Spaghetti and German Chocolate Cookies

I hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful fall weather! I came home from work today, and all I wanted to do was sit in the swing, feel that cool breeze, and stare at the clouds!

So my mom noticed I left out someone’s name in the title, and I had to add my girl Rachael Ray! I got a set of her cookware for Christmas last year from Kyle, and I absolutely love it! You might be asking why I didn’t wait until the wedding and register for new cookware, so everybody else could buy it for me, right? It’s because I was in dire need of a new set. You see, my old set was brand new when I moved to Starkville for college in 2002. So what, you say? Well, let me put it to you like this. I made potato soup one night in the stockpot, and as I was stirring I could see all these black specs appearing in the soup. But I had not added any pepper! About a week later, I had a new set. I sold the old set in a yard sale earlier this year, but oddly enough I kept that stockpot. It makes for a great spaghetti noodle pot, and I have a large pyrex bowl that fits nicely in it and can be used for a double boiler if need be.

Speaking of Mom, I had to ask if she was serious about her creamed corn comment from last week. Now I’ve been cooking for a while now, I’d say probably 10 years. But by no means am I an expert or do I ever claim to know it all. I love to learn, so new or better ideas or suggestions about anything I write are very welcome. And I don’t have any problem (usually) admitting when I don’t know something… I did not know Mammaw really did cream her own corn! I can remember as a child seeing my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles sitting outside under the oak trees with tubs of corn at their feet. I can remember all the shuckin’ and silkin’, but I must have been too young to remember them cutting and scraping the corn off the cob. Mom says it’s sweet corn that makes its own cream when cooked. You don’t add anything to it (I thought for sure milk or whipping cream had to go in it), but you do have to be careful that it doesn’t scorch. How about that! Makes me wish I had a corn field!

Ok so on to this week’s recipes. Honestly I had no plans to cook something new this week. This is an extremely busy week with softball last night, Bible study tomorrow, softball Thursday night, and my bachelorette party Friday night (woo hoo!). Tonight is the only night I’ll be home for any length of time, and that means leftovers! And my go-to meal when I need plenty of leftovers to last a few days, or at the end of the month when I need cheap meals, is spaghetti! Now my step-dad is the king of spaghetti, and he gave me the ingredients I use for my recipe. I can’t say he gave me the recipe, because I don’t know that David has a recipe for spaghetti. I don’t know that David has a recipe for anything! He just throws things together, and they always come out great! He makes the best cheesecakes ever, but Mom would always get aggravated because they tasted different each time! He’s also the king of shrimp, and happens to have some for sale right now if anyone is interested. (You like the plug, Dave?!) Anyway, I add basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, minced garlic, salt, pepper, and garlic salt to the hamburger meat and brown/drain it. Then add a jar of whatever spaghetti sauce you like, and a can of diced tomatoes, and simmer for an hour. Sometimes depending on what spaghetti sauce I buy, I have to add a little salt and pepper while it simmers. Easy and always good! Oh, and David always puts a couple bay leaves in his too. Great recipe, but by no means a new one.

Well, I just couldn’t help myself! With all these new books and recipes, I’m like a kid with a new toy. I just had to try something! Enter my Bible study teacher, Mrs. Cindy. I had a wedding shower this past weekend at my cousin Pat’s, and Mrs. Cindy gave me a great gift! She wrapped up a cookie sheet, a German chocolate cookie recipe, and all the dry ingredients needed as my gift! Really cute idea for anyone heading to a wedding shower soon! And oh my gosh are those cookies wonderful! And super easy too. Mix together a boxed german chocolate cake mix, a 5.1 oz box of vanilla pudding, an 11.5 oz bag of chocolate chips, 3 eggs, ½ cup oil, and 1 cup chopped nuts. That’s it! Bake on a cookie sheet for 10-12 minutes or until done. I’m all about these easy recipes!

I do want to give ya’ll a little tip though. If you want to make cookies, and you want them to look pretty, spend the money and buy a Calphalon cookie sheet. The recipe made more dough than would fit on the Calphalon cookie sheet she gave me, so I used a couple of my old Wal-Mart sheets. I never dreamed my cookie sheet was the reason none of my cookies ever looked good! The ones on the Calphalon sheet were perfectly round and plumped up really nicely, but the ones on the old sheets flattened out and split. Not pretty at all!

I don’t know if the picture does it justice or not, but the cookies on the right came off the Calphalon sheet. One other tip: use a scoop to measure out the cookie dough. I always used two teaspoons to get the dough on the sheet, but bought a scoop a while back for some other recipe. The only one I have is a small one, so of course the cookies are small; but they’re generally the same size and shape, and look so much better! Hopefully there will be some left for those of you coming to the party Friday night!

Since I’ve rambled on and taken up plenty of your precious time, I’ll leave you with these parting words, courtesy of Hailey: “If it’s un-ladylike, fattening, or fun… I’m in!”

Parmesan Chicken

For the very first testing I decided to use a recipe card from the shower given to me by Dad’s first cousin Bruce’s wife Terri. (Did ya get all that?!) She didn’t get to come to the shower, but sent the cutest Cinderella card! Ya’ll know I’m a big Disney nut so of course I loved it!

