From My Kitchen: January 2022

 

Winter means comfort food, am I right? We have been doing what we can to eat lighter. In the past I would have made dishes such as Steak & Gravy or something that pairs well with mashed potatoes. Below are a couple of new things I tried this month.

I've had a recipe for Overnight Slow Cooker Steel Cut Oats with Banana for a while...actually, for years. CH is trying to eat things that don't have a chance to upset his stomach and I thought this might work. I don't have a picture because who can take a picture of oatmeal so it looks appetizing? Definitely not me. Anyway, the recipe calls for freshly grated nutmeg. I'm not sure if that would have made a difference. I was a bit disappointed with this recipe; I just didn't think there was a lot of taste to it.  I added brown sugar to my bowl before I ate it; it helped but not much. I didn't think it had a lot of banana taste to it even though I added an extra banana to the slow cooker the night before. So, this recipe is going in the trash.

Who else likes soup in the winter? A link to this Stuffed Pepper Soup Recipe was in an email I received from Six Sisters Stuff. If you haven't ever visited their site, they have some amazing recipes. I cut the recipe in half which is easy to do before you print it out...just change the number of servings right on the page. Easy peasy!

I've made stuffed peppers a few times. If I had realized how good they are and how easy it is to make, I would have made them when the boys were growing up. When I saw this recipe I was all in. I used mild Italian sausage instead of ground beef and steak seasoning sauce instead of Worcestershire (because there was none in the fridge). The only thing I would do differently next time is add an additional bell pepper. This recipe will stay on my rotation. I had some for lunch the next day and it was still excellent. 

School closures mean baking. Who doesn't love to bake when schools are closed and the snow is falling? I found this recipe for Bread Machine-Banana Bread and decided to give it a try. The recipe was as easy as putting the ingredients in the bread machine. No mixing was involved. The only prep was mashing the bananas and lightly beating the eggs. My kitchen smelled heavenly with the smell of banana bread baking at the end of the cycle. There is a comment in the post about the ingredients not mixing all the way but the tips give a couple of suggestions: 1) to scrape the sides after the first mixing cycle has stopped, and 2) premix the ingredients before putting them in the bread machine. 

Well, I know what to do next time, don't I? Oh, yes...there will be a next time!

I completely missed the end of the first mixing cycle, hence the nuts on the top and not throughout the bread.

The only thing I did differently was to add some cinnamon. I thought it turned out great and the taste was very good. This will be a perfect way to make banana bread in the summer since it doesn't require turning on the oven!

If you read my Wednesday Hodgepodge where I hinted about a recipe for Danish Pancakes, sorry to disappoint. I didn't have a decent picture so I'll have to make them again for next month's From My Kitchen.  

Let me know in the comments if you've tried any new recipes. Were they flops or keepers?

From My Kitchen: December 2021

 

December means Christmas, so of course, this post is going to include be about a sweet recipe. I seriously scaled down my baking and candy-making this year. I only made 1 batch of Texas Millionaires and that was for my next-door neighbor who supplies pecans for the purpose of being gifted a batch. I made a couple of batches of Eggnog Bread, with gluten this year and an Apple Cake for Christmas Eve Dessert. A couple of days before Christmas, I had a craving for bakery cookies. The problem is, there is no bakery in the Small Town. There used to be one that had amazing cookies (but the King Cake was a huge disappointment) but every time I've driven by it appears to be closed. 

I have a huge problem with cut-out sugar cookies. I can never roll the dough out evenly and I can't tell how thick it's supposed to be. I found a recipe a few years ago that I used to make cookies for the goody bags for my in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary, but they aren't "bakery cookies". They are really good, but not what I was looking for. 

A search for "bakery sugar cookies recipe" gave me exactly what I wanted. The Best Sugar Cookies really are! I used the trick that I outlined in the post about my in-laws' cookies, but I'll share it again:

2 craft sticks that are 1/4 inch are perfect. Just lay 2 down and put the dough in between, cover with parchment paper, and put the rolling pin on the sticks.

Then roll away and you have dough that is the perfect thickness. And it's even! Well, as long as the rolling pin doesn't slip or you have too much dough for the length of the sticks. I halved the dough and then rolled, so it worked well. 

