I made this with one of my sisters a few days later and both her and her kids LOVE it!!  She has officially named it the “Apple Thingy” as in ‘Hey Heidi can you make that apple thingy again?’    Well yes dearest baby sis I can, and so can you!!!! 

Here’s what you’ll need: 2 eggs, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup flour, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1 apple, 2 tablespoons butter.

First thing your gonna do is cut up the butter and place it in a 8 inch circle pan. Then stick the pan in a hot oven (400 degrees or do)

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Once the butters all melty, sprinkle on the sugar and the cinnamon  

This is whats going give the apples the lovely carmelly goodness!  Please note: if your making this for a certain Twin, who just so happens to be all concerned about calories and health and all that kinda junk, you can use less butter and less sugar.  For example, I used only 1.5 tablespoons of each instead of the full 2 tablespoons!!!  Man the things I do to show Twin how much I love her.

Next: Take an apple……………..and………..

…….. wait for it……

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 .

 .

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CHOP IT UP!

Make sure to slice the apple very thin.  Large pieces are not nearly as tastey as thinner ones.

Place the apple slices on top of the sugar/cinnamon in the pan.  Notice the apples on the lower left portion on the pan……yup those ones…… well they are definitely not thin enough.  Now notice the apples in the middle?  That’s the size you should be aiming for!

Take 2 eggs, crack them into a bowl. 

Then add the milk and the flour and mix that all up! 

Be sure not to over mix, just stir till everything is mixed and most of the lumps are gone.

Pour the egg mixture over the apples.  Bake for 30-35 minutes in a 400 degree oven.  Check it at 25 minutes, if the top is golden brown then its done.

See like this!!  Nice and golden brown.  

Immediately loosen the sides and invert onto a plate.  M M Good!!  (Sorry for the bad quality pic…apartment lighting sucks)

Serve yourself a piece of this!!!  Seriously I order you to make this……….please   You will not be sorry.  Apple sugar cinnamon eggy awesomeness! Perfect for breakfast..or lunch ..or supper…or night snack…or late night snack….whenever!

Like how weird is that!!!  What kind of self-respecting baker waits 24 years before producing her first delicious orange infused pound cake????? 

Well don’t worry this disgusting faux-pas has been righted.   Behold I give you the saviour of my credibility:

Lets bake this shall we!  First grate a ridiculous amount of orange peel, 1/3 cup

  It looks like my grater is smiling in the second picture, I guess it was happy to be used once again.  Also it should be noted that it is VERY hard to remove used and dried on orange peel from a smiling grater.

After you’ve grated the life out of a whack load of oranges, cream butter and sugar together till nice an combined.  Then beat in eggs one at a time, then throw in the orange peel and the rest of the ingredients….. like flour and what not.  Then mix!!!  

Place the batter in two greased and floured loaf pans. Smooth it on out……sssssmmmmmmmoooooooottttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

Then throw the whole sha-bang in an oven and bake it just right. 

Once the cakes are done baking let them cool for 5 min, while their cooling heat up some orange juice and sugar to make a lovely orange glaze.  Pour the glaze liberally over the cakes.  This step is KEY!!  You may think your over glazing the cake but your not!! I would even advise that you place the cakes on a plate then pour on the glaze, so that the bottom of the cake can soak up the glaze that pools at the bottom!!!  This orange glaze while soak into the cake a provide the most amazing coating…..I sooooooo serious here, DO NOT UNDERGLAZE (I under glazed  don’t be like me)

I opted to not add the “second” icing, the white icing seen in the book, if you glazed properly that alone should be enough to produce a sweet-but-not-to-sweet orange infused pound cake.

I wish I could explain how amazing this crumb is.  Moist yet dense with the glaze creating a layer of chewy(not the right word) moist, crunchy, soft, orangey fabulousness at the top!!!  

MAKE THIS CAKE !!!!  You won’t be sorry……..unless you under glaze……or hate oranges…then you’ll be sorry. But everyone else make this!!!

Continue to read the reciepe

Barefoot Contessa’s Orange Pound Cake 

1/2 lb unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided

4 extra large eggs, at room temperature  – I used 5 large

1/3 cup grated orange zest (6 oranges)  – I only need 3

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt  – used regular table salt 

3/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice, divided

3/4 cup buttermilk, at room temperature  – I used 2% with 1-2 tsp of vinager

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract – I used the vanilla D brought me from Mexico  

 Preheat oven to 350°.  Butter and flour 2 loaf pans.

