let them rest about 30 minutes while you finish up the rest of the meal.  This will make them juicy.

Put a big pile of napkins on the table, pour the sweet tea and dive in.

Sorry for the hunk of raw, frozen meat in the photo, especially if you’re having your morning coffee while blog reading.

I found this in the bottom of the freezer the other day.  We get 1/2 a hog from my sister’s kids’ 4-H project.  We’re getting down to the end of it.  The pork burgers and Italian sausage are all gone.  There are still many, many packs of bacon though.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all the bacon.

And there’s this piece of spare rib.  I have no idea how to cook this.   I could Google for a recipe, but that didn’t sound like as much fun as just asking you guys. 

So what do I do with this?  Grill it?  Bake it?  Dig a deep pit in the backyard, build a fire and turn it on a skewer?

What about sauce?  The secret is in the sauce, right?

I’m putting up a linky, in case you have a recipe on your blog you want to link up.  Feel free to leave links or recipes in the comments too.

Good news!  Just by rummaging through your pantry, fridge and freezer and creatively combining a few ingredients, you can have dinner tonight.

Here’s how it works.  Choose a meat from the fridge or freezer.  I chose boneless pork chops, but you might pick chicken or beef instead.

Check the fridge for a likely looking veggie or two.  I found a green pepper and onion.  Other candidates include red pepper, green onions, sugar snap peas, green beans, carrots – you get the idea.  Anything that you’ve got that sounds good.

Now, rummage in the fridge for ingredients to make a sauce.  I wanted something sweet and sour.  I used 1/4 cup ketchup and 3/4 cup orange sauce.  This is a good time to drain the nearly empty bottles.  Promising ingredients include bbq sauce, ketchup, taco sauce, any type marinade, even jams or marmalade.  The key is to blend flavors in a way that will taste good.  When in doubt, blend a little and give it a taste.

You can add brown sugar or a bit of vinegar or hot sauce to change the taste.  Get creative.  There’s no right or wrong.  Give it the taste test before pouring it on the meat and you should be reasonably sure the finished product will taste good.

You can also choose from 3 different cooking methods:

1.  Stove top method.  Cook the meat in a bit of oil in a skillet.  Remove the meat and cook the sliced veggies.  Add the sauce ingredients and heat through.  Pour over the cooked meat.

2.  Oven method.  Put the meat in a casserole dish.  Top with veggies and sauce.  Cover and bake at 350 for about an hour or 1 1/2 hours.

3.  Slow cooker method.  Put all the ingredients in the slow cooker.  Cook on low for 7-8 hours or high for 5-6 hours.

Here’s what I actually did, if you want to do the same:

Sweet and Sour Pork Chops in the Slow Cooker

• 6 boneless pork chops
• green pepper, sliced
• onion, sliced
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 3/4 cup orange sauce

Put the chops, green pepper and onion in the slow cooker.  Stir the ketchup and orange sauce together and pour over the other ingredients.  Cook on high fro 5-6 hours or low for 7-8 hours.

Please excuse the charred spots.  I’m not an expert griller.  These still tasted great though.

A few weeks ago, I shared on Facebook that I had totally ruined Jim’s birthday dinner of grilled pork chops.  That time I set the whole grill on fire.  Flames were shooting from the grill, black smoke billowed into the yard and children were screaming.  We ended up with pizza for dinner.

I did better this time though.  The honey mustard is easy to stir together and gave the meat a nice flavor.  You could do the same thing with chicken instead.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 6-8 boneless pork chops
• 2 Tbs. Dijon mustard
• 4 Tbs. honey
• black pepper, to taste

Grill the pork chops over medium heat.  Stir the mustard, honey and pepper together.  Baste the pork chops with the sauce a few minutes before removing from the grill.

I grill all the time, but I’m not very good at it.  We recently got a new grill, which helps a lot, but I still have moments of doing battle with flames.  How often do you grill?  Are you good at it? Have any tips for me?

In the quest for a quick summer meal, I don’t think you can do better than ham steak on the grill.  It doesn’t heat up the kitchen, there are very few dishes to wash and it’s quick.  You can even throw it on the grill frozen, which is great if you fail to plan ahead to thaw it out.

Here are the two ingredients you’ll need:

• 1 ham steak
• bbq sauce of your choice

I cooked the ham on low for about 15-20 minutes.  Baste with barbecue sauce toward the end of cooking.  Simple.

