Pantry Revisited

I love being in this group!  We get to visit a different country each month.  For August, we traveled to Canada.  I researched Canadian traditional foods and the one that I kept finding over and over was poutine - basically french fries topped cheese curds and then smothered with gravy.  It may be the most delicious side dish there is, but for some reason it did not appeal to me on this day.  Maybe tomorrow... I chose Pork Chops with Apples.  Having only had a half bag of popcorn for lunch today, I was ready for something really substantial.  These were very easy to cook and I have to say, they were delicious!  I served a creamy corn soup, Potage de ble, as an appetizer.  I left off the celery and the leek, however, and added a touch of cilantro for flavor.  I also cheated a bit and used frozen corn.  It was pretty good, but I'm not a huge corn fan, that is unless it is fresh corn on the cob grilled to perfection in which case I w...

As most of you know, my first grandbaby, a baby girl, is arriving shortly so I will not be cooking this week for the blog.  If the baby has not arrived by Sunday, my daughter-in-law will be induced on Monday morning -- so at least we have an end date to look forward to!!  YEA.   I will be back to cooking and blogging after next week!   Look forward to reading yours and seeing what good things to eat you all are preparing. I'm sure there will be photos next blog!!

Hostess this week is . . . Chaya of Comfycook.wordpress.com My blogging friend and a wonderful cook, Chaya, chose this week's Ellie Krieger recipe for our CEiMB group.  Sloppy Joes.  Now we are big "Manwich" people.  Especially in the winter months.  I love to make them for dinner and have a couple left over for work lunches the next day.   I have never heard of sloppy joes, however, with beans in them.  Until today. These were very simple to make.  You just cook some ground beef with onions, garlic, add some tomato sauce and a little paste, a can of beans, a few other items, dash of this and a dash of that, and in just a jiffy you have some fabulous sloppy joes!  I did make a few substitutions.  First, I left off the bell pepper because we aren't fans of the big ole red or the big ole green, or the big ole yellow for that matter. Although I do love a good stuffed pepper occasionally. I used red pepper flakes instead of...

Host for the week:  Jennifer of The Rookie Baker As most of you know, I don't walk away, I run from shellfish since I am uber allergic.  I wanted to make this dish and cook along with Jennifer, so I adapted and used grilled salmon.  Jennifer, this was an excellent choice - we give it ten stars! First, I had to find some wine that I liked while Chandler grilled our salmon.  I usually do not drink dry wines, so this was all I had.  It was pretty tasty. This recipe was so easy.  You saute some onions and garlic.  Then add the rest of the ingredients and simmer.  I did substitute cayenne pepper for the red pepper flakes, and sort of put in a pinch too much so ours had a kick to it.  "Fra Diavolo" means "Brother Devil", which means it is spicey, so it is not for the hot spice sissies. But man, is it good. I used whole wheat angel hair pasta and by the time it was ready, the sauce was too!  After the sauce cooks a bit, you add some fr...

Natalia of ttp://gattifiliefarina.blogspot.com/ One of my favorite bloggers, and I consider her my friend as well, is our TWD host this week.  When I saw it was her turn, I knew she would pick something delicious and I knew I would want to bake it along with her.  Chandler was very excited about her choice too because he loves carrot cake and figured these would be very similar.  He was right!  They are like miniature little bundles of carrot cake in a cookie shape!  I always think twice about baking a carrot cake because they just seem like a lot of trouble to whip up.  But these were so easy I will definitely be rewarding Chandler with these often.  I halved the recipe since we are still reeling from chocolate turtle cake that I made last night. It is a good thing I did because I could eat the entire cookie sheet while they were still warm!  The only change I made to the recipe was I substituted pumpkin p...