Pantry Revisited

Hello Blog.  I've missed you! I've been suffering from a bad back for the last three weeks which has really put a damper on my Christmas shopping, baking, decorating, etc.  I am getting better daily and thanks to all of you who have checked on me!! Since my DH has been so sweet and helping me so much lately, I am making him a full blown dinner tonight complete with Christmas cookies. My sweet mom made teacakes when we were growing up.  They are a little softer I think than sugar cookies.  She made homemade chocolate syrup to pour over them and it was a fabulous dessert.  These are not fancy because I did not take the time to decorate them today.  Just a good cookie.  I discovered also today that making sugar cookies at Christmas by yourself is not nearly as much fun as it was when the kids were little and it was a half day adventure with decorating and baking! These are super easy to make and super easy dough to work with! Teacakes 4 ...

Recently a friend of mine blood typed me to help me know what foods, etc. are actually good for my particular blood type.  It is a very interesting theory.  I am type B  which means that my body cannot digest chicken or corn.  Only type A's can do corn.  There is a book written by Dr. Peter J. D'Amo that lists out the specific foods that are healing for you, as well as those you cannot tolerate.  Since I love chicken, that was a bit of a shock to me.  The medicinal meats on my blood type's list are lamb, goat, rabbit, venison, ostrich.  Now those are not meats that I normally eat.  On my neutral list, however, I can have beef and turkey, along with buffalo and several others.  It also talks about vegetables, dairy, juices, etc. and the specific foods that are medicinal for your body and those you should avoid completely. I am going to try this diet for a few weeks and see if it makes a difference.  I have heard wonderful things ...

I cannot believe it has been two months since I blogged!!  I haven't lost interest in cooking or blogging.  I have just been travelling some and really busy helping with a silent auction we have coming up November 1. I miss hearing from all of you and I hope you will hang in there just a little longer as I plan to start cooking again soon!  I already have several recipes clipped to blog about.  I'll be back on Twitter again soon too I hope. I have a question for all you wonderful cooks out there.  How long can you safely keep fried chicken in your refrigerator if it is in a box and not sealed airtight?  I'm about to eat some for lunch that I bought on Wednesday.

Some of my favorite twitter friends and I occasionally get together and cook up an Indian dinner together on twitter.  Margaret of Scones4me, Nancy of The Dogs Eat the Crumbs, Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table, and Rebecca "Hobknob", and also Abby of Mixitbakeit.  A fun group for sure! We decided on Authentic South Indian Biryani with Indian Cucumber Salad.  I'm not a lover of curry and fortunately for me this one did not include any.  It was easy to prepare and so delicious.  I especially loved the fresh mint in both dishes.  I also made some Kashmir Spinach to go with (I won't be making this again though hubs liked it).  On the side, we had delicious naan bread.  I could eat naan bread every day! Here are the recipes so you can try them yourself!  Really good.  I cannot wait to eat the leftovers for my lunch today.  Let me know if you try it!! A uthentic South Indian Biryani Ingredients 2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable...

Well here I am after a brief blog "vacation."  We have been travelling this summer so no time for cooking or baking.  Soon we will be traveling again to help my future daughter-in-law choose a wedding dress.  I'm very excited about being included in the shopping trip for that.  Of course, all the dresses are going to be beautiful. I think I have been watching too many westerns this summer.  I had a hankering to cook pioneer food this entire week and serve to my cowboy.  But after thinking about how much fried food there would probably be, I'm putting that off for a few weeks. I still intend to challenge myself and do it. Last week, I was fortunate enough to have lunch at my friend Pat's house and she served the most delicious hot chicken salad.  I have tweaked the recipe just a bit for my own tastes.  Very easy to put together if you use a rotisserie chicken like I do.  For a different variation, add a cup of cooked rice to the mix. Al...

I cannot believe it has been several weeks since I have blogged.  So much has gone on in my life that there has not been enough hours in the day to cook something special, much less blog about it!! We have been travelling quite a bit and the month of June holds more travels for us.  Some exciting, and some necessary. For those of you who are our facebook friends, you know that my brother-in-law Roger had an unexpected brain aneurysm which culminated in brain surgery a week ago.  Thanks to all of you who have been praying for him.  He is making progress, but has a long way to go.  We are so thankful for his progress this far and hope he improves every day. Wednesday we lost a dear friend of ours.  The father of our close friend Lisa.  We loved Mr. Littleton and will miss him greatly. So, life sometimes gets in the way of cooking and hobbies.  But I will be back as soon as possible.  Please keep checking back in and thank you for your ...

On Thursdays, my friend Joanne of Applecrumbles and I have been trying to cook our way through Carla Vavala's book Fusion of Food and Friends .  These recipes are heart healthy folks!!  And I have yet to make one of her recipes that was not tasty.  Check out Joanne's webpage to see what she has been cooking. Broccoli would not be my first vegetable of choice, but neither would it be my last.  Preparing it this way, however, was a new and delicious taste to a familiar vegetable.  Very simple and quick to make as well. Cut fresh broccoli florets.  Microwave them for 4 minutes.  Preheat oven to 400.  Splash broccoli with olive oil, salt and pepper, garlic powder and cook for about 12 minutes in the oven.  Then sprinkle with lemon juice. Enjoy!!!!