The recipe was for Parmesan Chicken. Super simple recipe, which was the first reason I picked it. The second reason was I already had all the ingredients in the house: boneless skinless chicken breasts, saltine crackers, parmesan cheese, garlic salt, and Paula’s favorite ingredient… butter! All you have to do is mix the crushed crackers, parmesan cheese, and garlic salt for the coating. Dip the chicken breasts in the melted butter, then the coating, and bake them for 35 minutes at 400°. My go-with-its were baked sweet potatoes and fried green tomatoes. Now I love fried green tomatoes, and over the past year I’ve almost mastered the art, but a sliced red tomato would have been better. The parmesan coating made the chicken a bit salty, so something a little sweeter would have paired perfectly. Creamed corn would probably have been good too. I wonder if Mammaw creamed her corn herself or served it out of a can. May have to search the books for that one. You can buy frozen creamed corn packaged like a roll of sausage that I think is pretty good. To be honest I haven’t had it in years, but I used to like it. The sweet potato was great, but didn’t last long with all the other salty stuff. Kyle and I both liked the chicken, so it went into the recipe box to be cooked again! High five for the Parmesan Chicken!

I think I’ll give every recipe a rating of high five, low five, or no five. I’ll also be glad to share any recipes anyone might want.

I’m not sure what I’ll try next week. I would love to try some cakes and pies, but will have to wait until I get some cake pans and a pie dish before tackling those. I do have a Bundt pan, so I could try out Noneine’s Sour Cream Pound Cake recipe she gave me at the shower. Chicken is what we eat the most of and what we keep in the freezer, so there will probably be lots of those recipes tested in the coming months. Dad gave us a deep freezer, which we have already put to good use storing the vegetables from his garden and everything we buy on sale at Kroger. If you have a suggestion or something you would like me to try but maybe don’t have a recipe, shoot me an email or Facebook message, and I’ll see what I can find. I expect I can find just about any recipe under the sun in my wonderful expansive collection of cookbooks! Until next time… eat well!

Getting Started

I’ve wanted to jump on the blog bandwagon for quite some time now. I enjoy reading about my friends’ kids, families, vacations, and other random happenings in their lives, but never have been very comfortable putting my own life out there for everyone else to see. It’s very easy for me to post pictures on MySpace and Facebook which tell a pretty good story, but not so easy for me to put my life and feelings into words for others to read. I thought of doing a wedding blog, but decided against it. While I have been documenting wedding details, some of it hasn’t been pretty. I may take those moments, thoughts, and feelings to the grave! All of a sudden after my kitchen/dining room wedding shower, it hit me I should blog about cooking!

The kitchen/dining room wedding shower was a big hit! Since I have been out of college for nearly five years and have owned my own home for nearly two, I already have all of the “needs” for a home. I looked at my wedding registries as the “wants” to tie everything together; and since the registries contained mostly cooking items and dishes, it made sense for the theme of this particular shower to be kitchen/dining room. Included with the mailed invitations was a recipe card for guests to write us a recipe. I didn’t expect everyone to do it, but out of the 21 people that came, 12 gave us a recipe. Two who couldn’t be there even sent their recipes with gifts. I was thrilled! I also was in for a huge surprise. For whatever reason, cookbooks never crossed my mind as potential gifts for this shower. I have no idea why, since it fit perfectly with the theme. I was shocked and excited to receive twelve cookbooks! Robin gave me the Bells Best set I-IV, and Mrs. Carolyn gave me a Bells Best III. Coach Hickman gave me the Betty Crocker Bridal Edition cookbook, and Arlene gave me “Confessions of a Kitchen Diva”. Mrs. Judy gave me “Who’s Cooking in Winston County”, a collection of recipes from my hometown offered by the Louisville Main Street Association. Hailey gave me a copy of what I like to refer to as the “Darlene Bane Cookbook”, which I was very excited about. Mrs. Darlene compiled a book some years ago of her favorite family recipes and those of her friends. I know Hailey loves her copy, so I was thrilled she got me one! The highlight of the cookbook gifts fittingly came from Mammaw. Mammaw moved to the nursing home a few days before the shower, and didn’t get to come. She wrapped up three of her favorite and most used cookbooks and a folder full of random loose recipes. It was the most special gift, and of course brought me to tears!

After the shower I told Mom I should cook all the recipes in all the books and blog about it. I tossed the idea around for a couple of weeks, and finally decided to make a go of it. If you noticed the title and paid attention to the cookbooks received, you can figure out who all I’m referring to. The only name that doesn’t match anything is Paula. I didn’t receive any Paula Deen cookbooks, but love her to death so she had to be included!

I’m not really sure where this will go or what I will talk about. I’m not even sure how many recipes of each book will get tested. I’m sure I’ll quickly find my favorites and cling to those. Right now I’ll shoot for one new recipe per week from one of the books or the random recipes. With the wedding planning, Becker CPA prep class, and CPA exam all going on right now too, I don’t even know how much I’ll actually get to do. We’ll just have to see how it goes for now. Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I’m sure I will enjoy cooking (and eating) for it!