The Cluttered Pantry

Posting a few favorite winter recipes today, the house smells wonderful right now. We’ve got chocolate chip banana bread fresh out of the oven, a green chile stew in the crock pot and a pile of veggies ready to become a stir fry with Marianne’s grilled tofu.
First soup is a Cream of Mushroom that [...]

One way to stretch the grocery dollar is with samples and freebies.
For starters, using the free item means you aren’t using something up that you paid for. And very often, those free samples come with coupons, so if you watch for a sale, you can get a great deal on it (this should go with [...]

The pantry has been pretty cluttered lately. Real life and work took over and has had us thinking of meals as a thing to grab between work and time with the girls. I miss cooking, and I miss family meals and honestly I miss being able to find something in my pantry without [...]

E started out tiny, then spent the first two years of her life getting the minimum of nutrition that a baby can have and still thrive. Her body did that miraculous thing that nature knows to do and it conserved those calories for the importing things like brain cells and heart muscle but kept [...]

The winter and spring rushed by us this year, other than managing to over-seed the herb garden with basil (the girls helped me place the seeds-but we got busy and started traveling again and I missed the stage where you are supposed to thin out the tiny plants-anybody want some homemade pesto?) we haven’t done [...]

March?!  How could my last post have been in March?  It’s June, 3 months have flown by and I haven’t had a moment to spare since March…  yoikes.   So, here we are, the first week of June – Mark is leaving for shoots in Dublin and Madrid for the first half of the month, [...]

Main Ingredients:
2lbs cut up chicken
2 medium carrots, chopped
2 green chilies , roasted and chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 large avocado, thinly sliced

Main Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
4 or 5 stalks chopped celery
2 or 3 chopped carrots
5 cloves garlic, roasted
1 cups heavy cream
4 potatoes, chopped into chunks

It’s sure is winter all of the sudden!  I’m not complaining…I actually prefer the cold.  Even though our house was built in 1893, it’s actually way better built than any home I’ve lived in before.  Multiple courses of brick and limestone protect us from the elements, fabulous cherub and decorative scroll work radiators chug away [...]

We returned from our last trip to Siberia in late 2008. Making 2009 our first full year as a family at home with the Wee Kahunas. I haven’t really felt compelled to mark our court date  (the date we legally became the girls parents) nor the day in October that we flew home with the girls, [...]

Main Ingredients
Sourdough Starter
Sponge
12 cups bread flour
7g of rapid rise dried yeast
1 cup warm water
3 tablespoons caraway seeds

Main Ingredients:
3 Zuchinni (cut in 3rds)
2 potatoes (peeled and halved)
2 onions (cut in half)
2 yellow squash (cut in 3rds)
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin powder

Main Ingredients:
2 zuchinni
2 carrots
2 potatoes (peeled)
1 onion
3 eggs
1 tablespoon fresh parsley (chopped)
1 teaspoon fresh basil (chopped)

I’m not sure if it’s the cold weather, the fast approaching holiday seasons or just the fact that we’ve been eating waayyyyy to many carbs this past few weeks, but I found myself walking through the produce shop and filling my cart to the top with such an assortment of vegetables that the check out [...]