Yep. Have to try this bread recipe. It was quite an adventure. Was going to get started making it when I discovered I had NO YEAST! No yeast. Didn’t seem possible in this house but there I was. Wanting to get a lot done so didn’t want to break the work rhythm to go get it. Picked yeast up in the evening when I was running another errand.

Mixing the dry ingredients together using the trusty Kitchenaid. No yeast was in here as I discovered later. Oops!

Innocently heating the milk for the English Muffin Bread!

Get home & decide to get this going. Mixes up super easy. Got the batter in the loaf pans. Set them aside covered with a damp cloth. Go back to check them about 30 minutes later. They haven’t risen a bit! Big failure! The recipe says it takes about 45 minutes to rise so baring a miracle these puppies are NOT going to rise enough. Glance to the side. There sits my brand new unopened jar of yeast! Oops! Maybe it’s not the recipe. Maybe it’s operator problem. Maybe I’ll retry the recipe in the morning.

Here I am adding flour still under the delusion I'm making bread.

The batter that I so innocently was going to rise & make a beautiful loaf of bread.

Nice & cool in the morning so it’s a wonderful time to retry a bread recipe. Again the English Muffin Bread batter mixes up easily. This time I try making it WITH the yeast. Suspect that will have a positive influence on the outcome. Check the bread in the loaf pans after 20 minutes and lo they are rising. Must be the yeast! The bread rises just as quickly as the recipe says & I slide the bread pans in the oven.

"Real" bread--you know, the kind that has YEAST in it.

Bread cooks for the required time. Pull out of the oven 2 beautifully browned loaves of bread. Oh yes, it is going much better today. Naturally, I have to give the bread a taste test. Slice off a piece as soon as the bread has cooled, butter it & share it with Sarah. It’s good! That’s our verdict. I have to be honest though & say that I’m not sure how often I’ll actually bake this bread. As delicious as it it, & it IS delicious, I prefer breads that can serve double duty. We enjoy using homemade bread for our sandwiches & this is not a sturdy enough bread for sandwiches. If you’re only looking for something to slice & eat or slice, toast & eat, you’ll be very happy with this bread.

All those beautiful airholes are what makes for wonderful toast!

If you’re an experienced cook, I’m sure you enjoyed my “little” mistake. Probably reminded you of a few of your own mistakes when cooking. If you’re a novice cook, take careful note. Doesn’t matter if you’ve cooked for 50+ years, there are going to be times when you make mistakes. It’s not the end of the world. Just try again. Sometimes when you make a mistake, you’ll like the results better, but not when you leave the yeast out of your homemade bread. Trust me on that one.

Sarah cooking bacon

If you haven’t fixed it before, you need to do so. It’s one of the super easy things you can fix. Like fixing scrambled eggs, there’s no need to measure things. You want a good quality bread to fix French Toast. Something like French bread, a good bakery bread or the Pepperridge Farm sourdough will make an excellent dish. A bread of substance is needed. If you use your normal sandwich quality bread, the bread will get too soggy as it has too much air & will soak up too much of the egg mixture. Then the end result will be a piece of bread that is toasted on the outside & soggy inside–not an attractive or tasty dish.

Turn your stove on to medium heat & heat your iron skillet while mixing your eggs. Usually when I’m fixing it, I’ll fix a larger batch than necessary to have French toast mixture handy for another morning. There’s 3 of us in my family living at home so if I crack 4-6 eggs, I’ll have extra egg mix leftover. How many eggs I use is based on how many times I figure we’ll have French toast in the next few days. Lightly whip the eggs & add some milk, approximately a tablespoon and a half for every 2 eggs is how much I usually pour in the bowl of eggs. This is a guess as I eyeball it. Then I add around a half teaspoon of cinnamon & half as much nutmeg. Some people add a dash of salt. I prefer to leave it out & nobody has ever complained. Lightly whip the ingredients until the spices are evenly distributed.

Whisking egg & milk mixture for French toast.

