So...whats for dinner?
Comments
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Deb- That salad looks delicious. will be on my favorite salad recipes for sure!
Bedo- Deb may have another idea for your apples,. but i think with all the juices,(oj) they should be ok, or you could put a little lemon juice on them too.
Seaside- I agree need that vodka dispenser on our kitchen LOL!
Carol- Your dinner sounds very good and healthy. I made Kale chips tonight and surpizinly my DH loved them.
Kay- My husband ordered the guitar buddy, we got it in the mail a couple days ago, i cant wait to use it so i can learn to play the guitar even if it is kind of cheating LOL!
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I have always loved baking. I started helping Mom long before I started school and by the time I was seven I was baking on my own. Cookies at first and moving on to more complex items as fast as I could. I was married before I ever used any store bought mixes. Started baking bread in the fifth grade. I remember when Mom turned all the routine baking over to me. It was when I was in the sixth grade, just after my Uncle's regular Christmas visit. The day he was due to arrive I made his favorite pie, a lemon meringue. When he tasted it he told Mom that she had always made the best pies he had ever eaten and that one was her best yet.
I've always loved baking but especially enjoy making bread. If I could find a recipe for it I learned to make it--from traditional, loaves and rolls to specialties like croissants and Julekaka to flat breads like pitta, tortillas and lefse. I don't think I ever bought bread until about 15 years ago when my DH asked me to stop baking. He was a slim 165 when we married. By then he was up to over 285--he would never admit just how much he really weighed and he just could not leave the baked goods alone.
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Hi Chabba, havnt seen you for awhile!
Wow, you had your hands full at such a young age, but sounds like you enjoyed baking! To be able to make all those things from scratch must of been a real treat and so much more heathier without all the preservatives they put in food now. 0 -
Bedo - with all the citrus in that salad, I would think the apples would stay nice and white.
Chabba - I cooked a lot as a young kid and could pull off a complete meal by the time I was about 12. My mom worked so I had kitchen duty plus babysat my 3 younger siblings. I also did some baking although I usually used a mix for cakes. I had my own cookbook - Teena in the Kitchen
There was a recipe for a "from scratch" cake with fresh orange and lemon that I remember being really good. I remember that for my 16th birthday I told my family I wanted someone else to bake my birthday cake...lol. So they got a bakery cake!
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Joyce - you sat in the sun yesterday? Now that is progress!!! I am proud of you
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OMG!!!!! MIchelle! Is this you?? I googled it because I was so impressed. I hope you don't mind!
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LOL...OK, I didn't mean it was "my" cookbook, just a cookbook that I got by sending that red label to Imperial Sugar! I remember that ad!!! But I looked a lot like Teena back then:
I'm the one on the right...so I wasn't blonde like Teena! By the way, this picture was 8th grade, I think. I came in second in the city (Dallas) in the National Spelling Bee contest.
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man you look the same! wow
about bread?/ it's so easy.. just take 2 cups of warm water, put in 2 packets of yeast (or 2 tblspoons) and let it sit and dissolve .. add a bit of salt and a bit of sugar. add 2 cups flour and stir . then another 2 cups and more so you can't stir and it must be folded. sprinkle flour on your counter, table whatever and start needing.. kind of folding and pushing in 1/2s and 1/3s.. check on you tube for techniques.. keep kneeding till the dough is dry and not sticky. the dough should be firm and springy.
let sit and rise.. punch down.. divide in two and form into long loaves (like french bread).. slice diagonals in top and place on cookie sheet sprinkled with corn meal. let rise an hour or two and then bake. 350 is fine.. any temp will do (under 425). you can brush the tops with butter.. yum (after baking)
.. after you make it a few times, you'll get a feel.. I can spend a total of 20 minutes and come out with 4 great loaves.. doubling that recipe. you can let the dough rest for 10 minutes or so occasionlly while kneading and it kind of kneads itself. i do all sorts of variations.. added milk and butter for farm bread (softer and delish), i use different flours, add ground nuts and bran.. you just have to experiment. it if is sticky add more flour.. If you have accidentally added too much flour (just do it gradually by kneading) use oil to knead the bread.
this is more yeast than you really need but it tastes good and is pretty fool proof.. you can always just follow a recipe.. there are professional ways to roll out a dough, roll it up that makes it look perfect, but an imperfect looking loaf still tastes wonderful.
good luck.
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All this talk of baking brought back a memory of something I haven't thought of in at least 30 - 40 years. Mom had a friend who was a very popular and successful caterer. When I was in high school she used to hire me to make desserts for some of her jobs. It wasn't until I started thinking about her just now that I realized that I learned so many of the skills I use all the time cooking for large groups at the Senior Center from her.
