Site Help

Can anyone help me out w/ this site? I'm disliking it so much, I might switch sites for this blog. I don't like the double spacing and all that. I've been playing w/ my last blog for awhile now, and it is still messing up and won't format right.

It's a Campbell's Night

Recently on a Random Saturday night I was in the mood to cook a chicken dish. I grabbed my barely used Campbell's cookbook and was quite delighted when I found a complete 3 dish meal in one cookbook. And, I had all ingredients in my kitchen already. Talk about a success!

The menu included:

• Chicken Crunch
• Green Bean Casserole
• Creamy Super Rice

Chicken Crunch

2 T flour

1.5 C Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned Stuffing, crushed

1 can cream of chicken soup

1/2 C milk

1 lb boneless/skinless chicken breasts 2 T melted butter Dash of Rosemary (optional) Directions: Heat oven to 400* Place flour and chicken in sealed bag and shake well Place crushed stuffing in bowl Stir 1/3 C of the soup and 1/4 C of the milk in a bowl Dip coated chicken in soup Coat w/ crushed stuffing Place chicken on backing sheet and drizzle w/ butter Bake for 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked Heat the remaining soup/milk mixture (add dash of rosemary) on stove to serve over chicken Green Bean Casserole 1 can cream of shroom soup 1/2 C milk 1 t soy sauce 1/8 t pepper

4 C frozen green beans

French Fried Onions (I didn't have)

Canned shrooms (I added)

Directions:

Stir everything together and bake for 25 minutes at 350*.

Creamy Souper Rice

1 can cream of shroom soup (I didn't have any more so I used chicken, as recipe instructed)

1/5 C chicken broth

1.5 C uncooked instant white rice

1 T grated parmesan cheese

dash pepper

Directions:

Heat soup and broth in saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to boil

Stir in the rice and cheese and pepper.

>>>Everything turned out really well. W/ the exception of the rice. The flavor was awesome, but I didn't realize my rice was not instant so it took forever to cook. It didn't even cook all the way. I should have cooked the rice first, then added the rest of the ingredients. I was really proud of the chicken, it breaded perfectly... my breading skills need improvement. The green bean casserole was good, but it will never be as good as my mom's.

Sausage and Gravy

Recently, I've grown quite found of McDonald's sausage and gravy biscuits. I've wanted to recreate this recipe for awhile. I made it today for lunch after a day and evening spent at the lake. It was very simple. I've also become obsessed w/ the dry packets of gravy and mixes at the grocery store. What a selection! I have always been a fan of cooking everything from scratch. The taste is better, and I love the satisfaction of knowing I cooked it from scratch. Buuutttt, my co-workers motto is growing on me, "Why cook it from scratch when you can buy it from the store." Sausage & Gravy Biscuits 1 lb ground country sausage 2 pkgs dry country gravy mix sliced bread (I didn't have biscuits) Cook and drain the meat. Cook gravy according to package. Tear bread into pieces and place in bowl. Add meat, top w/ gravy. Enjoy! This turned out good... I want to use biscuits next time, and maybe flavor the sausage w/ a little something.

At Home Japanese & White Sauce

I love Japanese... the dishes at the local restaurants are delicious. The white sauce is what makes the meal! I found a recipe for the white sauce online. I was estatic. I went home and made it, it is supposed to sit overnight to mix the flavors. I couldn't wait the next day to get in the kitchen and cook something to go w/ it. Regretably, I don't have pictures. But what I did do, was try to recreate a dish I get whenever I go out for Japanese. Japanese Steak & Shrimp 2 pieces steak - cut up into bite size pieces half a bag of shrimp - maybe 25 or so pieces 2 squash 2 zucchini 1 onion fresh sliced shrooms seaseme seed oil veggie oil soy sauce fried rice sesame seeds I sliced all the veggies and cooked them in a lot of veggie oil, a splash of sesame seed oil and soy sauce. I used my contraption that is like a big pan you heat up that sits on the counter, can't remember the name. Once tender to my liking, I removed them and added the meats, adding more of both oils. Once cooked, I added the veggies to the pan to heat everything up together. While this was going on, I made regular white rice. I attempted to fry the rice. W/ soy sauce, sesame seeds and a scrambled egg. It didn't turn out so well. The rice still tasted good, but frying it was difficult. It was starting to get browned and I grew impatient and stopped frying it - I was anxious to eat! I think if I wouldn't have made so much rice, or had a bigger pan, it would have turned out better. I served everything w/ the delicious white sauce. Perfection!!! I ate this meal for lunch the next day, and dinner as well. It was a lot of work, all the slicing and dicing - but it was worth it.

