Last week, the new Kitchen Cookoff site rolled out the red carpet and welcomed its first visitors.
Since I will be partnering with them over the next 10 months — by encouraging family meal time and sharing recipe traditions, quick and easy meals, and a slew of kitchen tips and ideas — I anxiously took my first peek around the site, and was excited about what I saw.
Not only do they have the first few cooking episodes up and ready to view, but there are great suggestions from Hillshire Farm chef Jill Houk on simple tips for picking the best produce for one’s family, which I think it so difficult during these off season winter months, along with how to make simple substitutions that will result in a “better for you” meal.
What I can tell already is that Kitchen Cookoff, and its sponsor, Hillshire Farm, are working hard to make this site practical for those of us who want to do cook at home for our family, but often don’t have time to spend hours in the kitchen.
With Thanksgiving weekend officially coming to a close,  I browsed the site to see if there were any great ideas for all the leftovers I will have. Now, my family devours our turkey and saves the few remaining slices for hot turkey sandwiches, but we also serve ham each year, and I am always looking for quick and easy ham recipes.
One idea that caught my eye, because it’s I often make something similar, was an incredibly easy White Beans and Ham recipe (I’ll make it minus the sugar). It was touted as “inexpensive, fast, feed a lot of folks – and tastes terrific.” You know that kind of description is right up my alley – it’s a Ten Minute Dinner, for sure.
Since I gravitate toward cooking with beans regularly, and often have a pot of beans
simmering all day on the stove, I liked the twist of using white beans instead of my traditional pinto or split pea.
I pulled out my slow cooker right now, and I am going to let it work for me: easy, simple, low stress. Sometimes we forget how comforting such a simple meal can be. Often, we try to make dinners more complicated than they are, and this is a good reminder of how something like a hot,simmering bowl of beans with leftover ham can bring a family together for special time around the table, rather than wasting it slaving over the stove.
Since I spent a lot of this past weekend cooking,  you can bet that I am taking these
days afterwards enjoying some simple meals that will serve themselves; ham and beans will be one of them.
I’d love for you to check out the Kitchen Cookoff Site. It’s just fun to see some live “cook offs.”
So are you following my cooking avenue, and making some really easy meals this week?
You deserve a break. Make some of our leftovers work for us on this Tasty Tuesday day.

Simple Rules for Tasty Tuesday Parade of Foods –  As always, please link directly to your recipe post and not your blog URL, so that everyone can find the recipe months from now.
Also, link back here with only 1-2 posts, so that everyone can join in the fun. Please do not link up a recipe meme that you have started. Thanks for your understanding.