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I subscribe to this online magazine - it's free and there are some really good, inexpensive recipes. You can "Like" it on Facebook.
Today there were some good chicken thigh recipes - an inexpensive chicken part with lots of flavor.
Pan-Roasted Chicken Thighs: Season skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs with salt and pepper. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a cast-iron skillet. Add chicken skin side down to skillet, sprinkle rosemary over top and cook over medium heat, turning at least once, until skin is crispy, golden and a meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part reaches 165F. Top each thigh with a tablespoon of apricot preserves and a little feta cheese; cover and let sit for 2-5 minutes before serving.
Goat cheese would be good in this dish, too.
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Hi all! I started cooking when I was in Grade school too. By eighth grade I was cooking at least 4 times a week for my family of 10. My mom was an alcholic and my dad worked early shift. So I would come home from school and make regular dinners, like mashed potatos, and meatloaf and carrots, or baked chicken and noodles, etc.
But, that was over 40 years ago! and I am in chemo now and not doing quite so much cooking! LOl - one of my favorite things to cook though is slice potatos about a half inch thick and toss them in the foreman grill. no need to oil or anything bake then there for 20 min. they don'ty even need salt when you take them out they are golden and soft inside. yum. I do sweet potato there too.
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Apple, that is how `i make bread too, just with a little less yeast and ~I skip the sugar. My brother has a trick where he doesn't even knead the dough. He just beats in as much flour as possible with a wooden spoon, then he raises the dough in the fridge overnight, dumps it, like a batter almost, into a large tin of some sort with wome olive oil and bakes it.
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Michelle- That is the cutest picture ever!!!
Hi Moonflw- Glad you joined us, we are a fun group here! I remember when i had lung surgery we had to move into a hotel for a whole year (long story) and i used the George foremen Grill and microwave for cooking everynight, i came up with some great recipes using just those two things, i even thought about writing a cookbook about living in a hotel. The GFG does come in handy!
Joyce- LOL! I will do the singing while you all play (NOT!)
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you know.. i really wish they wouldn't call pieces of chicken breasts and thighs.. it makes them sound kind of human i have no better suggestions.. tops and bottoms? maybe?
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Michelle, LOL! I am so gullible! I always take things literally. Anyway I still have trouble spelling and can't bake, only cook. You still look the same, dimples and all. So cute. At 12 I was crazy about animals. We had about 20 between cats, dogs, rabbits, parakeets, mice, hampsters, turtles and fish. I don't think our Mom had a clue. We lived on 4 acres and had them stashed everywhere!
For dinner. ewww, I ate cookies at the office. (
Debbie, come sing with us! I'm sorry I can't keep up with all the posts! Just listened to a friend complain about her work for 45 minutes and my head is swimming.
Definitely have the fruit salad on the horizon this week.
Have a great weekend, ladies! xo
Hi Moonflwr! I'm glad you joined us! You really had your hands full. I hope you are enjoying cooking 'just to please yourself'"instead of over 10 people. My Mom used to say, " If you don't like what's for dinner, there will be another one coming along tomorrow night" I think someone else's Mom here said that too. Those potatoes sound good!
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Thanks for the well wishes. I had my arhroscopic surgery on Tuesday. The surgeon released some adhesions and removed scar tissue. I've been mostly sleeping since then. I'm hoping this does the trick. The pain is minimal compared to the knee replacement. I ventured out for the first time this evening to have dinner with my cousin at the local 99.
Lynda
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Hauntie- So glad you are doing well, taking time to rest and treat yourself to dinner out.
Michelle- Awesome picture! Thanks so much for sharing with us. You do look the same and your daughter (from the Facebook pic) looks so much like you.
It sounds like I am the only one who did not grow up cooking? My mother was a fantastic cook, but did not encourage help in the kitchen. In fact I was encouraged to stay away from her pans, if I remember she was afraid I would scratch them or something? When I was 19 I was a waitress at a small restaurant, that honestly had WONDERFUL food. One of the chefs called out and the owner asked me to join him in the kitchen and help out. I told him I had no idea how to cook anything besides grilled cheese or pasta. Turns out I had a knack for it and loved it. After that I did half waiting on tables half in the kitchen. I learned a lot and years later, after many years in restaurants DH- then my boyfriend- and I leased a seasonal restaurant and ran it for two seasons from May-October. We still say one day it would be nice to own a place of our own. But the hours are long and back in 2000 we both left the food business and got "real" jobs. I went into banking and did commercial lending for 9 years- talk about a different world!!!
I love this thread- all of you ladies have so much talent, from music, to diving, cooking, you name it!! We have a little bit of everything here and I love it.
