In my kitchen...

Slowly but surely I'm getting this "wife" thing down. The weekends have become my time to cook, clean, homemake, and run errands. I love it so much. The hardest part is not sleeping in too late. For a couple of months now we've had Joey every Friday night, so he wakes us up bright and early on Saturday mornings.

In the last two weeks I've made:

Broccoli Mozzarella Quiche
Creamy Asparagus Soup
Shepherds Pie
Lasagna Roll Ups
Sloppy Joe's
Roast and Potatoes
French Peasant Bread
Coffee Cake
Pot Pie Noodle Casserole - Joey dubbed it's official name to be "Worm Casserole"
Ham Fried Rice
Halloween Sugar Cookies

I've made a few more things than that, but I can't remember what they are. I've been taking pictures of my culinary experiments. I'll try to get better about blogging them. Also - I've committed to switching over to wheat flour for everything. I even made my sugar cookies with wheat flour. They look a little odd, but I think the health benefits will be great...especially since my kids won't know any difference. As I get into a rotating cycle of recipes and make them more and more, I'm going to try and tweak them to be as healthy as possible. I REALLY want to try and make my own fiber bars. They've become a part of my everyday, and if I could figure out how to make them from scratch, it'd probably save us some money.

I really enjoy being in the kitchen and the more I do it, the less I dread the task of thinking up ideas for dinner each night. Also, the more I work with spices and veggies and meats, the more comfortable I feel trying out new recipes or cooking without a recipe. There are definitely some basic things to know when cooking that have really helped me:

-Don't be afraid of garlic or pepper
-Chicken broth/stock makes EVERYTHING better
-Saute veggies in olive oil with any spices you desire before adding to soups (unless you're making soup from leftover roast)
-When in doubt make rice and then figure out what to add from there
-Buy 5 lbs of ground beef at costco - brown beef and freeze in family portions for quick meals like tacos, shepherds pie, sloppy joes

I can't think of anymore tips right now, but I'll post them as I think of them.

Bon Apetite!