Hannah and her library books

Our daughter Hannah knows how much I enjoy cooking and trying out new recipes. For the past month or so she has been checking out every cookbook available at her school and bringing them home for me to read. So have scary recipes with things we wouldn't ever dream of eating (trust me you don't want to know). Yesterday she brought a Russian cookbook...she's going to freak out with the herring in sour cream. Personally growing up with a mother that lived most of her life in a foreign country I am used to such things (not eating them per say but seeing my mom eat them). I eat chicken, fish, pork and on a rare occasion beef (but never ground beef). My parents eat all kinds of meats, stuff that I'd never let touch my lips again. I'm sorry but I can't wrap myself around the idea of eating Moose, Elk, Venison (Deer), Bear, Rabbit or anything else that's out there in the wilderness. Give me a domestically grown chicken and I'm happy!

So here I am with her latest cooks books...Thai and Russian and there are a handful of recipes I will write down and test drive on my family. Hannah will be looking at me funny with the recipe that calls for 2½ cups of mayonnaise. You see, here in this household mayonnaise is only used for one thing, it's the binding ingredient in a tuna sandwich, that's it!

Another thing we don't really eat in our home is hard boiled eggs. Lots of these recipes in the Russian cook book call for hard boiled eggs. Hannah and I make egg salad sandwiches from time to time, but just eating hard boiled eggs or incorporating them into a recipe or even eating deviled eggs...it's not something that we do here in our home. I never really thought of that until I pulled out my 2 egg plates last week when I was rearranging the placement of something in my china hutch. Maybe I'll make some when we have our house warming party...that way I can use my pretty Polish Pottery egg plate that my best bud sent me when she went on her pottery shopping trip.

I'm off to read more of the Russian cookbook...

my new Kitchen appliances

This is my new dishwasher, it's by Frigidaire. The control panel is hidden so this dishwasher has a clean lines look to it. Next is my over the range microwave...again with the clean lines and do you notice the handle?
The refrigerator is by Kitchen-Aid, and again with the clean lines and the same sleek stainless steel handles. Then there's my range...got to love it! It too has that same look and again with the stainless steel handle. It's no wonder why I'm in appliance heaven!

Buying Kitchen Appliances

Lucien and I set out this afternoon to look at appliances and compare prices from one store and brand to another. We ended up at Lowe's and were looking at the different refrigerators and the sales person tells us that tomorrow is the last day for this terrific sale on some of the appliances that we're looking at buying...too bad the sale ends tomorrow.

So what did we do? Lucien drove home to get our 10% off our entire purchase coupon and I hung out at Lowe's getting other things we needed...like a new kitchen faucet, the one that can pull out and be either a stream of water or a sprayer (love those), a digital programmable thermostat (got to have one of those too) with multiple daytime settings and a weekend setting, another one of those curved shower curtain rods (would have bought two but the store only had the one left). We left that place a few thousand dollars poorer but VERY happy!

Now who wouldn't be happy after buying a $1600 refrigerator and getting it for nearly a third off? I mean really? :-) And that stove...I can hardly wait to use it! Five gas burners, it's duel fuel (electric and gas) plus it's a convection oven and it's also got the duel oven feature. Let me tell you I am in kitchen appliance heaven! I have no idea what the first thing I will cook on that stove or in that oven will be, I just hope that it isn't tuna noodle casserole, LOL!

Deciding on a dishwasher was tougher than the refrigerator. So many to choose from, who ever thought that I'd be spending so much on something to wash my dishes...this baby is sweet!

So between my Kitchen Aid and Frigidaire appliances I am in appliance Heaven! Look to see pictures of my appliances soon!

Dinnerware formal and non-formal

I love my dinnerware! For my everyday I have Fiestaware. For my formal I have Noritake Greenbrier. I'm rather bummed right now because I recently found out that Nortiake had discontinued my pattern last AUGUST! Then again this was not the china pattern that I had picked out. So I've made the best of it for years, all the while wishing that I had mustered up the courage to have taken it back and traded it in for the pattern that I really wanted "Old Country Roses". That pattern is a classic and will never be discontinued.

Last summer I was at a friend's home attending a going away dinner for a mutual friend. The lady who hosted the event had set her table in the most charming manner- at every place setting there was a different china pattern. I loved it! I knew right there that THAT was what I wanted to do. Now that I've seen another senior spouse do this in her home, I knew that I too could pull off this look. NO more stuffy formal place settings for me! Our new formal dinner ware will be warm and inviting, I like to call it "country charming". Everyone commented on the different dinnerware patterns that Ginny had set out and how they loved it. With that in mind I'm now going to seek single place settings of different patterns. What a great way to go about achieving a unique look.