Cream butter and 2 cups of sugar in a bowl.  Mix in eggs, one at a time; add zest.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.

In another bowl mix 1/4 cup orange juice, buttermilk and vanilla.

Add flour and buttermilk mixture aternately to the batter, beginning and ending with flour.

Divide between 2 pans and smooth the tops.  Bake for 45 minutes or until tester comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes.

Make syrup while cake is baking. Syrup consists of remaining 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup orange juice. Cooks these two together over low heat till the sugar is desolved. Spoon over cakes and then allow them to cool completely.

 Eat and thank your lucky star the Barefoot Contessa is alive and creating pound cake heaven!!! 

I though maybe I could try building it without her knowledge, but then I remembered that Twin is the appartment complex snitch, and she’d have no qualms about ratting me out! !!   So with my apparent lack of sibbiling loyalty I decided to create my own inside version of a S’mores!   Well, maybe “create” is a little to free of a term , I kinda stole ideas from 2 such recipes, and combined them to make my version!!

Here’s how it all went down.

First thing your gonna do is crush up approx 20 graham crackers and add 1/8-1/4 cup melted butter to the crumbs.  Mix that up so the crumbs are nicely coated, but don’t add t omuch butter.  We want just enough to make the crumbs not dry, but not enough to make that stick together.  Got it?    Good.

Take and spoon the crumbs into baking cups, I’m not entirely sure what the exact measurment is here, but lets say 1 1/2 teaspoons per cup.

Next, whip up a batch of chocolate cake batter!  I used a boxed mixed ( no hate mail please), Betty Crookers Chocolate fudge cake mix to be exact.  I added about 1/2 cup of flour to the box, it makes the cake a little more dense and not so airy.  I like my cakes denser and very moist!  Adding the extra flour seems to produce the results I like.

Fill the cups to about 2/3 ish full with the batter.  The throw them into a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.  Check at 15 minutes to make sure your not overcooking them.

Perfect!  Set them out to cool.  Now lets make the to-die-for marshmellow icing!  First take 2 sticks of butter (room temperature please), and beat them until creamy.  Then add 2 cups icing sugar and beat that until its nice and fluffy.  Finally add 1/2 tsp vanila and 1 16 oz jar of marshmellow fluff!!!  (drool )   Whip the icing till smooth! 

Place the icing into a parchement icing bag and cut a large tip into it.  Swirl a very unhealthy amount of the icing over the cupcakes.  Next artfully place a piece of graham cracker and a piece of a Jersey Milk chocolate bar on top of each cupcake!

VOLIA!! You have just made S’Mores cupcakes!  They’re perfect for every occasion, family picnics, meetings, kids lunches, mid-night snacks and even pre-workout munchies (although that might be a conflict of interest)!!  And the best part is you don’t have to break any saftey or fire codes!  That’s what I call the best of both worlds.

Enjoy! 

If you like the taste of Marshmellows, you’ll like this fondant.  If you like extremely easy recipes, you’ll like this fondant.  If you prefer to not add ingredients like glucose or glycerin to your baking, then you’ll like this fondant!

The ingredients for MMF are very simple:  Marshmellows, water, icing sugar and Crisco shorting.   Thats it!!  Four simple fun ingredients! 

Step 1:

Place 2 tablespoons of water and 16oz (or 2 cups) mini marshmellows in a bowl, over a pot of simmering water.  You could also use the microwave (if you enjoy killing your self slowly with harmfull micro-waves!!). 

Step 2

Generously grease the countertop.  Really grease that baby up!  Seriuosly you’ll feel like you’ve gain ten lbs just watching your self throwing the grease down.

Step 3:

Place 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar into the melted marshmellow mix.

Step 4

Dump  the mix onto the greased counter.  Grab about 1/4 cup of the shorting and slather it on your hands.  YUMMY!  Then digging into the lovely sticky mass and begin to knead the mix, adding icing sugar as you go.  You’ll probably use up to 3 1/2 – 4 cups icing sugar in TOTAL! 

Step 5:

Keep kneading and adding sugar until you have a ball of fondant that will be a good rollable consistancy and is also stretchy!  It took me between 8-10 minutes of kneading to get the icing to where I wanted it.  Also note that throughtout the whole kneading and sugar adding process you should keep reapplying shorting to your hands and the counter. You may not use the whole 1/2 cup but I know I sure did!

