Kitchen

All things kitchen related. I think this is my favorite place in the whole house. Even though it took me many years to learn to cook, now, I enjoy all things related to food. I was absolutely thrilled to pieces when I bought my first standup mixer.

When my children were growing up, I didn’t know how to cook. Everything came out of a box or the freezer (tv dinners). I couldn’t seem to even cook rolls on Thanksgiving without even burning them, all of them. I burned everything, including the sweet potato casserole (set it on fire). My children ate Hamburger Helper all the time. When I moved in with my husband, I began to learn how to cook, and then one night we had Hamburger Helper and my daughter Brandy asked my husband at the time, “What did you do?”. She just knew he had done something bad in order to get the Hamburger Helper.

Now, I have fallen in love with cooking and trying new recipes. I must say that Paul was my guinea pig at the time. And he is still alive, so that means I can continue to experiment. Now, my children and grandchildren are my guinea pigs.

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Let me tell you something. A slow cooker is such a nice thing to have because you can fix a pot of something and then leave it to cook all day. And when you get home from a long day at work or errands, you can just get ready to eat, not all the fuss of having to cook this or that. Just eat.

Corn Casserole

Ingredients:
1 can of creamed corn (14.75 oz.)
1 whole kernel corn, drained (15.25 oz)
1 box of Jiffy corn muffin mix (8.5oz)
sour cream (8 oz)
1 stick of butter, melted
cheddar cheese, shredded (1 cup)

Directions :
Drain the whole kernel corn.
lightly grease the slow cooker pot.
In a large bowl (because you will need room to stir), combine all the ingredients except the shredded cheddar cheese.
Pour your mixture into your slow cooker and cook on high 2 to 3 hours or 4 hours on low.
The last twenty minutes of cooking add the cheddar cheese.

For the oven:
Preheat the oven to 350* F
Mix in a large bowl, do not add the cheese.
Lightly grease a 9 x 13 casserole dish
Bake uncovered for 45 minutes
Now for the shredded cheddar cheese, add the cheese and bake 12 minutes or until brown.
let it rest for 5 minutes.
Serve and enjoy

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This is a good recipe when you are trying to feed a family and have extra elbow macaroni cooked up and needing to do something with it. I had no complaints here, so that is a good thing.

Country Goulash

Ingredients:
1 to 1 1/2 lb. hamburger meat
2 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes
1 15 oz. tomato sauce
1 10.5 oz can of cream of mushroom soup
1 15.25 oz can of whole kernel sweet corn
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 cup of onion, chopped
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
2 cups of elbow macaroni, cooked

Directions:
In a large pan, preferably a large skillet. (I love cast iron) over medium heat, cook the ground beef. Make sure to crumble it up by stirring frequently as it is cooking. This takes around 8 minutes roughly, make sure that it is no longer pinkish colored. Drain off the extra grease. (The bad stuff)
Sauté the onions and bell peppers for just a few minutes in the hamburger meat but not to the point of being burnt but good and sautéed’.
Add the tomatoes and tomato sauce , stirring to get a good mixture there to blend the flavors. Stir in the cream of mushroom soup. Stir really good because your mixture is going to be thick. Mix in the whole kernel corn, and then add the Worcestershire sauce. Let that simmer on low heat with a lid for about 15 to 20 minutes for the flavors to blend, stirring frequently.
Stir in the cooked elbow macaroni, and let that cook on low for about 5 minutes or until the macaroni is heated. Remove from the stove and eat.