It's already cold in the mitten state. It has been cold for the last several weeks and it is shifting into the time where making soup and stew is a weekly ritual. I happen to like a lot of different soups, but had been craving something I hadn't had in at least seven or eight years. Broccoli cheese soup is my absolute favorite soup for a few reasons... One, I love broccoli, and I love cheese. Two, It fills me up for a while. And three, it makes me warm when it's cold. I never really used somebody else's recipe because I thought it would be easy... I was right, but still, I should have looked at a recipe or two for some idea of ingredients besides the broccoli and cheese. To add cream or not to add cream? What cheese works best? Do I have to blend it? So many questions that I had in my head. I wish I had some kind of awesome story to tack on with this recipe, but I don't. This wasn't something from my childhood, just something I sampled from a certain bread restaurant that we all know, and I found it way too salty so I made my own. Simple as that. What else is there? So instead of a story about soup, I am going off on another tangent for a minute because I feel like the ending can be compared. Right now, life is rough. You already know that I miss my dad and that I cannot say enough about that, but other things are happening too. Being an adult can suck sometimes, and right now, that is how I feel. I mean, we all get hit with it from time to time, and sometimes even all at once. For me, it's that every time that Bruce and I have something fixed, another thing is broken. Every. Single. Time. For instance, I swallowed my pride to talk to my mom about my car. I didn't exactly ask for money because I don't feel right to, but I did gripe about it. She gave us the money, and we got all the big things fixed that needed fixing; the muffler, the suspension, and some other important things that make the car safe to drive. We get that fixed and it's running great! I mean, there is still a little work left on the muffler, but it's so much better and we can actually hear ourselves think when we're on the highway, and relax instead of having our hearts in our throats in the hopes of not being pulled over for noise violation and get slapped with a ticket. All of that is great, right? Hallelujah! (FOREVER GRATEFUL!!!) But then, bad news comes. "Hey, my uncle is in a coma, we need to come to the hospital." -- That was the day before my birthday that we went. "Hey, let's take you out to eat." Can't enjoy my food, dad isn't around to call and wish me a happy birthday, Bruce's uncle is on HIS way out and reminding me of Daddy, and then all kinds of little things: the water pressure being out of whack, not getting a hot shower and only getting cold bird baths from the sink... Stuff clogging, stuff breaking... People asking for money you don't have and you feel like a terrible person for letting them down. You start to wonder why on earth it's all happening at once and just want to yell at the air for being polluted. And then you get a reminder of little things that don't suck. Being hugged by your spouse and cuddling up while asleep because the weather is cold, wrapping up in an afghan your late grandmother knitted because it's like being hugged, and eating a bowl of soup because it is also like a hug. That is why I wanted to make soup. So I did... Life is not all peaches and cream, but you can still dream of the cobbler they can make. This is not diet food... But it is healthier than it could be. I want to preface this recipe with a few things... First, I wanted to make it gluten free and not use a roux as a thickening agent. Two, I wanted it to be a little easier... Three, I wanted it to still be creamy, but I didn't want to add heavy cream. Little changes! The Recipe
Putting it together...
Okay, potatoes? Yogurt? Yes... You read the text right! First, the taters... The taters replaces the starch that the flour in the roux would have given you, which helps the cheese to bind into the soup. I tested this out because I would like to pass it on to those who are on a gluten free diet can enjoy it too. (See, I DO love you. :P) The greek yogurt is because I put sour cream instead of heavy cream, and I wanted that tangy flavor. The creaminess of the yogurt makes it more decadent. I loved it with the changes! I can honestly tell you that it still filled me up, that it tasted great, and that I couldn't even tell there were potatoes in there. The only reason I cannot call it diet food is for the fact that cheese is pretty fatty. But you CAN cut down on some of the fat so you can feel LESS guilty, and still feel like you did nothing out of the ordinary to your soup. I normally don't use turmeric in my broccoli cheese soup, and that also helps because it enhances the flavor of the broccoli in all the right ways. Some updates and other Stuff!
And that's all she wrote.