If you try these cookies, make sure you follow the steps exactly. The main thing is to roll out the dough, then refrigerate. I think I only messed up 1 cookie after cutting it out, and it was because I wasn't sure which of my cookie cutters to use. After that, it was clear sailing. I put rum flavoring in this batch but I couldn't really taste it. 

The finished product:

The icing part of the recipe says to omit the vanilla flavoring for "stark white" frosting, but I put it in and the cookies were still "stark white" in my opinion. 

The cookies were such a hit that I made another batch for New Year's Eve. For this batch, I put in maple flavoring and they were delicious. I could definitely taste the difference between the ones I made the week before. While not many comments were made on the Christmas cookies, MS & YS and YS' GF all raved about how good these were. 

The New Year's Cookies:

Only 1 cookie made it past midnight! 

These cookies were so easy to make, they just took a little bit of time since the dough needs to stay in the fridge for a minimum of 1-2 hours. I kept mine in for 2 hours which was perfect. I used the "easy cookie frosting" because, well, it was definitely easier and I didn't want a "fail" on the cookies! The frosting dried in a couple of hours although the recipe says they take around 24. 

Do you have a go-to cookie recipe? If so, is it easy and quick or time-consuming?

Winter Vacation 2018

The water was unbelievably clear.

 We revisited St. Andrews State Park in Panama City Beach, Fl.  between Christmas & New Year's Day. Things were very much the same as last year, except the weather. This year was cold, rainy, and windy, but we made the best of it. We had 2 days of warmer weather, and we didn't let the bad weather deter us. We brought bikes with us this year and we rode almost every day.

We had to bundle up, but we took some nice rides.

CH & I 💖💖💖 the beach in winter. Most people I know don't even think about the Florida Panhandle for a winter vacation, but we absolutely love it.

The jetties on a cold day...not a soul in sight!

The jetties on the warmest day we had...some people, but not nearly as many as spring/summer!

The first day we were there was unusually cold and rainy. We stayed in our little trailer most of the day. CH caught up on a lot of sleep; I caught up on computer time and reading. In fact, the whole time we were gone I finished a book that I had started a while back and read 2 whole books. I finished the book Sweet Tea and Southern Grace (Glenda C. Manus)...it was one of those no-brainer, fairly predictable books that I started reading last summer. I only finished it because I had started it and I hate to not finish something I start. The other 2 books were excellent: The Girl with No Name (Diney Costeloe) and The Hangman's Daughter(Oliver PÖtzch).  If you like WWII/holocaust era books or are a bit obsessed with that history as I am, then you'll like The Girl with No Name. I couldn't put it down. The Hangman's Daughter's title is a little deceiving because the book wasn't fully about her; she was a minor character. This book takes place in 1600's Germany & is just fascinating. The author is a descendant of the main character (the executioner), but the book is fiction.

The first order of business was getting breakfast from the best donut place in the world (or at least the Southeast U.S.A.): Thomas Donuts.

Our first stop!

Oh. My. Word. They seriously have the best donuts! You have to get there before 9:00 to get an apple fritter, which we did because we know the drill! My in-laws used to have a trailer a couple of blocks away from Thomas Donuts; whoever was the first one up was in charge of walking down and getting breakfast. After 4 days I still had a donut left (I wouldn't let CH eat any of mine!) and it was still delicious! (Oh, yes I did!) The only complaint I have about them is they have kolaches on the menu, except they aren't really kolaches. What they have is meat (such as sausage) in the middle of the pastry, which are called klobasniky. A true kolache has fruit on top. You can find an article that explains it here.  And now I've done my bit to preserve the Czech heritage! (Although I'm not Czech, my ancestors were from that area.)

We also waited all year to go back to Dat Cajun Place. We found it last year and were glad to see it is thriving. I had the chicken jambalaya plate...which was delicious.

Really good Cajun food that isn't too spicy...at least mine wasn't.

Great atmosphere and fantastic food. If you go, make sure you have plenty of time...it definitely isn't a fast food joint. It's a great place to watch football and have a beer...or two. 

