Whoa, it's 2010!

The beginning of 2010 has caused me to review the things I said I would do in 2009. A refresher:

1. Send more cards/letters to people. I have already sent my first birthday card of the year!

2. Start a cooking blog. Still trying to think of a name (for the last six months or so, actually). All I've come up with is 'Food and Thought'. Travis likes 'The Bitchin' Kitchen", but I'm just not as enthusiastic about that one as he is. If you'd like, he'd be glad to go into more detail about all the ways this is awesome, just let him know.

3. Use Alton Brown's "Food + Heat = Cooking" as sort of a cooking class.

4. Organize my kitchen more efficiently, and possibly get rid of some of the crap I don't use (to be replaced with even awesomer crap! Ha!)

I have actually done some of these things! I sent more cards and letters, I communicated more with people through Facebook, and I feel much more in touch with the world. It's nice to keep in touch with old friends, and I'm most happy about keeping this particular resolution.

I also starting the cooking blog! Obviously, as that's the blog I'm posting on right now.

The Alton Brown thing.. I didn't even start. I was pretty focused on the Paula Deen cookbook and, in the latter part of the year, the Iron Chef Blogger Challenge. I may still try this year, but I'm also focusing on cooking with the ingredients in my pantry so they don't go bad. It's seriously crammed full of stuff.

But, I did start organizing the kitchen some. I got rid of a few things, but I'm in the middle of a 60-day test to see what I actually use. The idea is to clean off a shelf or a cabinet or something in your kitchen, then for 60 days put everything you've used on that shelf. Anything that is left, get rid of (sell, give away, whatever). There is an exception for big stuff (like my ice cream maker) that you then have to commit to using every 6 months if you want to keep it. I'm almost a month in, and it's made me open my eyes already to things that have been sitting in my kitchen for years without really being touched.

All in all, I think I'm doing pretty well. I don't plan on making any new resolutions, but there are some things I want to be mindful of. I will continue to stay in touch with people and not isolate myself. I'll try to be calm and not get so stressed out or anxious. And I'll definitely keep cooking!

Holiday Food and Fun

So, I think this is going to be one giant blog covering the cooking that I did over the Christmas week. It was a really great holiday. Went to Tennessee, it was cold but not miserably so (although I was still glad to get back home to the sun and 65-70 degree winter days). I got a lot of cooking done and a lot of eating too.

I'm missing a picture of the eggnog pound cake that I made. It was just a pound cake mix with some eggnog added, but oh man it was tasty.


This is some herb cornbread that I made to go with the amazing beef stew that my dad makes. It was really good, nice and fluffy. Generally bread that I make doesn't come out very well, but this one was tops. I definitely recommend it.


For Christmas dinner I made a pumpkin praline pie. I thought the pie was just okay, the Thanksgiving Pie that I made back in November was much, much better. The highlight of this was honestly the meringue. I love meringue. So much. But I had never tried to make it, it's always scared me, like pie crust. But I decided to suck it up for Christmas. The only problem was that my dad doesn't have any type of electric mixer. So I used a whisk. My mom and dad both helped a little, because my arm got tired, but I did a considerable amount of whisking. And it come out beautifully! So now I know that I can make meringue any time I want.


It is a Christmas Eve tradition that we have sausage balls, along with a meat and cheese plate. Most of the time the sausage balls are frozen, but this year I made them. It's just 1 pound of ground sausage, 2 cups of grated cheddar cheese and 3 cups of Bisquick mixed together. Roll it into 1 inch balls, bake it at 350 for 15 minutes, and you're done. They were really really yummy. They can be a little tough to mix - if you add some water, that will help.


My mom made some beautiful yeast rolls!


And finally, this was our Christmas spread. Ham, deviled eggs, sweet potatoes, broccoli and mushrooms, and yeast rolls. It was delicious! I hope everybody had as fantastic a holiday as I did!

Minor Food Update

Since I am busy enjoying the holidays, I am not sure I will be able to post actual blogs this week, but I am still cooking!

So far this week, I've made an eggnog pound cake and herbed corn bread. Still to come are sausage balls and pumpkin praline pie.

The secret ingredient this week in the Iron Chef Blogger Challenge is pickles. Yes that's right, pickles. Haven't decided what to do yet, I'm really not sure I'll even be able to do anything. There is a recipe in the good old Paula Deen cookbook for pickled okra sandwiches, but it sounds a little scary even for me. We'll see what happens, I'm undecided at this point.

