Time to shake the dust off this web page and get cooking!

My name is Becky and I love to cook, bake, and talk. So pull up a cup of coffee or tea or a cold beverage of your choice and let's get to talking!

Here are some of my favorite food blogs, I bet some will become your favorites too!

http://fromgrandmaswindow.blogspot.com/


http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/



https://www.facebook.com/homesteading this one is not so much cooking, but some terrific ideas here

and for something really fun! http://photofunia.com/view/vGO5--nA_uhA54lmWvMhFA/

It just occurred to me that we own three grills and two smokers. I mean, I knew in the back of my mind we owned these grills and smokers, it not like some smoke fairy snuck in our yard in the dark of night and left us grills. But it really hit me when I contemplating a package of bratwurst and thought, "I should use the little grill, this isn't worth firing up the charcoal hog for." and then I thought, "having these choices is probably weird."

We had a kettle grill, Weber. I liked it, but I was afraid of lighting the charcoal. Jim didn't like that he had to come from work and start the thing, just too much time and work. So I let him talk me into selling it and getting a gas grill. My opinion on gas grills is why bother? To me they taste no different than if I cook something on the stove. I've had proponents of gas grills tell me after awhile the grease builds up or something and the food starts tasting more grilled, but I can tell you our is has plenty of grease build up and nada. I tried the little tricks like the fake coals and no... to me it's just wrong.

Because I wanted real smoke taste on my eggplant for eggplant dip etc, I bought a smokey Joe. Only this time i also bought a charcoal chimney. Now that chimney is one of the best purchases I've made. It takes away my fear of burning off my eyebrows with chemical lighter fluids, gives me something to do with leftover scrap paper like grocery lists, and makes starting the charcoal easy peasy.

Okay, we are now up to 2 grills, the gas and my little grill. I have wanted a smoker for years but could never get aboard. Finally, this year, he broke down because Amazon was having a special `12 months same as cash deal, and let me get my smoker. I chose the Weber smoky mountain because it has great reviews. And I love it! It's wonderful, smokes food wonderfully, and gave me an excuse to buy a couple of books on smoking food, hahaha.

We are now up to 2 grills and a smoker, each with it's own reason for being. Then Jim starts mentioning his gas grill is looking a little worn and he'd like to start thinking about getting a new grill, at which point I reiterated my dislike for the gas grill and he says he wouldn't mind going back to charcoal, especially since I am now willing to get it started and stuff. So we buy a Giant Weber kettle grill. And really like it. Steak, hamburger, it all tastes grilled again (the smokey joe is truly tiny, there isn't space for 4 steaks or 8 hamburgers) but he doesnt' want to get rid of the gas one until it's unusable, he still likes it for a quickie.

We now stand at three grills and one smoker. When we were looking at different smoker models I was attracted to vertical smokers. They seemed "neater" in the clean and neat sense. Electric also had it's points, no messing with charcoal, easy set up being among them. So when I was offered an electric vertical smoker to review I was all over it, then I was all over it.. as in over it. But, because of the rules of reviewing I'm stuck with it for 6 months.

So to recap, electric, small, kettle, smoker, smoker.

Shall I talk about my three pressure cookers next?

http://www.marignybrasserie.com/

Today for lunch, using a Living Social coupon, Jim and I went to one of our favorite restaurants. Marigny Brasserie has really good food, and for the quarter/Marigny district the price isn't bad. I decided to explore the world of appetizers today. Usually we don't bother since appetizers are so expensive, but I was in a peck mood, good thing!

First we ordered the Johnycakes with crab, creme fraiche,  and caviar. It was so cute!  Delicious!



Next we ordered the seared scallops with lentils and kale chips



That is NOT kale "chips!" That is a kale chip. For fourteen dollars they could have given me two kale chips!



My lone kale chip. I make kale chips at home, and home is where I think I will get mine from now on, though I must say the scallops were seared to perfection and the kale chip was all lovely and crisp.

And lastly, Jim is happy because Jim bought an entire meal :) Even so, we ended up bringing home half a sandwich and some lentils.

Here is Jim with his Shrimp po boy.

Learning to laugh off failures and be willing to try again is not only a good philosophy in life, but a  good in the kitchen also!

I was sorting through all the magazine clippings and recipes I've down loaded and collected through the years when I came up this recipe for pudding cookies. I had never heard of making cookies with pudding and was all ready to wow the world with my discovery, when I saw an article on facebook about pudding cookies! Well, I forged ahead and made them anyway.



