What's cooking?

Lots and lots of popcorn balls!

Ive made some wonderful fudge this year. One is white chocolate with peanut butter cupa the other chocolate with walnuts. Yumbo...

Uh,
I'm about to jump into home canning for the very first time!

►First recipe will be homemade, whole berry cranberry sauce in a water bath canner.
►Second recipe will be jellied cranberry sauce in a water bath canner.
►Third recipe will be applesauce in a water bath canner.
►Fourth recipe will be hot packed sweet potatoes in the pressure canner
►Fifth recipe will be hot packed turkey meat in the pressure canner

If I make it through the above, well then, the sky's the limit!

And, if it moves, it WILL get canned, LOL! ^^_^^

Cookies, nut brittle, goodies for an Holiday Open House Saturday. Finishing up on sweets except for a last minute sugar cookie binge.

Ooooo ... luv sugar cookies.

I voted for Soup. Lots of homemade soups here. :) Yummy!

To wait the arrival of the sun after the snow, I cranked up the bread machine and made sweet rolls. Actually, the dough for the sweetrolls in the bread machine, but I shaped them and baked them up in the oven.
They were yummy and hit the spot after all the shoveling.
Martha

Ham 'n Beans, turnip greens, purple hull peas, cabbage, cornbread... and more

Tomorrow will be chow mien, my mom's recipe, and she's not Japanese, so it's not like anyone else's.

My husband's grilling lamb on the gril as we speak. Yummy...
Barb

Better than Sex Chex Mix
Eggnog bread
Dark chocolate espresso shortbread cookies with peppermint buttercream frosting
Oatmeal, chocolate chip and pecan cookies
Pumpkin cream cheese bread
Chili spiced pecans
And more to come...

A little bit of everything here. Soups, comfort food (lasaunga), sweets ( peanut clusters, whatever I get my hands on), and fresh rolls or croisants.

"Other", in this case, actually means "nothing" right now. In a couple of days the serious baking will begin. Somehow time got away from me this year, so the Bourbon Pecan Cake that I usually make in October of every year didn't get made this year. But I will be making several kinds of cookies, probably some peanut brittle. Would like to try Divinity again, but the last time I tried it, I burned out my mixer, so I guess I'll stay away from that.

Granny does fresh bread and pies, not much right now ,,
Did all kinds of pies and tarts for thanksgiving her and sister did .. lots of goodies ..
I can cook but never did seem to be much at baking ,, I'm a guy but that doesn't qualify as an excuse anymore , chauvinism ,, I miss it so dearly .. lol

The last of the butternut squash is in the pot. Between the squash bugs, stink beetles, and drought, it was a hard year.

Butternut squash soup:

Small shoulder roast (2-3 pounds), cut into cubes
2-3 onions, chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
5-6 kale leaves, finely chopped (optional)
1 pint frozen tomatoes, or 1 can if the freezer is empty
small cluster of fresh thyme leaves (1-2 tsp fresh leaves??- discard stem)
2-3 stems fresh rosemary, strip off leaves, discard stalk (about 1 Tbsp leaves)
2 bay leaves
1/2 jalepeno pepper (or other hot pepper to your personal taste
1 butternut squash, deseeded, peeled and cubed
1/2 cup barley
salt and pepper
1-2 teaspoon oil/fat for browning meat

Salt & pepper meat. Brown meat. Add onions and garlic and brown a bit more. When some of the meat begins to get that nice dark brown crust, Add 1 cup water. Add in everything else, plus enough water to just barely cover everything. Simmer for 3-4 hours, stirring ocassionally.

Serve with sour cream and fresh snipped chives. Cornbread, is optional.


This is a simple, hardy soup. If butternuts were not such a pain to peel, we would have it every week.

Sounds delicious. I agree about peeling the butternuts though. :)

Bluetexasbonnie,
Your recipe sounds delish! Two things:

1. Could I substitute short-bone beef stew for the shoulder roast cubes?
2. Can I put this into a crock pot for the 3-4 hours?

Linda

got a recipe for that eggnog bread? sounds yummy.

Flowrlady, am I too late for the ham n' beans n' turnip greens!? Yummmm!!!!!!!!!

Today we've got cookin' meatballs in a red sauce for meatball subs... but that's just soaking up the flavour for tomorrow's dinner. We also have chicken breasts poaching for tonight's burritos. Refried beans will go along with those. Mmmmm mmmmmm!! =)

I'm making pumpkin pies, goulash and beef soup.

The pumpkin pies are the recipe off the back of the can. I have my own recipes for goulash and beef soup.

Linda (gymgirl) -- I am sure you could use short bone beef stew -- or any meat that slow, moist cooking works well on. Pork roast is also excellent with this basic recipe.