One of the nice things about having our bikes with us was that we could ride along and see things that we wouldn't have seen if we were in the car. As we rode to the beach, I stopped to watch this gray heron:

This bird fascinated me.

While I was watching it, a deer came within 10 feet of me (it may have been closer...I'm horrible at looking at something and estimating how far away it is.) She looked at me, then slowly walked into the swampy area. 

We also came across a turpentine still while riding our bikes. As many times as CH has been to this park, he didn't know it was there.

According to the history of St. Andrews State Park, this is a replica of a turpentine still "from the turpentine era when turpentine and rosin were indispensable to Naval stores."

We had lunch with some friends (MS is named after their brother) one day, and some friends of my in-laws another day. We didn't cook nearly as much as we usually do because of the weather. We fixed pasta with sausage one night:

This turned out pretty well.

Of course, we had to have fresh shrimp one night. CH wanted to try cooking over a Swedish Fire Log, so we tried that.

We had a little basket that was perfect for the shrimp.

Shrimp were ready to eat!

They cooked really quickly with CH shaking and turning them constantly.

The finished meal.

Here's the thing: I could taste gas on them. I don't know if it was the gas they put on the wick that is in the middle or what, but I was not a fan & I love shrimp. I'm very picky about what is cooked with gas because I swear I can taste the gas in some things that we cook while camping...mostly it's vegetables. We know not to cook it that way again! The log was pretty neat...once we got it going. We'll definitely get another one of those again. It burned just about the right amount of time for us.

Saturday we went to a farmer's market that is just over the bridge from St. Andrews. We went last year but there were more vendors there this time (probably because it wasn't New Year's Eve). Our favorite vendor was I Roll Lumpia. I had a couple of comments on the last Hodgepodge post asking what it is. I had no idea, either! Lumpia is a Philipino food, much like an eggroll, but I think the wrapper is a little thinner. The inside seemed to be mostly meat (as opposed to an eggroll that is mostly cabbage.)

CH's was served with rice.

MIne had a kind of pasta called pancit. The sauce was amazing!

It was so good that after we had a sample we started walking to the parking lot. I stopped to buy some more sugar scrub that I bought last year when we were there. CH said he was going back to buy lunch, so we turned around and had lunch. A very nice couple own the store; he is in the Navy but I think they have plans to market the sauce.

We only had one day when it was warm enough to take off my sweatshirt & just have on a long-sleeved t-shirt, so we took advantage of it by riding our bikes to the beach and taking a stroll.

Finally some sun and warmth!

Since we were riding our bikes we got to see a mama deer and her baby who were hiding in the grass.

We watched her for a long time...until a lot of cars started stopping to see them.

The baby still had her/his spots.

We only had a couple of pretty sunsets. We missed the first one because we were driving back to the park after visiting with my in-laws' friends, but the second one made up for it.

The pink hues were gorgeous! I took this picture from the edge of our campsite.

I don't remember ever seeing the water there being so clear. It looked like pool water:

A school of fish off the pier

I played around with my camera a little as I stood at the edge of our campsite:

Our night-time view:

As I mentioned in last week's Hodgepodge, the family that came in next to us was super nice. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that she is a blogger. With it being so cold and rainy, we didn't have a chance to talk very much. They originally were going to camp with some friends of theirs, but the friends didn't make it because of illness. They made reservations at a restaurant for New Year's Eve and didn't change it, so they invited us to dinner. We said yes, but we made the huge mistake of going to Dat Cajun Place for lunch. We ate way too much, and the weather was cold, rainy, and extremely windy, so we opted to stay in our cozy little trailer.  (We're partiers that way!) We got up the next morning, packed up in some extremely heavy wind, and headed to CH's parents' house to spend the day. The next morning we were back on our way home. All in all, a wonderful, relaxing vacation!

A Neighborly Hodgepodge

The Hodgepodge is back this week! 

1. When was the last time you chatted with a neighbor? About what? (sharing that last bit is optional)
This is going to sound awful, but it's been about a month ago, after the big wind storm we had. We wave in passing, but are rarely outside at the same time.