Step 6

Next double wrap the fondant in plastic wrap.  The adove work is a total of 3 double batchs of fondant.

Step 7

You can use the fondant right away, or you can store it in a Ziploc bag in the fridge for a good week or so.

There you have it!  A simple and satisfying fondant recipe.  I have yet to cover a cake with this perticular recipe (I have with the Wilton fondant recipe), but once I so I’ll let you know how it holds up!

Enjoy!

Next up on this fabulous cooking adventure we have Buffalo Chicken wings with a Blue Cheese dip, which from here on in will be referred to as the Stinky Smelly Schmeese dip (3S-d for short).    Are you ready to cook???  

No. 

Fine I’ll wait.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   Ready now??? 

Ya!!!   AWESOME!  Lets begin.

Here’s what you’ll need:  16 chicken wings, 1 stick butter, 1 tsp cayenne pepper, Franks Hot Sauce or Tabasco Sauce, salt, 1.5 cups blue cheese (any kind), mayonnaise, sour cream, milk, Worcestershire sauce and celery for garnish.

First things first, take the chicken wings and cut it into 3 peices.   Here we have cut #1

And here we see cut # 2

Each wing should produce 3 pieces.  Piece #1 and 2 are what we’ll use for this reciepe.  The small, nerdy looking piece of raw chicken appendage can be thrown away. Unless of course you have a weird sense of culinary justice, then you can freeze all those useless pieces for some later use, whatever that use may be. 

Take your large pile of usefull chicken pieces and give them a nice thorough rinse.

Place all the washed chicken on a baking sheet and place it off to the side.

While the chicken is sitting around gossiping we’re going to make the hotish sauce to cook them with.   First place 1 stick of butter in a sauce pan and turn up the heat.

When the butter is melted, add 1 teaspoon (or more if you like your food hot) of cayenne pepper.  

Next add 4 tsp of Frank’s Hot Sauce or Tabasco.  Again if you prefer things more on the burning hot side then add more hot sauce.    Also add 1 tsp of salt – - because no receipe is complete without salt.

Side note:  Notice how my butter mixed is boiling?  Well that’s BAD.  Try not to get your butter mixture to hot, just melting and liquidy.  I had trouble with the consitancy of the sauce and I think it effected the finished product in a very negative way.

Brush 1/2 of the butter mixture over the chicken pieces. 

Um yummy – - salmonilla

I find this picture absolutely revolting.  Everytime I see it my stomach starts to get queasy.   So I thought, heck  I might as well share the queasyness!!   Don’t ya just love it!!

 *cough cough*  Okay, back to cooking.  Place these lovely little salmonilla carriers into your oven (or broiler if you have such things), and broil them 3-inchs below the heat for 8 minutes.   Then take them out, flip them over, brush the rest of the butter mixture over them and place back in the oven for 4 minute or untill done !!

Meanwhile, take your disgusting smelling cheese and crumble it up in a bowl.  Add your mayonnaise and sour cream and milk.

Next toss in some Worcestershire sauce.

Sprinkle in your salt and pepper.   Here is when I took a step back and wondered how in the world this tosseled pile of gross looking/smelling ingredients was possibly going to make an even remotely good tasting dip.   Then I shook my head, grabbed my blender and continued on . . . after all I have a goal in sight, to bake/cook every recipe in this lovely cookbook. (Even the ones that don’t smell so good)

At first I thought I could simply use my trusty hand-held mixer, but as you can see the results as well as the process were less then satisfying.

So I threw it all in this great little blender and mutilated it  untill it conformed to the texture I wanted.    Don’t mess with me you blob of stinky smelly schmeese!!!

Ahh, perfect.

When the chicken is good and cooked, take them out of the oven and transfer to a rack.  See all that yummy fatty, butter drippings at the bottom of pan??  That’s the reason we place these bad boys on a rack, to let as much of that potential heart attack drip off the chicken before we consume them.

Once most of the oil has driped off and the chicken has cooled, place them on a serving plater.  Then take the wings, dip and celery over to your parents house, or a friends, or co-workers, or a complete strangers.  Or you can eat them all by your self, but hey where’s the fun in that?

I choose my parents place.  When I arrived I found my neice was there for the day, and she insisted that we use the chicken plates because we were eating chicken.  Her theory sounded a little errie to me but who am I to argue with a 7 year old.