Cracked eggs in bowl

Pour the mix into a shallow container. Place a slice of the bread in the egg mixture & gently push it down until the mix flows over the top. Using a fork, I lift the bread up & turn it over so both sides are well coated. Lift it up using the fork & let the excess mix drip back into the container. Gently drop the coated bread into the hot skillet. After it has cooked for 3-4 minutes & is toasted on the bottom, use a pancake turner to flip it over. Let the other side cook until it is grilled to your satisfaction. Using the pancake turner, slip the piece of French toast onto a plate.

French toast cooking in iron skillet.

Depending on your family’s taste, the French toast can be served with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, syrup, applesauce or a warm fruit puree. After fixing however many pieces I need, I store the leftover mix in the refrigerator. I would not suggest keeping it more than a couple of days before using it.

Finished French toast with an egg

Ground Sirloin

Hamburger steak is one of those comfort foods that Jim really likes. It’s also a very simple food item to fix that doesn’t require being accurate in measurements.

I always start with at least 1 pound of ground chuck. If I can find it reasonably priced, I go for ground sirloin for more taste with less fat content. Add salt & pepper to your taste. Those are the basics. Then I add chopped onion; how much onion depends on the mood I’m in. Some nights I add just a couple of tablespoons of onion for just a hint of onion. If I’m really in the mood for onion I’ll add ½ cup of onions. You don’t want the taste of onion to be overwhelming so I don’t suggest more than that amount. If your ground meat doesn’t seem to want to stick together to make a patty, add 1 egg. Then divide into 2 to 4 patties depending on the number of patties you want. Lightly pat the ground steak together into an oblong shape. Place in a heated iron skillet on medium & cook to your preferred degree of done. Jim likes his more well done than I do so I always start cooking his before mine. That way both patties finish cooking at the same time & we both get our hamburger steak fixed to our taste.

Jim

If you want to add toppings, it’s a simple thing to saute a mixture of onions & green peppers, onions & mushrooms or just mushrooms while the hamburger steaks cook. After the hamburger steaks have cooked, use the drippings to make gravy to top them with if you’re a gravy fan. As you can see, it’s easy to dress this comfort food up several different ways to suit anybody’s taste.

Hamburger steak ready to serve, just add vegetables.

Small butternut squash cut in half ready to be baked.

Anyway, I’ve had this cute little butternut squash sitting on the kitchen counter for awhile. Today’s the day! I kept looking at it & got inspired to try it. Several articles I’ve read have suggested cooking it same as any other winter squash so I decide to fix it as I usually fix my acorn squash.

The cleaver cuts it in half very quickly & I scoop the seeds out. Turn it upside down in a pie tin with enough water to cover the bottom. Put it in the oven at 350∘F & let it bake. How long it needs to bake will depend on the size of the squash. Just keep in mind that these are dense squashes, unlike the summer squashes, & will take longer to cook. After approximately 20 minutes, the squash halves were fork tender. I then turned them

Here

over & added a dab of butter to the cativity, sprinkled some cinnamon on them & put them back in the oven for around 10 minutes. Normally I use a bit of brown sugar or honey on the acorn squash, but I hesitated on the butternut because of my unfamiliarity with it. In the future, I will use a bit of one of those sweeteners on the squash. Jim & I enjoyed the little butternut squash halves. I’m looking forward to fixing the other small squashes that are growing on the vine. Will definitely plant more of them next year & try to get them out earlier in the spring so I can have a good amount of butternut squash for us to enjoy.

I’m better prepared this time so hopefully it will go better. A particular favorite cookie here is Aunt Martha’s Nutmeg Bells, a recipe I got from Good Housekeeping several years back. The plan is to mix up a batch of them. While it’s in the refrigerator chilling, we’ll mix up & bake White Chocolate Cookies with Chocolate Chunks. This is a new recipe I’m trying. It can be found in Mrs. Field’s Best Cookie Book Ever, page 15. If you’re into cookie baking, this is a book well worth having.

Zoey hard at work cracking eggs.

We get off to a good start on mixing the cookies. Zoey must be cracking a lot of eggs at home; she does a great job of cracking them. She’s anxious to actually operate the mixer. I’m standing right there so that’s what we do. I tell her what number to move the slide to & she operates it. I suspect we have a baker in the making in Zoey.

