I made a discovery the past couple of weeks. Forget fall cleaning, or spring cleaning (which I always forget anyway in lieu of gardening.) Winter cleaning is where it’s at! I now declare January the annual Deep Clean as a Family Month. All 5 of us have been scrubbing from ceiling to floor and everything in between, and with minimal grumbling even.
Something about a squeaky clean kitchen makes me want to cook up a storm, which is what I did this weekend. Some things were a whopping success, others (unfortunately) were epic fails. Here’s the rundown.
Friday night was my standby pizza. I browned up some “little sizzlers” pork sausage (a new product we’ll have for sale in the spring!) for one pizza topping. A success, but that’s a recipe I can do in my sleep so it doesn’t really count as a whopping success.
On to Saturday. First I baked up the rye bread I’d started the night before.
Whopping success #1! It was really good with some mayo & turkey. It was really good with some provolone cheese. It was really good with butter & sprinkled with some kosher salt.
Can you tell I ate a lot of rye bread Saturday?
Next up was Pioneer Woman’s Baked Beans. I’ve had some beans from our garden sitting in the freezer, so they went on the Cooking from the Deep list.
Unfortunately they became epic fail #1. Not sure what went wrong. I baked and baked and baked them – 8 hours on Saturday in a 250 degree oven, and maybe 6 more hours in the crockpot on Sunday. They ended up sort of cooked, but still slightly crunchy. Fortunately Matt likes them well enough & says he’ll eat them for lunch this week.
Next up was movie night on Saturday night, so I made hot chocolate and Orangette’s Caramel Corn.
I made mine with cashews instead of peanuts. Matt declared it a new Saturday night tradition. It really was that amazing. Whopping success #2!
Today my family came over to celebrate January & February birthdays. I made Aunt Sandy’s Oven Crispy Chicken. It was crispy all right, and dry. Not at all the way it had turned out the first time. Again, not sure what happened this time around. Epic fail #2.
For the birthday cake I made Pioneer Woman’s Tres Leches Cake. Matt had requested a not-chocolate cake with not-chocolate frosting. This seemed like it would fit the bill, and I loved it! Matt loved it, too. So whopping success #3! (Even though my mother liked the Ice Cream Pie with Caramel Sauce I made for Bunco earlier in the week better.)
So all-in-all, not bad for the weekend overall. I always tell my kids that that’s the way you learn. Just give it your best shot. You’ll win some, and you’ll lose some.
1 year ago:
Attend the INCA conference!
