My Favorite Cookbook

As you can see this cookbook has seen a lot of use. I have tried to find another copy but have had no luck. It came out in 1970.

I have used so many of the recipes, but I substitute Grade B Maple syrup for the honey. It tastes so much better!

Simple Soup for the Calorie Concious.

Stracciatella Soup

• Cook 2 chicken breast tenders in water with a little bit of rock salt.

• Throw some spinach in and basically you have Stracciatella soup.

• For others not so concerned with watching their weight - you can add in capellini pasta.

• Add a little Parmesan cheese.

My granddaughter says “I want soup, I want soup!”

Garlic Mashed Potatoes

This is a quick recipe:

• Peel and cut potatoes

• 6 gloves of garlic (split open) in water while potatoes are boiling.
  

• Boil potatoes until tender (the smaller the size you cut the potato into will determine how long you need to boil)

• Mash potatoes with butter and half & half.

Yum!

Potatoes Au Gratin

Here is how I make Potatoes Au Gratin:

• Slice potatoes really thin, like a chip.
• Casserole dish 2” deep.
• Dice onions thin
• Vermont light sharp Cheddar cheese mixed with mild white cheddar.
• Butter (I am a serious butter-aholic. So I use 1-2 sticks of butter. I frequently make big casseroles so it depends on the amount I am making.)
  

Layer potatoes, salt, pepper, butter, onions, and cheese. Add another layer. You will get about 3 layers of potatoes.

Pour whole milk over it till casserole dish full.

Bake in oven at 300 for about 2 hrs.

Enjoy!

A Few Cheater Ingredients

I don't make my own pastas. I have no time to make pasta from scratch. Barilla is my favorite pasta to use. Gelson's Market sometimes has gourmet pastas. I love Celentano's large jumbo frozen ravioli. They are as close to home made as I have ever had. I don't like the tiny little square raviolis.

I use pasta for large parties because it is easy to make and not mega expensive and you can "dress" them up. And who doesn't like pasta. I will do my own sauces when I have time and my own meatballs.

If I am in a hurry I will make a cheater sauce. I will use Prego Mushroom Sauce and add to it. Add fresh tomatoes, extra spices, Worcestershire sauce and my meat. Prego makes a really decent sauce.

I'll even use it as a starter sauce, or add it in if I didn't make enough sauce or if my sauce is too thin, too close to serving time, I will use it for thickening. Just grab a jar of Prego and fix it!

I will reveal my own sauce soon...

4th of July BBQ

Since everyone asked me how and what I did to the meats I cooked up on the BBQ, I thought I would share with everyone.

Chicken Marinade:

• Salt
• Lowery's Seasoned Salt
• Garlic Powder
• Juice from 1 1/2 large navel oranges
• Paprika

Left the chicken to marinade over night. Yum!

Pork Marinade:

• Trader Joe's Fire Roasted red and yellow peppers
• Sliced Onions
  
• Garlic Powder
• paprika

I cut a pork tenderloin into thin pieces and then left it to marinade over night until the BBQ.

Steak Marinade:

• Salt
• Garlic Powder
• Diced Onion
  
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Paprika

Leave the meat to marinade over night.

Enjoy...

Teaching My Granddaughter To Cook

I have been teaching my granddaughter to cook for the last 2 years. She is now 6 years old. She really loves to help.

She started off just stirring the soup and mixing things. It was easy to open a can of soup. She can now use the mixer. She knows how to use the mixer with much reverence. I have started teaching her how to chop things and mix and prepare things.

She told her mother that she wanted cooking lessons. She wanted me to give her cooking lessons. So now we have actually started with specific recipes.

• She learned to make gravies, she knows everything that goes into making gravy.

• She knows how to make turkey burgers with all the spices in them.
  

• She knows how to make no-sugar cheesecakes. Both kinds; the kind that you cook and the kind that you refrigerate.

• She has learned about food design. She knows the difference between slopping the food on the plate and putting it there so that it looks pretty.

She loves her little creations. When it is dessert time she has to individually serve each person their dessert plate that she has created. She loves to serve that which she has created.