Be back next week…
No, the kitchen didn’t fall off of my house. I’ve taken to eating out instead of cooking… we’re on a trip, left on Wed. We’re in Ohio, going to a wedding later today, and then catching up with some friends tomorrow and Monday. We should be getting home Tues or Wed, so I’ll be updating again then, after getting the salad of duffel bags and all down to the laundry room.
The motel room that we’re in actually has a little kitchen and in the Guest Services Directory book, there is a section of recipes. I copied a few down to try at home. Here are 2 of them:
Hole-in-One Eggs
2 slices bread
2 tsp. butter, softened
2 eggs
1 strip bacon, cooked and crumbled
Cut a 2″ round circle out of the center of each bread slice. Spread both sides of bread with the butter. In a skillet, toast bread on 1 side over moderate heat till golden. Reduce heat to moderately low. Turn the bread over. Break an egg into the hole in each slice. Sprinkle the bacon over the eggs. Cook, covered, for 5-6 min until the eggs are firm. Serves:2. I can picture having some fun trying different shapes for that middle part.
Slice-of-Comfort Pie
16 marshmallows
4 milk chocolate candy bars (1.45 oz) w\ almonds
1/2 cup milk
1 8-oz carton Cool Whip
1 9″ graham cracker crust
Heat and stir marshmallows, chocolate, and milk till melted. Remove from heat; stir in Cool Whip. Pour into pie crust. Refrigerate until firm. Serves 8. This just plain sounds GOOD!
After we get home, I’ll feature these with pictures.
Have a good day!
Mystery cookies, kids, weird fork, soup, recipe index… in other words, a misc post!
I bought peanut butter chips for something and had half the bag left over. A few days later, I got a (another) baking urge and got the bag out of the cupboard and looked on the back for some ideas. On the back, was a recipe for chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips in them. So, I made them, with the intent of featuring them. After I was done, I was cleaning up, and never thought to save the empty bag with the recipe on it. So, into the trash it went. And I didn’t even think about it till a day or so later when I went to feature them. By then the trash was already taken out. And it would be rather anti-climatical to feature them without a recipe. So, if you ever are in the baking aisle at the store, these cookies would be worth your time. All you’d need to do is get a bag of Recees peanut butter chips and check the recipe on the back to make sure you’ve got all the ingredients. I don’t even remember the name of the recipe, but here is what the cookies looked like…
They’re easy to make, soft, fudgy, and taste great!
Tiffany was having quite a time keeping everything on her lap here. I offered to take her doll, but no, she wanted to multi-task…
She also finishes my coffee alot of mornings… she asks “Wome o’ hot?” If I say ‘warm’, she reaches for it and says, “Cn’I have it?” Goodbye coffee… which actually is using the term ‘coffee’ very loosely… my cup is full, but only about half of it is coffee, the other half is chocolate milk and some sugar.
And then we have a fork…
It just suddenly got like that and we don’t know when or how it happened. It seems like the whole tine would’ve bent instead of just the top part. It’s not bent down or up, just over. Weird!
Tomato soup: Once in awhile, we have a quick meal of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. I usually keep Campbell’s tomato soup on hand, but the last time I went to make it, I didn’t have any. So, I found a recipe and made some from scratch. It took considerably longer, but it was WAY better than the stuff from the can! So, now I guess I’ll have to weigh the pros and cons of time vs. taste every time I make that quick and easy meal. Do you always make tomato soup from scratch? I remember Mom making it from scratch when I was younger.
Recipe index: I don’t know if you noticed the Recipe Index link up at the top of the header. Slowly, but surely, I am getting all the recipes under their respective categories on that page. I just started it, so only a fraction of it is done, but I think when it’s done, it’ll make the site more user-friendly. You can use it awhile for the recipes that are there so far.
Have a good day! 
Baking up a storm
Now I want to open a bakery again. This happens every year. I bake a bunch of stuff for a bake sale and love it so much that I dream of opening a bakery. I could bake to my heart’s content. And people would come and pay me for doing it. But I don’t want to be that tied down and another major thing is I’m not sure exactly how bakeries make money! Must be the mass production and the wholesale ingredients.
I figured up my time and ingredient costs and if everything would sell that I baked, I would’ve made less than $4/hr. Yeah, my bakery would be a place of voluntary service and a non-profit organization. When I figured that up, it wasn’t figuring in heating, air conditioning, electricity, rent for the building, advertizing, appliances, or anything besides the labor and ingredients. Another thing that would help at a bakery is that it’s done every day… for example, I made 10 pie crusts (5 double crust pies) and by the 6th crust, it was going much faster than the first crust did!
So, yeah, I contribute to the bake sale because I love to, not to make a bunch of money. I’m kicking myself for not taking a picture of everything all sitting on the counter ready to go. Maybe I didn’t think of it because it wasn’t all sitting on the same counter ready to go all at the same time. But, I did the same 4 things as I did last year (monster cookies, apple pies, rice crispy roll, and fudge), so the picture would’ve looked about the same as last year’s picture. Here’s last year’s post.
I did get a couple pictures of the pie operation…
This first one was taken sometime between 5:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. this morning. I was going to do a self-timer picture and be dutifully peeling apples, but then I thought about it that I was in my pjs, so I just stayed behind the camera instead.
Here are the pies in the oven, almost ready to come out.
