Cheesy Potato Soup

Spring is the perfect time to post soup recipes, right? Sure it is!

The thing is, I made this last fall, but one thing led to another and I never ended up writing the blog post. I wrote out the recipe and posted the picture on Facebook, but that's as far as it went. So now here I am, catching up and trying to clear out the flotsam and jetsom on my computer, so it's mid-May and I'm posting soup. So be it.

The Great 2017 Holiday Baking Extravaganza

Every year, I do this Holiday Baking Extravaganza. Some elements are the same each time, some are new, some rotate depending on my mood and what fits into the mix well. This year I did three recipes I always make (Grandma Brown's Gingerbread, Cherry Pie Filling Bread, and Soft Molasses Spice Cookies) and tried five new things. All of them were fabulous!

2017 Holiday Food Report

This year, in addition to doing a blog post on the ridiculous amount of tasty treats I make every year (The Great 2017 Baking Extravaganza), I thought I'd do a second one featuring a fun thing I did for a close friend as well as the Christmas Day dinner I made for my mother and myself. I tried a number of new things this year and had a fabulous time doing it, so it occurred to me I should share.

Cottage Pie

What's the difference between Cottage Pie and Shepherd's Pie? The former uses ground beef while the latter uses ground lamb. Otherwise, same thing. Meat, vegetables, gravy, mashed potatoes... ultimate comfort food!

Spinach and Artichoke Lasagna

A while back I wanted lasagna, but I didn't own any ground beef or tomatoes or anything else to make traditional lasagna. I did, however, have a bunch of stuff I originally intended to use for a variation on a Greek pie. Well, what the heck... I like white lasagna, so let's see what happens! As it turns out, it was fabulous, and it freezes really well as a bonus.

Hamburger Stroganoff

You know those foods from your youth that are the ultimate in comfort food? This is one of mine. The amount of ground beef used to vary depending on how much money we had, and sometimes there was more pasta than others, but the taste was always the same. Pure comfort.

Stuffed French Bread Breakfast

And for my next trick... the blog post to accompany my 1000th recipe post on Facebook!

I used to make this all the time, back when I was younger and a little wilder. My sister used to host this weekend at her cabin where a bunch of us would get together for a good time, and I usually made something for breakfast. Stuffed French Bread Breakfast made an appearance more than once, since it's simple, tasty, and easy to eat with your hands around a bonfire.

Shrimp Chowder

In keeping with the cooler weather, here's another warm, tasty, surprisingly easy batch of comfort food. It's even relatively inexpensive! I'd been trying to find a recipe for shrimp chowder that had everything I wanted and failing miserably, so I decided to write my own. I think it's pretty darn tasty!

White Chicken Chili

The weather turned cold early around here, and has me thinking about comfort food. Chili is pretty high on my list of cold weather go-to meals, so I was thinking I should make some white chicken chili. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I'd taken the pictures and finally written the recipe last December, but never wrote the blog post or even so much as posted the picture and recipe on Facebook. No time like the present, I guess!

Cornish Hens with Quinoa Stuffing

This blog post is a long time coming, but it's worth the wait. Last Christmas (see, I know... stop being lazy and blog already) I was looking for something different to do for dinner. I'd recently started working with quinoa after resisting for a very long time, and much to my delight it turns out we like it. Plus, I found a source for it where it doesn't cost its weight in gold (I'm looking at you, Trader Joe's!), so I kind of went overboard for a bit. You'll have that.

This was based on a recipe for stuffed chicken I had in my files, probably from either Cooking Light or Weight Watchers, that used rice.

Snickerdoodles

Of all the cookies of my childhood, Snickerdoodles are easily in my top three favourite. They're easy, they're tasty, and they keep for just about ever in the freezer. I can't swear to it, but it's entirely possible my profile picture is from a Snickerdoodle day. It was either that or peanut butter, since I was only allowed to help make those two when I was that little.

One tradition from my childhood that I still keep is visible in the picture above. See the gap where there should be another cookie? It was in my mouth while I took the picture. It's practically a law that I have to eat one when it's so hot from the oven it burns my tongue!

Four Cheese Macaroni and Cheese with Bacon

Sometimes you simply need to have comfort food, regardless of whether or not it's even remotely healthy for you. There are a lot of sites out there offering recipes for comfort food that has been "healthified", and bless their hearts for trying, but when I need comfort, I need comfort. Damn the nutrition, full steam ahead. You know?

