Canning with Mom

I convinced my mom to can with me! I was setting up to do it one day at home and realized that it was silly to do all that work by myself. Thankfully, my mom will try anything once. This includes overheating her kitchen so we can have homemade produce year round.

Tuesday we canned the tomatoes. We were able to fill four pint sized jars. Today, we already have enough to fill another four or five. So next Wednesday or Thursday we will be doing a round two.

Today we put our pickle plant to good use and produced three cans of relish! Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so I don't have pictures of how badly we destroyed the kitchen on that endeavor.



We'll see how many jars we take up next week!

Cinnamon Rolls

Today I spent the whole day in the kitchen(s). Sometimes I feel productive and kick some butt. Today was one of those days.

I started my day with my friend Heidi. Heidi and I are both addicted to our The Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook. So today we decided to try our hand at one of her favorite recipes: Cinnamon Rolls.

This is the effect that yummy frosting has!

 What resulted was a lovely smelling kitchen and a buttery counter top. Lots of goodness! And then there was the frosting! Mmmm!

 Ok, so maybe now I can see why the diet thing isn't going as planned. But it was definitely worth it. Best news: I have a pan in my freezer for future use!

Yum!

Miss Diane's Salmon Dip

Miss Diane is a very dear woman to me. I have known her for years! In addition to her wonderful support, she has also shared with me her A M A Z I N G Salmon Dip recipe. Its become a staple at parties, and I make sure I always have a can of salmon in my pantry!

1 can of smoked salmon, 6.5oz (we order ours from Seattle)
1 package of cream cheese, 8oz
2 Table spoons of sliced green onions
a couple drops of Tabasco sauce

Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor (my choice) and blend until smooth!

Enjoy with crackers! Delish!

Recipe Writing

Recipe writing is something I've been thinking about a lot recently. I want to share some of my recipes on here but I am running into some problems.

1. I have no professional training. There is a lot of trial and error in my kitchen. I want to insure I only share successes.
2. I have just started cooking when I got married about three years ago. So my cooking is still evolving, and hopefully always will be. There is a lot of experimenting to find out what works best and how, etc. But when the end results are worth sharing I will!
3. And my biggest problem: I generally don't measure. This means that I have to start in order to share recipes with you guys. A pinch looks a lot different in my fingers then in a measuring spoon.

So hang in there with me, the recipes will come, and will be delicious....it just may take awhile.

Where I've Been

It's been a very hectic week! Last weekend was full of family stuff: a cousins dinner and the next night my dad came over for dinner. It was great to spend so much time with my family!

The week got even more exciting when I went with one of my cousins to see Taylor Swift. It was our third Taylor concert together!

We got amazing seats from another cousin, and even managed to get Pit Passes!

The next night my cousin and I went to see Glee 3D at midnight. I quickly realized how old I am as I found myself barely able to keep up with my seventeen year old cousin. Especially after two consecutive 2am nights!

Then this weekend was my good friend's Wedding Shower and Bachelorette Party! It was so wonderful to see her, as she lives out of town. It was wonderful to have a girls night!

And, after returning home Sunday morning, I found out that I have raised $110 for The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention thus far! I am so pleased to have so much support as I fight for this very important cause!



*Please see my Facebook page if interested in donating to this cause.*

AFSP Community Walk 2011

Some friends of mine and I are going to be walking in an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's Community Walk September 24. If you are able PLEASE donate, any amount will help this amazing cause work on saving lives. Thank you! (I promise to not make asking for money a regular thing on this blog.)

Just go to http://afsp.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.home, click on "Make a Donation," and search my name! :)

Pumpkin Chip Cookies

I know its the beginning of August and the last thing you want to think about are fall holidays. But these cookies are too amazing to only have once or twice a year. They are a huge hit with my friends and even their kids! Thank you Taste of Home for this delicious recipe!

Pumpkin Chip Cookies

Make them today! I did!

Note: I double freezer bag half the dough and freeze it for future use since it makes so many cookies.

Favorite Cookbooks

I have a bit of a problem. Just ask my husband...or look above my china cabinet. I love cookbooks!

Those are all cookbooks or cooking magazines.

Seeing as I would like to eventually share some of the recipes I've come up with, I figure I should share my favorite cookbooks so that ya'll can see where my inspirations come from. That and I have no idea how long it will take me to write a recipe...I don't usually measure, so it could take awhile.

