At Home My Way

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 weekend I set out to mix up some peanut butter cookies.  I am terrible at running out of things and forgetting to add it to my grocery list.  This time, I had no brown sugar.  What to do?  (sigh!) Lightbulb- a-ha!  I remembered that I had seen a post at One Good Thing by Jillee about making brown sugar.  I read the post with interest, but didn't expect the brown sugar that you get from combining molasses and white granulated sugar to seriously taste and "be" like store bought brown sugar.  I LOVE molasses on Homemade Biscuits , so I had some molasses in my pantry.  I grabbed a bowl, some sugar, the molasses, a whisk, and...WOW!  It was so easy and perfect and yummy!  I loved the texture of this brown sugar.  It was perfectly moist, unlike when I have store bought brown sugar that has hardened and no amount of microwaving it really changes that. I probably will never buy another box of brown sugar.  This i...

One of the most dependable food blogs for recipes that I can think of is Lynn's Kitchen Adventures .  I can always depend on her recipes to turn out perfect!  Last night I tried Lynn's recipe for Homemade Cheeseburger Helper .  I had my doubts, ha!  I had seen similar recipes before but I just could not imagine that a recipe with TOMATO SAUCE in it could really taste like the Cheeseburger Helper my family LOVES from the box (eek!).  I thought maybe Lasagna Helper or one of the other flavors but surely not Cheeseburger Helper.  I decided last night to give it a shot.  It could not have been more PERFECT!  Lynn!  You really nailed it.  And, I cannot thank you enough for this delicious, easy, super cheap and EXACT replica of Cheeseburger Macaroni. I say its an EXACT replica!  But it's even better.  Ya know how? It's CHEAPER!  I figure I spent less than $1.00 on the ingredients I used to make this (not counting the...

I made HM cornbread to go with my roast dinner last Saturday night.  I prefer to bake mine in an iron skillet because I love the crispiness that you get around the edges when you bake it in an iron skillet.  I do sometimes bake corn muffins if we are going to someone's house and that just works better for carry-in dinners and potlucks. This recipe came from http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/ .  It is the recipe for Plain Muffins using the variation for cornbread.  We think this is as good as Jiffy cornbread.  Not quite as sweet but I'm sure you could increase the sugar a little bit and make it your own way.  I like to make cornbread At Home My Way (OF COURSE!  lol). Homemade Cornbread or Corn Muffins ■1/4 cup oil ■1 egg (I only used the egg white and did not use the yolk.) ■1 cup milk ■1/3 cup sugar ■1/2 teaspoon salt ■1 tablespoon baking powder ■1 cup flour ■1 cup yellow cornmeal (not self rising) In a large bowl combine the oil,...

I love to take my basic recipes and be able to make something yummy with what I have on hand!  I will talk myself out of cooking every single time if I have to make  trip to the store.  The other night I really wanted something yummy.  I didn't have a whole lot of chocolate chips.  I had white sugar but I had just made these  Sugar Cookie Bars - Frosted  the week prior and I wanted to make something a little different.  I decided to replace half of the sugar in this recipe with packed brown sugar and added a few chocolate chips.  These Chocolate Chip Blondies are definitely a recipe I will make often in the future.  Even my husband commented that they were PARTICULARLY good and he's not a big "sweet" person (although he is very sweet :) ). Chocolate Chip Blondies  (These would be great for potluck - could also double this recipe and bake in a 9 x 13 pan (a longer baking time would apply). 1/2 cup room temp (so...

This weekend I was really in a mood to cook alot! I mixed up a batch of this french bread dough . I made one loaf of regular french bread to go with our supper. I rolled up one loaf of pizza bread. I rolled another one with ham and grated mozerella to eat for sandwiches for the week (sliced). But, the most exciting thing I made was I made homemade spaghetti pasta. I used this pasta maker which a friend loaned me to try out. You can find it on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Imperia-SP150-Pasta-Machine/dp/B002ZWA15K/ref=sr_1_2?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1297708223&sr=1-2 I used the recipe in the box which was: 2 1/4 cups flour 3 eggs I mixed this up with a little sprinkle of water and kneaded the dough until smooth. Formed the dough into a disk and wrapped in plastic wrap to rest in the fridge for about 20 minutes. Then we rolled pieces of the dough into strips with a floured rolling pin according to the directions in the box, fed those strips into ...

"Making homemade biscuits is not hard to do.  You basically MEASURE dry ingredients, CUT in cold butter, TOP with milk and STIR.  You can either drop or cut your biscuit shapes and bake them in a buttered pan in a hot oven until they are toasty.  Split a hot biscuit and smear on some butter and you have a feast!" Homemade Biscuits First thing: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Ingredients: 2 cups all purpose flour (unbleached is best) 1 Tablespoon baking powder (make sure its fresh) 1/2 teaspoon table salt 5 1/2 Tablespoons COLD salted butter 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons milk Options/Tips: Adding a little plain greek yogurt to the milk makes the best biscuits ( Add a heaping tablespoon of plain, greek yogurt or sour cream into the measuring cup before adding the milk to measure it.  Give it a good stir to incorporate.) 2 cups of self rising flour can be substituted for the all purpose flour, baking powder, and salt combo - since self rising flour already has baking powder and...

I am always on the lookout for perfect pancakes. I love pancakes, but I don't like sweet ones. I don't like dense heavy ones. I don't like to taste too much egg. I can't really describe the perfect pancake until I find it. Well... I hit the mother load and found it. I used to teach a bread baking class on Sunday mornings to our high school Sunday school class. They loved making these pancakes! Some of them had no idea you could even make homemade pancakes without a box mix, so they were thrilled to have this recipe. These are THE PERFECT PANCAKE... at least to me. We make up a bunch and store in either the fridge or the freezer for quick busy weekday mornings. I originally found this recipe at a favorite blog http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/pancakes.htm . This site is a great resource for all basic cooking recipes. I make lots of her recipes and they always taste great. I like my pancakes a little less thick and dense than the original recipe on the blog so I have m...