Welcome to our kitchen that truly is the heart of our home! One of life's greatest pleasures is enjoying good food with family and friends. Here you will find recipes, tips for frugal cooking, how-tos for food preservation especially canning and anything else food related. Tea is brewing and warm cookies are fresh from the oven. Please sit a spell and enjoy your stay.
I am a wife, mother and grandma who enjoys the many aspects of homemaking. A variety of interests and hobbies combined with travel keep me active. They reflect the importance of family, friends, home and good food.
Cook ingredients that you are used to cooking by other techniques, such as fish, chicken, or hamburgers. In other words be comfortable with the ingredients you are using. --Bobby Flay
For Your Information
Please watch this area for important information like updates, food recalls, polls, contests, coupons, and freebies.
[March 19, 2020] - Effective Mar 17, this blog will no longer accept advertising. The reason is very simple. If I like a product, I will promote it without compensation. If I don't like a product, I will have no problem saying so.
[March 17, 2020] - A return to blogging! Stay tuned for new tips, resources and all things food related.
[February 1, 2016] - An interesting report on why you should always choose organic tea verses non-organic: Toxic Tea (pdf format)
Sticky Post - Warning: 4ever Recap reusable canning lids. The reports are growing daily of these lids losing their seal during storage. Some have lost their entire season's worth of canning to these seal failures! [Update: 4ever Recap appears to be out of business.]
When our kids were young I was a fanatic about providing heathy snacks for them at home and while away. We did a lot of camping so I always made homemade snacks for them. The snacks were made according to where they would be used so those for school and camping were packaged differently. At home we had and still do have a never empty fruit bowl as well as plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator. Homemade snacks are always in the pantry. The grandbabies are now at the age where healthy snacks are a must. They have their little bowls of snacks for the drive to Grandma and Poppa's house but when they get here they want more snacks! I try to make sure there is a fun snack for them.
Children's snacks do not have to be complicated or difficult to make. Pictured is a snack I made for oldest grandbaby before youngest grandbaby was born knowing Mommy would be a bit hungry too. This was a very simple snack consisting of peanut butter, raisins, celery and cheese. What made it a bit different and kid friendly was using a star shaped cookie cutter to cut the Ziggy's® cheddar cheese slices.
Cookie cutters can be used for so much more than just cookies. I love using them to cut special cheese shapes but they are also great for making fun shapes out of fruit and vegetable slices. I've used them for cutting fun shapes out of breads to make fancy toasts for breakfasts, cutting fancy meatloaf shapes, cutting out thin chocolate shapes for garnishing deserts, and using as guidelines for decorating cakes and cupcakes. So cookie cutters are very versatile, fun gadgets to have in your kitchen. The best part is cookie cutters are beyond cheap! You can get quite a nice collection for under $10.
I learned a long time ago that developing a good sense of humour is imperative when it comes to cooking. Laughing at your mistakes while learning from them is a must! As a homestyle cook the humour helps to remind me not to take things so serious when cooking. Cooking should always be fun. With that said it is difficult to write humorous posts on a cooking blog so you really don't get to see this side of me. I seriously have a wicked sense of humour! Some of the stories I could tell that have honestly happen to me while cooking would have you busting your sides laughing but that is for another day.
Today I want to share a bit of Canadian culinary humour by Canada's favourite funny man, Rick Mercer. What makes this video even funnier is it was shot at the Stratford Chefs School in Strafford, Ontario. This prestigious culinary institute is also featured on Food Network Canada's Chef School. The school produces some of the top notch Canadian chefs specializing in Canadian cuisine. I hope you enjoy the chuckle.
If you have been following this blog you will know for 6 weeks ending August 30, 2009 my husband and I were running a He Said/She Said contest that resulted in 12 different recipes from Better Homes and Gardens® New Grilling Book. The winning recipes by popular vote were:
He Said She Said
We are going to be doing a different He Said/She Said contest for the month of October. I think you are really going to enjoy this one! This contest is not going to be quite as involved but I think it is going to be very interesting. The focus of this contest will be investigating new ingredients. The rules are:Choose 1 ingredient you have not cooked with before. The ingredient can be anything of your choosing providing you have not used it before in any dish you have prepared. Create two dishes using the ingredient. Pictures and recipes will be posted throughout October. The contest ends October 31, 2009. Voting for the best recipe will begin on November 1, 2009 and run for 1 week.
Water does not add flavour to a dish only moisture. Whenever possible substitute water in a recipe or dish with stock, juice, coffee, tea or any appropriate liquid substitution that has flavour.
Children's Snack