The cookie dough is mixed in no time & ready to go in the refrigerator. Here’s where we run into  the first road bump. Zoey is hard to keep focused today. While I clean the mixing bowl, she clamors to play a game on the computer. She doesn’t argue when I tell her no. I point out that she came over to bake cookies not to play computer games.

Zoey carefully carrys the egg to the mixer.

While working on the second batch of cookies, Zoey runs back & forth from the tv to the kitchen. Again, cracking the eggs is a job she handles with finessse. We have the dough ready & I pull out the cookie scoop to use. Zoey says she remembers how to do it & proceeds to use the scoop. She keeps pulling the dough out from the middle of the bowl. It’s not a deal breaker, but it’s certainly messier that way so I show her again how to pull the dough from the edges of the batch in the bowl. No biggie as she’s not even 6 & has lots of time to learn all the ins & outs of cookie baking.

She has to kneel in a chair to reach the mixer.

I put the pan of cookies in the oven & set the timer. While the cookies bake, Zoey runs & settles on the couch to watch television. I scoop out a  trayful of cookies to be ready when the first batch finishes cooking. As soon as that batch cools enough to eat, Jim, Zoey & I taste them. Have to be sure they’re good to eat. Zoey pronounces them yummy.

It’s time to scoop another trayful of cookies. She doesn’t seem that interested. Clifford the Red Dog has caught her attention. She’s young & it’s more important that this be a fun process then that she do everything, so I scoop & bake the cookies until all of that variety are done.

Oops! We need to practice spacing our cookies out!

I make the decision to take her home as she’s just not heavily into baking today. Everything distracts her. But it’s been a good day & she’s excited about the cookies she helped bake. She doesn’t ask about cooking the others so I know I’ve made a good decision to take her home.

After taking Zoey home, Sarah & I roll out & bake the nutmeg cookies. I picked 5 of the designs from a new pack of Halloween cookie cutters to use. We cut skulls, pumpkins, devil heads, ghosts & tombstones. Doesn’t take very long to cut & bake them especially beings we’re working together. Tomorrow, I’ll ice & decorate them.

At 6, scooping cookies can be a 2 handed job.

White Chocolate Cookies with Chocolate Chunks cooking on wire racks.

The onions for the batch of chili are sautéing.

One of my favorite cookbooks is The New York Times Cookbook. I’ve pulled it out to get started as 2 of the recipes I want to fix are in it. I follow the recipe in the book for chili except for the green pepper. If I have some on hand, I chop it up & add it, but I never go get it just for making the chili. This will be a no green pepper time. Get started chopping the onions & discover that they are very fresh onions. They aren’t making my eyes water too much but they have a potent smell. While the onions cook in the olive oil, I add a pound of ground chuck to another large pot to get the spaghetti sauce going. A full pound is used because I’m going to make a double batch of spaghetti sauce so I’ll also have some for the freezer.

As the onions for chili cook and the meat browns for spaghetti sauce, I start chopping the onions for the spaghetti sauce. I have the chopped garlic in oil so add it to both pots. Once I add the onions to the spaghetti sauce, it’s time to brown the ground chuck for the chili. I spend a little time going back & forth between the two pots stirring the ingredients. I add the chili powder & cayenne pepper to the chili mix first as experience has taught me that they will cling to the meat & give a spicier taste to the chili. I then add the rest of the spices and cut up the tomatoes that go in it. Add the water & the chili is ready to simmer for several hours.

A close up of the Shepherd's Pie mixture simmering

The chili is in the pot on the front left burner. The spaghetti sauce is in the pot on the back burner. The mixture for the Shepherd's Pie is in the iron skillet.

Once again, I’m cutting onions as I need them for the last dish I’m fixing, Shepard’s Pie. I have never fixed it before, but Jim has a recipe from his mother & it looks pretty straight forward. While my fat melts for it, Jim peels potatoes for it. I add the onions & ground chuck to the skillet to cook & turn my attention back to the spaghetti sauce. Add tomato paste, cut up tomatoes & water & I’m ready for the salt & pepper & a couple of bay leaves. The spaghetti sauce can now be left to simmer until it’s almost done. When it’s almost finished, I add oregano, basil & thyme.