On whatever plate you decide to use, place some chicken wings, a blob of 3s-d, and some celery.  

Here goes nothing!   **Bite. . chew. . swallow. . **

I liked the chicken wings, although as I mentioned earlier, the taste would definitley have been better if I had gotten the sauce consistancy correct. 

I’m still VERY undecided on the 3s-d.  I have never like blue cheese dressings, or blue cheese anything, the flavor is a little too moldy for my taste.  However my Dad really like it, so much so that he kept the leftovers to use as chip dip.    

Why don’t you all go out and whip up a batch of these wings and dip and let me know what you think.

  It’s cold out side and snowy. . brrrrr.  Looks like the perfect time for some SOUP!!  

You remeber those roasted vegatables we made last month??  Delicous, steamy, spicey vegtables.  ..  . ..   yummmm!     Uh, ya,, Well I hope you made a double batch.  If not then quickly whip up a batch or two (or three depending on how strong your will power is) and lets get souping. 

For this recipe you’ll need 1 recipe of Roast Winter Vegatbles, salt. pepper. olive oil, a loaf of crusty french bread, and soup stock.

This recipe calls for 6-8 cups chicken stock, which you can either buy, or if like me you happen to have 200 bags of frozen stock in the freezer you can use those.     To speed up the whole thawing process I threw the frozen stock into a pot and placed it on the stove.

Now, this recipe is crazy simple, but it does require a blender of some sort. It doesn’t need to be a blender per say, food processors work fine, or those fun hand held masher thingys.  Anything that has blades

Ohhh shiny sharp blades!!

Begin by scooping up the roasted vegtables and placing 1/4 of them in the blender.  If your blender is bigger and more powerfull then mine (which wouldn’t be very hard) then you ahead and fill that puppy up!

This is pretty much all mine can take,   sad little blender.

Add 1/2 cup- 3/4 cup of chicken stock to the vegtables, this will ensure that there is enough water content in the blender for it to properly puree.  I’m not sure if you would need to add the stock if you were using a food processor.  Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t.  I’ve never used a processor so I just don’t know.  Sorry.

Turn the blender on, and watch the magic unfold.

Here’s a lovely photo of the vegtables pureeing taken from the top of the blender.  As I gaze at this picture part of me is thinking “um yummmyyy” while another part begins to see simalarities between the color’s and , , other less wholesome and non-food related things. . . cringe!   But since I’ve actually tasted this soup I’m gonna stick with my postive self . … . . yummy !!    

Moving on.

Place the puree in a bowl.

Remeber that soup stock we were thawing??  Well go grab it from off the stove, its time of usefullness has arrived.

Place all the puree in a large pot, put it in the stove and turn the heat up.  Now slowly begin adding the broth.   There’s alot of wiggle room here, if you like your soups very runny add LOTS of broth.  However, if you prefer a more thick soup simply add less!  

I choose less!!  Because I like soup you have to eat with a knife and fork.  Okay, well not really,  but I do prefer it on the thicker side.

Once you’ve reached the appropriate consistancy, grab your spices and start seasoning.  Throw in some pepper.

A dash or two of salt!

Stir all up and bring the soup to a slow boil, just to heat it up.

While the soups heating, take your loaf of bread and begin cutting it into 1inch cubes.  On a side note: this was a whole loaf of bread just this morning.  However, my lovely and ever so thoughtfull twin decided she’d like some toast for breakfast.  Slice Slice!   Then I stumbled into the kitchen, still half asleep and in a state of semi-conciousness, and decide I to wanted toast for breakfast.  Slice Slice.   Well before I knew it my lovely loaf of cruton making bread was now a stub.  Which is fine, I respect all shapes and sizes of bread here! 

Place the bread cubes on a baking sheet.    (How pathetic does this picture look! Poor stubby bread cudes

Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the pan.  Unless of course you have a rather sad amount of cubes then use less. . . . . . . way less.

Sprinkle on some salt.   I love sprinkling salt!!   Sprinkled salt completes me!!  (Kinda)

Shake on some pepper.

Toss the bread cubes around, until nicely coated.  Then pop them into a 350 degree oven for 5 minutes, then toss them around again and throw them back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes.

They should be nice and golden brown when done. 

Now, place some soup in a colorful and fun bowl!!  

Then change youR mind and use the boring white dishes.  (They matched my table decor better.).    Place some delicous crutons on top (use more then three, unless you used stubby bread, then three is all you really can do).   Drizzle a small amount of olive oil over the crutons.  Serve, eat, smile !!  

Ummmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!   This is gggood soup.  Try it!   That’s an order!

Ready to get your recommend daily intake of beta-carotene?  I know I am, and that fly definitly is!

While I was reading over this recipe the other day a strange feeling over came me.  Call it anticipation, call it dread, call it naivety.  As I scanned the ingredients I realized that I had never tasted, let alone cooked, with 2 of the 4 main ingredients.   Parsnips and sweet potatoes.   These arn’t exactually the first vegatbles that pop to mind when I’m thinking of, , , ,well to tell you the truth I’ve NEVER thought of them.  Not to eat. Not to cook.  Not at all.   

(The only memory I have of sweet potatoes is a line from a movie that flys through my mind every 3rd year or so, , “Sweet Potater Pie!”.  No idea were its from.)

Okay enough about my lack of culinary experiences….

Here is what you’ll need.  1 lb of each, carrots (a vegatable I know) and parsnips (one I don’t know).  1 large sweet potater. . ur, , potato.  1 medium butternut squash.  Flat leaf parsley, a small bunch will do.  Pepper, salt and good olive oil.

First thing your going to do is wash and peel all the vegtables.  See I’m peeling the parsnips!!  In the background you can see all the lovely carrot peelings.  $10.00 says my Mom is shaking her head at this very moment (some comment about cleaning up as you go along jumps to mind).

Once everything is peeled, chop all the vegtables into 1″ cudes (and by cubes I mean any random shape that happens to result from the swinging of your sharpish knives).  The vegs will shrink so don’t cut them to small.  

Don’t forget the Sweet Potater!!!   Wash! Peel! Chop!  Sweet Potater Pie!!

When you get to the butternut squash, remeber to clean out all the guts!  I chopped the top off first, just because it’s funner that way.  You should like totally do the same.

Looky here, nice clean butternut squashes.   Chop those bad boys up! 

Here we have all the chopped up vegtables.  I spy parsnips, carrots and squash!  Where for art thou sweet potater??  

Throw those veggies into baking pans, you’ll probably use two. (I’m sure I have a picture with both pans, but at the moment I’m to lazy to go looking for it! )

Drizzle 3 tablespoons of olive oil over the vegtables. 

Sprinkle pepper over the veggies.  If you like lots then sprinkle lots, if you prefer little then be conservative.

Finally sprinkle on a little salt, and toss everything together.

Pop those pans in a 425 degree oven and let them cook for 25-35 minutes, until all the vegtables are soft but not mushy.

Oh my goodness!!!  Look at those delicous roasted vegtables!

Yummyyy!!  *drool drool* Wipe *drool*

After you’ve finished salavating, spoon a LARGE helping onto a nice white plate, preferably one that you stole from your older sister.  RESIST the urge to gobble them up, , we’re not quite done.

Lets not forget the parsley.  Take a small bunch….

Wash them and remove the leaves from the . .stick part. . stem!

Chop the parsley into meadium-small pieces.

Sprinkle over the vegtables!  Don’t be stingy here, sprinkle like your saving the world.

Doesn’t that look divine!!  The verdict =  I LOVE PARSNIPS!!!  AND CARROTS!! AND BUTTERNUT SQUASH!!  AND SWEET POTATERS!!       The perfect culinary trifecta~(except there’s four of them not three,  the perfect fourfecta??)  

 Try this recipe and your life will be complete and have meaning.  (in a warped food-snob sort of way)

Now doesn’t that look delicous!!  This isn’t just any clam chowder (as my title suggests), oh no, this is East Hampton Clam Chowder!!  (Because everything tastes better in East Hampton)

Here’s what you’ll need: Milk, flour, salt (I use sea salt), pepper, potatoes, celery, carrots, clams, onions, butter and thyme!

First things first, we’re gonna chop up all the vegtables !!!  Hooray!  We are going to need 2 cups chopped onions (approx 2 onions), 2 cups diced celery (4 stalks), 2 cups diced carrots (6 carrots) and 4 cups peeled and diced potatoes (8 medium potatoes).  

I think now would be a very good time to point everyones attention to my cutting board.  Notice the puny size of it, the worn look of the wood  and most importantly the puny size of it (did I say that already?).  It’s truly a sad day when a cook extraordinaire must cut on such an aged board. 

On a completely unrelated note: Christmas is less then 2 months away !!!

