The Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge: Month Five

Welcome to month five of our cooking-through cookbook challenge.

I hope you’re having fun!

This time of year for us is when Autumn is beginning to come around and Fairs are in full swing.  Baking and comfort foods are about to take center stage in our kitchens.

So for September let us enjoy:

homemade-from-scratch cakes

This includes any frosting recipes that you may find in your book to go along with those homemade cakes you’re about to bake.

I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying.  It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this.   I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.

I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen.  A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂

(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)

Happy Cooking & Baking!!

🙂

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A Glimpse of a Rural Life – Bindering the Wheat

 

Homemade Chicken and Waffles

I recently shared a recipe about the homemade waffles which we made for our Chicken and Waffles dinner.

I don’t always think about sharing recipes of some of the foods which I’ve eaten for years but which are considered regional/ethnic foods of my rural area and family heritage.  Chicken and Waffles is one of them.  It’s actually a very simple meal to get together and truly a “from scratch” meal.  Don’t knock it until you try it!  You will find that it is very good over freshly made homemade waffles.  🙂

The ingredients list is quite short and we tend to make it after we’ve roasted a chicken in the oven and have leftovers.  Take some left over or recently cooked chicken, cut into smaller pieces, and some chicken broth (either homemade or canned) and put both in a medium size pot (you can made as much or as little as you want).  Get that heated and to a boil on your stove; now you need a thickening agent.  We take equal parts cold water and flour and whisk together in a bowl until it’s smooth.  Once you have that (start with 3/4 cup cold water and 3/4 cup flour; you can always make more) whisked together you will just whisk it slowly into your boiling chicken/broth mixture on the stove.  Add it gradually because you may not need all of it to get to the consistency that you desire; really it is your choice on how thick you want the chicken mixture to be.  I think when it coats a spoon nicely it is good.  I don’t like it to be too thick and chunky; but if you prefer that, go for it.  Once it is as thick as you want just keep it heated on the stove (don’t let it burn/stick to your pot), and stir it occasionally, while you make your waffles.  Add some salt and pepper to your chicken mixture if you desire or add it to your plate at the table; your choice.

That’s all there is to it.

Serve over your favorite waffles and enjoy!

 I just thought of ham, potatoes and green beans – have you heard of it?

What about Shoo-Fly pie? Have you heard of that one?!

Those are other Pennsylvania German/Pennsylvania Dutch recipes commonly made here.

Stay tuned…

Waiting for my Groom

A Glimpse of a Rural Life – Pumping Water

Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge : Homemade Waffles

We needed Waffles for our Chicken and Waffles so I opened my Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook which I’m cooking-through and made their recipe for Easy Waffles.  We’ve made homemade waffles before and I wanted to try another recipe. These are quick to get together and we had 12 waffles made with all that batter.  What a great tasty waffle recipe! 😊

Enjoy!

 

 

Back to School

{Flowers of the Sun}

The Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge: Month Four

We now have been cooking-through our books for three months and have enjoyed various recipes.  I have been enjoying this challenge especially since I’ve really been looking at certain sections of the book and reading various recipes which I’ve been overlooking for many years.  Even though I’m not making every recipe in my book I am actually concentrating on a particular section each month and determining which recipes to try.  I think that having a full month to actually look at certain recipes is a good thing for me.

For August I’m introducing something unique to my challenge:

*it’s a Wildcard month*

That means only one thing: you can make any recipes from the cookbook which you haven’t made so far during this challenge

I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying.  It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this.   I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.

I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen.  A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂

(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)

Happy Cooking!!

🙂

~Former Hospital~

I work in a former hospital building which has been converted to office spaces.

It’s a very old building with lots of nooks and crannies and many undiscovered places.  Sometimes I walk around the outside of the building.  Between two of the buildings is a secluded area where some smokers hide to smoke in private.  I keep on walking through…

Makin’ relish

I haven’t had much time to cook-through my recipe book lately to keep up with my cook-through challenge.  Summer has become a busy time for us.

Now it’s relish makin’ time.  Zucchini Relish to be exact.  This is so simple to make and the best tastin’ relish.  I’m using our own home grown zucchini and onions but I had to buy the peppers since ours aren’t ready yet.

I’ve been making this relish since 2015 from the Ball Blue Book.

 

The veggies are sitting in salt water for now.  In a couple of hours they will be ready to be cooked with the vinegar and spices for canning.

We are having a better year with our garden compared to 2016 and have been preserving many things.  We will be very busy when our tomatoes begin to ripen.  We have 6 Roma tomato plants and plan to can a lot of them.  We also have 4 others for eating and they are all growing quite well along with everything else.

I hope to find time soon to make some new recipes for the cook-through challenge.  As I said in the beginning we will make as many recipes from our books as time allows.  And summer isn’t allowing me much time for that!

 Happy summer!

The Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge: Month Three

I hope that you found the challenge of chicken and beef recipes exciting and made some yummy food last month!

For July lets dig through our books for some yummy

Appetizers and Beverages

I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying.  It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this.   I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.

I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen.  A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂

(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)

Happy Cooking!!

🙂

Blogging silence…

Summer is a busy time as food begins to ripen for preservation and day trips are on the agenda.   Hope to share some more posts with you soon, as well as some photos.

Spent much of today picking cherries from our trees.  

(We’ve already made Strawberry Jam and canned it; homemade is the best!)😍

Easy Homemade Rice Pilaf

I enjoy various flavored rice and Rice Pilaf is one of them.

I have found a quick, easy and tasty way to make a homemade Rice Pilaf which tastes much like one of those packs found in the store.  I have the ingredients on hand and you probably do too.

Ingredients

long-grain rice (not quick cooking); I love Uncle Ben’s because it tastes great and cooks perfectly every time!

chicken bouillon cubes (or another flavor you enjoy)

Directions

Mix together the ingredients needed as stated on the box of the rice and for each cup of water add one bouillon cube to the pot

Cook your rice as stated on the box and your bouillon cubes will dissolve and flavor your rice

My husband doesn’t like white rice unflavored but he loves this one since I’ve begun making it this way.  It has great flavor and you can always add any other ingredients which you enjoy.  We both think this tastes like the packs of Rice Pilaf with flavorings that we were buying.

Enjoy!

Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge : My Homemade BBQ Sauce

To kick off month two I will share my homemade BBQ sauce recipe which was inspired by the BBQ sauce recipe listed in the Poultry section of the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook which I’m cooking-through.

Last week we had grilled chicken and I made this sauce so I have some photos to share.

A couple summers ago my husband was grilling chicken and asked me for some BBQ sauce to put on it near the end of the grilling time.  I looked in my fridge and found a bottle of some old out-dated sauce.  I had been seeing various recipes to make homemade sauce and while watching those cooking shows about BBQs in the South I wanted to try my hand at creating my own.  Some people love dry-rubs for meats and others love a sauce.  I like both as long as the food is tasty.  🙂  I pulled out my trusty BHG cookbook and another recipe or two which I had clipped from somewhere and compared recipes for homemade BBQ sauce.  I have created my signature BBQ sauce from the inspiration of BHG cookbook’s recipe and another recipe and since that day I haven’t bought BBQ sauce.  This doesn’t make a lot of sauce (approx 3/4 cup) and it is always perfect for chicken, burgers, deer chipped-steak or anything else tasty.  (You could double or triple the recipe as needed for your needs too)

In a small saucepan stir together the following:

Ingredients

1/2 cup ketchup

3 Tbsp brown sugar

1 Tbsp mustard

1 Tbsp water

1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce

1/4 tsp granulated garlic or garlic powder

1 tsp liquid smoke (I use Hickory liquid smoke)

Directions

Cook on the stove on a low to medium heat and stir as needed for 2-5 minutes.  Do not boil.

Now your sauce is ready for whatever you want to add some pizzazz to.

Enjoy!

 

 

A Glimpse of a Rural Life – Taking Over the Land

As you can tell from this image the Power Company has taken some of this Amish Farmer’s land to run electricity through the area.

The Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge: Month Two

Month One was fun with salads and salad dressings and I hope you are enjoying this opportunity to create some new foods for those you love.  I know that I have found some “keeper” recipes which I will add to my rotation of foods.

For Month Two the categories are:

any Chicken or Beef recipes

or make them meatless if you are vegetarian

I challenge you to look through your book for recipes which fall into the above category and make as many as you want too.

I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying.  It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this.   I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.

I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen.  A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂

(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)

Happy Cooking!!

🙂

Knitting time

I couldn’t stand it any longer.  After a two month break from playing with yarn I just had to pick up the needles again.  I’ve been occupied with Ravelry again versus my blog.  Here’s my latest project (almost finished!)…

I’ve been thinking about giving this cowl as a gift.

And I’ve been drooling over so many other patterns for my next knit project!

Don’t worry…tomorrow is June 1st and in a few short hours the cooking-through challenge category will be revealed… 🤔

God is talking to me but my husband’s not listening

I said those words to my husband the other day; he laughed.

I went to the local library to pick up a few things including a book titled Back to Basics.  As I reached to grab the book from the shelf another book fell onto the floor right at my feet.

I had a really bad day at the office and the desire to quit my job was so strong.  For several years now I’ve really wanted to stay at home and not have a job other then tending to things at home.  This book is so very appropriate for that and I felt that God was trying to tell me to follow the yearnings of my old soul (because I’ve really been praying for some help in recent months).  My husband just doesn’t understand and most others don’t either.  It is a feeling that you have deep down in your soul for the desire to be at home.  To tend to things there and to find fulfillment for yourself.

I grew up in a rural community on a farm and spent summers at home and going to town on my bicycle.  I really wanted to see the world and to have a fulfilling job.  Now as an adult I just want to go back to the simplistic domestic life.  It is difficult, even without children, to have a full time office job in a city 35 miles from home and to balance home life with that.  I never in my life wanted to take care of my home as I do now.  And I know it also means that I really need to take care of myself because I’m really burned out.  There is no fulfillment for me in a job outside of the home anymore.  I know that the daily commute and anxiety and stress of that commute as well as the job has really taken its toll on me.

I’ve decided to take a little vacation this week and get away from the job and be at home to recharge myself and find some happy.  Last evening I began reading this book and it screams to me to follow my soul’s desires.  Selling that to my husband just doesn’t seem to be working though (and I’ve been trying for several years).  I’ve even thought of ways to make money to sustain us a bit.  I thought of selling photography, knitted and crocheted items on Etsy but after reading books about those ventures I’m not sure.  And if you look on the world wide web it seems like everyone is doing it and competition is fierce.  So since those things don’t seem to be working in my favor maybe it’s a sign to just stay at home, be me and find some happy.

Even the photo on the front reminds me of me.  I love to knit and cook and bake and I wear my glasses when I’m at home.  It was meant to be for me to read.  As I read through this book I will know a bit more about whether it is what I truly should be doing for myself to survive.

Dreaming about cookies!

I recently acquired these two cookie books…

And all I’ve been able to do is dream about cookies.

I’ve been making more cookies lately (just the standards which I love so much) and I Love, Love, Love what Betty says in her Picture Cook Book about them:

I don’t have a proper old-fashioned cookie jar but I do like having cookies in an air-tight container on my kitchen counter (as I do now).

So I couldn’t help myself when I learned about Betty’s vintage cooky book.  I was drawn to it immediately and searched for one online; a used one, of course.

This Betty Crocker Cooky Book is from 1963 (First Edition First Printing) and it looks like new.  I don’t know if the price sticker on the front is from 1963 though.  The cover with all of the cookies just draws you to this book and there are many recipes inside.

This Woman’s Day Cookie Cook Book is from 1963, Third Printing.

It only cost 75 cents back when it was sold in ’63 which is such a bargain by today’s standards.

I’m guessing that many housewives in the 1960’s were very busy baking cookies once they retained one or both of these publications.  I can only imagine how magical Christmas must have been back in that time with so many cookies coming out of mom’s oven.  They can really make a home so warm and inviting especially when the smells are floating through the house as they are baking.  Ah…such great memories!!

What cookies do you enjoy making and keeping in your home?  Do you have a proper old-fashioned cookie jar full of cookies all of the time?  Please share some of your cookie memories with me.

Chocolate chip are my most-favorite cookies and I love using milk chocolate and dark chocolate chips versus the semi-sweet; and I must use butter in the recipe!  I’ve been addicted to the Nestle brand of chips because the chocolate content is better than Hershey’s (in my opinion the taste is so much better) and European chocolate is the best over anything because their number one ingredient is almost always chocolate (cocoa) versus sugar.  Do you look at the ingredients listed on your chocolate chips?  When you see sugar listed first you will find that the taste is just not as good as those which have the cocoa ingredients first.

(On a side-note, I love European chocolate over the American chocolate.  If you haven’t tried any European chocolate you’re missing out on something very extraordinary in taste and quality.  It seems like sugar has become the number one ingredient in all chocolate made in America anymore and the cocoa content is minimal.)

So many cookies…

so little time…