At Home My Way

I got the recipe for this Pineapple Sheetcake from my husband's aunt.  She is a wonderful cook and a very special lady!  My husband likes to say that it's almost like he has two moms (Aunt C is his mother's sister and she lived in their basement for many years while he was growing up).  There is a funny story about Aunt C buying him some blow up shoes so that he could try walking on water.  Let's just say that didn't work for him LOL.  Back to the cake... This is one of Aunt C's most requested dishes!   This Pineapple Sheetcake makes an appearance at just about every single family dinner whether it's Christmas or the 4th of July.  We all love it and savor leftovers (if there are any).  It is not overly sweet.  The cake has no oil/fat in it since it includes a whole can of crushed pineapple and the whole thing turns out moist and just delicious!   I made this cake for a potluck lunch at work the other day.  I had worked all d...

I rarely BUY anything for canning.  Its like if I buy something to can, I am defeating the purpose.  Usually if I can't get it in my garden or unless someone has a surplus and gives it to me, I just won't spend the money on an intended frugal choice.  HOWEVER, peaches are another thing! Look at these delicious Missouri peaches!  Sure wish you could smell these because Mmmmmm, they smell like heaven must smell! Folks in my part of the country are knee deep in canning season. I have several friends who were canning a BUNCH of salsa this weekend.  During my trip to the grocery store, my checker saw the Surejell in my basket and commented that her mom and aunt were canning lots of salsa on Saturday; that she couldn't WAIT to get home to smell it cooking!   Friday night we spent some time with friends who were planning to do a BUNCH of salsa canning on Saturday.  (They ended up canning 54 pints!  WHEW!)   These friends casually menti...

Last night after working on our daughter's house all weekend, I was hungry for real food.  We had eaten all sorts of fast food the past few days - ugh!  Also, I was really tired!  Really, really tired!  For some reason the thought of something yummy in my tummy outweighed the tired last night.  I put a small ham in the oven to bake and when that was ready, whipped up a batch of instant mashed potatoes, dumped some canned green beans in a pot, seasoning them with onion, ham base, and a little bacon grease (which is one of our favorite things to eat),  and mixed up some Homemade Biscuits .  What a feast!  While I had the oven on, I mixed up Tin Can Banana Bread   (which I baked in my oven instead of in my crockpot) and some homemade brownies.  I had absolutely no snacks or breakfasts at my house!  Nada!  It was slim pickings!  But, usually if I think a little bit I can come up with something I can make from m...

We spent the day moving my older daughter.  She bought her first home last week.  Pretty exciting stuff but also lots of hard work!  The place is an adorable bungalow type house and it just needs a little paint and a good cleaning.  We moved her stuff into our box trail er until we can get the house move in ready.  Here she is with the new place: Needless to say, I haven't done much cooking this weekend! I did get a chance to go down to my garden and take a look-see.  It's SLOWLY coming to life.  I have lots of green tomatoes; definitely  I see lots of cherry tomatoes in my future!  I better get the Homemade Ranch Dressing ready ! I picked a few things.  Nothing grand and worthy of canning or a feast, but I'll take it, considering my harvests are usually small and they are prone to being gobbled by turtles, groundhogs, and deer !  Here is a few goodies that I picked tonight.  I think I have enough for a small ba...

The other night I whipped up a batch of Homemade Chocolate Pudding.  I decided to throw CAUTION to the WIND because I didn't have any cornstarch.  My recipe calls for cornstarch.  But I know that flour is also a great thickener so I used flour to see if that worked.  Did it work?  It SURE DID!  I couldn't tell a single bit of difference!  In fact, I will probably use flour now instead of cornstarch.  I don't use much cornstarch in my kitchen and I always have flour so I was glad to discover that as a substitution.  The pudding was thick, chocolatey, and warm.  What a combination, huh? If you haven't tried warm, chocolate pudding, then definitely put that on your list of things to try. I posted this recipe a long time ago when I made my younger daughter's' "Last Supper" before she left to go to Kansas City to college.  But this recipe deserves a post of its own.  It's that good! Pudding is a grea...

This meal is one of those crockpot meals that literally takes 30 seconds to put together.  Anyone who says they don't have time to put dinner in the crockpot needs to try this. I do go ahead and get my crockpot and can of soup out on the counter the night before, and thaw the meat so that I have very little prep time in the morning.  I never seem to have much time in the morning before I leave for work, no matter what time I get up, so quick to put together crockpot meals are lifesavers for me. There's nothing like coming home after a long day to a house smelling like supper's already on the table.  I usually cook some flat wide egg noodles to go with ours but mashed potatoes or rice would also be great.  Also, don't throw away the leftovers because those can be added to a container in your freezer where you might keep leftover vegetables for soup.  I use any leftover gravy, beef, etc. to add into my vegetable soup, w...

My mom always made lots and lots of biscuits when I was growing up.  Given my age...dot, dot, dot, (LOL), some of the homes I grew up in didn't always have air conditioning, eek... hot, hot, hot.  That was also before eating out became quite so "acceptable" nor were we able to find so many prepackaged items for meals - so my mom ALWAYS cooked supper - from scratch - with real food.  No matter how long her workday was or how hot it was, she always cooked supper (and we weren't overweight... go figure).  Usually we had meat, a starch, a vegetable, and either biscuits or cornbread.  If we had spaghetti or tuna casserole, we still had some sort of bread.  Sometimes the bread was my favorite part of supper, since we also wouldn't EVER consider telling my mom "I don't like that."  We just ate it and that was that. When our kitchen was blazing hot, it was a real NO-NO to turn on the oven for obvious reasons.  Mom ...