At Home My Way

My husband and I got married pretty young compared to today's standards.  I was 18 and he was 20.  We had never lived away from our parents and moving "out" was a terrific experience.  We cooked all kinds of things (BBQ for breakfast???) and had a ball making up on our own "rules"  like eating in the living room ha-ha.  After 26 years of ups and downs, (more ups thankfully LOL), we are back to just the two of us... Our older daughter graduated from college, officially "moved out" and got a terrific job this summer.  Our younger daughter is a couple of hours away at college so for the most part, we're back to being "home alone".   The juicy burgers supper I made last night was one of the first things I learned to cook.  My mother IS a terrific cook but she wasn't much into sharing her kitchen with a teenager, so I learned this "method" from a co-worker, who was just a couple of years older than me but who had already mas...

This weekend we celebrated my Mom's birthday. We decided to have a shrimp boil and fish fry since we would be eating lots of comfort foods this week for Thanksgiving. It was so yummy! We used bags of large frozen uncooked shrimp that we got from Walmart (since we live in the midwest and fresh isn't an option for us), cooked in a big pot on my stove in "shrimp boil" seasonings with new potatoes and little corn cobs. We started the water with the spices and the potatoes until they boiled (this took MUCH LONGER than we thought it would). Once it started to boil, we let the potatoes boil about 10 minutes, then added the corn (we had to use frozen so I had heated them in the microwave to take the chill off since we were about the starve to death.. LOL.)  We let the corn boil for about 3 minutes, then added the shrimp, which need to boil only a minute or two until it was pink and ready to serve!  My sister-in-law even made her own cocktail sauce using ketch...

I don't know about your area, but here in Mid Missouri, there are no nuts on the trees. I don't know what the poor squirrels are going to do! We live in the midst of a bunch of hickory trees and usually our yard is loaded, and I mean LOADED with hickory nuts! We have to shovel them or else our ground will be a mass of crushed hickory nut shells (the remnants left from the squirrels). Also our area usually has lots of pecans! Missouri pecans are so wonderful! But this year, not a single nut! The trees are strangely bare of pecans. What is a person to do when she loves pecan pie more than any pie on the earth? Why, there is a solution! Use oatmeal! This recipe produces a wonderful pie which is super similar to pecan pie. And just think, substituting oatmeal makes this ALMOST a healthy dessert (oh yea... except for all that sugar and eggs). OK, its a smidgen healthier! I'll take it any day over paying big bucks for pecans! Here is how I do a mock pecan pie, an Oatmeal Pie,...

Saturday, my college daughter was home and we wanted to do a little shopping. My husband was home piddling around in the yard. My daughter had requested meatball sandwiches for supper but we really wanted to go shopping at some great thrift stores and she was on the lookout for a warm coat at Bass Pro Shop. I didn't really want to eat out, so I came up with the BEST WAY for making spaghetti sauce (this time, with meatballs) without having to stand at the stove stirring and watching the pot simmer. When we got home, we had such a delicious supper waiting for us in the oven. It occurred to me that when I cook a roast or other things in the oven, that the gravy will be "juice" when I first start baking it, but the finished product is always thick and rich but I never have to stir it or anything. So, I thought, why not BAKE my spaghetti sauce? It was perfect. I will probably always cook it this way (when its not blasting hot in summer, that is). ...

Yesterday as I was reading over some of my favorite blogs I ran across a recipe for WACKY CAKE! Now, how can you read a name like "Wacky Cake" and not be intrigued? One of the blogs I most like to read is Kim's Jabez Farm blog . I love to read the posts Kim writes about her farm and family. She lives in the Pacific Northwest (where I have never even visited), and is a homeschooling mama who has a wonderful menagerie of farm animals. I work in a law office all day, wishing I was home, and ONLY have one dog and some cats! Reading blogs is definitely a wonderful way to experience a different way of life and at times, it is a delightful reprieve from my sometimes dull existence! I had heard about Wacky Cakes. My mom tells me she used to make them all the time, but I don't remember. Chocolate cake is CHOCOLATE CAKE when your mom bakes it for you, right? A win-win, whatever kind of recipe! I believe the history is that this cake was popular during the depression when ingred...

My husband and I are recent "empty nesters" and have been enjoying a little bit of new found freedom the last couple of weeks. We haven't ever been big restaurant eaters but we have a new affinity for Outback Steakhouse. It seems like the other restaurants have raised their prices to the point that we can now eat at Outback as cheaply as we can eat at one of our local diners. If we each have the Outback Special for around $10, and drink the ice water, its a pretty cheap date night. A few times we have splurged and bought a half order of the Cheese Fries. They are divine! And OF COURSE, I had to figure a way to make these AT HOME MY WAY! And boy oh boy did I have success! These are really good. My older daughter wants me to make them over and over in the same week. She just can't get enough of them. I bought a 20 pound bag of potatoes (well... I bought two actually) for $1.98 each so this date-night splurge was really cheap to make at home. We NEVER fry anything any mo...

My man is like most men. He prefers a "meat and taters" kind of dinner and I made him a terrific meal the other night. My only problem in cooking meals like that is that we don't walk in the door until after 5:35 every weeknight. But I figured a way to make a great meal and I probably had this terrific "home cooking" type meal (known by lots of different names, "chicken fried steak", "breaded cube steak") within about 30 minutes. How did I do it? Well.. one of the best things I have discovered is that baking potatoes in the crockpot is the ONLY WAY TO GO! So easy. So, I had potatoes in the crockpot, breaded the meat and fried it in a skillet with a teensy bit of bacon grease (shhhh!), opened a can of vegetables and dinner was served. With this particular meal, I used the leftover flour and milk from breading the meat to make gravy (very frugal) and it was just A FEAST. Even though I'm not a "meat and potatoes man" (woma...