Oh, home made chicken tenders tonight- DH was running late after having a not very good day so the boys and I spread out a blanket on the floor and watched Blue's Clues while we ate our picnic, so I was "the cool mom" tonight.
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Laurie, What a neat story about how you came to become a cook. I can also relate to having the mom who was a great cook, but proprietal about her kitchen. The only thing we were "allowed" to help with was the Christmas cookies. I remember the first time I actually cooked a meal when I was 16, and my parents were away, so I made a meatloaf dinner for my older brother, sister and me. I was so excited to be queen of the range! I was using a recipe from a kiddie cookbook (same vintage, but different than yours, Michelle) and the bottom half of the fraction for 1/4 tsp ground pepper was hidden in the book binding. Soooo, we had a full tsp of pepper in the meatloaf and I'll never forget my brother's complaints about what a terrible cook I was. So crestfallen was I at the time.
I never had restaurant experience, but just used my good cooking genes to learn as a young single person, and on DH when we got married. He always enjoyed anything I made, so I built a repetoire from there....positive reinforcement always works! Tho had I been smarter, I would have had him join me in the kitchen and we'd have two capable cooks in the house!
I love the creativity of cooking....and tho I bake, I am not a great chemist, so my baking can at times be less than perfect. Maybe if I retire, I'll take some baking courses to make myself totally legit in the kitchen!
Love all of your stories about your cooking histories. Keep them coming...
Continued healing, Lynda. You sound like you are doing great.
Last weekend I mentioned our failing dog....well we did find a gentle person to groom her (i just could not put her down looking unkempt and uncared for and I felt sure we were headed for that last trip to the vet)and she has shown much more spirit this week. We are totally puzzled, but maybe she just needed a "do" to get a bit of life back! A real stereotyped gal! So off to NJ she goes with us tomorrow. Oldest son will be happy to see her once more since he was her alpha male when she was a puppy.
Have a good weekend everyone.0 -
Lacey- I am glad your dog got some spunk back in her. It is so hard to have a pet you love not feeling well or nearing the end. I had a springer spaniel that made it to 16, she was the best. They told us she had a couple of months to live, her organs were failing. There was a puppy who needed a home and we couldn't imagine having no dog so we took the boy puppy in. That puppy helped my old dog live another year and a half!! The vet couldn't explain it. But, that puppy loved her and would not go outside if she didn't etc so....the old girl would take him out and look out for him and snuggle with him. In that year and a half they gave alot of love and she taught him to be a great dog, just like her. That puppy will be 7 this summer. And I still miss our spaniel.....
(((((hugs))))))
Have a great trip.
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I, too , have enjoyed the stories about cooking backgrounds. i don't remember whether I helped my mother in the kitchen when I was living at home. Most of our meals were made up of what is called "comfort foods" now. Plain country cooking like fried chicken, steak and gravy, chicken and dumplings, stuffed pork roast. My mother made biscuits for breakfast and baked yeast bread as a regular thing. We kids thought bought sliced bread was a special treat!
My theory was that if you can read, you can do about anything you want to do. So I learned to cook by reading recipe books. When DH and I were first married and were living on a sailboat, I had a Good Housekeeping book called Cooking for Two. I used it quite a bit. Our meals were simple but good. We couldn't afford to eat out very often.
After all these years, I'm still reading recipe books the way some people read novels! I subscribe to Cooking Light magazine and read it from cover to cover.
Julia's Beef Bourguignon turned out good. The sauce was especially tasty. I served it with buttered noodles, garden salad, and steamed broccoli. The latter got overcooked. I sliced some of my peasant bread, spread it with a home-made herb garlic butter and heated it in the toaster oven. Our friends seemed to enjoy the meal
As an appetizer, I served a yummy cheese spread with crackers. I dumped part of a bag of Mexican shredded cheese into a bowl, grated up some cheddar and added that. Instead of jarred pimentos, I chopped up some roasted green and red bell pepper I had in the refrigerator and mixed the whole with some mayo. DH had roasted the peppers whole on the gas burner of our stove one day. We saw Paul Prudhomme do that on one of his tv shows. Monkey see, monkey do! Also put out a jar of sweet and hot jalopeno pickle slices.
Tonight we're having left-over last night's dinner. Today I'm cooking a pork roast for tomorrow's dinner at my mother's house. Studded it with garlic cloves and sprinkled it with Tony Cacherie's cajun seasoning. Now the oven is doing the work.
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Carol- you lived on a sailboat? How cool is that?! Glad your dinner turned out good:) Did you melt the cheese in your spread?
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Carol- Loved your story, and wow a sailboat? My DH and i always talked about doing that someday when we retire in hawaii. What fun!!
