New Grandbaby

Our new grandbaby made her debute Dec. 23, 2006 at 8:03 pm. She weighed in at 8 lb 6 oz and is absolutely the most perfect little sweetheart you have ever seen!

Happy Holidays

Fun With Cheese!

We are true cheese lovers here so at any given time will have upwards of 20 different cheeses, some of them homemade at any given time. We just enjoy cheeses so much! Most freeze well so end up being a true convenience food and fresh they just make a meal. I really enjoy playing with cheeses especially when cooking.

Cheese Cups

Cheese cups are something I just sort of came up with while looking for a new way to serve salads. I came across the idea for making cheese crisps on the food network. There was a show about low carb that I kind of stumbled upon and really liked the idea of shredding cheese then baking it. So I decided to experiment.

I shredded cheddar cheese then mounded it onto parchment paper and baked it until almost crisp. Now this was really good, a nice type of cheese cracker that I make often. However, I immediately saw the versatility of cheese crackers. What if I formed them into bowls to seve salad in? I thought that would be rather a neat presentation where you could eat both the salad and bowl. So I baked the shredded cheese in rounds and while still warm, I drapped over a juice glass, pressed a bit then let them cool. This was the result and I must say my family loves this presentation!

Cheese Sticks

Cheese sticks just sort of happened and I can't really recall why other than our love for cheese and a bit of kitchen experimenting. I use a ABM pizza dough (recipe follows) then the dough into narrow strips and roll in cheddar cheese and bake. This is a true family favourite!

Pizza Dough

1 1/2 c beer
1 1/2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
4 1/8 c white flour
1 1/2 tbsp instant yeast

Add ingredients as per your breadmaker instructions. Set to dough setting. When finished, remove from bread pan and roll out the dough. Cut into strips and roll into shredded cheddar (or cheese of your choice) cheese. Let the dough rise then bake at 350ºF until cheese is bubbling and bread is golden brown.


Cheese on Salad

We eat a lot of salads, usually daily, so coming up with variations can be challenging. For the most part I much prefer fresh cut greens and vegetables from the garden and I do love adding fresh cut herbs as well. But a bit of cheese really makes a salad sparkle. It accents the homemade viniagrette well and just adds that perfect sparkle. I love freshly shredded parmesan cheese for this purpose but often use other cheeses too.

Now If you are wondering the viniagrette is a homemade purple basil, lavender, lemon thyme and organo vinegar combined with a bit of honey, dijon mustard and fresh chopped onions and chives. I make a lot of homemade vinegars from my herb garden and I insist on using fresh herbs whenever possible.

Enjoy!

Stove & Fridge

My Fridge & Stove

Well, I have to admit this was not quite part of the plan for this blog but I opened my email this morning to two requests as to the appliances I use in my kitchen and another one asking what major appliances I recommended. So this entry is cooking related to address these questions. And before you ask, yes my kitchen is pink! The appliances are all white but not matching brands because I choose appliances based on performance not brand. My kitchen accents are stainless steel and chrome but it has a very country feel. The cabinets are dark walnut something I would like to change perhaps by painting but after living through that once, the idea is just floating right now. The kitchen flooring is scheduled to be replaced just after our holidays in January. I'm sure my husband chose this time since I will be a little more mellow because I do not do change well, especially in my kitchen!

My stove is a Jenn-Air Electric Downdraft Slide-In Range model JES9860AC purchased in 2005. Previous to that I had an Admiral black-glass front range, non-self clean purchased in 1989 that was a real workhorse. The Jenn-Air has a lot of bells and whistles like convenience settings, three oven racks, self-cleaning and downdraft system. I bought two conventional coil cartridges (sold separately) and grill cartridge (sold separately) so basically we bought the shell of a stove then customized. I can mix and match as needed. The grill cartridge is shown in the picture along with a custom made cutting board thanks to one of my kids. I like the look of the stove with the grill cartridge in but during canning season I really need those four burners! If you look closely you will see that one burner is raised by almost an inch. This is a special canning/big pot element originally bought for canning but because I use larger pots on a regular basis I decided to just leave it on the cartridge. The only thing I don't like is there is no storage drawer due to the downdraft system. What I really like is all parts and I mean all parts are easily available for replacement which means if I wanted to go stainless steel it would mean only buying the outer compartments and switching. I think that is a pretty nice option. While this stove might look fancy, it was bought specifically as a workhorse because that is what I demand of kitchen appliances. Performance is always the primary goal!

My fridge is a Whirpool ED2FHGXS Energy Star® rated, white on white side-by-side purchased 2006 about six weeks ago. This refrigerator was a forced purchase since our old side-by-side decided to spew out cold air and not from the door seals. It was a demanding purchase because with the design of my kitchen, the refrigerator would only fit one spot AND my husband was adament he wanted side-by-side with ice in the door. I found one fridge at IKEA on sale that met our requirements but was stainless steel not white. Armed with that information I went online and found two models up from that one but in white. I called our local furniture and appliance dealer, gave them the model and told them to order it so this fridge was bought sight unseen. So far it is performing very nicely!

As far as recommending appliances goes, I really can't for the reason that what works for me might not be a good solution for you. I can recommend small appliances but not major ones. I think one of the most important things we look for in any major appliance is performance followed by energy efficiency. I think my current preference as far as design goes is white on white, sleek with good lines and easy to clean.

So now you've had a glimpse into my kitchen. Perhaps I will add more pictures in the future when I'm not adding pictures of food.