Mikasa Wine glasses

Every month the mission Support Group commanders get togther and have a little party, the selection is totally random. How do you know when it's YOUR turn to host a party? You get this cute pink flamingo stuck in your yard, LOL! So February is the month for us to host a party. The rule is that they have to have a theme...our theme is "Wine and Cheesecake tasting". I wanted to do something that was a bit different...everyone's heard of wine and cheese tasting...but what about cheesecake? I've got the 6 different cheesecakes down, now to get some more wine glasses (preferably ones that macth the ones we have).

Soooooooo anyway my quest for more wine glasses ends up with me driving all over the place for something decent looking. I saw some nice ones by Mikasa at Herbergers (that's our fancy department store in Rapid City) and they were nice but I didn't want to pay $50 for a set of 4, especially when I need at least 16 glasses. An idea that Lucien had was to buy plastic ones, ones we can toss into the recycle bin later on when we were done with them, the only ones I saw were $25 for a set of 4- for plastic? get out!

Smack me in the head but I didn't see anything at Target that I liked, and I roll my eyes at myself because I even tried Wal-Mart. For something half ways decent looking the best price was $17.99 for a set of 4- at Wal-Mart, that's still more than I really wanted to spend. So as a last resort I went to the Ellsworth AFB BX (base exchange- it's like a Target department store for military families). I see wine glasses that I like at a very reasonable price $4.99 for a set of 4 and they look like they will match our Williamsburg Winery stemware. But wait, right next to all of that is that very same set of Mikasa wine glasses that I saw earlier at Herberger's, the price tag on these were $29.99 but wait! There's another tag on the shelf partially covering the $29.99 tag and it says $12.47, woohoo! SOoooooo, I take a box over to the nearest price scanner to make sure of this low price and get this...it scans in at $6.27! I ran and got a cart and loaded myself up with some great looking stem ware at a fraction of the retail price! So for about $25 I was able to get $200 worth of Mikasa stemware. Here's a picture of what they look like...

But wait...then I spy the champagne glasses, they too are marked way down...yes at $6.27 for a set of 4. One quick phone call and I got the go ahead on getting them. So I spent a total of $50 and got $400 worth of Mikasa Stemware!

Immersion Blender

Here it is, my latest kitchen gadget. I bought a Kitchen Aid Immersion Blender through the Kitchen Aid site. Who knew that they have weekly specials...some item at a great sale price. When I saw this gem I knew that it was for me! I've been wanting to get one from Kitchen Aid for quite some time but couldn't part with the $$$ for it. I bought a Hamilton Beach immersion blender a while back and frankly it's wimpy! I used it once and it was so rinky dink it wasn't even funny! So here I am with this bad boy ready to take on the toughest of jobs! Today it's Pasta e Fagioli. I need this immersion blender to churn up a couple of cups of the soup to make it have a creamy consistency. We shall see how my new toy preforms :-)

keeping warm in the kitchen!

I can't begin to tell you all how much joy cooking and baking brings to me. Today has been one of those true joy filled days for me. So I begin my day by starting to bake some cheesecakes for the surprise baby shower I'm attending tomorrow. Here I have all gotten my measuring cups and spoons out, ingredients out and I start putting things together then I realize the following...I have only 1 tablespoon of real Vanilla left (have the clear imitation vanilla on hand but it never tastes like the real thing...well not to me any way) and about 2 tablespoons of sour cream left...someone ate it last night with their chili, oops, LOL!!! Yes I had to laugh at that one. It's freezing outside and the windchill made it about -15º out, eeeewww!!! But I braved it and went to the store, came home and was back in business all within 15 minutes.
I've since made 2 dreamy looking cheesecakes and they are in the cool down phase in my oven. Oh my word the house smells so good!!!! It's warmed up a bit outside...now it only feels like -6º LOL! My neighbor buzzed over to ask me a question and was wanting to know what I was baking...she thought that it was cookies and when I told her that it was a couple of cheesecakes her eyes lit up. Suddenly the wind didn't seem as cold :-)
It's cold and I think that a steaming hot mug of raspberry hot chocolate will hit the spot and warm me up!

Welcome to February!

It's seriously cold today! Only 1 thing can conquer that and it's my home made vegetarian chili! I've decided that I need to make a recipe page for it, I'll make one with the normal sized recipe, I usually make a double the recipe sized batch and freeze the leftovers. With that in mind it's time to get those cans of beans and tomatoes out of the freezing cold garage and into the house to thaw out a bit. I have an easier time working with the ingredients when they aren't in frozen block, LOL!

I also have plans on making a Turtle Cheesecake for a baby shower this weekend, a New York Cheesecake as a gift and having a hot Apple Crisp waiting for my children when they come home from school today! Plus that pot of chili...I better get a move on!