A Bride’s Cookbook or Surviving the First Year is no longer on Cafe Press because they don’t do books anymore.
However! It is now on Amazon!
…or Surviving the First Year
A Bride’s Cookbook or Surviving the First Year is no longer on Cafe Press because they don’t do books anymore.
However! It is now on Amazon!
John and I are in Charleston enough that we’ve become volunteers at the Southern Season Cooking School. It’s great fun and we learn something new everytime.
Over the Christmas holidays we helped with a Lowcountry Breakfast class and I loved their sweet potato biscuits:
3 cups soft white flour (Southern Biscuit or similar)
1 heaping Tbl baking powder
1/2 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
2 Tbl sugar
12 Tbl cold shortening, cubed
2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potatoes
1/2 cup cold buttermilk
Heat oven to 450 degrees.
Sift dry ingredients and with a pastry blender, cut in cold shortening until coarse with a few lumps.
Stir in sweet potatoes.
Stir in buttermilk with a spatula until a loose ball forms. Do not over-mix.
Quickly turn onto a floured board and knead 4 turns.
Pat into a circle, 3/4 inch thick and cut with a well floured 2 and a half inch sharp cutter.
Place close, but not touching on a parchment lined sheet pan.
Bake for 15 minutes, turning half-way through baking.
Brush with soft butter and serve immediately.
I love ordering nachos in Mexican restaurants. My husband and I share them and talk as we pull out each chip loaded with goodies from the huge pile.
I’ve found that they are really easy to make at home too! Just layer nacho chips and shredded grated cheese with either ground beef or black beans and stick under the broiler to melt the cheese. Remove from the oven and sprinkle some shredded lettuce on and drizzle with salsa.
If you’d like: serve with sour cream, jalepenos and or gaucamola.
So easy! In fact we just had this tonight!
I just read this great article I wanted to share. This is pretty much what I do!!
How to Fill Your Stomach on an Empty Fridge by Kori Perton over at refrigerator.com
We’ve all been there.
It’s been a long day, your stomach is devouring itself, and there’s nothing in your fridge but dried-out veggies, eggs, and condiments. Unless you want to gnaw on an onion or partake in some plain toast, it’s looking like Chinese takeout again… or is it?
If you’re willing to put in a modicum of elbow grease, there are plenty of legitimate meals that can be made from your pantry’s dwindling
supplies. And by legitimate, we mean delicious.
Here’s the dish on cooking when there’s almost nothing in the house to eat.
Pasta
Got pasta? Then your stomach is safe, my friend. Put a pot of water on to boil and let’s take a stroll through your fridge and pantry.
Jarred tomato sauce is wonderful if you have it, but there are plenty of dishes you can make without it. The old classic is melted butter, freshly ground black pepper, and parmesan cheese. Add some dried herbs if you like—sage is especially nice.
Pre-made tapenade makes for a lovely pasta sauce, but if you don’t have any, you can just slice up some Mediterranean olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and/or roasted red peppers, and toss the mixture with cooked pasta, olive oil, and pepper. Really, most veggies sautéed with a little garlic and
olive oil will do nicely—they don’t even have to be particularly fresh.
Once you’ve made a satisfying sauce, toss a poached or fried egg on top to add protein to the meal. (We like them runny, so that they coat
the noodles when you dig in.)
If you’re not feeling like Italian tonight, you can use the peanut butter in your pantry to make a simple Thai-style peanut sauce. There are lots of tasty recipes out there, but we usually find ourselves mixing up whatever thematically appropriate ingredients we have on-hand and taste-testing till we’re satisfied.
Peanut butter, a dash of soy sauce or fish sauce, sesame oil if you have it and vegetable oil if you don’t, and a small amount of rice vinegar, cider vinegar, or lemon/lime juice makes up the basic mixture. Ginger (fresh or dried), scallions, and raw or sautéed veggies are nice additions, but not strictly
necessary.
Fried Rice
Fried rice is the ultimate throw-together-whatever-you’ve-got dish. You’ll need day-old cold rice (although freshly-cooked rice will make a meal too, just
a mushier one), but from there it’s pretty much up to you.
Mix everything together, stir-fry it until everything seems hot and well-combined, and stuff your face.
The basic gist is you take a large pan or wok, heat up some oil, and add aromatics like garlic or onion. The dish builds from there, with sautéed veggies, then leftover cooked meat or tofu (or nothing), then eggs you scramble until they’re just a little runny, then your day-old rice and any sort of seasoning from soy sauce to hot sauce.
Mix everything together, stir-fry it until everything seems hot and well-combined, and stuff your face. Or, erm… politely consume the rice at a
reasonable pace.
We love how easy it is to adapt fried rice to whatever leftover bits and pieces we still have when the rest of the food is gone. Hamburger fried rice?
Been there, enjoyed that. Scallop-sausage-scallion? Crowd-pleaser! Anything goes.
Sandwiches
If you have some bread available, a near-empty fridge is a call to creativity. Sure, there’s the classic PB&J, and we’d never turn down an old-school gooey-crispy grilled cheese, but desperate times can call for experimentation. (Or homemade pizza bagels.)
Mustard, mayo, and hummus are pretty standard condiments, but there are other ways to spice up your sandwich. Add any meat leftovers, cooked veggies,
perhaps even fruits if the flavors mesh. Add chips for extra crunch. (Or just because you’re an adult, and you can.)
You might enjoy making overloaded, eclectic sandwiches the day after Thanksgiving, but why not carry that approach throughout the rest of the year?
Not every sandwich will be a hit, but the phenomenal ones will make it all worthwhile.
Breakfast Foods
Breakfast foods can be a godsend come dinnertime. Eggs—scrambled, fried, sandwiched, poached, quiched, or made into an omelette—are quick and filling.
French toast is as simple as having egg, bread, and milk to work with, and if you have some basic baking ingredients, pancakes are yours for the making.
Try mixing in fruits and/or nuts for a more filling, interesting meal. If you’re out of syrup, top with fruit (raw, or zapped in the microwave until it releases juices), jam, applesauce, honey, yogurt, or nut butter. These ingredients are also lovely on top of a nice, loaded oatmeal, along with nuts, seeds, and spices.
Bacon, sausage, toast, or home fries work well when it comes to side dishes, as does a can of beans sautéed with onions, peppers, a little cumin, and a dash
of chili powder.
Desserts
Okay, so you’ve scrounged together a surprisingly decent meal, but you still have a sweet tooth to placate. Good news: We have a couple recommendations.
Peanut butter cookies are ridiculously simple. Just mix together a cup of peanut butter, a cup of sugar, and an egg. Form the dough into flat, round
cookies on a parchment-covered or greased baking sheet and bake for 6-15 minutes at 350°F. Cookies are done when the top has set. They’ll be soft and
gooey until they cool. They’ll also be delicious.
Rice pudding requires just as few ingredients, and can be made with fresh or leftover rice, any kind of milk, any sweetener, and a flavoring of choice. It’s a simple, homey dessert that we have definitely never straight-up eaten for dinner. No, never.
Learn More about the cookbook that started it all, now updated, revised and better than ever! or purchase here
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