Smoky BBQ Rub

Perfect for beef, chicken and especially pork, this Homemade BBQ Rub is what makes grilling so amazingly delicious. Just dig in!

We love this on grilled chicken, smoked brisket or pork ribs! It’s great on everything! Heck, I’d add it to roasted brussel sprouts or broccoli and it would be amazing! Ooh, and I totally need to do a salmon recipe with this rub too!

Why Make You’re Own Rub

In my opinion, rubs are a tastier alternative to marinating meat as they give a fuller flavor. We prefer to dry rub the meat so that it can get all flavorful before any BBQ sauce is even added. In fact, sometimes we enjoy meats dry because they are so good on their own.

Making your own seasoning blend is the best way to go since you can fine tune the ingredients to exactly what your palate is craving. Whether or not if you feel like having a sweet, spicy, or smoky flavor — or a mix of them all! — it is very easy to do when you start with the right base. It is great on meats that are smoked, grilled or roasted.

How to Make a Dry Rub

When creating any bbq dry rub, the base typically starts with your sugars and salts abd then you add spices for flavoring. 

Sugar

There are many different kinds of sugar (brown sugar, dark brown sugar, turbinado, regular refined sugar and so on) that will give you different flavors. Experiment to see what you like best, and keep in mind that it may be a combination of them as well.

Salt

There are a lot of different salts as well (kosher salt, sea salt, table salt…etc). We prefer kosher salt, but if you don’t have it, you can use table salt. See section below for the differences in salt.

Spices

After getting you sugars and salts picked out, move onto choosing how much and what kind of pepper to use, as well as the other spices that are typical among many rubs, like cumin, chili powder and paprika. Then, start adding in combinations of other spices to make it to your very own liking.

The best part about making a barbecue spice blend is that if you start with very small increments then it’s hard to screw up. When I first started playing around with how much to put in, I forgot to write down what I put in and how much, so don’t make that mistake :).

Here is one of our rub recipes that we really enjoy with any meat.

What’s in This Homemade BBQ Rub?

As I mentioned above, there are so many flavor combinations to choose from when creating a bbq dry rub. Here’s what we used in this particular recipe:

• Kosher Salt
• Brown Sugar
• Black Pepper
• Garlic Powder
• Onion Powder
• Chili Powder
• Smoked Paprika
• Thyme
• Grou

Thrown together on a whim one night many years ago while we were on the road, this Bacon Potato Salad rapidly became a family favorite.

Filled with plenty of eggs, bites of bacon, and a bright dill pickle flavor, this salad has proven irresistible to everyone who tries it.

Sean and I were craving potato salad, and I was improvising with what I had on hand in the camper. It was a lucky whim that turned into this dill pickle and bacon-inspired salad.

Sean commented that it was really good before I had even tasted it and sure enough, this recipe turned out to be an absolute keeper.

Bacon Potato Salad

The first time I added bacon to a potato salad it was a game-changer. We all know that bacon + potatoes is pretty much a guaranteed win, right?

After that, I added bacon to our salads whenever I made one all summer long. This has become the most requested potato salad that I make when we get together with friends.

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Find out how easy it is to make delicious, crisp-skinned chicken in the oven with Italian Baked Chicken. Oven baked chicken with Italian seasoning has a crispy skin and juicy interior that makes it one of my all time favorite chicken recipes.

Italian Baked Chicken

Juicy chicken thighs with a crisp and flavorful skin are possible with less than 5 minutes worth of effort! This crispy chicken is made in the oven without any breading at all; the only ingredients you need are the chicken, a drizzle of oil, and a sprinkling of spices.

I’ve been making different variations of our crispy pan-fried chicken and crispy oven-baked chicken for the past few years and it just doesn’t get old. From Crispy Oven Baked Ranch Chicken to Crunchy Baked Chicken, I especially love this method for baking chicken in the oven.

If you think you can only get your chicken thighs crispy by frying them on the stove, you’ll be surprised by this recipe. There’s no standing over a stove frying each chicken thigh one at a time. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about any splashing oil!

Baked Italian chicken is juicy, tender and full of flavor from the Italian herbs, while the skin is just as crispy as your favorite pan fried chicken.

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Lemon Jello Cake [+ Video]

This Lemon Jello Cake is perfect anytime of year, but it’s especially great for Easter and the 4th of July. It’s an easy lemon cake that uses a few shortcuts to speed things up!

