What is your favorite meal or comfort food? My meal planning changes with the seasons. Lots of soups in the fall and winter. Now with spring and summer comes more fresh vegetables and salads. Can’t wait for the fresh herbs to be more plentiful. Lots of chives and fresh flowers in the kitchen please.
To be honest with you what I have decided is. Store bought is way easier. But I had to give it a try. But to me, not worth the time. Kinda like growing beans, beans are cheap enough to just buy, and more trouble to grow and harvest. If I had more time I would rather do it that way than buy, But limited time makes us choose.
So, thats my potato flake story. :)
Earl will be getting bought flakes. :)
On the subject of potatoes, I noticed that the sweet potatoes that have been patiently waiting to be cooked and eaten have decided instead to sprout. Once the weather becomes a little less intense (close to 90's for the next few days), the sweet potatoes will go into the ground or containers to complement some petunias I hope to get at Memorial Day sales.
I'll be planting my father's containers as well, so some of the potatoes will go into the 3 tiered one to create vines to fill in the bare spots.
I was surprised that one year the sweet potatoes grew so well as vines that I actually had some to harvest for eating.
Happy cooking everyone and enjoy the blessings this day brings.
Thinking of oven fried green tomatoes this week sometime. Getting several on the vines. And gonna make some kale chips, kale is doing well.
And you can do it - just cooking is the best way to start, along with growing herbs or just a simple garden. You can even start one if you don't have a yard.
Do you have any special or favorite foods? You can get fresh produce at a farmer's market or organic food market - it's not the same as growing your own, but I've always found farmer's markets to be dynamic and especially refreshing with their fragrant aromas. It's so different from shopping at a big chain grocery store.
Martha does have a garden, but one of the aspects I dislike about her approach is the extensive use of fats and sugar in her creations. I feel like I'm overdosing on sugar if I watch her programs.
You made my day with your compliment; thanks again!
I appreciate your words. I think you put Martha Stewart to shame. I wish I had the same way of thinking about gardening and preparing food. Right now, I try simple recipes so hopefully I can build my skill set.
Or making an herbal wreath of basil, sage, thyme, lemon balm and/or lavender or other herbs, to dry and be available for fall and winter soups and stews...
Or pumpkin for a pie, so very appropriate for the chillier days accompanying harvesting of pumpkins and squash.
Pick a pumpkin, save and clean the seeds and dry them in the oven...put on a pot of coffee and savor the taste of a home made pumpkin pie.....ymmmmm! Or, for summer treats, pick a fresh watermelon, collapse into a comfortable outdoor chair and savor the juicy sweetness of fresh fruit.
Going to be experimenting with some sage bread. I have harvested quite a bit of sage.
I ran across some peeled garlic and thought it would be nice with a ribeye, so I put it in my small cast iron skillet, then thought I better add oil, used olive and avocado, then thought onions would be good with steak, charred those on the BBQ, then thought how yummy they would be with the garlic, so I tossed them in the pan, everything was on the BBQ. Oh, yummy surprise!
I plan on making a quart of this tomorrow. After I fried potatoes in it for lunch I just knew I have to keep this yummy healthy oil combo on hand. (My hubby who can't smell much, thought it smelled and tasted wonderful)
Yeah living in city limits one. Maybe that's why they call it "city limits" :)
Cdn- shrimp recipe sounds good if I weren't allergic.
Dancer- dill potato salad super better huh?
Happy cooking everyone.
My colleague just shared the tastiest and easiest recipe. Its peas and shrimp with chopped green onions and celery with dill dressing. So simple yet delicious. This is going to be my new go to recipe.
Hope you are all cooking up something delicious for Mother's Day or going out for something good!
That wheat sunflower oat bread sounds like a really healthy combination.
I'm also going to see if I can find the gardening forum in which we discussed baking bread with bricks or alternatives, to get that special crust on artisan breads. It might have been in the earlier forum which if I remember correctly was closed when Rodale changed the content and format of Organic Gardening.
I'd love to have a brick oven outside! That's another reason to get out of the city and into an area more flexible and amenable to gardeners.
yeast breads(wheat, white, wheat sunflower oat(my fav),onion basil,tomato bread, rolls
sourdough in which I use a potato flake starter(plain, rosemary/garlic(my favorite)italian herb,
quick and sweet breads,cheddar pepper, even chocolate zucchini. from pumpkin, caramel apple, peach cobbler bread, you name it.
close to 100 different breads, you name it I probably make it.
Even salt bread. An older woman came to the market once and asked if I made salt bread, never heard of it. She came back next week and had a recipe for me. Asked me if I could make it for her. I said I will give it a go. Treacherous. Took me 6 times to get the recipe to work. But she was pleased with it. And it is so time consuming I only make it for her, or by request. It kinda has a cheesy flavor, its odd.
I started selling at the Farmers Market, where I live you can have a home bakery. So it was a hit and we developed a customer base.
I am intrigued by the rhubarb bread, that is one I have yet to do and never heard of. I have not done much french bread. But I intend to.
I am trying to perfect some flat breads.
And chocolate zuchinni brownies.
Once I had a surplus of cucumbers. I came across a cucumber bread recipe. So I made it. Came out beautifully. It doesn't taste bad, but I never made it again.
And DH has been talking about building me a brick oven, oh the delicious pizza that can be had. Been dreaming about a brick oven for several years now.
But rhubarb, that is intriguing.
My mother had a great recipe for rhubarb bread, and of course that perennial favorite for all the prolific zucchini - the chocolate zucchini bread.
Or do you bake yeast breads?
But I also learned there to make:
Chicken Cordon Bleu
Southern Fried Chicken
King Neptune (a filet mignon cooked to order, topped with sauteed lump crabmeat, hollandaise sauce and parmesan)
Seafood Newburg (shrimp and scallops in a wine/cream sauce with veggies)
Shrimp Scampi
Chicken Dijon (I still make this frequently)
Surf n' Turf (Lobster tail & NY Strip steak)
Prime Rib
...and so on...
As employees, we weren't allowed to eat the "good stuff" - we could have hamburgers or fried chicken, but our favorite snack during our shift was french fries with brown gravy. LOL
I wish I was a good cook. Sadly, I'm better at visiting the deli for a soup and sandwich.
My favorite comfort foods are mac and cheese and mashed potatoes! I wish I could have mashed potatoes every day.:-)
Also potato and bacon soup - I could make it in my sleep, though I don't do it much lately. I learned it from the cook at my first waitressing job. When I was younger I made it a LOT, because it was ridiculously cheap, really filling, and hugely popular with my equally poor friends! But I'm kinda over it because it makes me....well, let's just say "gassy!" Plus I'm kind of hopeless at making it in small quantities and potatoes turn to mush in the freezer.