Sometimes I Think I'm a Frustrated Food Photographer!

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Here' s just a few of my food photos in the past couple years!!

These are just a few because I seem to want to take photos of everything I make or eat!
Do you think I have a problem!!
Delving a little deeper . . . maybe it's telling myself that it was OK to get this expensive kitchen re-do 4 years ago!!!

: ))

Shirley

Tomato-Cheese Pie

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I have to thank Judy Von Duyke for this recipe!

She is the mom of the owner and trainer of the barn where my horses are.

Judy is about the same age as me.

One big difference.

She  can really cook!!!!

She brought a piece of this pie to the barn last week for us to try.

I loved it so much I made it yesterday again.

I had a big bunch of cherry tomatoes that I wanted to use up so that's why mine is so lumpy!!

All big slices from regular sized tomatoes look so much nicer!

Well . . . next time.

 Ingredients:

A single pie crust that was baking in the oven first.

Tomatoes, provolone cheese, herbs, and creamy Caesar dressing.

I used fresh basil, oregano and sage from my garden.

 Then you layer it.

I wasn't sure what to start with so I laid down tomatoes first, then dressing and herbs then cheese.

Then repeat layers.

Ending with cheese.

Now just place in the oven at about 400 degrees for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

 See, how lumpy mine is!!!!

And this is after Dexter tasted it because I had it too close to the edge of the counter and he was watching!!

Last night's supper:

Tomato-cheese pie and a turkey burger.

Only 16 carbs in the whole meal!

Yum!!

Thanks Judy.

I hope you hold some cooking classes this winter at your house!!

Shirley

Creamy Scrambled Eggs

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After all these years, I finally learned the right way to make creamy scrambled eggs!

And I learned it from Downton Abby!!!

I'll never make my scrambled eggs any other way now!  They are delicious!

As you can see, my girls have been laying me some beautiful eggs most of the winter!  I get one or two a day from the five of them, which is fine for me.

Aren't they beautiful!

With lovely golden yolks.

OK,  First, we aren't going to ever again use a skillet for making the eggs.

Use a saucepan and melt a good sized Tbsp of butter in there for two eggs.

Add 1 or 2 Tbsp of cream to the eggs and beat slightly.

Now, this is the important part.

With heat on low-medium, start stirring the eggs and don't stop.

Keep stirring; they will start to thicken.  When they do, shut off the heat and keep stirring till you have a creamy consistency and eggs are cooked.

Salt and pepper is all they need and they are heavenly!

NO MORE DRY SCRAMBLED EGGS!!

Recipe from Downton is on my Pinterest page under Breakfast.

http://www.pinterest.com/shirley_corwin/

Shirley

Apples and More Apples

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Apples, Apples, Apples!

So I made some more apple butter.

Monk has to examine everything that is set on "his" deck.

My jonathan apple tree is producing lots and lots of apples which are a little bit tart so I threw in a few macintosh and a couple gala too.  Plus of course sugar and cinnamon.

 I used my handy apple peeler.  I love this thing!

 I put the slices into the crockpot.  I continued to fill the pot all the way to the top.

I put about 1/4 C water in but I won't do that next time because there's plenty of water in the apples.

I did this at 7pm in the evening and let it cook on low all night.

 This is how it looked in the morning.

There was too much water in there.

 I mixed it smooth with my immersion blender.  (Another tool I love)

 I then cooked it on high without the lid till it cooked down to the consistency I wanted for apple butter.

I got almost 5 pint jars.  The one that isn't full goes in the refrigerator for me to eat now and the others, I'll freeze.

That's the only way I know to can things.  You'd think as old as I am I would've learned to can and preserve by now!!!  I never wanted to give myself botulism with canned beans!!

Shirley

I'm linking this post with Foodie Friday:

http://www.designsbygollum.blogspot.com/

Apple Butter By Accident

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Well, here's how that happened!