The layer of mashed potatoes in the bottom of the casserole dish.

At this point, I’m free to concentrate on the Shepard’s Pie. While my potatoes boil, I add 2 cups of chopped tomatoes to the sliced onions & beef that have been cooking. I salt & pepper the mixture & wait for the potatoes to get tender. Once they are tender, they are mashed. The recipe calls for a 1-quart casserole dish, but I can tell by looking that there’s no way all that will fit in that size dish. I pull out a 2-quart dish & put a layer of mashed potatoes on the bottom. The meat & tomato mixture is poured on top of the mashed potatoes. The rest of the mashed potatoes are used to cover the meat mixture. I put it in the oven at 350 degrees & let it bake for 30 minutes. Jim happily has Shephard’s Pie for lunch.

By working on the 3 dishes together, I have only spent

The meat mixture added on top of the mashed potatoes.

approximately 90 minutes more than if I had just fixed a pot of chili. In return, I have Shephard’s Pie that serves as Jim’s lunch & supper, a batch of chili that makes 2 meals for us, and a double batch of spaghetti sauce that will provide 5-6 meals. All of these meals will come in handy to quickly serve a hot supper.

Nellie’s Shepard Pie

1 tablespoon fat

1 onion, sliced

2 cups cooked meat

2 cups tomatoes

salt & pepper

Shepherd's Pie ready to go into the oven.

2 cups mashed potatoes

Melt fat; add onions & brown. Add next 3 ingredients. Simmer 10 minutes. Put in a 2 quart casserole, 1/2 of the potatoes on the bottom. Add the meat mixture. Cover with mashed potatoes. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until brown.

What the Shepherd's Pie looks like coming out of the oven.

The bag full of turnip greens in the sink being washed.

I can hear you now, wondering WHY I’m cooking them if I dislike them. We make choices in our lives. I dislike them less than I love my sweet Jim. He was given a bag full of them by a co-worker of his yesterday. I agreed to fix them for him. It was as simple as that.

I have now fixed them 2 times in one–my first time & my last time. The actual cooking is easy & straight forward. The prep work getting them ready to cook is the killer. They have to be soaked & washed multiple times to get all of the dirt & grit off of them. Then you take a knife and cut the stems & the thick part of the vein off of the leaves. After I had prepared almost half of the greens, Jim & I agreed that that was enough to fix. He’s the only one that eats turnip greens at our house so didn’t see the sense in fixing all of them. In fact, Jim said that as labor intensive as it was, he offered to just forget about them. At this point, I had decided it’s a challenge & I wanted to cook them for once in my life.

Did some research on the internet & there were several suggestions. Basically, the suggestions are to cook them with salt pork or ham hocks. I had neither on hand, but did have some bacon grease so I went with the suggestion of seasoning them with bacon grease.

They

Added them to a large pot with about 2 cups of water. Cooked them for approximately 30 minutes. Added some salt & bacon grease to them & they were finished. Told you it was simple to cook them. Jim said they were excellent & he did seem to enjoy eating them.

However, we were both agreed that in the future when he wanted them, I would pick up some cans from Bi-lo. Unless, of course, he had some that his mother had canned on hand. We also agreed that he had not properly thanked her for the home-canned turnip greens she had sent him. If anything was a labor of love, it was the time & effort she had to have put forth in canning those greens.

After cooking, they don't even cover the bottom of the pot.

Jim & Catherine's Wedding Cake

Last week’s big cooking emphasis was a wedding cake. Not just any wedding cake, but MY wedding cake. By Monday I was 98% sure I wanted a heart shaped cake. I have the pans for doing a small tiered heart cake. What could be more romantic than a heart cake? Still hadn’t decided on the flavor for the cake, but at least I knew the shape.

