Cass Cooks, Too!

posted by Cass on Dec 30

Do you know how many sets of clothes I have ruined with food and grease stains? A lot. I keep forgetting to put on an apron, or I remember and then tell myself I will just be careful. Umm, yeah. That works about as well as coitus interrupts works for preventing pregnancy. But then I had an idea: what about nursing scrubs? I mean, those things are like magic, right? Have you ever seen stained scrub clothing? And nurses come in contact with bodily fluids all the time. It’s a thought, right?

Of course, I know me. I can’t remember to put on an apron. What is the likelihood that I am actually going to change into a scrub top before I start cooking? Slim to none, until I run out of unstained shirts. Which, at the current rate, may be way sooner than I’d like to think!

posted by Cass on Dec 30

Thanks for the post from Nora Mccoy

Every holiday season my family and I watch Annabelle’s Wish on our direct tv special packages. It usually airs mid to late December. The story is about a boy who has gone mute and his favorite cow, who makes the ultimate sacrafice to help the boy.

The reason it is my favorite animated Christmas special is simple, I love the message. The movie teaches about unconditional love and how one persons unselfishness changes the lives of many people. So often in life we forget about unconditional love and how if we just gave up one thing the impact that it could have on another human life.

I am trying to instill good values in my children and they watch this with me every year and we eat cookies and have hot cocoa. I also use this movie to help guide us in giving to those less fortunate to us during the holiday season.

The movie has a great ending and it shows that when you help others without selfish motives that you will receive a blessing yourself.

posted by Cass on Dec 13

I don’t know about your house, but at my house, the kitchen is absolutely the hardest room to tame. It’s not that I need tobacco odor removal austin or elsewhere, because no one smokes in the the house here. No, it’s just that as soon as I manage to actually get it clean, everyone wants to hang out in it. They want to chat in my kitchen. But they want to eat and drink and COOK in that clean kitchen, too! That means the kitchen is once again dirty! Do your people do that to you, too?

Here’s what else has happened in my kitchen lately: the oven has quit. I didn’t need fire damage assessment austin, because it didn’t go out with a bang or anything, it just gradually quit heating, pretty much at all. It does still function as a magazine dryer, though, since I used it in that capacity just this weekend. BTW, in case anyone ever leaves your favorite magazine out in the rain, it takes about 200 hours at 150 or so to dry out a couple hundred pages. They are crispy but readable. Just so you know.

The one thing I don’t meed for the kitchen: rug cleaning tips. I don’t want anything resembling a rug in that high traffic room. I do, however, want new cabinets, countertops, sinks, pot and pans. Also, wooden cooking utensils. Anybody feeling Santa-ish today?

posted by Cass on Dec 13

Thanks to Lemuel Craft

During the holiday season, nothing is better than treating my family to a delicious, homemade fruit cake! While we were watching a program on our satellite television last night, we even saw an ad for an upcoming show detailing how to make a fruitcake! I could not believe my ears! Although the fruitcake I have made for years has always been well enjoyed by everyone in the family, I am estatic to view this show to see just how they make a fruitcake. It comes on next week, and you can believe my eyes will be glued to the television set that my husband got because of the “great Direct TV Sports Packages“!

A lot of people do not like fruitcake, and I do not know why. Maybe they have never had a homemade fruitcake to tempt their tastebuds! So many juicy flavors combine and come to life inside of a fruitcake. Each bite sends my tastebuds into overdrive, and I can never seem to get enough fruitcake! It is so good to eat! I get my fill of it and then some. As hard to believe as it may sound, getting to make my famous fruitcake is one of my favorite things about the holiday season!

posted by Cass on Oct 28

Authored by Leandro Delgado

I am a gastronome, and there is nothing I love more than fine food. However, I also feel that as important as it is to stuff one’s stomach with fresh turkey, yams, and delicious mashed potatoes covered in thick and wonderful gravy, it is far more important to share the meal with the less fortunate. This is why rather than concoct my own feast of food on the Thanksgiving holiday, I go out to the inner city where I live and volunteer to help those less fortunate than I. I go into the kitchen and help prepare meals, wash dishes, and wait on the homeless fellows that come to eat.

I feel as if I am doing something good for the world, and I try my best to converse with the homeless fellows and learn of their plight. I feel as if this is not only good for me personally, but also for learning how best not to fall into the same predicament, because the Lord knows that I would not like to be poor, homeless, and begging people for loose change. As a neat freak I deplore the smells that come from these sad, pitiful individuals. Since I live in the inner city, I dare not leave the home without setting the home security alarm from www.HomeAlarmExpert.com. To do so would invite robbers to steal everything I own, turning me into the charity case I so fear.

posted by Cass on Aug 12

Thanks for the post, Nora Howe

One of my favorite shows is available on the Food Network; Chopped. Chopped is a show that challenges four chefs to a cooking challenege involving three courses of food; appetizer, main course and desert. After each round the chef who did not perform up to expectations is eliminated or ‘chopped’ from the contest. The element that makes this show so entertaining is that for each course the contestants are given a “mystery’ basket of ingredients. The basket contains elements that you might not consider going together in a course such as watermelon and trout, for example. The goal is for each chef to come up with a dish which must contain each of the ingredients in the basket, at the end of the allotted time given each dish is judged for originality, flavor and presentation by a panel of celebrity judges.