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Carole - I cooked a lot of comfort food when I was learning to cook, too. My dad was a meat and potatoes guy, although we also ate plenty of spaghetti and macaroni. Anyone remember Chef Boy R Dee spaghetti dinners? It was a whole package deal! My first cookbook after I got married was the Pillsbury Family Cookbook - and I still have one. My kids destroyed the first one I had - it's a spiral notebook and they pulled so many pages out of it, so I found one on eBay about 10 years ago. I still use the recipes in that cookbook as a basis for my chili and pan fried chicken.
Tomorrow I am cooking a boneless rib roast, roasted potatoes, and salad for seven. My two DSs and DH will be thrilled. I bought bread to go with dinner and apple pie, cheesecake and cannolis for dessert.
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Lacey... My heart goes out to you... Our dog took her last trip to the vet a little less than two years ago... She was my baby who was by my side through a series of crapola events and I still miss her everyday....
Anyway... As an aside... Even though this is a total long shot... My dog happened to be an Akita and I received an e-mail today from an Akita rescue group that I donate to that an dog that they were transporting as a rescue slipped its collar and is missing.... Last seen in Newfields, NH... I think it's not super close to where you all are but, hey... stranger things have happened....
Here's a link to the rescue group that has the story and a picture as well as contact info.... She bears a striking resemblance to my furbaby!
http://www.bigeastakitarescue.net/Welcome.html
DH is out of town and the kids are visiting friends so.... maybe cereal? eggs? All I know for sure is it will be something light snd then into my PJs to do a bit of reading....0 -
I made a hamburger soup today that is smelling so good, just had a taste and its delicious. Sauted some hamburger, threw in some lipton onion soup mix while it is sauting, added, whole peeled tomatoes that i put in food proscessor, some water, 2 beef boulion cubes, oregeno, italian seasiongs, onion and garlic powder, cubed potatoes, green beans, peas, and carrots. You could even throw some rice or small pasta in if you wanted. Last night i made a sausage stratta and let it sit in the fridge over night then popped it in the oven this morning for breakfast, this was very good! Heres the recipes;
Sausage stratta;
Ingredients
- 1 pound pork sausage
- 6 (1 ounce) slices bread, cubed
- 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
- 6 eggs
- 2 cups milk
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground dry mustard
Directions
- Place sausage in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly brown. Drain, and set aside.
- Layer bread cubes, sausage, and Cheddar cheese in a lightly greased 7x11 inch baking dish. In a bowl, beat together the eggs, milk, salt, and mustard. Pour the egg mixture over the bread cube mixture. Cover, and refrigerate at least 8 hours or overnight.
- Remove the casserole from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Bake 50 to 60 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.( I also change this up using foccacca bread, jack cheese, or riccota cheese, bacon. Also saute onions and mushrooms in it too, what ever you like just throw it in)
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Seaside- I am in NH and just posted it to my facebook page and asked for other to do the same. I hope it helps. Poor puppy.
Debbie- the soup sounds good. I wish my boys would eat soup, well the youngest one will but the older one not so much.
Michelle-enjoy dinner with your family tomorrow!
I am going to do pulled pork in the crock pot tomorrow and we are inviting friends over to play for the afternoon adults and kids. I am also thinking of going to the store and getting what I need to try to make spring rolls/egg rolls. A friend of mine shared a recipe and I am dieing to try it. We'll see how the day goes....
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Laurie,
Thank You!!! Hopefully someone will see her and it will lead them to finding her!
Loved the story about your older dog teaching the puppy and the puppy giving the older dog a will to go on... Brought a tear or two to my eyes....0 -
Debbie,
We do a similar strata at Christmas time and it's always a crowd favorite!! Only problem is someone has to be sober enough Christmas Eve to put it together...lol. We tend to put it together early in the day!
When we have a really big crowd we also do a french toast casserole as well as an eggs benedict one....
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Laurie, the cheese spread was not melted. It's actually a version of pimento cheese spread. Your story about the young dog and the old dog was so sweet.
I love those breakfast casseroles like the strata. My SIL always serves breakfast the next morning after Thanksgiving and she has cooked some delicious egg casseroles that she prepares the night before. I have never cooked one because they're so large.
Michelle, your meal sounds wonderful. I can enjoy a meat and potatoes menu as much as anyone.
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Lacey- My heart goes out to you as well for your beloved furbaby!
Laurie- Loved your puppy story. If your eggroll recipe turns out good could you share the recipe please?
Michelle- Ohh yum, i havnt made a prime rib in ages they are usually so expensive for just me and DH but what a great treat for guest. Have a great time.
Seaside- Im so sorry about your furbaby too, it is so hard to lose your pet they are family!! LOL on the stratta dish.
Carol- If you wanted to, you could cut the ingredients in half and put it in a smaller dish.
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