Chocolate? No, even chocolate lover I am, I’m getting tired of chocolate cakes. Then I started debating about trying a new recipe. Hey it was my wedding! I figured I could experiment with the cake if I wanted. Have been reading on http://www.cakecentral.com about orange cakes. The most popular icing with the orange cake has been vanilla to give the cake a creamsicle effect. The more I read about it the better it sounded.

By Wednesday, I had decided for sure I wanted the orange cake. Go hunting around in http://www.cakecentral.com for the recipe. You know how it is. Having made the decision, I can’t locate the recipe I had seen on there. Tried searching but all I was coming up with was a doctored cake mix recipe. I’m not totally against cake mixes, but to me, they’re emergency cake stuff. Certainly NOT what I wanted for my wedding cake. I much prefer scratch cakes.

Spent a great deal of time Wednesday looking for the recipe & could not find it. Thursday morning I get up & know I’m running out of time to be able to do the cake I want unless I come up with the recipe immediately. I don’t have time to search. I’m supposed to go pick up my flowers that Sue Bee bought wholesale for me. I post a plea on http://www.cakecentral.com for a scratch recipe for an orange cake. When I get back home, I check the computer & have several suggestions for doctoring a yellow cake to make it an orange cake. I also have a kind soul that sends me an excellent orange cake recipe with a few notes on things she does when she makes the cake.

Why is it that when it’s most important for the cake to easily bake & come out of the pan, it doesn’t? I have a couple of ziplock baggies full of orange cake crumbs that will soon be cake balls or trifle because of that.  The cakes were finally on the racks cooling off. Orange cake. Oh but it smelled so good. You could smell it all through the house. Yum.. Was guilty of  nibbling on a broken layer of the cake & it tasted really good. Ahhh wedding cake. Hopefully it’ll be as sweet as our relationship. But if not, it’s ok. It’s cake. It can’t be all bad.

I finally get the 6 layers of cake baked. I made the vanilla frosting & put the crumb coat on it. With any luck, it’ll make everybody think of a creamsicle. While working on that, I also baked 2 6” round layers for a sales presentation I was pitching that evening. This cake was being used to sell an open house & hopefully recitals at a studio that gives music lessons of all kinds. Didn’t have much time to decorate it with everything going on, but I put a large music note & several small music notes on it. Finished it just shortly before I needed to leave the house.

I was pushed for time on the 6” round cake, but it didn’t present many difficulties getting the icing smooth. This pleased me. I felt like I’m finally getting some speed on smoothing the icing on a cake. That delusion lasted until I tried to ice & smooth my wedding cake. I swear I could hear that cake laughing at me. The more I tried to smooth it out, the rougher it got. Determined to have it perfectly smooth, I go to Porter Paint Friday to buy a couple of high density foam rollers to do the cake. This was MY cake; I wanted it to be perfect.

Then reality struck. No matter what I did this sucker wouldn’t smooth out. The tip of the heart is the worst! Determined to beat this cake into submission I stayed up until 3:30AM in the morning working on it. Is that crazy or what?! When I got up in the morning, I slipped on another thin layer determined to try again. I had slept; it would go better. Right? Wrong! I finally conceded the cake had beaten me & piped some shell borders on it. Then I quickly get started setting up the food tables.

When Shannon got there, she brought me beautiful deep red buttercream roses to finish decorating the cake. We’re standing in the kitchen working companionably on two projects. I’m finishing the cake & she’s mixing punch. So picture this: she’s scooping sherbet into the punch bowl. I have one rose on the cake and one on the tool for moving roses. She’s telling me about a conversation a neighbor’s child just recently had with her children describing graphically for Shannons’s children the details of how an abortion is performed. This was a young child! I’m horrified & absolutely shocked at the particular detail Shannon is telling me about when in reaction I jerk to look at Shannon instead of what I’m doing. One red rose is now on the floor upside down.

I stared at that rose horrified. Shannon laughed her head off at me & reassured me there were plenty of roses so the loss of that one woudn’t matter. Finally the cake was finished. It wasn’t horrible, but I would have been happier if I had won instead of the cake. At least on the tip of the hearts.