Reintroduction

So...I first started this blog as a kind of online diary, a way to vent but after a particularly bad weekend with the people I normally have bad weekends with, I have changed my mind and decided that I don't want to vent about it.  I don't even want to think about it.  Therefore, I'm going to write about what I love instead of what causes me pain.  This will be a collection of recipes I've tried (or hope to try) pictures of my garden and flowers, crafts that my daughter an I do together.  I hope you enjoy what you see and come back often to see what we're up to and use our ideas to make yummy, crafty things of your own.

I will say I believe anyone can cook.  All you have to be able to do is read.  A lot of my recipes are adaptations of recipes I've found online or in cookbooks or magazines.  I always make a recipe by the recipe the first time and then add or subtract ingredients to tweak the meal to our personal tastes.  You should feel free to do this, too.  Words on recipe cards are only ever a hand to hold on the road to yumminess.

Having said this, I will also note that I do make some minor adaptations to recipes the first time around.  Every time I fry a pound of ground beef, I add half an onion, chopped and a good scoop of minced garlic out of my big jar.  This is something I'm hoping to remedy in the near future.  I'm a beginning gardener and I'm hoping in a couple of years to have my own home grown garlic to mince.  When I have it on hand, I also throw in half a cup of green bell pepper and around half a cup of celery.  I'm not a BIG fan of green pepper but I'm trying to like it more. Celery is basically tasteless when cooked but adds veggie goodness.

Also, I'm mildly allergic to mushrooms so you probably won't find any here.  If mushrooms are in a recipe, I simply leave them out.  When a recipe calls for cream of mushroom soup, I replace it with cream of chicken or more often cream of celery or broccoli.  I have found that sometimes cream of chicken can be a bit overpowering.

My daughter and I love, love, love broccoli so you will most likely find a good deal of that here.  So, again, I hope you enjoy.  Please ask me questions if you have them and I will do my best to answer.  I am by no means a great chef but I do love food and I think I know a lot about it.  I like to help others with their own culinary greatness, too.  Leave me comments, too, I love to talk about food!