Joy of Cooking
I recently borrowed a cookbook from one of my wonderful Suzy Homemaker -type neighbors. In just a few short weeks, I've switched from boxes and cans to quick & easy homemade EVERYTHING. Goodbye, Wonder bread... Hello, fresh-from-the-oven! If you do not already own it,
Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition - 2006
is an absolute must-have for your cookbook collection. I think that if I could choose ONE cookbook to own, this would be it because it has everything you could ever need to know about just about any food you can think of.
From my personal experiments so far, I recommend: Milk Bread, Cloverleaf Rolls, No-Knead Light Rolls, Broiled Lemon Garlic Chicken, & Chicken Cordon Bleu. There will definitely be more food reviews from this book to follow this post in the future!
PS- I ordered my own copy of the book last week and it got here (all the way to Okinawa) in just 4 short days!
Next, I want to try
Joy of Cooking: All About Soups and Stews
,
Joy of Cooking: All About Breakfast and Brunch
, &
Joy of Cooking: All About Vegetarian
. I will let you know what I think of those after I get my hands on a copy. :)
Labels: book, bread, cooking, homemade, Joy of Cooking
I Will Plant A Little Seed...
Since December, I have developed an even greater taste for green vegetables. Brussels sprouts top the list, winning by a landslide. My brussels sprout consumption was cashing in at a whopping 1-2 bags per day until one day last week. Now that the economy has all of us in such a bind, mom and I decided that this is the perfect time to start that vegetable and herb garden that we have both been dreaming of for so long now. I am extremely excited to see how well these veggies are going to do over the course of the next few months and to reap the harvest once they are ready for picking! It is absolutely amazing how fast the plants have grown since the day that we started them, one week ago! The $5 Jiffy Seed Starter (with 50 peat pots) that we purchased at Walmart, along with the cheap Seed Starting Jiffy Mix, has proven a very worthwhile purchase. So much so, in fact, that we made the trip twice to make sure that we get plenty more before it all flies off of the shelves... which it did just about two days ago. Our new little garden consists of:
- Bibb Lettuce
- Brussels Sprouts (see picture below)
- Cayenne [Red] Peppers
- Serrano Chile Peppers
- Cilantro/Coriander (see picture above) &
- Radishes (in the cut-off milk carton in the picture below)
The radishes are the most recently planted seeds (just last night, in fact) and there are no sprouts yet, but I suspect that they will not take long to work their magic. They have a very short germination time (7-10 days) and short time to harvest (20-30 days). The brussels sprouts have darted up out of the soil like they are in some sort of a veggie race and their time is considerably longer than that of the radish! Everything that we chose to plant is going to save us a good pocket of money because we buy them repeatedly throughout the week. Check back often to see the progress that our yummy little garden is making! Coming Soon: Tomatoes, Sweet Banana Peppers, Cucumbers, and maybe Red Onions!
Labels: brussels sprouts, cayenne, chiles, cilantro, coriander, garden, Jiffy, peppers, plants, Seed, serrano
Follow the Leader
Okay, I'm going to participate in this little game of follow the leader with a couple of friends who have moved to Blogger/Blogspot and we will see how well I can keep up this time. Hopefully, Chris may even be convinced to blog here as well. He should have some interesting things to post while he is sailing and seeing the world. Meanwhile, I will contribute by blogging about Lily's latest accomplishments and all of our "adventures" here in the states for the next few months and the ones that we will embark on once we return to Okinawa in May or June! Maybe I will signup for an account on flickr or Picasa so that I can organize all of our photos into nice, neat online albums that will make it super easy for everyone to view/access. Now... where to go from here...
