Spice Cabinet

Spices seriously make my kitchen witch happy! We have entire cabinet full of spices and baking supplies. With so much packed in these three shelves it can sometimes be hard to find what we need or even know what we have.

Enter the shelf by shelf spice list. I took about 30 minutes to work through the shelves, toss what was old, wiped down bottles and canisters, reorganize them AND most importantly documented what was on each shelf. I then made a simple list in Excel by shelf, printed it up, cut it into strips and taped to the inside of our cabinet door.Easy peasy makes our kitchen life easy!

A Recipe Collection

I have been reorganizing the pantry over the last couple of days. It got way out of control during Alex's birthday weekend, I have no idea how that happened. This time I focused on the appliances side of the pantry. I have been culling out what we don't need, like two extra crock pots, and what we haven't used.

One thing that took up a lot of prime real estate in our pantry is my cook book collection. Which I use, but only a fraction of the library itself. Slowly I have been moving my most used cook books out to the hutch in our dining nook. Yesterday I moved it all out there, removing the books that I never use.

Here is the space, three shelves of books. A handful used much more than others. I am going to pay attention to the books that I am not using, and weed them out, because really what use are they.

My top shelf: The Cooking with Jamie book is a new acquisition from Christmas. Gotta love the Brits! Which moves me onto the Nigella books, every single one is well used and loved.

My Second Shelf:Front and Center, the cooking bible, The Better Homes Big Red Book. Seriously, any new cook starting out needs this book. They update every couple of years to current food trends. My moms has Salisbury steak in it. :) The illustrated Cookbook is a great resource for HOW to cut, chop and work in my kitchen. It's ancient and there are plenty of newer versions out there. But really who wants to pay $75 for a reference book. The Nourishing traditions book on the far right is a FABULOUS resource for how to make anything and everything from scratch. She is hardcore against processed foods and believes in a protein and fat loving diet, but if the Apocalypse every happens, I will know how to make ranch dressing from scratch.

My third Shelf: Joie de Vivre is not only a great introduction to French cooking but a joy to read. Of course everyone should have the spiral of Crockpot meals. But my favorite thing on this shelf is the Cooks Illustrated magazine for American Classics. Best magazine I have ever bought, that issue alone is amazing!

And inside the cabinet on the left I have my pile of magazines and Everyday foods. Plus my recently rebuild recipe folder. Previously this pile was messy, rarely used and had print outs of various recipes all over the place. I sat down and filed all paper recipes into paper protectors and put them in the binder. Eventually I will go through the magazines and rip out and file the recipes I want.

While weeding out books I stumbled across this Vegetarian cookbook that I had forgotten all about. I snagged it from my mom probably 16 years ago. It is so 70's, but full of great veggie recipes.

The TOC is awesome, really you can make so much just veggie. And with a whole chapter devoted to Cheese, I knew I needed to keep this book around.

But this final paragraph in the introduction had me laughing my ass off. You know a cook book is from the 70's when there is open pot references and even food recommendations for munchies.

Scratch it.

I was challenged by Casey this weekend to use all those cookbooks that I love to collect and read. So I drafted a menu plan for the week, pulling from various Nigella, Betty Crocker, Lidia, and crock pot cookbooks. So far it has gone great, giving me the opportunity to do a lot of scratch cooking. Which I love love love! No boxes in this house!

Here is the scratch list so far:

• Pizza dough and the ensuing pizza.
• Bagettes
• Mashed potatoes
• Onion,Cumin, Wine gravy
• Chicken Fried rice

And for the record, my bagettes are AWESOME-ness in a loaf.

This Carrot Cake has my heart

This is all that is left of the carrot cake I made last night to take to Bunko. Seriously go make this right away, www.thepioneerwomancooks.com There were only 8 of us at Bunko last night, but those women snagged cake pieces before I left for "their kids". Sure, I know it will be your breakfast today. But that is okay I was planning on the same before it was all taken.