It is coincidental that I made Schnitzel and Spaetzel in October, but it stands to reason to label this as an Oktoberfest meal that you can pair with a good, German beer. I'd been craving it for quite some time but never really thought about actually making it. The idea actually only popped up as I worked on my collaboration project, seeing as I had a bunch of lemons leftover and Bruce had picked up a bunch of pork loin in a nice sale. The last time I even ate Schnitzel was LCB100 in Culinary School (Very first cooking class in culinary school, or rather, the introductory course.) I don't quite remember which of the three meats we were told to use, though I am sure it was not veal, but I remembered that it really wasn't that hard to make that part of the dish. Instead of the dumplings, we made sauerkraut, which I do remember was better than the jarred junk by far. I had never made the spaetzel before... not from scratch anyhow, so I was more into making that than the Schnitzel for this post, but it would be remiss of me not to give you the recipe for both, right? If I had remembered how to do the kraut and had the cabbage to do so, that would definitely have been added and this post would have been a threefer! What I absolutely love about schnitzel is that it is part of my heritage; I do have a good chunk of German running through my bloodline. I do like to touch into the things that are associated with different parts of my blood so that I can share the diversity with you all. The other things that I love about it is that it is comforting to eat, and that it is interactive. Make the meal, serve it, let folks squeeze their own lemon onto the finished product and enjoy it with them. It's a delightful treat to make every now and then and so easy to make. The spaetzel is fun to make, though it is sticky and messy, yet totally worth it in the end when you taste it. The hardest part is getting the dough made, and that isn't even hard either. Both of the foods in question are fast to cook and truly simple to make that it will be done before you know it (depending on how many batches of each that you make.) Fair warning, also, this is not a diet food, it is meant to be treated as an occasional thing just like any other fried delight. The Schnitzel Recipe
The Method
The Spaetzel
The Method
Eat, Drink, and be Merry! I served mine with green beans too, but that was the vegetable on hand. It's like I stated, it can be served with kraut, and it is paired well with a German stout. This month is a great month for such a meal, but don't wait for Oktoberfest to come for you to make this dish because you can make it whenever you want. That is the greatest beauty of running your own kitchen! And please, please, please don't forget the squeeze of lemon. It is what makes it pop, it brightens the flavor! I absolutely adore the simplicity of each part of the meal. The buttery flavor of the dumplings after they are sautéed? Yes, yes, all the yes. I promise you that it might look daunting, but it really is super easy once you have everything ready to cook! It is also quite worth the effort. I hope that this brings you as much joy as it did me, and I hope that you enjoy the recipes. This post has a very special place in my heart. When I was a little girl, our family situation wasn’t the best; food was always provided even if it wasn’t ideal, and my dad wasn’t an easy man to live with. The good thing about memories is that, though there are plenty of bad ones to be had, there are always good ones… special ones. It’s been established that dad didn’t do very well with some of his cooking, and I say that in the most endearing sense. Not all of his food was bad. He was really great at making an American breakfast (Pancakes, bacon and/or sausage, and eggs), he could also make a mean campfire chili or beef stew, and he made what our family calls Slumgolean Hash (which I can do a recipe for at another time.) But this blog post is not about any of those things. This is about a beautiful memory that takes me back to one of the happier times we shared with dad. He made monkey bread from scratch and put a lot of love into it. It was like eating a cloud that was laced with just the right amount of sugar and cinnamon, the right amount of sticky glaze that was too yummy to use a napkin on. My dad made the best monkey bread I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. I remember how proud he was of the bread and how he laughed with his joy at how his children were delighted in this pastry. It was something we gathered around just one time that I can remember, but it did define part of my childhood with a good and beautiful memory. I have had other monkey bread throughout the years; GOOD monkey bread, at that, but nothing that has ever taken me back to that memory. It took hearing the sound of my niece, Al’s daughter, to call out, “Monkey bread” to spark that memory full on, though Al is the one who made it. As soon as the idea popped into my head, I opened up my cook books and began to look for the perfect base recipe to work off of. I needed an idea on what ingredients were involved and how much to put in. It happened to be in my Better Homes and Gardens cook book (if you do not have that one, you should get one as it is a legacy). It wasn’t even a monkey bread recipe, but rather, a cinnamon roll recipe. My brain went into excitement mode for the things I could take out and replace, or add to it to make it better. I want to be taken back to that first bite, to hearing my father laugh the way he used to, because it was to him who I owe my cooking passion. Fair warning, this is a time consuming recipe but totally worth the effort. This is also not diet food, though you can use sweeteners to lower the amount of sugar you use. Just follow the conversions as needed, usually the sweetener bags will have them. They are also widely available on the web. The Recipe Ingredients
