Pico de Gallo

Last night was Taco Thursday.  This is a wonderful tradition from my husband's family where anyone and everyone comes over on Thursday (it has to be Thursday) to eat tacos, obviously.  It's a fun break in the week for everyone to get together and enjoy a meal and some laughs.

I tried a new recipe last night for the Pioneer Woman's Pico de Gallo.  Now, the Pioneer Woman is pretty much my idol.  She seems like an extremely happy and centered woman that's living a life of cooking, photography and animals.  Basically my dream.  She also has four kids that she homeschools, not my dream, but if I can trade those kids for dogs or something we're good to go.

So, I just re-read through my Pioneer Woman cookbook last weekend and was anxious to make something.  If you've never seen it I definitely recommend you go out and buy it right now.  It's full of amazing recipes, fun stories about her life and beautiful photos.

So, when Taco Thursday rolled around I decided that her fresh Pico de Gallo recipe sounded like the perfect match.  Fresh tomatoes, onions, jalepenos, cilantro, lime juice, a little salt, so easy and so yummy!

I forgot to take a picture in my frantic after-work cooking madness, but it looked almost exactly like the version on the PW website.  Definitely a new Taco Thursday staple.

And just as a side note, I think everyone should implement Taco Thursday or Spaghetti Saturday or Lasagna Wednesday (it doesn't have to rhyme).  I just know that every time we do it I'm happier the next morning.  There's something about family and friends coming together for the pure sake of enjoyment that really makes life special.

It doesn't have to be anything extravagant.  We literally decided to have Taco Thursday late on Monday night.  Grab a few groceries, invite some guests and before you know it you have 13 people at your house making tacos and building dinosaur poop out of play doh.  The point is it's about the people and spending time with those you love.  I'm pretty sure we could have served tv dinners and gotten the same enjoyment, but I'm guessing the chocolate marshmallow cupcakes didn't hurt anything.

Have a great weekend, everyone!  


     

Cooking with Honey

So, as I've repeatedly mention, my hubby is a honey fanatic.  He loves it on anything and everything and sometimes can be caught eating a spoonful directly from the jar.  So, with our recent successes with bees and a honey harvest, I've decided to try dabbling in cooking with honey.  So, you'll probably see quite a bit of posts with honey involved in the next few months.

Since I wasn't really feeling that great last weekend I was pretty much tied to the house.  So I figured it was a great time to start experimenting.  I'd gotten this great honey cookbook while in Savannah at the Savannah Bee Company shop.  This is an amazing company, I definitely recommend visiting their website, or by all means, check out their shop in Savannah.  It's totally worth the trip!

So, I quickly flipped through and found a simple sounding recipe for Honey Oatmeal Cookies.  I gathered all the ingredients and made a few adjustments based on what I had in the house.  The recipe called for peanuts and I substituted pecans.  Peanuts or boring and pecans just seem more Southern to me.  And I substituted chocolate chips for the raisins that were originally in the recipe.  I don't really like raisins, so rarely have them in the house.  I contemplated using dried cranberries, but figured chocolate chips would go over better with the hubby.

The honey looked really pretty as it was being added to the mixture.

And using honey instead of sugar totally made the texture different.  Look at that creamy goodness!

The cookies turned out perfect.  That had a really light and airy texture.  Not at all as heavy as the other recipes I usually use and they had a little bit of a sweet coating on them as well from the honey.

Yep, they definitely got the seal of approval from the hubby and I even liked them even though I'm not a big honey fan.

Now, those of you that know my hubby know that besides honey, he loves blackberry pie.  Since I hate making pie crust he usually gets blackberry cobbler.  I'd made a blackberry cobbler two days before that had already disappeared (not that I had any).  So I decided to go back to that lovely honey cookbook to see what I could find.

What I found was apple crisp.  We have a TON of apples from our trees and I hadn't made anything with them yet, so that seemed like a logical solution.  They're really tart and shiny and beautiful and I'm so proud of my hubby for his success with the orchard (I'm calling it that now).

Super simple recipe, pour in the most important ingredient........

I swear my hand isn't that giant, it's just some tricky angle.

