Such a bad blogger

Been such an eventful year- been baking from scratch 95% of the time.
This summer we're going to learn to use a pressure canner to can tomatoes- if nothing else :)
Why just tomatoes and not sauce etc? Tomatoes are the base for the salsas the family loves and for making sauce- so I'd rather can 50 quarts of tomatoes and have the choice of what to do with them.
Tonight I'm going to Mary's house and we're going to learn the art of grilling pizzas- I'm so excited. Hense the link-want to make sure I'm not going to lose it.

I have been reading foodie blogs- lots of great links on the left....

Farmer's markets are opening here on the weekends <3 Lots of fresh goodies to be had.
Blueberries are everywhere cheap too- hense the making of muffins from Suzanne's basic mix from Chicken's in the Road...a sprinkling of sugar from Wilton and they look and more importantly taste just as good as any bakery- but half the size ( as they should be).

last night I was flipping stations and CNN had some show on MC DOnald's on- the part I saw and it was enough to turn my stomach is burger today are 200% BIGGER than the original size when they opened in the 1950's- we're not talking Big Mac- the regualr burger like Happy Meal size- no wonder this country has an obesity problem :(

What we've been eating

Let me begin by saying- I can't believe how much our food bill has gone down since I started making more and more from scratch.The majority of my shopping now consists of meat- as little as possible- dairy and produce- lots of produce. Though not a vegetarian I've been trying to eat less of it. Mostly chicken and salmon now a days- some in my soups ...but you get the drift.Feels good to be skippig most of the aisles of the stores

I made this cute little loaf of bread on Sunday morning to go with the lasagna I made for dinner. We invited my parents up since they normally come take my monsters out to dinner on Mondays and they were calling for snow. It's the same Granmother's Bread from Chicken in the Road's blog only I added 1/4c parm cheese and 1 Tbs Italian herbs and baked it in one of those corning ware white dishes. Cute and oh so yummy




Yesterday's meal consisted of leftover lasgana-salad and bread for the kiddies and homemade cream of mushroom soup for the hubby and I. So so easy and I plan on trying different veggies in the future.

4c pureed cooked veggies
1c stock
2c milk or 1/2 and 1/2
seasonings to taste and depending on the veggie
1c chopped cooked veggie

We've had a gentle snowing all day- perfect for cooking. Tonights dinner is beef stew and biscuts. Unfortunatly it's those lame pillsbury ones. I have a couple of them and I want them OUT!

Our can along with Tigress is due this week and I "think" I found the PERFECT recipe for it. More on that Thurs or Fri when I actually attempt to make it. The ingredient of the month is carrot. And we have use the water bath medthod not pressure cooker. Wish me luck.

Preparing for the storm

We're also have yummy coffee cake muffins made ( just in case those cinnamon rolls are a flop)
From the 75th anniversary Better Homes and Gardens cookbook

3 TBS flour
3TBS brown sugar
1/4tsp cinnamon
2Tbs BUTTER
3TBS pecans or walnuts chopped

Mix together till crumbly for topping
**********
For the muffins
Preheat oven to 400
grease or use cupcake cups

1 1/2c flour
1/2c sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 c melted butter
1 beaten egg
1/2 c butter milk or sour milk

Stir dry ingredients together
in seperate bowl whisk together the butter egg and milk.
Add to dry mixture until just combined- Batter will be lumpy

Spoon half the batter into the prepared cups ( about 1/3 full)
top with half the topping - then the remaining batter- then the rest of topping- pressing down into batter.

Bake 15-18 minutes- cool in pan 5 min then transfer to rake to finish cooling.


For the main course*********


Brunch egg bake
6c shredded cheese- I use whatever we have in the fridge
chedder/jack mix - pepperjack -Mozzarella

2c cubed ham
2cups assorted sauted veggies

2 TBS butter melted
10 eggs-beatened
1 1 2/c milk
herbs to taste today we used basil/thyme 2tsp dried
salt and pepper to taste
1/2c flour

Toss cheese with veggies and ham

Make a sauce ( is it called roux?) with melted butter stirring in flour till smooth- add milk and herbs- Add eggs and mix well. Combine with veggie/ham/cheese mix

Pour into greased 9x13 pan bake at 350 for 40 min or until set and cooked through


We have lots of milk ( 2 gallons) and OJ (1 gallon).....potatoes to make hashbrowns
I'm thinking our breakfast for dinner might have leftovers for breakfast tomorrow

Hubby loves me- he brought home a BIG 1.5liter bottle of wine to keep me happy.
Cause if mom's not happy no one will be happy all stuck in the house together.
New York City has already called for no school tomorrow- wonder if our town will be smart enough to do that instead of calling us at 5 AM to tell there's no school.....time will tell.

Baking up a storm here lately and falling low on vanilla. Thanks to my friend Mary- she gets vanilla beans from her co op that are too dry to sell and gave me a few- nothing a little vodka won't reconstitute. Though I hated to use Absolute- it's what my dad gave me. It's been sitting at his house for almost 15 years- I think it's aged properly by now-lol.

Gearing up for a snow storm- tomorrow is breakfast for dinner one of the family favs.
Cheap white bread- eggs-vanilla for french toast and Susan's mix for waffles- Vermont maple syrup- bacon- fresh oj 2 gallons of milk- plenty of hot cocoa and marshmellows- We're ready :)

it's the weekend yippee

Blog hopping the other day I came across this blog by Garden Gnome :clones We're big fans of a lot of prepackaged food. With recent heart problems I've been buying low sodium stuff but this is perfect. I didn't add any boullion yet as I can keep it in a big container and use either beef or chicken and save the jars for important stuff- like jelly and orange curd :). I added a bunch of dried veggies that I had a container of and didn't use enough...taste test was supposed to be today but no one but me was home at lunch time so I didn't want to make a big batch of rice to just sit.




DD seems to think the rice a roni clone- the way I did it looked like Trader Joe's rice mix...could be true.



This morning was replenishing the quick mix from Chicken's in the Road blog and making dough for another loaf of bread. The stand up mixer never got so much work in years as with the bread baking.




remember the brownie mix from the other day? these are so moist and yummy..an instant favorite of the house :)

Keeping Busy

There is nothing sadder or more pathetic than a hungry teenage boy/man. What no brownies-cookies or snacks? "So what it's 9 PM at night Mom- I'M HUNGRY!" He wanted banana muffins......







I put the boy to work peeling over ripe bananas- keeping the peels for compost and mashing for freezing baggies for future batches. Makes making muffins so much easier.




But this morning's baking was bread. Nothing is as good as warm,freshly baked bread with some strawberry jam I made over the summer and a hot cup of coffee...yum. The recipe is from Suzanne's Chicken in the Road blog.








What's this you ask? Why it's a homemade brownie base. I had made a batch before the holidays and well it was almost done- I live with some serious brownie addicts. Of course for the last week or so I was looking for the directions for the base as I can't for the life of me remember where I found it on the web :(. But cleaning my desk this morning- low and behold there was the slip of paper I wrote it down on. I made a recipe card for the box and an extra for the container......

Today's Adventure

was trying a new recipe from Grit Magazine. Quick and Easy spoon rolls...recipe can be found here: . New to this bread baking business I found the dough very very wet...not sure if it was going to work but I followed the directions for the second rising and was amazed at how fast they rose....almost too much. Recipe says it makes 24 but I got 18- kinda like cookies saying they'll make more than I get......




First pan is in the oven and they smell great *VBS*...will take a pic and give a review on taste......





They were very yummy right out of the oven- the only thing that threw the family was the muffin shape....would make again.