Being Southern by the  "grace of u-haul," I thought how hard could it be to make a great Southern biscuit? Dreams of light as air, fluffy, flaky biscuits filled my soul with glee.



so there you have it. Everyone has failures. I bet even Martha Stewart wailed over a fallen souffle or two. Keep on cooking!

When we were in Katrina, I was introduced to fried spinach, courtesy of Firebird Grill.  Fried spinach is a wonderful side, and my sons, who won't touch spinach in any other form, happily munch a pile of fried spinach.

Fried spinach with fried carrots and fried butternut squash:





combine veggies as above, or toss a bit of flour on some squash and eat it alone:



Let's talk equipment and technique:

Frying is basically putting food in hot oil. The thinner you can get the food sliced the faster and crispier the food will fry. I had a very expensive french stainless steel mandolin, but preferred my plain old v-slicer.

http://www.cutleryandmore.com/details.asp?SKU=6679

At one time I also had a euro-pro deep fryer. But to me, with the except of french fries, nothing beats an electric skillet. With an electric skillet you get surface area, perfect for frying tortilla chips, veggie chips, chicken, etc. You do need a deeper frying pan for french fries, but I still like a good pot vs a pro-fryer.



Heat your oil to 375, don't overcrowd the pan. Don't look at my fry pan up there and thing you could double the ingredients, overcrowding will bring down the oil heat too much. Place veggies in carefully, the thinner the crispier, and fry about 2-4 minutes. Add the veggies one at a time with tongs to keep them from clumping. Drain on paper towels and salt to taste.

Let's talk spinach. What is spinach mostly comprised of? Water. What does water do when it hits oil? Splatters!  The best way to fry spinach is to have an outdoor fryer and a basket with a really long handle. If you don't have that, a masochistic daredevil cook who likes to be burned might come in handy. But, if like me, you are lacking either of those options, it's still possible to fry spinach. Get your oil hot, make sure the spinach is as dry as you can get it. I get the spinach in the bags, prewashed. Get some tongs or something with a long handle, stand as far as way as possible, to the side is best, wear an oven glove, toss in the spinach and stand back. Spinach actually separates itself, so unlike above, don't worry about trying to put it in one leaf at a time. After a few seconds the worst of the splattering will die down and you can use your tongs or a slotted spoon to stir the spinach around a bit and make sure it's all separated. Fry about 2 minutes, it will take on a glassy shiny appearance.

Fried spinach takes on a glass-like appearance:


I need a sign off, like Alton Browns says, "now that's good eats." Or Julia Child used to say "Bon appetite" Rachel Ray says, "munch munch munch." as she's usually taking a bite of her food.

Fish with pecan butter and meuniere

although this recipe may look a little intimidating, it's actually just some mixing and the actual assembly is very easy.

 

Clicky clicky  below for recipe and more pictures:


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 Investment cooking is basically buying a whole lot of groceries, spending about 4 hours in the kitchen, and ending up with several meals in the fridge or freezer. This investment series uses chicken as a main ingredient. With this investment plan, in about 4 hours you'll end up with 8 main dish servings of chicken cacciatore, coq au vin, chicken potpie, chicken soup, 10 chicken burritos, plus 4 servings of oven fried Parmesan chicken for tonight's dinner. Since this involves a lot of space (grocery list, directions for each recipe, etc) I'll put the actual recipes, etc behind the cut.

Don't be overwhelmed, a lot of the shopping items like rice and flour you probably already have. This is a lot of fun to do with a friend, then just divide the goodies.

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Surprise your family and friends with a cookie that looks like a chocolate sugar cookie, until you bite it and find the peanut butter filling. 
These are easy to make and taste wonderful.

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup pwdered sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter

granulated sugar for dipping

preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, set aside

In large bowl, combine 1/2 cup sugar, brown sugar, butter, and 1/4 cup peanut butter. Beat with electric mixer until combined. Add egg, milk, and vanilla. Beat in flour. Shape dough into thirty two 1 1/4 inch balls.*

For filling combine powdered sugar and 1/2 cup peanut butter. Stir, then knead until smooth and fully mixed.

slightly flatten a chocolate ball, top with a pb ball, shape chocolate dough around pb filling, completely covering filling, Roll into ball. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Repeat. Dip bottom of glass into sugar and flatten each ball slightly.

Bake 8-10 minutes, until cookies are set and tops are slightly cracked. Cool on cookie sheet 1 minute, transfer to wire rack and cool.

*Instead of shaping all the chocolate balls first, I used a small scoop, put the ball in my hand, stuck the pb ball inside, shaped, rolled, and stuck on cookie sheet.