Variation #1 with an adult twist
Icing
Variation #2, Blood Orange Cranberry 1/3 cup granulated sugar 1 Tablespoon or so Blood Orange zest 1 teaspoon fresh (grated with micro plane) or ground ginger ¼ cup softened, unsalted butter ½ cup blood orange juice soaked dried cranberries 2 cups confectioner’s sugar A dash of ground ginger 1-2 Tablespoons Blood Orange Juice (You can use any orange if you are not fond of blood oranges) Equipment
Method
Serving this bread warm is the best way to eat it, and you don’t need a knife and fork to do so. You can pick at the nuggets like a monkey would pick.
I chose to make the adultified version, and just so you know? The rum icing is A-Okay! I don’t think I added enough salt to the dough itself, but that is my error, not the recipe. It was still fluffy but dense like raisin bread, as opposed to your traditional cinnamon bun. I adore monkey bread and the memories it brings. Share this bread with your children (or at least the rumless variety) and watch their faces light up with joy. Maybe you could even have your little ones help you out with making the bread so you can create memories of your own. If you don’t have kids, you can still make it and have fun in the process. The point is, you should do it because you want to and to experience the joy that it can bring. For me, I will forever cherish the stolen moments that are branded into my memory that can come flying back into my head at the sound of its name, or the flavor of the dish. I hope that I do justice to one of my dad’s very favorite things to make! And with that I say... I need to be candid... Life has really been interesting as of late, and sometimes you have to stop and take a minute to let yourself smell the roses. With the death of dad, I found myself pretty overwhelmed and unable to wrap my mind around a lot of things. It's been five months now, and it still really hurts, but my dad would not want me to walk away from something I worked so hard to create. He invested his heart and soul into my blogging and creativity, and I got to the point where looking at this blog had been gnawing at me in the wrong way. I don't want to give this up; I just need to get my heart back into the story, you know? I have been trying, therefor, to spend time outside of trying to be a great cook. I needed to be around my mom and sisters more, to get closer to them than I have ever felt. I needed to see my growing nieces and nephews and feel the joy in how much they are like me even though I didn't birth them. My sweet little baby niece, Avalee, just turned a year old this month, and she melts my heart. The way she dug into her smash cake just gave me so much to smile about. She really gives me so many reasons to laugh, and it's been so wonderful to watch her grow. I would have never gotten to see her this much if my dad hadn't passed away; my sister and her husband wouldn't be living with my mom and helping her with things that needed to be fixed around the house but got put aside due to dad being so sick all the time. I would have missed out, and that would have just made things feel more empty. My husband and I just celebrated our second year together, and we did something really wonderful together. We went to the Kellogg Bird Sanctuary that day, and the miniatures museum that was near there. I'd never seen so many Trumpeter Swans in one place before, nor an owl, nor a bald eagle. It's stuff like this that I really needed to experience to help me heal... I am so very glad that I took the opportunity to step back and observe the things that I would have never noticed, and that would have truly been worse than feeling the grief I feel. My dad would have wanted me to do all of these things because, in the end, he was a man who saw beauty in so many things he never used to before he was ill. I guess somewhere along the line, we all tend to forget that life isn't just about our work, and I think that is what happened to me in the last several months. Some pictures from my adventures... What now? I do have some things that I am finding excitement in. I have already written the blog post for the Monkey Bread recipe I think I talked about in my previous post (don't quote me on that.) All I need to do is get it made and take lots of pictures so I can share it with you all, as well as the story behind why it is a special thing to me. I have made a few friends along the way, one of them being a really cool guy named Captain Kenny, who specializes in fresh seafood, not only in cooking it but in the catch. I really enjoy his YouTube videos and recommend you check them out. I will not only provide a link to his blog, but his YouTube channel. Please do show some love to Captain Kenny's Fresh, subscribe to his YouTube and click on the bell icon to get notifications of his new releases! Like and share, too! Final thoughts... I do want to thank everyone who has given their love and support to me over the last several months when everything was rough. There are too many people to name at this point, but they know who they are. Thank you to everyone who has been encouraging me to get back into writing, your efforts are not in vain! I might be slow to start and I know most will understand, but there will be more blog posts to come.
