Stories of family, creativity, and diverse distractions.

Category: Cooking Page 6 of 7

Da chow! Recipes, pictures, ingredients, and a bellyful of related stuff.

Roasting the harvest – Poblanos from garden to dinner table

For the last few years I have been growing poblano peppers in my garden. They are a darker green and when fully ripe are a nice deep red. When a poblano is dried, it is called an ancho. They are a mild to medium pepper in terms of heat.

I usually pick them when they are green, but I don’t worry if they turn before I use them.

A bunch fresh out of the garden.

Approved by taste buds, but not by cardiologists: Buttermilk Biscuits

I have been trying for some time to find a biscuit recipe that comes out flaky and light. I am getting there, but I will always compare my biscuits to the ones we had in a little café when visiting Memphis .

A biscuit split on a white plate with a fork laying next to it.
Nice and Flaky!

This recipe is the result of many attempts to come up with a really good biscuit. Thank goodness Walt is a willing test subject for my cooking experiments!

The same sort of features that make a flaky pie crust, like I covered in this post, apply to flaky biscuits.

It’s tomato season!

When the garden does well, early August can be a busy time getting all of the produce stored.

A quantity of fresh tomatoes held in a woman's shirt as a basket
I didn’t grab anything to carry the tomatoes in, as I wasn’t expecting this many to be ready to pick.

I love to eat the fresh tomatoes from the garden! The first BLT sandwiches are always a favorite part of summer.

Can’t find what you need? Make it! Oven Mitts

I really like to cook, but I have to admit that I am not the safest in the kitchen when it comes to hot objects. I have bumped my hands and arms more times that I would care to admit when I am taking things out of the oven.

They hang where I can easily get them in my kitchen.

I had been looking for a set of longer oven mitts for a long time, and everything I found had really large hands, so much so that I was having trouble grasping things. It was like putting on a pair of oversized mittens and trying to pick small things up. So I decided to make my own.

I had a fun botanical print that went well with my kitchen decor. I purchased some insulated batting called Insul-Bright©. It is a polyester and mylar batting that can be sewn on a regular sewing machine. I have since used it in other projects.

Triple layered delight – making the best German Chocolate Cake

Every year for Walt’s birthday I make German Chocolate Cake. The recipe comes from the Iowa State Fair Cookbook from 1985.

Here it is in all it’s glory!

That boy is as flaky as Michelle’s pie crust

It took me a lot of practice to get a really good pie crust. It is easy to mix too much and get a tough crust. I found that it is really important to use a large bowl for best results. At first, I mixed in a smaller bowl and my crusts were tougher and not very flaky. When I moved to a larger, wide bottomed bowl I got much better results.

Bake up some sticky, gooey deliciousness! Caramel Pecan Rolls

I am a huge caramel fan, so I increased the caramel and nuts from the original recipe to add even more topping to these rolls. This uses the same dough as the Cinnamon Rolls I posted earlier.

A plate of yummy goodness!

Orange you glad I am sharing this recipe?

Homemade Orange Rolls

I really enjoy this variation on my homemade sweet rolls. I made the recipe a few times tweaking the quantities and flavorings. Fortunately, I live with someone who is happy to act as taste tester.

Are you hungry?: Let’s bake homemade cinnamon rolls

I use the same basic recipe to make a variety of sweet rolls. There is cinnamon and its variations – raisin or raisin and apple. I make a delicious orange roll. There is a sticky pecan roll. I will cover each variety in a separate post.

Orange rolls

Preparing meals for easy week night dinners: Chicken Broccoli Casserole

When Walt or I are home during the day, we enjoy cooking dinner.  When both of us have to work, we like to choose something that is quick and easy so that we are not eating dinner at 8 pm.  One of my methods of dealing with quick, weekday meals is to make bigger batches of meals when I am home and freeze the extras for later.

Dinner is ready!

Soups, chile, and spaghetti sauce are all easy ones to make big batches of and freeze, and we usually have several of these on hand.  I also do casserole dishes and lasagna.  When I make dishes like this, I prepare them in smaller pans. For example, I make lasagna in loaf pans, then freeze it before baking. 

Page 6 of 7

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén