I love my crock pot! Although I am a (mostly) modern woman with a full-time job, my family still depends on me to provide meals every evening. And, I do enjoy cooking. I take pride in providing nutritious meals for my loved ones, and I have even been told that I am a very good cook.
Having said that, it must be said that in the winter, at the end of the work day, after trekking through snow, and holiday shoppers, no one feels like making cheese and crackers, never mind a whole meal!
This week, I had the opportunity to see TV chef and cookbook author Ina Garten. She was in town at an event sponsored by Rainy Day Books, an independent book store here in Kansas City. While I don't consider myself a very good cook, I love to watch other people cook, even if it is just on TV. I have watched Ina, known to her fans as "The Barefoot Contessa", cook on TV for years and to see her in person was a real treat.
My favorite Thanksgiving memories are of my father and I making Thanksgiving dinner together. Everyone pitches in with their special favorites, but we fix the turkey.
We are not turkey snobs: simple is better.
We’re feeding a large crowd, so we find the largest, cheapest turkey in the store. We thaw it out the day before in a large sink of water.
Every year since I was a child, my family has roasted our leftover Halloween pumpkin. Yes, I mean the whole pumpkin. “Why?” you might ask. I answer: pumpkin bread and pumpkin cookies and pumpkin pie; pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin ice cream and even pumpkin soup!
We roast the pumpkin, scoop out the soft insides, and freeze the puree for the holidays coming up right around the corner.
Thanksgiving Leftovers Become Make Ahead Freezer Meals With These Fabulous Cookbooks
Thanks to these life changing cookbooks, this working mother of five has had a healthy, homemade dinner on the table every night for the last several months. The idea of "assemble-and-freeze" meals was new to me, and I’ll never go back to cooking and washing pans every night again!
The holidays are fast approaching! It's time to plan that special holiday meal. It's also time to bake tasty treats for the special people in your life. Are you feeling overwhelmed yet? Did you know that MCPL has a fantastic collection of holiday cookery? A few of my favorites are:
Have you been to allrecipes.com? It’s so much fun! Use it to search for any type of recipe and to compare the many versions that thousands of cooks have posted on the site.
Does anything have a worse reputation during the holiday season than fruitcake? So now that Christmas is over, what do you do with that dried-up brick made with those candied fruits? I say throw it away, and start perfecting a fruitcake made from fresh or dried fruits instead.
My co-workers and I were just discussing the merits of having a cookbook without pictures. Many of us cannot understand the appeal or utility of having a cookbook that does not illustrate what the delicious outcome is supposed to look like. Most of the time, pictures are useful in helping you decide what you want to make.
