Step Into My Kitchen

While I was cleaning house and thinking about this post's title, I kept going to that old poem "Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly." Hehe. Well, I don't plan to eat you, but I do plan to tell you about some of the great food I've been eating lately!

I'm a little excited because I am really starting to notice that as I cook more, I'm becoming more comfortable about making small changes to the recipes, as needed. These changes are mostly in the form of substituting an ingredient, as I might have something similiar, but not exact, on hand. I'm also becoming more comfortable with leaving something out that I know won't affect the overall taste of the food.

This is a big accomplishment for me because I don't have a well developed sense of what goes good together and I'm not one of those cooks who can taste something and know that it needs X or Y. I'm pretty recipe bound in my cooking. But, it used to be that I had to follow the recipe exactly. Now, I can edge out a little and be okay.

Seems like a done a lot of cooking lately and I want to share it all with you.

Saturday: Seemed as though I spent all day Saturday in the kitchen. Probably because I started and ended my day in the kitchen.

First thing I made was Slow-Cooker Beef Short Ribs. They needed to be in the crockpot by 7. I did follow this recipe exactly. And it smelled awesome. But, truthfully, it wasn't my favorite. It was a little too sweet for my taste. I'm also wondering if the red wine vinegar threw me off as I don't usually cook with it. Maybe my mouth wasn't used to the taste? I made up a batch of instant mashed potatoes and a can of green beans to go with the Ribs. We had plenty of left-overs and that's what we had Sunday after church.

Next I made these Coconut Brownies. It's all my friend's fault. She mentioned that she made them for her class and that was all I needed to go off and find the recipe. I had all the ingredients, so Katelyn and I made them Saturday. Here's another first for me: I suppressed my natural instincts and let her do most of the making of this. She had a blast and did a good job. It's so hard for me to "let go", but I know that I must if I want her to be a good cook when she leaves home. This recipe came out wonderful and my husband was quite happy as he has been wanting Magic Bars for a while. This was a great way to use up a free boxed brownie mix that would have been yucky on it's own.

Then, before bed I put together the Apple French Toast. I only had white sandwich bread to use, which was a little bit of a disappointment because it wasn't as thick as I wanted. But, it tasted good and I loved not having to cook in the morning. I usually make a big Sunday breakfast, but it's a lot of work. It was great to do the work the night before and just sit and wake up in the morning while the casserole baked. I served it with sausage that I also baked in the oven.

We like it, but Jim mentioned that he might prefer an egg casserole. So, I'm going to find a recipe and make that this weekend and see what we think.

Monday was a busy cooking day. I had a turkey in my freezer that needed to come out, so I designated Monday "The day." Hey, it was a Civil Rights Day celebration! Yeah, that works! LOL. Along with the turkey, I made stuffing using my MIL's recipe. Her recipe calls for a pound of sausage and 1/2 pound of ground beef. All I had was a pound of pork and bacon sausage, so I used that. The flavor was slightly different, but still good. For the bread part, I used the leftovers from Christmas (I had purchased too much then, so had about 3/4 of a bag left.) The stuffing came out perfect.

Mashed potatoes came out of a free box again. Used canned gravy. For the vegetable, I decided to make some candied carrots as I have two pounds of carrots that need to be used up. I realized that I didn't have any ginger, so I substituted cloves. Wouldn't you know, they were great! I actually liked it better because I don't care too much for ginger. The carrots were good and Jim mentioned that he liked them too, so I'm going to try to make them more often.

Finally, I wanted to make a dessert. I had one pie crust left in the freezer and pecans leftovers from Christmas so I searched for a pecan pie recipe and put that together. It was yum! I love pecan pie, but have never made one before so this was a treat and I'm so thrilled that I can now make pecan pie myself.

After dinner I pulled all of the meat off of the turkey that I could. Fridged that carcass until the next morning when I put it into a big stockpot and simmered it all day. Pulled the bones out and fridged the broth for a little while.

When the bones cooled down, I pulled all of the remaining meat off that I could. I got about 1.5 cups of meat. I used the broth and the meat to make Creamy Turkey Soup for dinner. It was awesome. I was a little unsure about the addition of cayenne pepper, but it gave it a wonderful kick without being spicy. I don't do spicy. I used some rotini noodles that I had on hand and I also added some celery that needed to be used

I took a page from Gayle's book and made the Buttery Bread Machine Rolls to go with the soup. These tasted so good! Definitely will make them again.


Today we are having Baked Ziti for dinner. I need to make a goodie, too, but I'm not sure yet what it will be.

So, that's what I've been doing. We are loving the good food we've been eating and I love seeing how just a little bit of money, ingredients and time can be used to make yummy meals for my family.

And now, I'm off to plan a big grocery adventure. I'm blessed to have four major grocery chains here, plus lots of little ones, but it can be mind-boggling when they all have great sales the same week. Need to sit down and make some sense out of it all and see where I really need to go.

Have a great day!!!