After cutting up the vegs you should have roughly this amount!  

Melt 4 tbs butter in large heavy-bottom stock pot. If you don’t have a stock pot (like me), use the largest frying pan you can find.   Preferrably one that has been used and abused not only by you, but also by your sister who, (after beating the life out of it) decided to let it retire at your house!  (Have I mentioned Christmas is coming??)

Add the onions (2cups) and cook on med-low heat for 10 min.

Meanwhile take your fresh thyme, remove the leaves from the stick, and chop them coursely.  Your going to need 1.5 teaspoons fresh thyme. If you don’t do the fresh herb thing you can also use 1/2 tsp dried thyme.

 Add the celery, carrots, potatos, your freshly minced thyme, salt (1 tsp) and pepper (1/2 tsp) to the onions and saute  for 10 min.

Now, take you clams. (I bought baby clams by mistake, regular probably work just fine)

And seperate the clams from the clam water or uh juice??  What do you call the liquid the clams are packed in?  If you happen to be browsing through the Barefoot Contessa’s cookbook and read this recipe, you’ll notice that it calls for clam juice.  Since I’ve never ever cooked with clams, or their juices, I didn’t know if the “clam juice” was simply the water pictured above, or if there is actual juice that you can buy.   I used the water, and it worked fine.

 Take your clam juice or clam water (4 cups) and add it to the vegtables.  Bring that mix to a boil and then let it simmer uncovered until the veggies are tender.  (20 min)

While the veggies are tenderizing, melt the remaining butter (1 stick or 8 tbs) and whisk in flour (1/2 cup).  Cook on very low for 3 minutes,  stirring constantly. 

Whisk in 1 cup of the hot vegtable mix broth (and a carrot or two if you feel so inclined).  Once you add the broth the mixture will get very thick VERY FAST.   Pour the rapid-thickening butter mix back into vegtables let that all simmer untill all the broth is thickend. (Maybe 2-3 minutes)

Then add 2 cups of milk. . . 

. . .and 3 cups clams. (If you used regular clams, give them a little chopping before adding them)  Mix it all up and cook for a few minutes. (5-10)

Now that you have a few minutes you can call up your Mom and Dad or an Uncle, or friend prephaps, and invite them to join you for supper!!   What!! You have no bread?  Well don’t worry about that just cut up some bagels and a croissant.  Pile them on a plate and hope no one makes any cruel remarks about your domestic skills.

There ya have it, delicous East Hampton Clam Chowder!  Enjoy!

Why did I choose this book?   Because Ree told me to!  It’s as simple as that.

So grab a spoon and a bib and get ready to EAT EAT EAT or um, , READ READ READ!!

I then took that list and put in on our trusty computer!  Seperating the books into catagories. . . childrens books (Twin collects them), novels, biographies, learning books, psychology books, aircraft books (Twin again), classics, school books, ,etc.  In the end we had a over 580!!!!  

580 books in one apartment!!! I stumbled away from the computer and walked aimlessly from room to room. 580, there’s no way!!  

But each room confirmed that yes indeed there was a way.  Stackes here, piles there.  Bookselfs stuffed full, books used to prop up other books.  Shaking my head I slowly wandered into the kitchen, grabing a glass from the cupboard I turned to get some water, that’s when I saw IT!      

I had completely forgotten about the bookself in the kitchen!!!  Yup dear readers we have an entire bookself dedicated soley to my cookbooks !!! (In all fairness only about two selfs actually hold the books, , but still!)

As I began to flip through the books I realized that  I really hadn’t cooked anything from most of these books.  I’d looked through all of them MANY times, but never actually taken the time to create anything.   I also realized that all but maybe two or three of these cook books were dedicated to desserts/cookies/pastries etc.  

These two realizations brought me to the following 2 conclusions:

1.  I need to utilize my cook books

2. I need cook books with proper meal food in them, not just baking!

And so with these two conclusions in mind I set forth on a mission.  I went and bought (yes bought!) another cookbook, one that contains recipes whose main ingredient is not sugar (recipes that have NO sugar whatsoever !!!  I didn’t realize it was possible!).  

   The second part of my brillant mission is to take that book and cook and/or bake EVERYTHING in it from front to back (or at least in that general order).

I will post about my journey using words, pictures, interviews (umm?), and what ever other form I choose.   I hope you enjoy it (and if you don’t, , , well then, ,uh,, then FINE!)