Changing directions

So to begin 2017 I thought I would take the blog in a new direction. I don't really have that many culinary epiphanies and I DO love to scrapbook and visit national parks. So what is going to start happening soon (within the first few weeks anyway) is this blog is going to be a place for me to post my scrapbook pages of my national park trips. I will start by going back to the archives of my scrapbooks done in the early 2000s. I hope to describe the trip and any important points about the construction of the scrapbook pages. For the early ones it may be "if I did it over I would....". So I hope you join me on my journey and let me know your thoughts!

Don't Do It Yourself

I am a big fan of cooking from scratch. I'm rather proud of my knife skills (learned through watching chefs on TV so probably still a little rough, but it suits me). And I love shopping at the local farmer's market where I can get locally grown produce and other delicacies. One of my favorite "other" merchants is a spice shop where I can get just about anything dried.

That being said, I recently purchased some items from the Tastefully Simple line which were purported to make dinner preparation a breeze--and they turned out to be right! Their "Onion Onion" flavoring mixed with various other ingredients has really made a tasty addition to our evening meals. So when I ran out I thought I could make my own to "save" time and the effort of seeing who was having a party so I could order more. But, after pricing the dried ingredients at the shop mentioned above it turns out that it is actually cheaper to order it through Tastefully Simple.

Lesson--sometimes you DON'T have to do it yourself!

Half-baked idea

My husband is not the best cook. I actually had to teach him how to boil water for pasta. I am not making this up. So there are limits to what I can ask him to do if I'm running late from work. To make things a bit easier, frozen pizza used to be a staple of the freezer. Until I learned that grocery stores stock bags of pre-mixed pizza dough--already proofed (proven?) and ready to roll out and bake. Now rolling dough is still a bit above my husband's skill level so what I do is buy 3 or 4 bags at a time and spend an hour or two par-baking the dough. Roll out the dough to your favorite thickness and shape (I prefer rectangular) and bake in the oven for 10 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. This bakes most of the dough but leaves it a little room to finish once the toppings are on. I stack them with parchment paper between and wrap in non-stick foil and put in the freezer. Now I can call and have him pull a crust out of the freezer, top with jarred pasta sauce, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. He bakes that for another 15 minutes until the cheese is bubbly and by that time, I'm home and ready to eat!

Substitution

Last night I decided to bake some banana bread as the bananas I bought were getting too ripe for cereal. I pulled up the recipe on my laptop and started putting things together--first the dry works and then the wet works. And there it was--the part of the recipe I forgot when I thought in my mind that I had everything I needed: 1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt. Those are 2 items that are NOT usually stored in my fridge so I had to come up with a quick alternative. As I looked around I thought about a chocolate cake my mother used to make that involved mayonnaise. I thought, "Why not?" and added it in place of the yogurt (well, about 1/2 the normal amount and 1/2 milk to keep it from being too thick). The batter came together nicely and the finished product was pronounced very tasty by my husband even after I told him about my emergency substitution.

Taco Helper

I have no idea if anyone will ever read this, but I sometimes think I have a note that will make sense to others. Today I want to mention my words of wisdom on tacos. First, no matter what seasoning you use, the best way to get it to pop with flavor is to heat it. Once I drain off the drippings from the ground beef, I sprinkle the spices across the meat and let it heat for a minute or two. Then I add the liquid to make the sauce. Also, did you know that you can replace about half of your ground beef with pinto beans? Or just augment the meat. Beans are a really great way to get protein and fiber with little fat. The texture is great!