Pantry Revisited

We are not eating a lot of heavy meats this summer.  But...we can never turn down a good bolognese.  Ina calls it her weeknight bolognese for a reason - it is easy to prepare and takes minutes.   Just look at it simmering above. . . the smell it creates in your house will make you hungry for sure!  It calls for a cup and a half of red wine.  Well I'm not a big wine drinker, but when you are cooking with wine it just makes perfect sense to taste the wine along the cooking journey, does it not?  This cabernet was very tasty.    While I was cooking the sauce, I decided to roast a couple of bulbs of garlic in my toaster oven.  Oh that is soooo good on bread.  I ate enough to ward off at least 100 vampires! Here is the finished product.  It calls for small shells but I used medium.  This sauce has a kick to it which we loved.  I have listed the link below for the recipe. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/i...

Hello everyone and welcome to Ina Garten's Fridays group!  This week we are showcasing soups, salads or sides.  I chose Ina's chicken salad.  Although she has a couple of different recipes, I like grapes in mine so that is the one I chose.   I have learned to wash my grapes in a water/apple cider vinegar mixture. . . just drop them in for a few minutes and swish around.  It removes all that white moldy stuff on the outside of the grapes.  Just makes me feel like they are cleaner and healthier. I served my salad with Rice Crackers.  These are fabulous for those looking for gluten free substitutes.  I eat them not to be gluten free, but just because I like that they are crunchy and delicious. This chicken salad is delicious and would be very nice for a ladies luncheon or even for a quick dinner for you and your family. Serves Four Ingredients: Four chicken breast halves (I used boneless) Olive Oil kosher salt ...

It is hard to believe that a year has passed and my husband will be celebrating again on Monday!  We are thankful for each year that we have and feel very blessed to have each other. He can never think of anything he wants for his birthday except for my carrot cake!  While this photo does not do it justice, and it would be much prettier in a layer cake formation, I make it a sheet cake so that it is easier to serve and share.  I cannot photo a slice of it since we will be having the official "cutting" tonight at our dance club. I thank Dorie Greenspan for this recipe and you can google and get the recipe if you want to try it.  It may take a bit more work than a boxed cake mix, but it is well worth the time.  I do not care for carrot cake, but I like this one!  It is chock full of carrots, coconut, walnuts and craisens.  Only one word for that - YUM. Happy birthday to my wonderful husband and I wish him many, many more! 

This is appetizers week in our Ina Garten Fridays group!!  I chose her deviled eggs because we love deviled eggs and I never deviate from my old family recipe so I thought I would branch out and try something different.  I'm so glad I did!  I love these and I am sure my DH will love them tonight for dinner also. With just these ingredients, you can impress your guests or yourself, with some delicious deviled eggs. Ina's recipe says to hardboil six eggs.  (I only did five because that was all I had and mine turned out a little fluffier than they probably should have, but delicious just the same).  If you don't know how to boil eggs, please take a minute to learn.  If your eggs turn out green, you have overcooked them.  To make perfect boiled eggs every time, I put my eggs in cold water and put them on the stove, bring to a boil.  As soon as they begin boiling, I take them off the stove and cover and let them sit for 15 minutes. ...

This month in our group that virtually travels to a different country each month, it was my choice.  I chose Belize because my wonderful son and beautiful daughter-in-law went there on their honeymoon and loved the country.  I wanted a "taste" of what it might be like to visit there.  As I googled to search for native Belizian recipes, red beans and rice and bread pudding kept popping up so I thought. . . why not? I like to start my blog with a joke that is relative to the country we are visiting.  I hope you like this one!  No offense intended.. . just good fun! Two Belizians were riding their bikes across a university campus when one said "where did you get such a great bike?" The second Belizian said, "I was walking across town yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on a bike, threw it to the ground, took off her clothes and said "take what you want." The first Belizian nodded in approval and said, "good choice...

Hello and happy Friday! This week in our Ina Garten Group we did desserts.  I'm going to a "A Day at the Races" party tonight and I thought what a great time it would be to just make some brownies to take and share.  Plus, if I don't share them, I will eat them all and that much chocolate and butter and sugar cannot be good for anyone!  These beautiful brownies have a pound of butter in them and almost two pounds of chocolate!  I actually halved the recipe and put them in an 8x8 pan so I had to cook them longer than the recipe called for.  Really, what dessert could be better than just some good ole brownies!!  These brownies are rich. . . I'm sure I could not eat a square as large as Ina says to cut them.  I ended up cutting each brownie into four pieces. After a pretty bad winter for us here in the south, our weather looks great for this weekend and I am planning to enjoy every minute of it I can.   My entire mood lifts when the sun is out...

Not a good photo here.  Our group this month decided on Czech Republic recipes.  I googled and there were a lot to choose from.  I decided on this "potato pie" because we love potatoes.  I served it with a crockpot Boston Butt smothered in sauerkraut and some whole green beans. If you do not know where the Czech Republic is located, it is in Europe surrounded by Poland, Slovakia and Germany.  The capital and largest city is Prague. I enjoy our monthly group because it is diverse.  We all enjoy choosing the different countries and trying recipes from them.  I have made some good recipes and some bad ones.  But every recipe teaches me something about a country that I might have known nothing about. As for the potato pie, it was a very easy and economical dish, but rather bland. Recipe: 3 eggs 3/4 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper 3/4 cup milk 3-4 large potatoes, peeled and grated 3 T. flour 1/4 tsp. baking powder 3 T. bacon fat Beat t...