The Best Lemon Cake Recipe

Hey guys! It’s Sarah, yes that one who was able to share our road to adoption with your help and the most incredible day when we finally held our baby girl and the miracle of adoption. But today is about lemon jello cake.

I got so excited about this easy lemon cake recipe that I have to warn you that this post not only includes a delicious recipe for lemon jello cake, but it also includes a lot of tangents that you’ll read in the gazillion parenthesis! Writing this down instead of telling it to you personally allows my brain too much time to wander as I write simple sentences.  You will learn the inner-workings of my head!

I love lemony food. Everything with lemon tastes fresh—lemonade, lemon squares, pasta lemon cream sauce…Sour Heads (those freshen up your senses pretty quickly). And there is nothing better than a fresh tasting dessert! (Do you want to know how I learned to spell dessert? In elementary school my teacher told me that you want more dessert so you spell it with two “s”es and not one…desert. Shout out to you, school teachers!)

This lemon jello cake is one of our favorite treats. It is the moistest (my sister-in-law’s favorite word…and anything that has the “oi” sound) cake with help from the Lemon Jell-O flavor packet and the icing on top that seeps down through the sponginess (is that a word? I like to make up words) of the cake. And moist cakes are the only way to go.

This lemon jello cake will forever and ever remind me of visiting my grandparents house on Sunday evenings where we would play, talk and eat.  I still see their 50-year-old antique silverware and old plates lining the table before everyone digs in. Food does that, doesn’t it? What recipe do you make that transports you back in time?

Lemon Jello Cake Ingredients

This lemon cake recipe comes together quickly with the help of a few shortcuts. I love homemade cakes, but simpler family recipes like this one are great to have on hand too! Here’s what you’ll need to make this cake mix lemon cake recipe:

• Lemon Cake Mix: We prefer Duncan Hines brand, but any brand will work great.
• Eggs: Adds structure to the cake.
• Water: Adds moisture and helps activate the jello making the cake extra moist
• Oil: The fat that keeps the cake moist and tender.
• Lemon Jello: You will use just the jello powder and be sure it isn’t sugar free
• Lemon Juice: Fresh lemon juice is an absolute must!
• Powdered Sugar: Adds all the sweetness to the icing

The measurements for all the ingredients can found down below so keep scrolling down to the recipe card for all

Welcome to the weekend, my friends! Our kids are back in school or starting new jobs, and we’re enjoying the start of fall here in Ohio. We’ve had some gloriously cool mornings here and I’m trying to get out and walk as much as possible these days.

ON THE BLOGS THIS WEEK: I’ve been back in the kitchen this week, cooking and baking some great new recipes to share. The time off was great, and I’m excited to get back to work. Is anyone else ready for some fall comfort foods?

In the meantime, let’s put together a meal plan for this week with some Beer and Garlic Grilled Chicken, Creamy Stovetop Mac and Cheese, and this Watermelon Fruit Salad.

For my salad cravings, this BLT Chopped Salad and the Italian Grinder Salad need to happen soon.

Ramen Egg Roll in a Bowl is an irresistible skillet of deconstructed egg rolls tossed with ramen noodles and I’m telling you now that you are going to love it.

One of my boys requested enchiladas this week, so these cheesy green chile chicken and black bean enchiladas are also on the meal plan. It’s a guaranteed two thumbs up from my crowd.

Buttery, garlicky shrimp with plenty of bright lemon is something I can never get enough of. I have a hard time resisting eating these Garlic Butter Shrimp straight out of the pan each time I cook them.

I’ve been craving these Cosmic Brownies, so I’ll be making a batch this weekend. (On the pretense of stocking them in the freezer for the kids, ha.) 

And I’m thinking it’s time to make this Blackberry Coconut Crisp again, along with a batch of ice cream to scoop over each serving.

My FAVORITE THING this week are these cropped leggings. I’ve been wearing them for several years now, and just bought a couple of new pairs. They hold up well and I just about live in them both for exercise and for work days in the kitchen through the fall and winter.

What I’m READING: A Very Typical Family by Sierra Godfrey. This wasn’t really a feel-good book for me. It was more of an ups-and-downs roller coaster, a little too realistic for me at times. I found it both depressing and uplifting at different times. It w