One of my favorite basic cookbooks is The Taste of Home Cookbook. For my wedding shower my aunt gave me a subscription to their magazine. I quickly fell in love and ordered their cookbook. What I like about this franchise is that its made for home cooks. It shares basic recipes with basic ingredients. It is very accessible. I use Taste of Home for everything from Eggs Benedict to scalloped potatoes to Christmas cookies.

Another amazing cookbook is The Pioneer Woman Cooks. My girlfriend and I both swear by this book. I have cooked recipes from both her book and her website. Like Taste of Home, because the author lives on a remote ranch, the food is also easily accessible. Between my friend and I, everything of hers that we have made has been a hit! It is a staple in both of our kitchens. She has a wide range of recipes including pico de gallo, red velvet cake and pasta dishes. Her recipes are inspired from both her time in the city and her current life in the country.

When it comes to canning, I can not thank my sister in law enough for recommending Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. When I wanted to start canning she insisted the first thing I do was buy this book. And I now know why. In addition to its wide variety of canning recipes, this book also the VERY important safety information to can correctly and make safe food. So, I will second my sister in law's rule and tell you all to buy this book before starting to can!

There are two cookbooks I have that I am looking forward to exploring. The first is Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook. Lets be honest, what busy twenty-something doesn't like her slow cooker? However, I want to make a wider variety of stuff then soups and stews. As soon as I saw this cookbook I was interested. The variety is amazing: veal, chili, cake, wings and seafood are all included in this cookbook. The second cookbook I want to explore is The Chicago Diner Cookbook. This cookbook shares recipes from the vegetarian and vegan restaurant on Chicago's North side. While I am far from a vegetarian, I LOVED the food I had there and look forward to the experimentation and variety it will bring to my kitchen.

Now to be fair, I have been cooking for less then three years. Seeing as I am FAR from an expert, I polled my friends on Facebook and Twitter and asked them to share some of their favorite cookbooks. Here are the results:

1. Forever Summer
2. Earth to Table
3. Canning for a New Generation
4. Food for Friends: Simply Delicious Menus For Easy Entertaining
5. Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook
6. The Joy of Cooking
7. The Pillsbury Cookbook
8. anything by Gordon Ramsey
9. anything by Alton Brown
10. anything by Rick Bayless
11. and family cookbooks

If there are any you want to add, please comment and we can try to make a comprehensive list of good cookbooks for home cooks!

Veggies!

Pickle, cherry tomatoes, plum tomato, cucumber, yellow squash and green onion! Yay for fresh, free food!

Columbia's Muddy Buddy 2011

I have a dear friend who I like to call my "adventure buddy." New Year's Day 2010, we jumped in Lake Michigan for the Polar Bear Plunge. While this Plunge was not affiliated with any charities (there is one later in the year that supports the Special Olympics) it was definitely a great time!

Deciding that it was time for another adventure, we decided to sign up for the Columbia Muddy Buddy! The Muddy Buddy is a race you complete with a partner, one person runs and the other rides a bike, you arrive at an obstacle and then switch (the runner bikes and the biker runs). Its approximately a 6 mile course (ours was 5.7 miles), and then at the end you and your buddy crawl through a mud pit together!

The heat certainly was not on our side. I had to walk instead of run. The asthma and the heat were just not having it. So, I am disappointed with that aspect of my performance. The obstacles were a fun challenge. For some of the more challenging ones people worked together to get everyone through. There was a nice sense of team effort in that respect.  The hurdles...which I didn't know about until the week of the event...were not nearly as complicated as I was expecting! Another weak spot I had...the last obstacle of the course was scaling an eight foot wall. By the time we got to it, it was covered in slippery mud and my fear of heights got the best of me. Well, not fear of heights, fear of falling from heights.

So, while I am not completely happy with my performance, I did have a wonderful time and was proud of myself for finishing! Best of all, when I got home and logged on to see our time, the Mud-diving Mischief Makers (our amazing team!) did not finish last! Our time was

1:34:09.4. While we were F A R from first place, we were more than a half hour ahead of the last place. Overall it was a success! Our goal was to finish the race, which we successfully did! We are considering racing again next year!