Blogger Challenge: Chipotle

I'm just going to tell you up front. I cheated on this blogger challenge. I learned about cheating from Sarah and her "Bok Choy" Stir Fry.

This recipe, in spite of having chipotle in the title, has only a tiny amount. The recipe website claims "The secret is the mixture of the chipotle chile peppers and paprika which gives a flavorful kick to the chicken."

However - it's only a quarter of a teaspoon of ground chipotle. (Not even whole chiles!) And, as if all of that weren't bad enough, I didn't even use ground chipotle. I used Mexican Chile Powder. (The only ground chipotle at Ralph's was $10 a bottle! That's ridiculous!)

I will pause for a moment while you judge me.

Are you done?

Okay.

Even though it didn't technically include the secret ingredient, this chicken was delicious! It's very lemony with just enough spice. Also, you get to pound the chicken breast with a meat mallet, which is always an activity that I enjoy.

I'm just going to link to the recipe, because I got it off of about.com, and I'm feeling a little lazy to type today.

Before I head off for the night to watch Christmas specials and the Closer, here are some other links.

This is another mushroom recipe from last week's mushroom challenge. It is not only for a delicious sounding mushroom ravioli, but the blog is hilarious.

And this is some chipotle chili. Yum! (It has actual chiles in it, in case you felt cheated by this chicken).

Southern Tea Cakes

I felt the need to make Christmas cookies yesterday, and it was a lot of fun. It probably would have been better if I'd had any sprinkles or anything else to decorate them with, but oh well. The cookies were delicious anyway!

I must say though, I have an awful time trying to roll out dough. I had the same problem with the biscuits I made last weekend. I put flour on the rolling pin, but the dough keeps sticking to it and tearing apart.. it's just a whole mess.

Anyway, this recipe is from Paula Deen's "The Lady and Sons Savannah Country Cookbook". I halved it, because it said it would make between 6 and 8 dozen cookies. The halved recipe did not make anywhere close to 3 to 4 dozen though, so I'm not sure that was accurate. However, it could also have a lot to do with my dough-rolling issues and the size of the cookies that I made. I did some tree shaped ones that were sort of large.

So, here it is:

Southern Tea Cakes

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, sift flour, baking soda, and baking powder together.* Add remaining ingredients and blend well. Dough should be soft. Roll dough out onto a floured surface until approximately 1/4 inch thick. Cut dough into desired shapes and bake on a slightly greased sheet for 10 to 12 minutes.

*If you don't have one of those flour sifter things, just use a mesh wire strainer. It works just as well. I actually compared the two, because I recently bought a flour sifter. I honestly shouldn't have wasted my money, the flour looks almost exactly the same either way.

Blogger Challenge: Mushrooms!

The secret ingredient this week for this week was mushrooms. I was so so excited to make these cheese and spinach stuffed mushrooms, but they were ultimately really disappointing.

I wasn't incredibly pleased with the way the mushrooms looked at the store, the cheese I used didn't really melt properly, the spinach was too stringy, and I think I let them sit too long before I ate them. I uploaded a picture anyway, but I think for the time being we can just classify this one as misadventure. I'm not really going to bother uploading the recipe, since I don't recommend it. It's okay though, I'm sure I learned a valuable lesson somewhere along the way!

Here are some links to other Iron Chef Blogger's recipes that look much more delicious than mine:

Stuffed Mushrooms with Bacon
Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

And finally, the photo of my stuffed mushrooms:

Basic Biscuits

As you can tell from the picture, these biscuits did not exactly turn out beautifully. They do taste pretty good, which I suppose is what really matters.

This recipe is also from Paula Deen's "The Lady and Sons Savannah Country Cookbook", but I find the title misleading. To me, a basic biscuit recipe does not require yeast. This is my second sort of unsuccessful try at baking with yeast. There are so many things I could be doing wrong, I don't even attempt to guess what they are. Maybe someday I'll work it out.

You may have better luck, so I'll add the recipe anyway. Like I said, they did still taste good and didn't take me that long to make. It just made a bit of a mess on my counter that I still need to clean up (in spite of using wax paper to roll out the dough). Also, I skipped greasing my baking pan and just put down some parchment paper instead.

Basic Biscuits

1 package yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 cup Crisco shortening
2 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Dissolve yeast in warm water; set aside. Mix dry ingredients together. Cut in shortening. Add yeast and buttermilk and mix well. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and roll out to desired thickness. Cut with small biscuit cutter and place on greased baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown.