Wow it's been 3 weeks or longer since my last posting how the time flys!!! I just finished a great project, I've been working on selling my chirstmas cards and just sent a package off to my cousin to sell at her friends B&B in Ashville North Carolina. I've attached some photo's to see what people think, I'm pretty proud of the final product. Here's to American Greeting or Halmark discovering me!!! Let's see as for my menu lately I made a terrific lentil soup that lasted all week, baked all day last Saturday made a  lovely potato torte and homemade apple pie with a blended whole wheat, graham and all-purpose flour blended crust.Turned out really well and nothings better than apple pie for breakfast.
Have a great week, I'm off to the library for a new boo. Just finished The Expected One by Katherine McGowan Great read!!! 

Cooking hiatus? Do chefs or self taught chefs experience this?

After my first posting I went through one of my one of my phases where I don’t really cook much of anything at all and just cook to fill the void. Do other chefs experience this? (I am calling on those chefs that actually cook at home and are not exhausted by cooking at a restaurant?) What dishes do your turn to when the desire to cook is gone?


I always turn to Pasta aglio olio made with lots of fresh garlic, I made steel cut oatmeal with blueberries, walnuts for breakfast and I always have plenty of fruits & veggies to turn to for munching. But luckily the hiatus didn’t last long… I creative juices started peeking there little head when I had a conversation with my friend Liz about ADULT grilled cheeses. She makes hers with cheddar, pickles and tomatoes and that spawned my own version which I was pretty proud of, try this I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. I didn’t have any bread in the house so I had to get creative right at the start! I did have corn tortilla shells in the house so I took 4 shells lightly buttered on the outside, filled each set with a Mexican shredded cheese blend, thinly sliced Italian paste tomatoes, (something new from the farmers market), red onion and flat leaf parsley and grilled it to perfection. My only critique for next time would be to use a sharper flavored cheese like fontina, montechego AND 2ND WAIT UNTIL COOLED, GOOEY CHEESE EVERYWHERE, DELICIOUS BUT EVERYWHERE!!! The next day I made a delicious EASY but SPICY black bean soup. If anyone wants the recipe just email and I’ll post it. Now that the creative juices are back my menu has included chicken paprikash with chive dumplings, and homemade apple & black cherry cobbler with a walnut oatmeal & flaxseed crumble. Yummy. I really hope you all stay tuned as I navigate this new adventure!!!

Where would we be without our friends & family?

Thanks to the coaxing of my dear friend home healing from surgery and another friend from high school I am back, writing in my new blog. I’m not sure if it was having an absorbanent (that was a word I had t look up!!) amount of time on my hands, too much or not enough to say or the little cooking hiatus I took since I last posted but each contributed in some way to me avoiding this new blog. But thanks again to my friends I here, writing in my pj’s on a Saturday morning, flipping between the foodtv network and a movie ready to begin again. So here we go.........

Remembering Julia Childs

First let me thank everyone who shared their comments on my new blog & sent encouragment and your humor is always appreciated! I spent most of the day working on this new blog 5 hours passed and I realized I hadn' eaten so I decided I need to eat & use a thawed package of ground turkey I had int he frid before it spoiled. So knowing the whole pound would be too much for one recipe I decided to divide it and make a couple dishes...First for dinner I was craving Mexican and decided to make a Turkey Enchilada Bake.     I layered corn torilla's, black beans, salsa and cheese in a casserole dish and baked for 25 mintues. The dish turned out pretty good although I forgot to add a little water to the taco seasoning I used to flavor the turkey and it was a little salty. For the most part it was perfect and served it with a little chopped lettuce & sour cream. With the other 1/2, I decided to make my variation of Rachel Rays Spanikopita Burgers a recipe
I adapted to my own tastes, it's a winner & delicious. Now remeber this was cut in half so double if you use a full pound, saute 1/2 onion with chopped garlic set asside, add 1/2 pkg. frozen spinach, 2 Tbsp crumbled feta cheese, 1/2 cap steak seasoning, mix gingerly to avoid toughness & make into patties. I think that's what I'll have for lunch today (right after my bike ride, if I can get it in between the rain) put it on one of those flat whole wheat burger buns (THESE ARE THE BEST), mayo, sliced cucumbers and Italian parsley, DELICIOUS!

Before signing off I wanted to share this....While catching up on facebook this morning I discovered this great video from my friends at the Chef's Garden on Remembering Julia Childs and felt it appropriate to share since the movie is the reason I finally began my own blog. I hope you get as big a kick out of it as I did....."Bon Appetite"         

Well I better get back to the job at hand and search through today's recent postings, wish me luck.

Remembering Julia Childs

Going Live......

Well it's only taken me 6 or 7 months but my blog is finally LIVE!!! please wish me luck. After months of himming & hawing??? (not sure if that's spelled right? my teachers always said I had a unique sense of spelling) Anyway... I decided to finally take the plunge & to start my own blog after looking up Julie Powell’s blog (the writer of Julie & Julia). Her story really hit home with me and the only person getting in the way of me starting my blog was ME!!! So here it is almost 6pm on a Thursday night and I'm putting my life out there. So as I mentioned in my about me section I wan to share my love of life, food, travel and creativity since I don't as of yet have a career home to give that energy to.
The Dish of the Week features a wonderful dish I had my last night in Rome almost exactly a year ago. It was pumpkin ravioli with a fresh mint butter or (beurre blanc). It was delicate but full of flavor and so good I don't even remember getting dessert. The other delicacies of that night were beef Carpaccio, homemade gnocchi with meat sauce and Portobello mushroom ravioli in cream sauce. Let's just say I'm now totally homesick for the Mediterranean and ready for dinner. So before this goes on  & on I'm signing off for now...until next time, take care & take each day one day at a time!!