See ya later. If you need me, you’ll find me in the kitchen eating monster cookies…
Miscellaneous thoughts and pictures…
1. I usually put fat free half & half or skim milk in my coffee. But once in awhile, I put chocolate milk in it. It gives it a mocha flavor. Try it sometime!
2. I made finger jello for the school picnic this past weekend. To make the plate more colorful, I made 2 pans of jello and made sure that the colors on the bottom and top of the pans were all different. Then, when I went to put them on a plate, I flipped some one way and some the other way and it looked more colorful with red, yellow, purple, and green on top. Do you have no clue what I mean? Here’s a picture:
As opposed to less colorful, like this:
3. I just found out that if you want an egg at room temperature because it beats nicer and fluffier, you can put it in the microwave for 10 seconds, shell and all, instead of letting it sit out till it’s room temp. I tried it and it does feel room temp when I comes out. I didn’t check if it’s that temp the whole way thro’ though.
4. And because this is a cooking site, I’ll post a couple pictures of the tables laden with food at the school picnic. The food was inside, but we ate outside. At the other end of the table in this first picture is the hot stuff… chicken breasts and shish-ka-bobs both off the grill, baked beans, hot dogs, and macaroni and cheese.
Then the salads.
Then the desserts.
What would you fill your plate with?
5. And even though this has NOTHING to do with cooking, I’m putting it on anyway. We church ladies made and quilted this friendship quilt for our school teacher this year. The school teacher is on the right. Her talented mom, who is on the left, handpainted those beautiful roses around the edge and the ones at the top. She used fabric paints and it is just so beautiful! 
Ok, we’ll stick to cooking now, just couldn’t resist that one. I do see an apple on that one quilt block, though…
Happy Mother’s Day…
…to my mom and all you other moms, too!
Mom, I made you a mocha this morning…
Wish you were here to drink it with me. But that’s not really possible with you at home 180 miles away. We could talk and laugh till our sides hurt about the adventure it is to be a mom, even though we’re at different stages. Since I became a mom, sometimes I think back to when I was growing up and am awed at the patience you had! Always calm and taking things in stride. For example, remember that goat we had? I could go on and on about memories, like the creative way you gave me a life-sized doll for my 6th birthday, the fun we had having our own little garden plots out of your big garden, jumping in the car to go see the ‘billowing smoke’ that turned out to be a cloud, how I openly told my teenage girlfriends that you are my best friend, etc., but since this is a cooking blog, I’ll stick with stuff in the kitchen.
Thanks for teaching me how to cook and bake. Not every 12-year old can make pie crusts, but you taught me young. And I’m sure that in my young days, you thought about how it would’ve been easier to just make things yourself instead of dealing with stuff like batter splattered on the ceiling or having to throw the whole batch away because I got ‘teaspoons’ and ‘cups’ mixed around when I was putting the salt in. But the thing I remember the most is: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” That was said when I’d start peeling eggs or potatoes or making some other mess right on the counter instead of putting down a paper towel or plate first. After awhile, it got to the place where you’d only have to say, “An ounce of prevention…”. Not sure why that was so hard for me to learn, but I did learn… I don’t do that anymore.
Here is a picture of my mom and my mother-in-law… another mom who’s had an impact on my life. She’s done alot of babysitting since we live in the same area and she’s like a walking medical book when one of us has a problem. Very handy and helpful! Each of the moms had 6 children… I’m second to the oldest of 3 boys and 3 girls, Shannon is the oldest of 6 boys. On the picture, they are with my youngest daughter Tiffany, who was 5 days old. She’s surrounded by grandma love.
My mom is the one in the purple holding the baby and my mom-in-law is in the black. I can’t tell you both how much you mean to me and how much I love you and how thankful I am that you love your granchildren so much! I know how blessed I am to still have my moms, and I especially think of it every Mother’s Day. Other things I especially think about on Mother’s Day are the 3 babies I lost via miscarriage, those of you who don’t have your moms anymore, and those of you who are a mom only in your dreams. I’ll breathe prayers especially for you throughout the day.
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And now, here’s the mocha recipe that I’m still sipping. Shannon is sipping black coffee because it goes better with the raspberry cream cheese cinnamon rolls that were eating. HE thinks it goes better with it anyway. I can’t handle black coffee. He usually uses cream and sugar, but not when he’s eating something sweet. How do you drink your coffee? I’d LOVE to know! And do you like it black too when you’re eating a sweet roll with it?
Mocha, but don’t think Starbucks!
1/2 cup chocolate chips
4 cups hot brewed coffee
1/4 cup half-and half cream
2 to 4 Tbsp. sugar
Whipped cream
Melt the chocolate chips and put in a plastic bag. Snip of a tiny piece of the corner and pipe “MOM” onto plastic wrap.
Put in the freezer until hard (at least 10 minutes). Stir the coffee and rest of the chocolate together.
Add the half-and-half and sugar.
Serve in mugs with whipped cream and “MOM” garnishes. Yield: 4 sevings.
About Me
Hi! Welcome to my kitchen! My name is Kay. I'm from northern WI. I love cooking and baking. Especially baking. It's thereapeudic for me. I'm not a professional or gourmet cook by any means. I'm a Mennonite homemaker who happens to take pictures of some of the food I make. I have 2 little 'helpers'... Lexi (5) and Tiffany (2), who are young cooks in training. I don't do anything on the grill... that's where my husband comes in! He grills quite a bit, especially in the summer. So, sit back and enjoy browsing thro' the recipes. If you try some of them, I'd love to hear feedback on how you liked them!
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