I fully intended on making some crockpot apple sauce.

I got out my handy apple peeler and peeled a dozen apples from my own tree.

(I feel like such a homesteader!)

I put all the apples in my crockpot plus about 1/4 cup water and turned it on low.

I did stir it around a couple times during the day, but then I completely forgot about it!!

(Where is my brain?)

When I looked again, it wasn't apple sauce color.  It was apple butter color and it had been cooking about 11 hours!!!

I tasted it, added some sugar and cinnamon and then a little butter and brown sugar.

Then I blended it smooth with my hand held stick blender.

Aww, that's good!

 I spread it on some toast.  Very tasty!

I'm going to freeze those couple jars and name it "Accidental Apple Butter".

(And my mother thought I'd never be a cook!)

May all your cooking "accidents" turn out good  : ))

Shirley

Turkey Soup

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I made a pot yesterday.  

I had it for dinner and have enough to freeze for 4 more meals.

There's some days you just NEED a good bowl of homemade chicken or turkey soup.

I made this by simmering two turkey drumsticks all afternoon in a pot with celery, onions and carrots.  I added the noodles at the end.

Yummmm.

Shirley

Sunny Yellow

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http://mellowyellowmonday.blogspot.com/

I'm linking up with Mellow Yellow this week.

I love keeping a bowl of lemons on my counter. Sometimes I use them sometimes a few sort of shrivel up before I do. But they always look so fresh and are there if I need them. In fact, I'm planing on making some lemon chicken tonight that I saw a recipe for this week. I hope I can find it again!

Shirley

No Cooking for Awhile!

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Houston, We Have (Had) a Problem!

Last Saturday, when I got up, my new refrigerator was making a loud humming noise. Never good!

I noticed my bottom freezer door was not closed tight. When I opened it and the upper drawer, all my frozen food was nearly all thawed out! I put some things in the refrigerator when I noticed it wasn't cooling either. Temps in both were 44 degrees!!

I tried to get some things into my little freezer down stairs but it was already packed.

I had to throw a lot away, gave some away and ate some for supper! You can only eat so much!

Of course it was the holiday weekend. Does anything happen on just an ordinary week day! Not to me!

I called the company service number and got on the schedule for Tuesday.

Long story short. I just did what I could and then went to the barn to see my horses!

When I got home, everything was working fine. I waited a day before canceling the repair that would have cost $79.95 just for coming into the house.

I think it was all from leaving the door ajar. (The refrigerator doors have an alarm if you leave them open but not the freezer drawers.) Who knows how long it was like that.

Anyway, I've decided I have to live off the things in my little freezer downstairs for awhile so if this ever happens again, I'll have somewhere to put things.

So that's why I won't be cooking for awhile.

No Foodie Fridays for a few weeks. But you can go see all the people that are making wonderful things for "Foodie Friday".

http://designsbygollum.blogspot.com/

Shirley

Cooking Mosaic

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I'm linking up with Little Red House for "Mosaic Monday"

You can visit all the creative mosaics here:

http://dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com/

My sister Sue came to visit me for about 10 days. She is here with me for Mother's Day. We spent the day at the horse barn, then shopping and eating!

She wasn't crazy about the horse barn part but it was my day to run the horses and I had to go see my boys!

My daughter, Michele, the photographer, also came for a visit and took all of these pictures. I have to apologize to her up front as her name got cut off on the mosaic ones when I did the collage in Picasa.

This meal was chicken fricassee with white rice and mixed greens.

I used chicken thighs, cut up 2 onions, 2 tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic and the juice of 2 limes. This is all placed in a big bowl and salt and pepper. Cover and place in refrigerator for a couple hours to marinate.

Remove chicken and brown in olive oil. Add the other ingredients to the pan and cook until onions are tender. Serve with white rice. Makes a wonderful sauce!

The mixed greens were thinly cut cabbage and spinach cooked till barely tender, s&p and a tbsp of white vinegar.