You could make in crock pot. 3-4 hours on hi sounds reasonable to me. Use the same amount of time as you would for stew or pot roast and it should be perfect.

speedibean, I'll trade you! Yours sounds awesome to me!

cant choose just one, lol. We have made several batches of veggie soup, this is our favorite time of year for fresh baked yeast rolls, and an army of christmas cookies, LOL!.

I'm up this morning,, That reminds of my Grandmother , Traditional she was ,

""Not in my kitchen , A Man don't belong in a kitchen ,, any kitchen !!!'" ^_^

I broke a dish drying after , many years ago ,,
"" See what happens"" A man isn't suppose to be in my kitchen"

I still add fresh from the garden and such to a "Good Mean Microwave pre-made Dinner"
Only thing that comes pre-made that is really good though ? Herb chicken
and various noodles ,, (most of the latter ) anyway ..

Guess that is chicken noodle and the Styrofoam packed noodles are still popular ...?
Yes , indeed ,,, I do a mean chicken noodle soup from a can !!! lol
Makes sense to why I do a little garden .. lol

Oh yes, "Fresh from the Garden" ANYTHING is good to spruce up anything pre-packaged. Heehee, we do buy a lot of those frozen microwavable things, but only for his lunches at work 'cause he doesn't do leftovers, those are left for me. :)

I don't know if the styrofoam packed noodle things are still popular, I've not eaten one of those things since I was a young teen... and that was a trillion years ago. ;)

Hmmm, reminding you of your Grandmother... I don't think I'm quite that old! < =P But I agree with her; the best thing DH does in the kitchen is keep me company and chat with me while I'm cooking. :)

Amen to that, speedie!

I'll bet juhur cooks something as his specialty???

And I bet it's mostly fresh from his garden! =)

Me too.

Is it summer yet? < =P

Not the last time I looked but it will be in the 70s here in a couple of days. I'll take that for winter.

Use to cook a few , I don't remember as many as I might , That is what happens from not keeping my recipes ,
Cucumber fresh salad with other greens is not cooking , did one this past summer , took over an hour to make , Big salad in a huge bowl , It was gone in four hours , Glad I took a small serving before I chilled that ,, lol
Half of the greens in that ; I usually hear (" oh gross !!! how do you eat that !!!")
or , " i don't like those "
or " I don't care if everyone does , I just can't eat those "
Yeah . uh huh ,, people supposedly do not like vegetables ,, uh huh , once again ...
I guess because I fixed it for me , being selfish ,and I had a small bowl everyone was sure it was safe to eat.
Some strange satisfaction , when everyone who (does not like those ) ate more of "those" than I had ,,lol

Add on , chicken noodle soup , fresh sprouts and a hot ham &cheese for breakfast ,
Summer is being held prisoner by winter here 18 degrees 7 degree wind chill this morning .
Might get to 40's in a few days
(my redundantly old joke ) etc , it's still too cold !!!

Well, the salad definitely counts as meal prep. :)

Thanks, Bonnie!

I have never understood not eating leftovers....

Being from New Orleans, we figured out a looooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggg time ago that some dishes are actually BETTER eaten days later. Gives the seasoning a chance to permeate the dish.

Gumbo eaten on the 3rd or 4th day is waaaaaaaaaaayyyy better than the day it's cooked....

JMO...

And, if NO ONE eats the leftovers, do they just get thrown away? Please say this isn't a common, everyday practice for those who don't eat leftovers....at least package it up for the freezer for dinners down the road....or, portion them out for that 1 out of 9 of your neighbors who are struggling financially, even though they keep up appearances...

Sorry. I just hate mindless waste that could be helping others....

This message was edited Dec 18, 2013 9:44 AM

We go downstate for Christmas and then on to TN for New Years. The first thing everyone asks is "Did you bring jerky"? So in the smoker we have jerky and steelhead trout. It all gets packaged with our vacuum sealer and names written on in the interest of fair distribution.

Gymgirl, I am the "garbage disposal" of the house, I eat ALL the left-overs. =) I'm with you, I see NO good reason to let stuff go to waste... would rather it go to waist! ;)
1 left-over chicken leg? Throw it into the spaghetti sauce, bone and all; it'll give the sauce great flavour! (etc etc...)

Silliolegma, what sort(s) of jerky have ya got in the smoker? Do you ever do venison jerky? My Aunt used to jerk venison, and Mmmmmm it was yummy!!!

Hubby will make jerky out of anything he can get his hands on. Beef, venison and buffalo are the ones he make most often. Everyone tells him to sell it but it's all he can do to keep up with our large family. All our little ones have cut their teeth on his jerky. He also has his own special blend of seasoning that he makes up for family. Our local market has their own herd of buffalo so it is always available, kids and grands get plenty of deer every year too.

I make homemade soup for the winter...

This message was edited Dec 20, 2013 6:41 AM

Uh, JuJu55,
Would you mind posting a few soup recipes, please?

Do you have any beef, barley, or veggie soup recipes?

Thanks!

Yeah, I'd like a good barley one... never had it before.