Please - Give Me Your Best Advice and Recipes!

If you don't want to read the whole story skip to paragraph 3
The Story of Emily and Cooking/Baking:
Freshman year of college I lived in the dorms and ate at the Cannon Center, never cooked or grocery shopped. Sophomore year I live in an actual apartment. My diet of cereal, pretzels, apples with peanut butter, toast and quesadillas made me happy. I never cooked or bought meat, too much hassle and back then the thought of raw meat made me sick. At that point in my life the only meat I'd ever cooked was ground beef on occasion at home, but usually I just chopped veggies or set the table or something to help my mom with dinner. Enter:Jared. We started dating and eating together. Quesidillas (how do you spell that one?) didn't exactly satisfy him and one day he realizes "umm, we need to eat some meat". So he starts cooking for me on the grill, it was fun, we tried lots of different marinades and HE cooked. One night he had class late so I decided to make our whole dinner by myself. I decided to cook some chicken. Didn't know how to defrost it, let alone saute it on the stove, it was completely over cooked but I did it! Now that I think about it he didn' t propose until after that, maybe I had to prove myself! haha

Fast Forward and now we've been married for 4 + years. Looking back at that now I just have to laugh. I feel like I've come a long way since we got married. I can grocery shop, and I really LIKE to cook (with meat!) and to bake. (I really liked Elder Uchtdorf's talk where he mentioned the difference between men and women cooking . . haha). Anyway our lifestyle as far as eating goes has definitely changed since we've moved out here. In Utah I was working full time and was pretty much exhausted after teaching 5-6 dance classes a day and commuting, I was also making more $ so we'd end up eating out a couple times a week. If I did cook dinner on a weeknight it was really quick like pasta or something. But on the weekends I would try to cook something nice, because, like I said, I really do like to cook now.

IMPORTANT PART, so out here the cost of living is more expensive, I'm working part-time, and preparing for a baby so we're certainly watching our budget a little closer. I'm trying to cook lunch and dinner 7 days a week if I can and maybe bake something sweet on the weekends for fun. It's going pretty well I think but I need new recipes! I love to try interesting different things and I've loved http://allrecipes.com for years now but I'm wondering what YOU make on an average weeknight with ingredients you usually have on hand. Also I'm looking for short cuts, an example would be "I know if I buy two green peppers I can use half of one to chop up and put in Beef Potato Boats and the other one and half for Fajitas the next night" or "I'll make a roast and serve it with potatos one night and put it in Enchiladas the next" or things like that. Really any advice would be great. Also, I know there are a lot of food blogs out there but I think it would be fun to start one, would you be interested in joining? Or do you have a food blog you do yourself or that you'd like to refer/invite me to?

Here is a recipe for a cold Autumn or Winter Night:

Chicken Taco Soup (crock pot)

1/2 large Onion, diced
1 (16 ounce) can Chili Beans (not just plain pinto)
1 (15 ounce) can Black Beans (don't drain either of these)
1 1/3 cup Frozen Corn
1 (8 ounce) can Tomato Sauce
1 1/2 cups chicken broth (short cut - add 1 1/2 cups water and then just toss in 1sp chicken stock)
1 can diced tomatoes with green chilis (original recipe calls for two - FYI)(undrained)
1 medium fresh tomato - optional
1 (1.25 ounce) package Taco Seasoning
2-3 whole skinless, boneless Chicken Breasts

Toppings:
Shredded Cheese
Cilantro
Sour Cream
Tortilla Chips

Directions:
1. Place the onion, chili beans, black beans, corn, tomato sauce, chicken broth, and canned tomatoes in a slow cooker. Add taco seasoning and stir to blend. Lay chicken breasts on top of the mixture, pressing down slightly until just covered by the other ingredients. Cover and set crock pot on high for 6 hours, or whatever you have time for really.

2. One hour before cooking time is up, remove chicken breasts from the soup and shred them using two forks. Stir in the shredded chicken along with the chopped fresh tomato if you want, and continue cooking for the last hour. You can also add a cup of water if you'd like more broth in the last hour. Serve topped with shredded cheese, chopped cilantro, a dollop of sour cream, and tortilla chips, if desired.