It is more of a spice cake then a traditional carrot cake, but so damn good. And the Cream Cheese frosting, let me just say now that the mixer beater was licked clean and not by Alex. This was also the first time I bake a cake Ree's way, that is in a sheet cake pan, which I would call a cookie sheet. And it was perfect! I will do it this way again and again.

So go make that cake! Now!

A la Mode

While waiting for the crazy ass weather we are expecting here in Texas, you must carry on with your everyday life, or you will become a weather on the 8's junkie. Which tonight included pie, Apple Pie, two of them! I discovered Grandma Ople's Apple Pie recipe at Thanksgiving, and few things have ever been so true on the internet then those reviews. I make a couple changes, and tonight doubled it all to make the two pies I need. Need, I tell you! Two, twin pies!

First you must peel and core about 6 Granny Smith's. If you have one of these thingamajigs you will love life!

Don't worry about the leftover green bits so much, because you can leave them in or not add that slice if you are picky.

And then you must cut your spiral apples in half moons because hello, it is an edible Slinky.

Oh a mega pile of apples ready to be baked. Hmmmm apples.


This recipe is not for the butter phobic folks out there.

Then get your crusts ready, which means head to your local bakery case and find these crusts, you will thank the angels above that you don't have to cut crisco into flour. These are my secret ingrediant, and I don't feel bad for using them because people ask me everytime how I make my crusts. Go Doughboy!

Then you must add various sugars to the melted butter and stir away to make caramel. Did you hear me, CARAMEL!!! of course a green spatula makes it a better caramel. Didn't you know that?

That caramel needs time to become caramel so get your crusts ready. One tip, don't fuss with folding down the crust too much because you want enough to pinch the top crust too later.

Then pile your apple slices into a crust, don't worry about making it perfect because these will cook down into glorious apple layers anyways.

Oh here comes the caramel, and this is where I am a bit different from the original recipe, I pour half my caramel over the apples and use the rest on the top layer.

Add your top crust, pinch the edges together, be sure it seals well or else all your pie juices and caramel spill out. And don't forget to make some vents. Don't blah out and just do knife slits, bust out those random cookie cutters. You know the one in the drawer way at the back.

Oh Caramel overload. Look at the yum. Pour the rest of the caramel right on top.

I brush mine around a little bit because few things in life are a tasty as caramel crust. Trust me.

I added my vent cut outs as wee stars. Just stuck them on there right into the caramel smeers.

Bake on lined cookie sheets, you REALLY want to do this. As well as have foil to cover them up with halfway through the baking, just in case the crust browns too much.

After a while you have glorious apple pies...

and instead of cutting into them, snag that wee "Lone Star" (hahahaha get it??! I swear I don't make this stuff up!) and the puddle of caramel crusty drippings and enjoy a taste preview.

Ummmm, yum.

Letter of the day is P.

Alex won fourth place in his Pack's Pinewood Derby today. Not bad considering this is a Mommy made car. Woo Hoo for me and a hack saw! Proud of him.

A perfect follow-up is a ham and brie quiche, especially for a slightly upset tummy. Yum comfort food wrapped in pie crust. Perfect for them.
And then hours of knitting, My So Called Scarf has been languishing on my needles since the day after Christmas and I am jamming through to finish it up. One skein caked, one skein knit. Progress for me.

One to many

I must remember that banana bread made in our bread machine cannot handle that one extra mushy banana...
It was just one mushy banana too many for me... But the pups love it.

A Naked Mantel

Today I removed the Spooky Town from our mantel and it will sit naked till the day after thanksgiving. Then, hello Christmas!

I went to the library today for a knitting group, it was so nice to sit in a newly remodeled room knitting with a bunch of funny ladies and then come home to melt into the corner of the couch reading all the cookbooks I checked out. Nigella's Feast, is just about the best piece of heaven on paper that I have ran across in a long time. I have reread the thanskgiving and Christmas sections twice now. Luckily I have the Christmas cooking duty this year and I want to go all out with a full Nigella menu, hmmmm. Maybe even the Coke ham. Anyways, I have been avoiding this book since it didn't seem to be up to Nigella in my whacked opinion, but I now have to have it, chalk up one more little thing on my Christmas list.