The show becomes something to behold when you watch it in HD because of the artistry the chefs demonstrate in their presentation of each dish. You become truly amazed at the skill these people possess when you see how quickly they prepare these culinary masterpieces. The sharpness of the HD picture I got after researching direct tv pricing in Florida only adds to that amazement, the colors used in each dish is something of a wonder to behold, not to mention the dexterity you notice in actions such as chopping and dicing.

posted by Cass on Jul 20

I appreciate the guest post, Marian Combs

Nothing compares to the day trip for relaxing and having fun. Next to the yearly vacation, the day trip is a series of mini-vacations taken during the summer months. The day trip does not drain your wallet and can be a very simple drive and activity.

Living in Colorado and growing up in California enabled me to take numerous trips with my parents to natural wonders and exciting parks. In Colorado, my family enjoys these same things and we take advantage of the good weather to cram as much fun as we can into the summer months.

One of our favorite is the family picnic. We love the outdoors and Colorado offers an abundance of excellent picnic destinations not very far from where we live. Going up in the mountains and laying out blankets, smelling the food cooking in the barbecue, and eating a great meal is really living for my family.

Before we start on our picnic there are some things we must do before heading out. We pack the car with: food and drinks, a portable stove in case there is not one at the picnic grounds, bug spray, sunscreen, extra clothes for changing weather conditions, first-aid kit, and cell phone. The last thing we do is to set the home alarm system that we got from www.allhomesecurity.com before leaving the house.

A picnic is a great way to spend time with the family, have a great meal, and enjoy the outdoors.

posted by Cass on Jun 19

You know, I really need to confess something here. And it’s kind of an embarrassing something really. I am so out of the kitchen habit that I feel mildly ashamed to even be writing a cooking blog. Or attempting to revive one anyway.

1. My entire kitchen is in disarray, it needs a total reorganization. Which I am in the middle of.

2. The darn thing is never totally clean. I am chronically behind on dishes and desperately need to get back in the habit of doing ALL of them EVERY night. Period.

3. I need to work on planning meals again. Because of added demands on my time, I have turned most of the actual cooking here over to the teens, but I also stopped the planning, and that is becoming a major FAIL.

4. So, I am going to use the impetus of this blog to help get me back on track. I can’t take pictures in a dirty kitchen and I can’t share techniques and recipes with you if I don’t cook and I can’t cook if I don’t plan.

So, here’s the weekly agenda: one post with a menu plan, one post of a recipe or technique and one post of something else more or less kitchen related. And there ya go.

posted by Cass on Apr 19

No, I didn’t mispell that. I’m not talking about the pots and pans you cook in, but about what you wear while you are doing the cooking! Truth to tell, I used to wear grubbies to cook, but these days, what with the new schedule and the silly job, I’m finding that I am cooking bigger meals, more involved, but also that each meal is an occasion of sorts. I want to be looking good in the kitchen since I have guests. It’s major incentive, iykwim!

In fact, these days, I am much more likely to be caught cooking in one of these evening blouses than in my sweatpants. Although I do still wear pants in the kitchen, mind you, I’ve just kicked it up a notch, you see. I’d really love to win one of the weekly competitions from this store, cause I could really put £250 to good use in a clothing store. Couldn’t we all? That brings discount online shopping to a whole new level, right? And the sizing guide makes shopping a breeze, even for those of us on this side of the pond. Too bad they only deliver to the UK! Perhaps I need to find a friend over there who is interested in some re-shipping.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to wear my nicer clothes when I want to, and I’ll wear an apron. In fact, I bought a new full size one just the other day.

posted by Cass on Mar 30

Well, spring has sprung here, and suddenly all my earthy friends are talking about gardens. You know, tomatoes and zucchini and watermelon and all those other easy to grow foods that I love…. it’s enough to make me think about doing some gardening of my own. As if I didn’t have enough to do, LOL. But fresh tomatoes to go in my awesome guacamole? Yummmmm! And, you know, if there had been batteries in my camera when I made that guacamole Saturday, I so would have written all about it. It was that good, people. Really.

Anyway, back to the gardening thing. Are you doing it? What are you planting? And how are you going to keep your garden pest free? Back in the day, when my grandparents gardened, they used something called Sevin Dust to keep the bugs out of the plants, and then, they washed the vegetables and we ate them, and no one thought much about it. Nowadays, though, I’m concerned about what my kids eat. Not that my folks weren’t, just that we are generally better educated about the dangers of traditional pesticides than they were, yk? So, I’m looking into using organic pest control if I plant a garden.

The claims for the organic pesticides look pretty good. For instance this
organic bug patrol kills over 40 insects. That’s pretty broad spectrum, if you ask me, not that I know a whole lot about bugs, but what I want to know is what it does to people. Specifically, what does it do to little people who follow along after me and will nibble stuff when my back is turned, despite warnings to the contrary? So, if you’ve used it, did it live up to it’s claims? And do you feel comfortable from a safety standpoint?

And while I am asking questions, here, I saw an upside down tomato growing thing in Walgreens the other day. Have you used one? Known someone who used one? Laughed at the very idea of one? I can’t decide which is appropriate on my own, so help me figure out what to do, wouldja? And could I use one for the zucchini? Cause if I plant anything, I will plant those two things. And watermelon. And now, I think I am about to start repeating myself, so it must be time to hush up and go cook!