Top it with the crunch crust ingredients.......

Bake until it's a nice gooey, golden brown.....

Now, this was a little too much honey for me ( I like my honey hidden so I can't taste it).  But it looked amazing.  It was all bubbly and beautiful and got a positive review from the honey lover in the household.

I do think I'd peel the apples next time just because those particular apples have a bit of a tough skin and I think it would help to make everything blend.  Overall, I'm liking the cooking with honey sofar.  Everything seems like it's a bit lighter and not so sugary sweet.

Note:  I'm not sure why it appears as though I was cooking in a dark black cave, but the lighting was not being cooperative that day.  :(

Happy Experimental Cooking!

Fall Harvest

I love Fall.  It's my favorite season.  There's just something about the crisp air, dark nights, fire in the fireplace and Fall food that makes me happy.  It's been a very busy month and an especially busy and stressful last couple of days.  So, today was all about a warm house, cooking and relaxing with the puppy dogs while the hubby was out elk hunting.

I just love Fall Harvest foods.  As you saw in my previous posts we harvested the honey and got the bees all ready for colder weather and the apple trees are producing and will be ready for picking in a week or so.  Hopefully there will be some left as the helpful dogs keep picking and eating the low growing fruit.

My mom was generous enough to give me a bunch of apples from her early blooming trees and several kinds of squash that are ready straight out of her garden.  I love that she has a garden since all I can seem to manage are a couple tomato bushes in planters by the deck.  And even those really rely on my hubby for water on a regular basis.

So, since today's focus was food and relaxation I started the day out by going and picking a bunch of her delicious apples so that I could start making some applesauce and apple butter.

Now, there are seriously very few things that I dislike as much as I dislike peeling apples.  That's why I never make apple pie, that and the fact that making pie crust is one of those things that I dislike just as much.  My mother-in-law is my hero because she bought me an amazing apple peeler/slicer/corer that makes life ridiculously easy in the apple department.

It's seriously the miracle gadget.  It makes it so easy and fast to process all the apples that before long you have a pot full of apples, cinnamon and cloves bubbling away on the stove.  And by that time the house of course smells amazing.

Apple butter is my all time favorite spread.  I could eat it straight out of the jar, but usually control myself long enough to toast a piece of bread, but not always.  I just love the sweet and slightly tart flavor and the spices make it just perfect.  Even though I don't like cinnamon, it's a must have for this recipe.

And, before long......that apple butter is in the jars, canned, sealed and labeled.  Just waiting for me to break out the toaster for a taste, but I'll refrain cause it just gets better when the flavors have been allowed to mix together for a couple weeks.  Let the countdown begin.

Applesauce is another easy product to make and can and with the abundance of apples at our house, my mom's house and our friends' houses it's a must for Fall canning.  I like to make mine without adding any sugar and leaving it chunky, so no food processor required.  So that means the only ingredients required are apples, water and a little lemon juice.  What could be easier?  That's what I made with the apples left over after my double batch of apple butter.  Yum!

Since my mom had given me an acorn squash from her garden earlier in the week I decided to experiment with stuffed squash.  I've never made or eaten it, but it always looks good, and really, how hard can it be?  So, I cut the squash in half, put in a pan, filled the pan half full of water, covered with foil and baked it in the oven for about 45 minutes.  This nearly cooked the squash through so that I'd just have to stuff it and cook the remaining bit.

I wasn't really sure what to stuff it with, so I raided the fridge.....extra lean elk sausage, red onion, mushrooms, apples, garlic, spinach, cous cous and feta cheese.

I mixed that all together in my new favorite cast iron skillet and by the time it was done, I was ready to eat it all on it's own.

But no, I piled the mixture into the squash halves, topped them with salt and pepper and popped them back in the oven for another 20 minutes to cook the rest of the way and give the stuffing a nice crispy top.

All I can say is....wow!  It was so good and I had tons of leftovers.  I'll definitely be experimenting with stuffed squash again.

Since I've got another huge piece of some large orange squash in the fridge I think squash casserole will be on the menu tomorrow night.  Wish me luck!

Happy Fall, Everyone!