What kind of meat do you cook most often on the grill?

This recipe is a great way to use leftover ham.  You could also make it with smoked sausage if you like.  I had grilled ham slices the day before and needed to use up the extra.  The recipe makes enough to feed about 8 people, so if your family is smaller you may want to only make half.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 2 cups of dry rice
• oil for sautéing
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• about 3 cups of diced ham
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 can Fire Roasted diced tomatoes, or regular diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2 cans kidney beans
• 2 tsp. hot sauce

Cook the rice according to the package directions.  In a skillet, sauté the onion and garlic in oil.  Add the green pepper and ham and cook for a few minutes, until the green pepper is tender-crisp.  Add the chicken broth, tomatoes, hot sauce and beans.  Bring to a boil.  Cover and turn down the heat, letting it simmer for 10-15 minutes.  Serve over the cooked rice, with extra hot sauce for those who like more spice.

I found this recipe on a homeschool forum.  Magistra said she put this in foil packets on the grill for about 20 minutes.  That was my intention too, but it was starting to rain the night I made them, so I popped them in the oven instead.  The meat was flavorful and very moist.  This is a great way to dress up pork chops.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• boneless pork chops
• onion slices
• green pepper, rings
• pineapple rings
• salt and pepper

Place the pork chops in a casserole dish.  Layer the onion, green pepper and pineapple on top of each pork chop.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

If you want to grill them outside, place them in individual foil packets and grill for about 20 minutes or so.

You’re going to need a fork for these sandwiches.  They are a different take on pork bbq, using Mexican inspired flavors.  I found a recipe in the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day cookbook called Spicy Pork Buns.  The authors of the book explained that they wanted to create a sandwich that has the flavor combination of tamales.  That sounded like a good idea to me.

I altered the recipe in several ways.  First, they put the meat mixture into a yeast type cornbread and baked it with the bread dough wrapped around the meat.  That sounds awesome to eat and time consuming to make, so I decided to use my cornbread recipe instead and serve the meat over the top.  I also made a lot more meat and changed the filling ingredients a bit.

Here’s what you’ll need.   You won’t need the cornstarch that is shown in the photo.  It was in the original recipe, but I decided it wasn’t needed.

• large pork shoulder roast or other cut of beef or pork roast
• 2  28oz cans crushed tomatoes
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 tsp. cumin
• 4 chilis from a can of chilis in adobo sauce, seeds scraped out and chopped fine
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 recipe of cornbread

Place the roast in a slow cooker.  Sprinkle it with salt and pepper and cook 5-6 hours on high or 7-8 hours on low.  When it is fully cooked, shred the meat with a fork and return it to the slow cooker.  You could also refrigerate or freeze the meat at this point to finish at a later time.

Add the other ingredients to the meat in the slow cooker.  Stir to combine.  Cook on low for another 2-4 hours.  Serve over the cornbread.

This is spicy, but not enough to really set your tongue aflame.  My younger kids found it a bit too spicy for comfort.  Next time, I’ll probably reduce the peppers and use only 3.

This made enough for my family of six to have 3 meals.  I froze the extra, which worked great.

At the end of January I posted 19 Soup Recipes to Warm You Up.  I asked for your favorite recipes and several of you passed on good ones.  This recipe was shared by Connie.  It caught my eye for two reasons. 1) It uses Italian sausage and I have a freezer full of the stuff from my niece’s 4-H project. 2) It’s fast and easy.

The soup was delicious.  I admit to being skeptical when I poured in the can of butter beans.  I wasn’t too sure it looked good and I didn’t think my kids would eat it.  I was wrong.  The soup was wonderful and the kids loved it (except my child who hates all things sausage).  My youngest, very picky son even loved the butter beans.  The wonders never cease. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 3/4 lb. Italian sausage links, casing removed or bulk sausage
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 can butter beans, undrained
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can diced tomatoes or fire roasted tomatoes, undrained
• 1 can beef broth
• 1 tsp. dried basil
• shredded Parmesan to top each bowl

In a large pot, cook the sausage, garlic and onion until done.  Drain and rinse under very hot water to remove the extra fat.  Add all the other ingredients except the cheese and simmer for 10 minutes.  Serve in bowls and top with Parmesan cheese.

This will serve 4-6 people.  My family of 6 had no leftovers.