That's what this is. I'd had a really bad day, I was hungry, there was a bunch of cheese in the refrigerator, and I ran with it.

Chicken and Barley Casserole

A while back I bought some barley at the Asian market, because I had something I wanted to make with it. Fast forward several months, possibly even as much as a year, and there's me, standing in front of the cupboard looking at a bag of barley, thinking... "I had a plan for that!"

Absolutely NO idea what that plan might have been. None.

So... Chicken and Barley Casserole. I had chicken thighs in the freezer, and I needed to make room for other things. I had carrots left over from another recipe. It seemed like it was meant to be.

Marinated Steak Stir-Fry

After an approximately 847-year hiatus, I actually got to cook again *and* had time to create a new recipe while I did it! Ever since I made the decision to only write blog posts for recipes I create instead of those I get from other places, it seems like I hardly ever post any more. My Facebook page has a new recipe every day M-F, but most of those lately have been recipes I found online somewhere or were something simple I threw together that didn't justify an entire blog post.

This, however. This was amazing! And I made notes. And took pictures as I went. It's nothing short of astonishing I remembered to do both of those things, really.

Pasta Primavera with Ham

A hundred years ago, I made a recipe I found online that used farfalle, ham, asparagus, and chive & onion cream cheese. It was... blah. I mean, it wasn't bad, it just had no pizzazz. No excitement. Nothing special. I filed it away, intending to make it again someday with changes.

Fast forward something like eight years. The first asparagus of the season is in the store (not from here, but from this country). Ham slices, pasta, and cream cheese were all on sale. And somehow from the depths of my brain I dredged up the recipe. The trouble was, that was at least four computers ago and I have no earthly idea what it was or where I'd found it.

Chicken and Artichoke Hearts in Dijon Cream Sauce

Most of my best recipes are born because I'm standing in my kitchen trying to figure out what the heck to make the day before grocery day. Which is exactly what happened here. I had chicken breast in the freezer, a can of artichoke hearts on the shelf, and a box of whole wheat couscous in the cupboard. I also had part of a carton of heavy whipping cream.

I love that I can start with that and come up with a meal that not only tastes good but falls well within the dietary restrictions I am hobbled by!

Everything But the Kitchen Sink Cookies

Sometimes, you've just got to have chocolate chip cookies. I used to just use the Toll House recipe on the chocolate chip bag. I figure if it was good enough for my entire childhood, it's good enough for my adulthood. Makes sense, right?

And then a number of years ago I met a friend online who went by the name Ralf_Kramden. This recipe started out as his, but then I added some stuff to it because it didn't quite have everything I wanted as he wrote it. And now I almost never make just regular Toll House cookies, because these are so exponentially better I can't even explain it. And every time I make or eat one, I remember Neal, and I smile. He passed away a few years ago, but he was really the one who got me started on this whole making and posting recipes online thing. Who knew when we started talking on a now defunct computer tech message board's "kitchen" forum, I'd end up here?

Super Bowl 50 Food Report

As you know, last Sunday was Super Bowl 50, with the Panthers taking on the Broncos. As you also know, the Broncos quite handily won the game, giving Peyton Manning another ring and leaving the sports world ranting over Cam Newton's behaviour.

Whatever. We didn't have a dog in that hunt, and while we love football we are ALL about the food!

Quick Shrimp and Vegetable Stir-Fry

Every time I write a new recipe for a stir-fry, I giggle. Because stir-fry, much like quiche or stew, is pretty much a catch-all for whatever you feel like throwing in it. This one was born because I had a bag of salad shrimp and some winter blend vegetables in the freezer and I needed the room. I also had a green bell pepper I couldn't remember why I'd bought that was about to go bad, so I threw it in. Had it been a plan, I would've used a red pepper for contrast, but so be it. This was really tasty!

Chicken Tortilla Bake

File this under "Things I Found in My Pantry" or perhaps "Let's See What This Tastes Like". I had a couple of tortillas left from making Breakfast Burritos, and I didn't feel like just spreading something on them and eating them. Since I also had some Mexican taco blend shredded cheese left, I decided to make a casserole.