Apple Oatmeal Muffins are a cinch to whip together. One bowl and one muffin pan and you are on your way to a warm muffin for breakfast. So, here was the plan. The plan was for me to take my sweet baby girl to dance class and type out this blog post about Apple Oatmeal Muffins in peace out in the lobby of the building where the class is. Here I am. I have a comfortable ...
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Pizza Pasta and the Incredible Shrinking Woman
Happy New Year! I'm only about 2 weeks late on that one. I hope 2012 has gotten off to as good a start for you as it has for me. For the first time...ever I think...I have stuck to my resolutions so far. The most exciting part? I've lost 5 pounds. WooHoo! Five down, 25 to go. I've been putting a lot of focus on not eating like a pig and not drinking like a fish, both of which ...
Red Wine and Garlic Braised Beef Shanks
Red Wine and Garlic Braised Beef Shanks are a rich, heavenly slow-cooked dinner with lots of meaty flavor. It's like pot roast on steroids. Make this for your next Sunday supper or fancy sit down dinner. You are sure to be thanked. There are some meals that are so unbelievable that you can do nothing but moan through every bite. The kind of meal where the sheer joy of putting ...
A New Turn in the South – A Review
Besides just the fun of writing about whatever I want to write about, there are a few other perks to being a food blogger. No, I'm not talking about big advertising space checks, I don't know anything about those perks. I'm talking about the occasional opportunities that are delivered to my email from time to time asking me to review or promote an item. Sometimes I turn them ...
Green Tomato Salsa Verde
My tomato plants have been good to me this year. While everyone else in town has been complaining about a horrible year for tomatoes, my 3 tomato plants have kept me and my family knee deep in juicy ripe tomatoes all Summer. So, now here it is October and the first frost is expected to come tonight and that means the end of my hard working tomato plants. It took me two trips to ...
Chicken and Broccoli Pasta in Sherry Cream Sauce
Chicken and Broccoli Pasta in Sherry Cream Sauce is classy enough for company and easy enough for a weeknight. Everyone will love this creamy dish! I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year. I love it because it's beautiful. The trees are changing color, the days are mild and the nights are cool. It's the perfect time to be outside. The perfect time... unless you ...
Gardening on the Cheap
This seems like an odd time of year to start talking about gardening, but anyone will tell you that I am not known for great timing. Timing aside though, now is actually a great time to think about gardening. Gardening for next year. This past Summer's garden was a success for us. Out of my two little 4x8 beds, I got enough veggies to help keep my grocery bill manageable. Not ...
Homemade Ruffles Potato Chips
Never buy a bag of potato chips again! Make your own Homemade Ruffles Potato Chips from scratch! Cheap and easy and lots of fun to eat. I'm not sure that I have ever heard of anyone who doesn't love potato chips. I've heard of folks who can't eat potato chips, or "try not" to eat potato chips, and a few people who say potato chips go straight to their thighs, but I can't ...
Food Blog Forum: Nashville Edition
So, this past weekend I handed my kids off to my Mom and headed up to Nashville for Food Blog Forum Nashville. Although this was my third bloggers conference ( and my second Food Blog Forum event), I was really looking forward to this event. Put together by Beth Sachan from Eat.Drink.Smile. , Lindsay of Love and Olive Oil ,and Leah Short of So Hows it Taste, Food Blog Forum ...
What I learned in September
I have been a bad blogger, but I make no apologies. After the month and a half that my family and I have gone through I'm just happy to be back at the keyboard. It all started out so well. August was busy, but I had it under control. We had bus tours at the winery, I had a catering job in town, the kids started dance class and taekwondo. And then the proverbial "it" hit ...
Separating the Curds from the Whey – Cheese making
I try not to be pretentious on this blog. I do my best to keep things simple and familiar enough that the average person who likes to cook will find something that they can make just about any day of the week without having to earn a degree in the culinary arts to do so. I also realize that most of you probably live either in the city or suburbia. Most of you don't have ...
Homemade Cucumber Relish
Thity-three quarts of green beans, 9 quarts of tomtoes, 7 pints, black eye peas, 8 pints of cucumber relish, 7 pints of kosher dill pickles and 2 gallons of sauerkraut fermenting in my utility room.Our stockpile shelves that have very sparse since we moved are now busting at the seams. I have been on a canning bender. I think I may have a "problem" because I just can't ...
Too many irons on the fire…
When we decided to move to the country, it was not only to be closer to family, but also to have more time to ourselves to really concentrate on the things we loved. So far, the time with our family has been priceless but the "free time" we were dreaming of has eluded us. Which is why I want to apologize to my dear readers and my fellow bloggers whose virtual friendship I have ...
Dinner on the grill
Officially or not, Summer is here in Tennessee. It has been 95 + degrees every day for the last 2 weeks. Our mornings are spent outside in the garden or just enjoying the brief cool part of the day, while the hot afternoons are spent in, on or around some kind of water activity. This past week we were enjoying our vacation on Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs, Arkansas. We all spent ...
Country Garden Update and Cilantro Lime Grilled Chicken Salad
So 3 weeks of rain was followed by 5 days of searing heat, then... more rain. All of this wishy washy weather has been reeking havoc upon our allergies but the garden doesn't seem to mind much. Especially the broccoli and lettuce. We have been eating off of those plants for the last week or so. Especially the lettuce. I have certainly been adding more fiber in my diet. The ...