With that all being said... Marie Barone isn't the only one... I have been holding onto a secret for quite some time… or rather, secret recipe. Did you ever watch the show, Everybody Loves Raymond? Marie Barone was one of my favorite characters. I mean, she could cook some beautiful foods, though she was very secretive of this. One recipe in particular got my gears moving and my curiosity on high alert. It was steak pizzaiola, a name that I memorized and thought about quite a bit. Carne Pizzaiola means “meat in pizza style,” and is mostly made with cheaper cuts of beef, but can be other meats such as chicken. Basically, it is a wide range of combinations that you can use. The best way to put it is that the meat is a replacement for pizza crust. I have no idea on where in Italy this dish was first made, or even when, but I thank the Italians for such lovely fare. I decided to look a recipe up and you’re probably going to giggle at where I found it at… I hijacked Martha Stewart’s recipe for her easier version (she has both that and traditional). I made it the first time several years ago, but right away I decided to change what I saw because her recipe seemed so… well… herbless? She was using round steak, which is quite lacking of flavor to begin with, and there wasn’t much in the way of even Oregano. I don’t even remember if she used it or not. I thought about how I like my pizza in general and went for it. My family gobbled it up, including my very picky dad who didn’t like flavor much (aka, he had a bland pallet, the poor man). Guess what? It’s actually very easy to make, and you don’t even have to tenderize the meat because it’s a slow cooked, one pot/pan meal! The Recipe
The Method
Totally optional but worth it, refined method:
Serve with pasta or bread if desired! Note: I omitted the paste because that is how I like the sauce, so it might look different on my plate than it will look on yours if you use the paste.
The best part of this recipe is that you can play with it, adding what you like on pizza. If you are so inclined to add mushrooms, or other meats, or what have you. I like to keep it simple, closer to traditional. If you use a different meat, your cooking time might change, Chicken breast is better added back into the pan close to the end of the sauce cooking so it doesn’t dry up, chicken thigh would probably work better. Funny Story... Funny story about a different protein that I used once for this recipe… My dad absolutely loathed venison. He swore up and down that he would be able to tell if it was deer or not. My sister asked me to cook dinner for a Christmas gathering, perhaps a few years back, knowing that dad would throw a fit if he knew it was Bambi in the pan and not Heifer. Challenge accepted. I made one of my best batches of pizzaiola that evening, making sure I was there before everyone else so dad wouldn’t see the venison before it was cooked. It turned out so tender and delicious that dad ate seconds… I had fooled him into eating deer meat!