2. River, lake, ocean, or waterfall...which one are you most like and why?
Waterfall. I'm definitely not feeling very peaceful or serene right now with my kitchen hassles!

3. July 13 is National Delaware Day. Ever been to Delaware? Delaware is called 'the first state' because it was the first to declare independence from the British. What's your state's nickname and does that moniker make sense to you? If you were in charge, what nickname would you give your home state?
I've never been to Delaware. Tennessee is the Volunteer State; makes complete sense to me. During the War of 1812, Tennesseeans volunteered and play a big role. Also, in the Mexican War, volunteers were requested & Tennessee responded According to statesymbolsusa.org, Tennessee has also been called "Big Bend State" because of the big bend in the Tennessee River, and "hog and hominy state". They didn't teach us that in school; or if they did, I must not have been paying attention!

4. What dish did you contribute to the last pot luck meal you attended? Do you have a go-to recipe for pot luck suppers?
Blueberry buckle. The last day of school, we had a breakfast. This is something my mom used to make, and it's really easy and delicious.
When I go to a potluck, I usually take Mexican Trifle. (I couldn't find the recipe online, but it's a Pampered Chef recipe.)

5. What is your number one tip for a brand new parent?
I actually have 2: Sleep when the baby sleeps, and it's okay for the baby to cry a little.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I had a long weekend in New Orleans for a conference. I have a group of online speech pathologist friends, and we decided a few months ago that we were all going to go. None of us had met everyone else. We're from all over the country: California, Washington, Oregon, Ohio, Texas, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Colorado (who wasn't able to attend), and, of course, Tennessee. I won free registration at the state convention in Oct., which helped a LOT, because it's a rather expensive conference. 1 of the girls made us all bracelets with charms for each state.

State bracelets

We hope to make this an annual event, whether it's at a conference or on our own. I really hope we can. These ladies are just amazing.

Ohio is missing in this picture!

The conference was just "eh", but the evenings were OH! SO FUUUUUN!!! The Louisiana girl was our tour guide, so we got a little off the beaten path.

Some of us managed to make it to an 8:00 presentation on Sat.! (NH went to a different session.)

After the conference, I drove to Baton Rouge and spent the night with MS. I got to see his new place (which is on the same property as his old one) and spend a little bit of time with him. 

He was so happy to see me!

We had an alligator appetizer with Andy Gator Abita Beer

Baking & Slow-Cooking (+ A Couple of Recipes!)

I haven’t written a cooking post lately, so I thought I would take just a minute and share what is becoming a favorite at our house. I found a recipe for Chinese Pork Chops at Six Sisters' Stuff. 

In the crockpot, all ready to go!

The first time I made it, CH said the sauce tasted like Sweet Baby Ray's, so the next time I made it, that's what I used. I tweaked the recipe just a bit: I used 1 cup Sweet Baby Ray's, 1/4 cup water, 1/2 an onion, and 2 minced garlic cloves. Then, I put in the secret ingredient:

If you've never tried Chinese Five Spice, I would highly suggest it. I mentioned it in a post back in 2012 after I made Five-Spiced Steak Strips. I also use it to make Sweet, Sticky, Spicy Chicken; I just substitute the 5 spice blend for the spices in the recipe. Not only does it add a lot of flavor, but it smells pretty good, too. I don't measure it in the recipes; I just add as much as I want. 
For the pork chops, I put the chops in the bottom of the crockpot, spoon the sauce mixture on top, and set on low for 4 hours. CH splurged and bought a crockpot that will switch over to keep the food warm after the food has cooked. Well worth it!
I used to have a breadmaker, but I got rid of it because I didn't use it for many years. I had been thinking about getting another one, and I followed through a couple of weeks ago. I made rolls for Easter, pizza crust (that I left in the machine too long...now I know when the dough cycle is done!), and the other evening I made Dill Bread. I have to say, it was delicious! It doesn't have a strong dill taste, which is probably a good thing.

I can't wait to try Kolaches! I never know if my dough is going to rise like it should; with the breadmaker to make my dough, it should do just fine.

If you try the Chinese 5 Spice, let me know what meat you tried it with, and how you like it!