Pantry Revisited

We are focused on zucchini this week in my Good Friends Good Food group.  I had a hard time choosing a recipe because zucchini is one of my favorites and there are so many ways that you can use it!   I thought about muffins and zucchini bread - both favorites especially this time of the year!  But then I narrowed it down to two chicken dishes and I ended up making both of them this week!   For purposes of this group and this blog I chose to highlight the chicken zucchini casserole.    I found a recipe on Pinterest that really sparked my interest and then I tweaked it a bit to make it more to our liking.  And liking we did!   Honestly this was so good and we enjoyed the leftovers just as much as the first dinner.  I will definitely be putting this in our dinner rotation.  It is the perfect weeknight dinner.  I found it easy to make and only uses a few ingredients.  I cooked my chicken breasts quickly in the instant pot and then...

This week in my GFGF food group we are focusing on tomatoes!  There is nothing tastier in the summer to me than a fresh tomato pulled right from the vine.  While I do not have any plants of my own, I do try to buy Organic vine-ripened tomatoes.  The thought of tomato season coming to an end is sad.  But as with everything else in life where one door closes, another door opens and we will have pumpkins coming soon!  There is a place that we go camping in Alabama that has a wonderful tomato pie on their menu.  In fact, it is the only place that I have ever ordered tomato pie!  I know they have been recommended by Southern Living Magazine.  If you get a chance to visit there you should.   It’s in a quaint little town called Mentone.  It’s called the Wild Flower Café.  So that menu item was the inspiration for my tomato dish.  I do not have their recipe so I just adapted one of my own. I am sure that this would be much better with ...

This week in our Good Friends Good Food group we are focusing on green beans.  I searched many recipes and had my eye on a casserole, but then I decided to make salad.  I love salads that are chocked full of “stuff.”  So, I started with green beans and then added this and that.  Then more this and that.  I was extremely happy with the end result and cannot wait to eat the leftovers!  I have named this recipe “Not Your Granny’s Green Bean Salad.” My DH does not care for green beans.  He will eat them, but it is not his favorite.  After we ate and sat down to watch tv, unprompted he said this to me.  “Now you know I do not love green beans.  But....these were possibly the best green beans I have ever eaten.”   After my shock wore off, I realized a compliment from him for me was the greatest.   We had grilled steaks with this and it was a delicious meal!  Truly, I think I could have eaten a large bowl of this for my entire me...

It has been a while since I posted.  Yes.a.while.  This week I reconnected with some friends and we decided to cook together again!  Even though we are miles and miles apart, we have fun connecting.  We have named our group Good Friends Good Food .  Check out grandmaskitchentable.typepad.com and teaandscones.wordpress.com for more squash deliciousness!  If you would like to join our group, we would love to have you!  Just leave a message in the comments below. We plan to be creative and have fun with  green beans on September 25th!  Come join us! I think with the Covid virus keeping us more homebound, more of us are cooking at home.  I know I am!  We decided to do a squash recipe this week.  I had gotten some delicata squash in my vegetable co-op last week so I decided to use that.  I had never heard of this kind of squash.  Apparently, the skin is thin so its edible.  Just a good wash and you are ready to...

 OK I am just making a short post today because I’ve been unable to get into this blog for at least three years.  Today for some reason lock was with me and I just hit the sign in button and it worked!    Welcome back Peggy!

These are called "My Newest Chocolate Chip Cookies" in Dorie Greenspan's Dorie's Cookies book.   Other than a bit of a nutmeg and coriander the recipe is very similar to a regular chocolate chip cookies. I have never been a huge fan of chocolate chip cookies.  Which is very strange because I love chocolate!   For a cookie to be great in my opinion it has to be chock-full of things like nuts, fruit, etc.  i'm really a pie kind of girl.  Even as a child I would choose pies over cakes for sure!  The only cookies I remember my mother making when I was a child are her famous tea cakes with homemade chocolate sauce and chocolate oatmeal boiled cookies. Do any of you remember those?  Sometimes we would add a tablespoon of peanut butter to them.  They were very yummy!  I'm allergic to oatmeal now so those days are gone. Anyway these are delicious cookies and very easy to make.  I used a small melon baller to scoop out the dough. ...

I attempted to make Dorie's buttermilk blueberry bars.  I tried to half the recipe.  In this case, that did not work as well as I hoped.  Also, When I took my crust from the oven it  had some almost black areas on it like it had burned even though I removed it five minutes earlier than the recipe called for.  They were just random areas.  Anyway the cookies tasted delicious and that's what's important!  I would definitely make this again. I cannot stop eating these cookies!  They are that good! Next time I will make the full recipe. Check on our website to see how others fared.    Dorie