Alphabet Soup

For this week's Tyler Florence Fridays recipe, I chose meatloaf. While searching for the recipe online, I discovered that there are two nearly identical meatloaf recipes of Tyler's floating on the Food Network's site: Dad's Meatloaf with Tomato Relish and Country Meatloaf with Tomato Relish . The recipe that I've had for years is actually the latter. The main differences seem to be the inclusion of torn bread, milk and bacon in Dad's but not Country. I mentioned that I've had this recipe for years, and it's true. What's fun about this one is that I have it handwritten on a recipe card, not printed out like many of my more recent recipes, and that it's actually in D's handwriting (which admittedly, makes it a little (lot) harder to read...). He was the one that saw the episode of Food 911 that it was featured on and wrote it down. He's quite fond of this recipe actually! The recipe involves a little bit of work, but really the end result

As you may recall, I recently posted about participating in Operation Baking GALS for the first time . Well, OBG is celebrating their first anniversary! They are trying to promote the group, as well as celebrating with giveaways and such. Start by checking out the OBG website here . Now, like I said, the last round was the first time I had participated. I had seen it mentioned on various other blogs, and had even bookmarked the website, thinking to myself "that sounds neat...I should sign up some time." Well, for some reason I was moved to sign up last month, and am very glad that I did. I'm not sure why I feel so motivated to participate, to be honest. I didn't grow up in a military household. Well, my dad was a Marine (okay, okay, once a Marine, always a Marine!) but he was discharged before he and my mom even met. I don't have any close friends or family that are in the military. But...it just seems like a great thing to do (participating in OBG, that is). I

This month's cookie for the Cookie Carnival was Lemon Ricotta Cookies with Lemon Glaze , a recipe from Giada De Laurentiis (who is just too darn pretty -- it's not fair! LOL). I don't believe I've ever made a cookie with ricotta in it before, but it was good! The texture was almost like a dense cake, and it reminded me a lot of my Nanny's Pineapple Cookies (I'll have to post about those some day!!). My parents were over for supper, so I whipped these up for them to taste-test for me. My dad tends to like lemon-flavored things, so I figured he would be a good test subject. I will admit that I didn't make the glaze for it -- I took a poll and everyone agreed I should just skip the glaze (I think they just didn't want to wait that long to try one!). I would deem this recipe a success. The lemon was pleasant, but not overpowering. Instead of the two tablespoons per cookie, I just did a heaping tablespoon of dough per cookie (so just slightly smaller). I s

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection was Vanilla Ice Cream by Lynne of Cafe Lynnylu . You would have thought I could actually get this one made, right? And I intended to. I even went to the grocery store this afternoon and bought the ingredients to make it. Then we got home. And I had to get supper going. And then I re-read the recipe. And realized it would be ready to eat about, oh...say, midnight. So, my apologies to all those to came looking for yummy pictures and rave reviews. I'm sure it's a great recipe (although I may decrease the number of egg yolks, as suggested by some) and I hope to try it soon. In the meantime, be sure to check out what the other TWD Bakers did with the recipe!!

Well, at least the best breadsticks I've ever made! Simple, easy, delicious. You can't go wrong with that! I found this recipe over at Our Best Bites , a blog I've recently discovered. The original recipe can be found here , and has been used for all sorts of things, including breadsticks , pizza, pizza rolls, and more. I love making yeast breads, and these were a definite hit in our house. The recipe calls for you to start by proofing your yeast, or adding your yeast to a mixture of sugar and water. I skipped this step, because I use instant yeast , which does not need to be proofed first. Instead, I mixed the yeast with 1-1/2 cups of the flour, the sugar and the salt, then added the warm water. I highly recommend checking the temperature of your water/liquid in yeast bread recipes with a digital thermometer if you have one. Having your liquid at the proper temperature is key to achieving a good result with your yeast bread recipe. After mixing all that together, I added

I know what you're thinking. Chicken noodle soup, in July, in Texas. You're thinking I've lost my mind. Well, that is debatable, especially if you ask D... But no, it was chilly and rainy on Wednesday, and chicken noodle soup just plain sounded good! To top it off, I recently found out about a group called Tyler Florence Fridays . Everyone makes different recipes, either from one of Tyler's books or from his recipes available on the web, posts about it, and a roundup of the week's posts are then made. So, deciding to join in on the fun, I searched for a recipe for chicken noodle soup, and found one on the Food Network's website. The original recipe can be found here . It was actually from an episode of Food 911...I miss that show! :) Let me also remind you that nothing is ever easy at my house. What should have taken only a few hours (we were making our own stock, you know) in reality took all day. Why, you may ask. Well, I didn't even start making the sto

The new blog design, I mean. :) As you may know, I've been playing around with the design myself. However, I recently stumbled upon Scrap-e-Blog and thought her backgrounds were just the cutest, so I grabbed one and even had her make me a custom header to go along with it!! Thanks Cori!!!

