A little food Inspiration

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Cindy

I’ve gotten a little food inspiration recently on Pinterest and have decided to share a few with you.

One thing that I make now – several times a week – is No Knead Bread. Most of you know that I although I love to cook, I’m not that great of a baker. Doughs that I have to knead or roll out into pie crusts are not my cup of tea. And, my lack of having the knack for it shows in my final results, ergo, I’ve quit trying. So, when I saw a Pin of a pretty loaf of bread with a caption underneath that read, “No Knead Bread” I figured it was worth taking a look. The instructions seemed easy enough – as a matter of fact – the author demonstrated with photos of her four-year old making a loaf, just how incredibly easy it is. How hard could this be, I wondered?

After a trip to the grocery store to buy yeast (I had a package in my cupboard that was at least 50 gazillion years old, so thought better of using it) I tried my hand at it. My first loaf, although very tasty, didn’t rise as much as the one in the photo I had seen, and I guessed it was because I used rapid-rise yeast and not instant as the recipe had called for. No store in my little town had the instant in stock, and since I don’t know that much about baking with yeasts, I guessed there wasn’t such a thing, anyway. Turns out, there is a product called instant yeast, and the trick for using rapid-rise instead is to use more in your recipe. I doubled the amount in the next loaf, and voila, it turned out perfect!

Another recipe I tried was for crack-tastic crackers. Saltine crackers, canola oil, red pepper flakes and a packet of dry ranch dressing. Simple! I use Keebler Town House crackers since I don’t normally keep saltines in the house. These are yum to eat as snack, but I also envision making them to use for canapes for guests, too.

Another wonderfully good find is the chicken and dumplings recipe, I found recently. I already have several recipes for this dish in my recipe book. One calls for using one of those tubular cans of biscuits for the dumplings and another calls for making a quick dough out of Bisquick and dropping by spoonfuls on top near the end of the cooking process. My recipes are okay, but not great. My new recipe for chicken and dumplings is FANTASTIC! This recipe calls for making dumpling noodles, requiring rolling out dough and cutting into strips. Easy! I thought I took a picture of this completed dish, but cannot find one. Trust me when I tell you mine looked just like the picture here.

And, this broccoli dish brags that it is the best broccoli ever. I agree! I can’t find my photo of this dish, so I borrowed this one from the author.

I’ve also been inspired to made pumpkin cupcakes, Thai ribs, roasted green beans, and stuffed pasta shells. I’ve “pinned” lots of other recipes to try, too – for soups, salads, appetizers, entrees, side dishes, desserts.

It’s so much fun to try new dishes!

A new year and a new look

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Cindy

As I have said several times this year already, there is a lot of ‘moving forward’ going on for me in 2012. And, this blog is no exception with a new look!

It was actually quite by accident. I was updating programs (they get updated regularly mostly for security purposes) and when I got to the current theme I was using, I hit the update button, and voila, my blog was so very screwed up! I had no choice but to change the theme, create new headers, change some formatting, yada, yada. I hope you like it.

Since my last writing, I have finished another gourd. I think it my best ever!

We had our first hard freeze of the season the other night. It was wicked cold! I wore long johns under my sweat pants, and made homemade hot cocoa in an effort to keep us warm and cozy. Even Sam Dog got his ears covered!

And, I had to cover the garden vegetables, too! Now, most fall gardens are done producing in these parts near the end of November, but mine was super slow to start. I don’t know if I needed more fertilizer or what, but, when most people were pulling out their garden remnants, I was watching my cabbages finally forming heads.

With my first head of cabbage, I made cabbage rolls.

After all this time and even after the hard freeze the other night, my cauliflower and red cabbages are finally forming some nice heads.

By the time my fall garden is done, it will be time for spring planting, once again!

So, what have you been up to, lately?

Keep moving forward

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Cindy

I guess I have to say that I do have a New Year’s Resolution for 2012 after all.

Keep Moving Forward.

Everyday. No matter how large or small the steps.

That’s it.

I think it came to me because of my current employment situation. If you don’t know, the company I worked for closed on June 30, 2011. So, I am unemployed. In the past six months, I’ve had two potential positions that, in the end, didn’t work out for me. Funny thing is, I’m pretty cool with that. At this stage of my life, I really don’t want to find another job working for someone else. I’d much rather spend my time and effort working for myself. So, for the first few months of unemployment bliss, I tried to come up with an action plan that would lead to self-employment, while looking for potential outside employment. I stumbled, floundered, pretended to be working on a plan, vegetated, worked on a few house projects, played on the computer, read, planted a fall vegetable garden and found myself not moving forward in any productive way.

It was getting to me. I knew I should be more productive, but just couldn’t find my way. So, after a lethargic few months the heavens of inspiration finally parted and I find myself with so very much to do!

One, is my gourd art. (I grew several hundred gourds on our back forty a few years ago and have kept them for some future projects.) The next step is to add a page to Cindy’s Country Corner and offer them for sale! I need to set up a ‘shopping cart’ and my paypal account on my website to make it easy for gourd lovers to buy them. That will happen in the next couple of days. In the meantime, if you are interested in having a gourd of your very own (they will go fast and make great gifts, btw), comment on this post and I’ll reserve the one you want! Prices range from $10 to $25, plus shipping.

Here are some photos.