When I told him a year or so later that we fed him Bambi, he said, “I knew it all along,” in that tone of voice a kid gets when they find out they’ve been duped. And I laughed and laughed. (I kid) With that all being said, I bid you good day and: Mothers Day was yesterday; my sisters and I wanted to do some things that were special for my mom, given that it's been a rough time since dad left us. We put together a brunch and my older sister asked me to make something to bring, and one of mom's favorite things that I make is an easy chocolate mousse, or what other people would call a whipped dessert since it isn't traditional mousse. I was going to make a strawberry sauce for it and maybe some other fruit, but my strawberries were freezer burnt and my plans had to change. I remembered the bananas I had sitting around, all ripe and brown looking in their overly sweet glory. I remembered that my mom liked banana pudding, so the bell went off in my head: I would make banana mousse and I could put the chocolate in as chunks, which would make it appropriate for a brunch dessert after all. Before I get into the recipe, though, I want to talk about my mom. My dad was not the only person who contributed to this passion of mine, it was my mom that taught me a few basics like boiling water and making boxed foods like mac n cheese, or spaghetti. The story she told me about her own cooking was that she wasn't a very good cook when she was first married to my dad, but she never really said that was why she was teaching me some things. She did the best she could at the time, but it was hard for her when dad had gotten sick from driving truck and could no longer work. She'd work rough hours at a nearby nursing home during second and third shift, thus leaving my dad to do the cooking while she did everything she could to keep food on the table. I remember how she would buy a lot of pork chops because those were some of the cheapest, and a lot of ground beef for the same reason, but she didn't get to eat them with us. Mom told us later that it was really hard for her to keep the hours she did because she missed her babies. By the time she got home, she was asleep, she couldn't see us off to school, and she didn't g et to see us much at all during her second shift job. Finally, she decided to go to school to better her life as well as ours, was able to get a better job with better hours and we were able to eat better food. Needless to say, I appreciate my mom's role in encouraging my knowledge of cooking and being supportive of me when I decided to go to culinary school. Mom, I hope that you read this because writing out my feelings tends to be much more eloquent than my sometimes stumbling words. More about the dessert This dessert is so very easy and delicious that you might be surprised. The secret to making this non traditional mousse is cream cheese or Neufchatel instead of gelatin, which not only gives it the thickness it needs, but it adds depth to the flavor of the dessert. The Recipe
The Method
The end result is something wonderful... If you are a fan of bananas, anyways. I absolutely loved the texture it had after it chilled overnight. You can, in fact, freeze this one and make a lovely ice cream of sorts, it is that velvety. The flavor of the bananas is subtle after only an hour, and stronger overnight. The dark chocolate balances out the sweetness (No added sugar, by the way!) to the dessert and makes for a rich flavor combination. Fair warning, it's not quite diet food either, but a little bit does go a long way. Speaking of Bananas! I am pleased as punch to update you on QDFoodie's cute kitchen food. The kick starter campaign is now in full swing, and they could use some help from friends all over to make their dream into reality. For as little as a $2 donation and simply spreading the word through social media, you will be a big help.
You could end up with a gratitude gift of one of my favorites out of this collection, the banana measuring spoons that are both metric and standard, as well as in braille. These wonderful tools are for a good cause, helping kids of all sorts to develop a love for cooking as well as adults who happen to like cuteness such as these. I am looking forward to testing these babies out, and you will help make that happen. Be sure to check them out at their Kickstarter Campaign! As you may know from my previous blog post, I lost my father on March 21 of this year, so my inspiration has not been present very much as my family and I try to heal from this major loss. I decided to invite my mother over for Easter, which happened to be the Sunday after the funeral as well as April Fool's day. April Fool's Day is o high significance for me because of the practical joke war that my dad and I had going for years, at least until I surpassed everything he ever taught me and made him proud. I spent the day trying to go at a relaxed pace. I chose to have a later dinner than we would normally do for a holiday (my family usually eats celebration suppers either at noon if we are at his step parents' house, or 3 pm if at my mother's house), but damned if things didn't go the way of a certain fellow's law that shall not be named; but we all know and loathe him. I melted down over missing croutons. Yeah. That was me. Even with all of the chaos going on in my head that day, as well as things throughout my house, I was able to pull dinner off and even got dessert going with time to spare. Despite the melt down, I was okay by dinner time and happy to have my mom at my table. My mom does gluten free, so I had to figure out what to do for dessert, Lucky for me, she had her baking mix already handy and handed it over to me the day prior when my hubby and I spent time over at my sister's house. Since I already had frozen peaches, I used those and what mom handed me, and I threw together the cobbler. The cobbler is super easy, really! Gluten Free Peach Cobbler
The Method Preheat Oven to 350 Sift baking Mix into a bowl, add melted butter and mix with fork until pea sized clumps form. Add your milk, vanilla, and your sugar and cut into the mixture until you form a loose dough or paste. Grease your cast iron skillet with butter for best result, oil or spray will do as well. Toss the peaches with both wet and dry ingredients and spread over biscuit dough Bake for 45 to 60 minutes until peaches caramelize, top of biscuit will be pale but the bottom will be brown Serve and enjoy! Mom was happy to eat it right after it came out of the oven and had a chance to cool only slightly. She loved it. Unfortunately, I fell asleep before I could eat some, but it was fantastic when it was cold as well.
