At Home My Way

Happy Easter, everyone! This recipe for Strawberry Pie comes from my husband's family.  It's so refreshing and very, very berry tasting!  This week while I was shopping at Aldi I noticed they had Plant City strawberries!  I couldn't resist.  Plant City is in Florida and home to the Strawberry Festival.  I haven't experienced the Plant City Strawberry Festival in years but Plant City Strawberries are ready in early spring for the majority of the United States.  Perfect for Easter! When I was growing up in Florida, we often went to Plant City, .. but not just for the strawberries.  My granny had siblings who lived in Plant City.  It's in the Tampa vicinity and as a child I never thought a thing about the peanut fields, strawberry fields, and roads "graveled" with crushed shells.  That's just the way things were in Plant City.  Now, that I live in Missouri I realize what a unique and special place it was.  I realize that not e...

My daughter, Rebecca, and I spent the day before Winter Storm Virgil sewing.  It was so much fun!  I never expected this child to be interested in sewing.  She and I haven't always had so much in common (she tends to act, eat, and want to do everything just like her father-sigh!... but I guess I picked him out, right?  ). These days (and thankfully for the most part due to Pinterest), I still get to sew FOR her and even better, AFTER I sewed something FOR Rebecca's birthday, she wanted to learn how to make it herself!  We have made fairly simple baby quilts together and she took Home Economics in high school so she has some basic knowledge in using a sewing machine, but I was surprised at how eager she was to take on this project. Rebecca turned 25 this month and for her birthday I wanted to make something special.  She loves to cook (well... I guess we have that in common now don't we LOL?) and now that she works ...

This weekend I was home alone for a couple of mornings as my husband was out of town at a bowling tournament.  I took the opportunity to make one of my favorite breakfasts - French Toast. Who doesn't have a half loaf or few slices of stale bread in their freezer or pantry?  My husband loves really soft, commercially baked grocery-store bread (ugh... LOL) and so I bought him a fresh loaf at Aldi on Thursday.  Saturday it occurred to me that with that fresh, soft loaf sitting in the pantry, he was no longer going to eat any of the not-so-fresh bread that was left from the week previous. My sister-in-law and brother keep me in fresh eggs since they have their own chickens so I decided that french toast was what I was having. Here's a picture of their rooster, "Ringo."  I'm sure he likes eating beetles instead of being a beetle LOL!  My brother says he is a really good rooster and doesn't freak out the hens much. LOL.  However, he does freak me out since...

This weekened there were rumblings of another winter storm.  Who could believe it though?  It's spring break around here and that just couldn't be true!  It was forecast for Saturday evening and Sunday.  Saturday, it was rainy and a perfect day for making a fire and baking some bread.  Naw.. that snow wasn't coming.. I found two new blogs that I absolutely love!  One is called Hickery Holler Farm.  I love this blog!  You can learn about everything from gardening..to canning...to homemade bread.  This blog is a complete wealth of information for people like me.  I always love her posts!  I always especially love posts about homemade bread,  not just the kind that you eat as a treat but the bread that people make to eat every day.  I also loved that this blogger bakes all of her own bread.  She has a unique way of using her freezer, canning, dehydrating, and cooking ahead to make most of their meals fr...

This morning I wanted to put one of our favorite meals in the crockpot, Crockpot Chicken & Biscuits .  Wouldn't you know it, I was out of canned Cream of Chicken Soup! No worries, I knew I had seen several recipes and posts for homemade cream of chicken soup.  Google to the rescue! I had some homemade chicken stock in my freezer so I stuck that in the microwave to thaw while I was getting out my crockpot.  This recipe is simple, smells yummy cooking, and was a breeze to make.  I put the entire recipe together in about 10 minutes which included thawing the chicken stock, all before I jumped in the shower to get ready for work. This cream of chicken soup is condensed so if you want to use it for regular soup-eating, then add equal parts soup and milk.  I will probably only use it for casseroles and crockpot recipes.  I dumped half of it over my chicken in the crockpot for today's meal and put the rest in a jar (with plenty of head space) for th...