Rocky is, of course, waiting for his taste!

I hope you'll try this recipe. I got it from the TV program "Mad Hungry" on the Hallmark Channel.

Here's my daughter's logo and site. Visit her and take a look!

http://www.mzezulakphotography.com/

Have a great Monday!

Shirley

Miracle of the Burned Pot!

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Three nights ago I decided I wanted to have some chocolate pudding. I always make the cooked kind as I think it is soooo much better than the instant. And I had a big box of it; 6 servings instead of 4. I put it on to wait till it reached the bubbling stage and sat down at the computer, (in the same room I might add.) Big mistake. As you all know the computer just sucks time up like a dry sponge! All at once I smelled that horrible smell of burning chocolate! I couldn't save any of the pudding as it all tasted really bad. The bottom of my stainless steel pot was thick & BLACK. I mean this burned mess was grown to the bottom the the pot. It was way beyond scrubbing. I tried scrapping with a knife. (Don't do that.) I Googled "burned stainless steel pot" and low and behold, I wasn't the first one to do this. In fact there was a long list of fixes. I tried boiling salt water in it, didn't work; baking soda didn't work, vinegar didn't work. I came to the one that just said cover the burned food with about an inch of hydrogen peroxide and just let it sit overnight. Well that seemed easy; I didn't really expect it to work.

The next morning I poured the hydrogen peroxide down the drain and started to rinse the pot out under running water. In seconds I noticed that big flakes of the burned substance coming off. I noticed the entire burned piece had slid to the side!!!!!!!

I couldn't believe my eyes! I ran and got my camera!! (of course : ))

I took a paper towel and just wiped the entire burned mess out of the pot.

A miracle!!!!! The entire pot cleaned up with some soap and water. No scrubbing!

Soooo, go buy a bottle of hydrogen peroxide! Skip the rest of the fixes!! This is the one that works on stainless!!! I have my pot back!!

Shirley

Re-posting a Successful Bundt Cake

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This Sunday I chose to re-post an actual successful baking experience : )) This post was from August of this year. Thanks Chari for giving us a chance to re-do things! See a list of everyone's favorite things at: http://happytodesign.blogspot.com/

It's time again for Foodie Friday. Join Michael and all the participants for loads of wonderful recipes! http://designsbygollum.blogspot.com/

Don't you think I'm brave for cooking something again!! Well, this is baking; I'm a little better at that.

This is my new Silicone Bundt pan that I got at Marshalls for $3.99!! Thought I'd try it. I never had any silicone bake pans before.

Here is a photo of half the cake. (Yes, it made a whole cake!) I'm giving this half to my daughter as I shouldn't eat the whole thing myself!! (I COULD, but I shouldn't) It is just delicious.

I didn't take any photos while making this as it was after I had watched my grandchildren all day and it's just lucky I didn't get my hand caught in the mixer, let alone take pictures of all the steps of the recipe! I don't even know what possessed me to make a cake last night but I must've had a bad yearning for it!!!!

Here is the recipe. It came on the new bundt pan above that I bought.

Brown Sugar Coffee Cake

for filling:

1 tsp cinnamon

6 TBSP brown sugar

1 cup chopped nuts

Mix above ingredients together and reserve

For the Batter:

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 3/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

In a bowl with an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs and mix well. Add the vanilla and sour cream and mix until well blended.

In a separate bowl combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add this to the batter and blend until smooth. Spray the bundt pan with pan coating and if silicone, place on a baking sheet. Add half of batter into mold and spread evenly. Sprinkle half the nut mixture on top of batter then add remaining batter and sprinkle with the last of the nut mixture.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour and 15 min. or until wooden skewer comes out clean. Cool completely in silicone form before turning out onto plate. Can dust with powdered sugar.

This came out good for me : )) (Even though I messed up and didn't save half the filling for the top.) Delicious anyway!

Have a good Friday

Shirley