If you want to do this with regular ingredients, just add the three TBSP of sugar and the vanilla to this recipe when you add the milk to this recipe! I hope you have enjoyed this post and I hope you give it a try! It was delicious, I am telling you. Onward! Early Wednesday morning...We lost my dad. There really aren't enough words to describe the feeling I personally feel, and I am not going to go into detail as to the events leading up to the moment that a hospital staff member walked into that tiny little, windowless room to inform me that he'd finally let go. This blog post is a tribute to one of my best friends, one of my biggest fans and supporters, the Reverend Donald E. Worden, otherwise known as the Geriatric Hippie in the blog that birthed this one. Dad was born March 2, 1955 to Donald Ross and Helen Mae... He became the older brother to three, Mark, Phillip, and Timothy Worden. Grandpa was a hard man as far as his sons went, but he did teach dad that you do everything that you can in order to help your loved ones out. Dad would always have some kind of story about the trouble he got into and the pranks he played on grandpa, as well as how much he loved my grandmother. My mother told me a funny story about how dad tried to make some food for grandma, and he used shoe polish in the dish. This part is relevant later on in my story about him. He met my mom in the fall of 1977 and, as he described, fell in love at the sight of her. He told me that mom was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, that he looked at his friend and said, "I'm going to marry that woman." He gave merry chase after that, my mom wasn't as sure as he was. But three months later, they were wed in a small ceremony, a winter wedding in 1978. He and mom went on to start their new life together as one. In 1980, they were blessed with my older sister, Melissa, 1983, myself, and 1986, Cassandra. Melissa and Cassandra were definitely daddy's girls, while I was a momma's girl. I don't remember much of my younger childhood other than I was a happy kid, and that we moved around a bit. I remember the places we lived and have snatches of memories about those places, more memories in the newer places the older I got... The place that I loved living at the most was the caretaker's apartment at a storage facility. My dad and mom had a blast working there, if I remember correctly, and we had a blast playing there, it was the best place for a game of hide and seek without even having to open any of the units up. Dad worked really hard there, but he had plenty of fun, and they were able to put Melissa and me into dance class. I don't remember the exact year that my mom was working second shift at a nursing home (after we got into the house we grew up in), but this is where his weird cooking came into play. Dad would cook what he knew how to cook. Back then, his catalog was quite limited to breakfast foods, monkey bread (which is one of my favorite things he ever made), and meat and potatoes. Pretty much every night, we would be stuck staring down at shoe leather pork chops, some canned veggies, and instant spuds. We complained at some point, and it led him to making the strangely wonderful "Cheeseburger Mashed Tater Pie," which was simply ground beef, instant spuds, and cheese. It was so good. More importantly, this is the time period my older sister and I started trying to cook food for ourselves as a means of getting through the constant swine piles. I was eight when I finally learned some easy stuff like boxed mac and cheese, and I would probably not have learned this until later, nor have the passion I have now for cooking. In a way, it is his doing that I even started the blog that came before this one. After all of us grew up, dad no longer had to worry about raising us, and he grew kind of depressed. But then he went and got himself ordained and started to marry people, which became a great joy for him. He wasn't your typical reverend; he had tattoos, a long beard and hair, and he was gruff. That didn't matter to the people who asked for his services... This became his favorite job since he'd been a truck driver. He married people no matter what because he believed that love was the most wonderful thing. Sometimes he waived his fee as a gift to couples. I have included pictures of him officiating as well as participating otherwise in weddings. As you can see from a few of these pictures, he was a prankster. The man loved a good joke, and taught us all how to prank. Him and I had a war going on (that I actually won because I took what he taught me and ran) but he was gracious about the loss and said it was a great joke. I remember many stories where he would prank his coworkers and sometimes scare the crap out of them. His favorite