We celebrate birthdays with a potluck luncheon once a month at my office.  I never know what to make.  As much as I love to cook, I have a hard time deciding what to bring.  We usually have tons of desserts (which I LOVE) so I try to bring something other than sweets.  We also eat the leftovers at work until every last morsel is gone so we like something that is good the next day. I decided to bring Easy Cole Slaw for today's meal.  Since I get home from work at nearly 6PM every night and have to leave the house by 7AM, I find very little prep time for making a potluck dish so this Easy Cole Slaw was perfectly easy, simple, and frugal.  I mixed the dressing last night in mere seconds and this morning dumped my cole slaw mix in a bowl, chopped some onion, and stirred it together. I think this will be a perfect recipe to have handy these last days during Lent.  Our town is predominantly Catholic and there are lots of fish fries this time of ...

Crusty Homemade Bread     I would say that the single recipe that most revolutionized my cooking style and changed what I put out for my family to eat was this recipe.  When I'm squeaking out the last days of meals until payday, I can count on this dough to get me through.  It uses simple and few ingredients - flour, salt, yeast, and water.  That's it!  And yet with that simple batch of dough, stirred up with a wooden spoon in a large bowl in a matter of seconds (I estimate about 30 seconds), my options for breakfasts, lunches, and suppers, increases many times.  I first found the instructions and recipe for this dough at the website for Mother Earth News HERE .  This recipe comes from a terrific book called  ARTISAN BREAD IN 5 MINUTES A DAY by Jeff Hertsberg and Zoe Francois .  (They also have a terrific blog where they answer questions, post recipes, etc. HERE. )     Breakfasts:  ...

Happy PI Day!  Ha!  Whatever that is.. Loving the sitcom, Big Bang Theory like I do, it is only appropriate that I celebrate PI Day here!  Happy Pi Day! My favorite way to celebrate Pi Day would of course be to make and eat some pie! Here are a couple of my favorite ways to make and eat pie AT HOME MY WAY: Lemon Meringue Pie     Pumpkin Pie  with homemade Whipped Cream     Another of my favorite pies is this little Oatmeal Pie recipe found:   HERE     It's like pecan pie but without pecans (lots more frugal and just as delicious!)       What about savory pies?  I would consider these hand pies - Empanadas - a terrific way to celebrate Pi Day!        "Kinda" Empanadas     And... last, but not least, probably the most popular pie in our Country - Pizza Pie!           Homemade ...

Some Fridays my husband and I go out for dinner.  This past Friday we stayed in and I made supper ( Hamburgers, Potatoes & Onions in Foil ) and a delicious pumpkin pie.  We both love pumpkin pie and that is the one pie that I can make than never goes to waste.  We eat every last crumb!  My pumpkin pie recipe is here.  I can never have pumpkin pie without wanting whipped topping.  Normally I would buy a bowl of that frozen non dairy topping in the grocery store, but true to form... I didn't want to GO TO THE STORE!  (What else is new?)  I also remembered that I had a carton of whipping cream left from making my Ditch the Box Cheesecake .  I haven't made homemade whipped cream a whole lot but I didn't remember there being very much to it. I didn't really use a recipe.  I whipped some cream, added a couple of small spoons of sugar, enough vanilla to fill the lid from the vanilla bottle, and called her good!...

One of the meals I most remember growing up is this one.  We called it, "Hamburgers, Potatoes & Onions in Foil" but I believe some people call these, "Hobo Packets."  No matter what you choose to call it, this is a delicious, simple meal that pretty much everyone likes at my house.  You can tweek by adding other vegetables (squash, carrots, peppers, mushrooms) or just use potatoes w/ onion powder.  Lots of options!   My husband is a flat-out meat and potatoes man, so for his packet I just use the hamburger patty, sliced potatoes, salt, pepper & some onion POWDER (because he doesn't like real onions).  The potatoes cook perfectly soft.  We like to bake ours a full hour and a half to crisp the bottom of the burger.  You eat this like a hamburger steak - without a bun. Make sure to use a fairly lean cut of ground beef.  That does make a huge difference in the finished product.  (A higher fat content gives you a pretty s...