First, a little randomness before I get to the topic of the day. Tonight my parents were over celebrating my dad's birthday. He mentioned that the cafe that he has coffee at every morning charges 89 cents for a "little ol ' chocolate chip cookie". Now, he doesn't realize that I've paid much more than that for a cookie, nor does he really need to. But anyway, I laughed and said "I'm in the wrong business." I look over, and my husband has his fingers stuck in his ears, saying "I can't hear you!" It was just amusing. Maybe you had to be there. Now, onto this "Chip Chick". It's my version of chicken strips/nuggets. I actually made this Tuesday night. Sorry...no pictures this time. My original recipe was handwritten on a piece of notebook paper, so I'm not entirely sure where this one came from. My apologies if I'm not giving credit where it is due. Also, I was once told that "how can you use potato chips? The

Several times over the last few months I've run across posts mentioning Operation Baking GALS . I'd even bookmarked the website. Well, a few weeks ago I stumbled onto this post from April at Wine Lover's Cooking Diary asking for people to join her team. I don't know April, or her brother, but something told me to sign up. I just had to. Here is a little excerpt talking about what Operating Baking GALS is: Baking GALS (GALS stands for Give A Little Support) is a group of volunteer bakers who bake and ship homemade goodies to our heroic troops that are currently deployed. Each soldier is “Hosted” by a blogger, and potential bakers are “recruited” from the bloggers own site as well as the GALS site. Each Host recruits between 20-25 bakers, meaning LOTS of goodies get delivered to our soldier…so many, in fact that he or she has plenty to share with their fellow troops! Why do we do it this way? Why not just ship to “Any Soldier”? Well, we don’t know “any soldier” – and “a

Just so you know, I blog all the time. In my head anyway. I'm always thinking to myself "I could write about this, and that..." I do this while shopping, driving, attempting to sleep. Sometimes while actually cooking. And yet, many of these thoughts never make it to the computer. Such is life, I guess. But look at me go. How many blog posts in a week's time? Let's hope this trend continues. While flitting about on the internet the other day, I came across a post on Bakerella's site about blueberry cornmeal pancakes. I became intrigued. Mostly because I love blueberry pancakes, and just so happened to have some blueberries in my refrigerator . It was fate, I tell you. Monday night I whipped up a batch of the orange maple butter. It was not as easy as described. Sort of like mixing oil and water. Oh, wait... Anyway, I got it "mixed" and into the refrigerator . Tuesday morning - cooking time. Cornmeal in my pancakes was an interesting idea. How would

Mmmm...brownies...yum. Brownies with espresso powder, cinnamon, chocolate chunks, and pecans...YUM! This week's Tuesdays with Dorie pick was Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies , chosen by Lisa of Surviving Oz . Lisa is not a regular TWD baker, but she recently won the TWD logo contest so she got the honor of making this week's choice. omg, you should read her blog...she's hilarious! Now, on to the brownies! I'll admit, mine are still baking away in the oven, but I wanted to get my blog post in while it was still technically Tuesday, and if I don't do it now while I have a chance, well it might never get done!! According to Dorie, this makes a thin, soft gooey brownie. Doesn't that just sound sinful? :) It's actually made without much flour at all, which sounds intriguing to me. I'm anxious to see how they turn out. Here comes the hard part...the waiting...I have to let them cool for 30 minutes in the pan after baking, then I am instructed to let them

Happy Belated Fourth of July everyone!! Christi and her family came over yesterday, and I decided to celebrate the occasion by baking... a lot! :) She had requested homemade ice cream. I was happy to oblige that request! I tried a new recipe, which can be a scary thing when you're having company over, but this one is definitely a keeper! A friend had shared this online article about ice cream with me, and I chose to try the Vanilla Bean Ice Cream recipe. It has some ingredients in it that I would never have thought of in ice cream - namely cream cheese and cornstarch! But they worked. With great results! If you've never made vanilla bean ice cream, you should definitely give it a try at least once - you won't be disappointed! And I can highly recommend this recipe. It is simple and easy to follow. I should also add that the size of the recipe is made for a smaller electric ice cream freezer, like the one I have . If you have a larger one, you may have to play around with d