My Father's Daughter

I have obsession... w/ cookbooks.

Today, I purchased Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook My Father's Daughter.

I've skimmed through it, and I'm excited to find recipes to use. She uses all organic and other sorts of healthy kind of foods.

Kitchen Staples

Their are quite a few items I like to have handy in my kitchen at all times. They are basic fundementals of the cooking world. I'm sure I'll forget a few, but here is my list of kitchen staples. Kitchen Staples

• Flour
• Sugar
• Brown Sugar
• Regular & Italian Bread Crumbs
• Canned Veggies - Corn, Green Beans, Shrooms
• In-A-Box Items Like - Mac & Cheese, Scalloped Potatoes
• Other "Meal Helpers"
• Noodles
• Rice
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Spices! (lot and lots)
• Dry Italian Dressing
• Dry Ranch Dressing
• Dry Onion Soup Mix
• Various cheeses

What are some of your favorite kitchen staples?

Future Ideas

I have quite a few ideas I would like to try... Starting in the Fall, I'd love to do a soup-a-day, once a week - like Monday's. I've been reading a lot about freezing techniques. I want to take a lazy weekend afternoon and make ahead meals for the following week, and placing them in the freezer and re-heating when necessary. I've been on the hunt for good recipes for this project. OHH... a weekly crock pot day is a great idea too! I also had a random project I wanted to do this week, and succeeded last night... but I went to the grocery store and picked up a few things. When I'm running low but still have stuff in my pantry, I want to work w/ what I have for an entire week and see what I can come up w/. Another idea - I have quite a collection of cookbooks. I would like to use one cookbook per week for all recipe ideas. I'm doing this blog for fun, and maybe somebody will come across a recipe or helpful hint they would like to try. *Edited from original post* I want to do weekly cuisines... Italian, Asian, Etc. One Italian meal a week, one Asian meal a week and so on. I should be able to incorporate all or some of my ideas into one big project. I could do something like this: Monday - Crock Pot Tuesday - Italian Wednesday - Soup Thursday - Asian Friday - American Saturday - OPEN Sunday - Something from Freezer Just in idea....

Part Two

I love blogging. I love the idea of blogging. I love reading strangers blogs. I love reading friends blogs. I would love to have my own blog. I've tried to blog before, w/ this same very blog. I have flooding thoughts, all through out each day, of things I will say in my blog. By the time it goes that I sit down at the computer, I feel rushed for some reason. I feel my thoughts don't come to my fingers. I paraphrase ideas that last paragraph's in my head. I will try this blog again. I've thought about starting a brand new blog w/ this same idea. But why? Back and forth, back and forth... these are the ideas that pass through my mind while the hours of the day travel on. So, here I go... A little introduction of myself... I love cooking. I didn't always love cooking. I grew up w/ two loving parents - my mother, a devoted and carrying "domestic enginner" *cough cough Mommy Mel* and my father, a hard working head of the family. I often feel lucky that my parents stayed married after all of these years, and the statistics that face families today. So, anyway, I never had to cook a day in my life until I moved out. Sure, I experimented in my mother's kitchen. Me and my childhood friend burning a favorite pot comes to mind. Or, the time I heated a pizza garlic-butter dish in the microwave and missed a spot of foil - catching the paper towel placed on top to catch spills... catching on fire and causing much humilation and laughter. Besides these escapades, I was fortunate enough to have food placed on the table each and every night of the 22 years I lived w/ my family. Of course, if I didn't want what was being offered, I was given the oppurtunity to make myself a sandwich... the same rule I plan to instill in my future children. So... here I am. (Watching Camelot and drinking Moscato) I don't think I liked the layout of this blog in it's previous days, so I'll try something new. Something w/o a pattern. Like I said, I love cooking... now. I never had a hobby growing up, except playing the flute (rather excellently) in middle school. So, I feel like cooking is a hobby of mine I just enjoy it. Creating concoctions, watching recipes take form.