joke and one that he repeated was dressing up as a woman for two halloweens, and it went on to be successful and a smash hit among both sets of coworkers. Fair warning with this one, it involves toilet humor, but he liked fart jokes the most. Trust me, growing up with my dad farting on me was not my favorite thing, but it did teach me that it wasn't as gross as people made it out to be and that it is okay to laugh at flatulence. Aside from the fart jokes, there were many things that made him happy... Working on cars, tinkering with computers, building cool stuff, etc. He was a hard worker for most of his life. He even served our country in the Navy before he met my mom and worked as a volunteer firefighter. The man lived a life of adventure, travel, and hard work. He provided for us so that we would never go hungry as kids, he would do things that we were embarrassed about when we were kids that we can look back as adults and say that we are grateful that he did these things... Our friends all loved dad, he was like a dad to many and touched so very many lives. I miss him terribly... I miss hearing his voice and his encouragement when I need to hear it. I miss the hours of conversation, the wisdom of some of his words and his humor. I miss his campfire chili and beef stew, and yes, his monkey bread. Sometime in the next week, he'll be placed into the earth with a 21 gun salute, and it will be finality. I can honestly say that I am not ready... My dad really was one of my biggest fans. I had started my original blog, Foodie-Zoo after some encouragement from my best friends, and he decided he wanted to pay for a domain name to put it on. He did his best to keep that thing running, but his server computer just wasn't the greatest and eventually, he forgot to pay for the domain name, which is okay because I never expected him to pay for it in the first place. He didn't always like the food that I made, but he did eat some of my experiments and he did always want for me to keep going, I don't think that I would have become the food blogger I am today if he hadn't encouraged me as he did. I really am not ready for saying goodbye, but I have to reconcile myself to it because he is gone on to a better place. I am grateful that he is no longer in pain, that he no longer suffers as he had in his last years of life. I could write a whole book on his life instead of this compact version, but it would still never be enough words to share my dad with you. I am going to keep this blog going, even if there are times that I just can't post... He wouldn't want me to give up on what I have worked hard for, even though you only see a fraction of it in comparison to the old blog... I just hope that I can do him proud. In Loving Memory Of:
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THE INGREDIENTS
| YOUR EQUIPMENT
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Everything in place
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- If you haven't salted your water, you should do so like pasta water. Add cubed potatoes and turn the heat up to high.
- If you have decided to to the potato skins, dry them and then deep fry those bad boys until desired crisp (4-6 minutes), drain on paper towel and salt a tiny bit
- Test the potatoes for doneness, testing any piece that might be bigger than others. It is better to be slightly over than under.
- When the potatoes are done, drain well and rice, mash, or mix in the pot.
- Reduce heat to medium low, return pot to heat.
- Add butter first, folding into the potatoes, add the cheese and fold in... Just fold in each of those so they melt, you don't want to overwork the spuds. Add your bacon and onions, reserve 1/2 of each, season to taste, and fold until somewhat incorporated.
- Stir in milk, adding a little more at a time if your potatoes are too dry
- Transfer to serving bowl, topping with reserved bacon and scallions.
- Serve!
- If you can't find goat cheese, cream cheese is a good substitute, just call them cream cheese potatoes instead :)
- You can use chives instead of scallions for the same type of flavor
- If you add too much milk, you can add some potato flakes. I know that seems like blaspheme, but you gotta do what you gotta do. No shame!
- If you are watching your health, use your preferred butter substitute or half the butter. You can use neufchattel for a similar flavor, and use skim milk, and turkey bacon.
- If you want to make it vegan, use some of the potato water, vegan cheese and margarine.
Enjoy
Happy Thanksgiving!
Love,
Kimmie
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These are various recipes that either I created, or I found and adjusted to what I thought would be awesome or even healthier.
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