MUST HAVE Vintage Signs
Ever since I was a little girl and I dug an old, discarded Sunbeam Bread tin sign from a junk pile, I have loved retro signs. Since I renovated my kitchen last year, I have been slowly collecting and adding them to my kitchen walls. I wish they weren’t so durn expensive, and I could kick myself for listening to my parents telling me to toss that old Sunbeam sign… because my walls are still as bare as ever!
Here are a few of my favorites that are currently on my wish list… when I can afford them. 
Just the right amount of sass and frass. 
What’s Your Favorite Recipe Website?
As amazing and vast as the Internet is, I just can’t seem to find *the perfect* cooking website. It’s so different with cookbooks– do you have a favorite cookbook from which you cook ALL the time? I do, I have several. But it’s not so with recipe websites.
Maybe because they are usually built around all sorts of contributors who have all sorts of different tastes and ideas. Oddly enough, I like plain food. PLAIN food. No gourmet sauces that take all day to make, no weird ingredients where I have to take a vacation to Paris to find certain foods, no crazy techniques that require a houseful of servants to help. Just plain food.
Is there ANY website out there that offers simple, basic, plain recipes?! For crying out loud! I can’t find one. Maybe every cook out there is trying to outdo every other cook out there. Not me. I just want to slap wholesome, tasty food on the table and get on with life, you know? So many cooking websites think that my life REVOLVES around food. Um, no, it doesn’t. I want to eat because I’m hungry not because I have this sensual, biological urge to indulge my senses in rapturous undulations of culinary ecstasy.
So.
Anyone have any suggestions?
If not, I’m going back to my watermarked, dog-eared, batter-stained Betty Crocker cookbook. I’m rather tired of the same old same old, but sorry, I just can’t muster the energy to whip up the latest, greatest tofu-tainted, kiwi-encapsulated, pine-nutty, asafetida-extracted delicacy for my ravenous teens.
Homemade Cranberry Scones
My daughter made some scones the other day– Cranberry Scones. Oooooooooooo oo oo oo. They are amazing. She makes three batches all at once, and the family eats them up almost immediately.
Cranberry Scones
2 1/2 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup butter (no substitutes)
1 cup chopped cranberries
3/4 cup buttermilk (or Half n’ Half with lemon juice)
Combine the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the cranberries. Stir in the buttermilk just until moistened.
Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead 6 to 8 times. Divide the dough in half. Pat each half into an 8-inch circle. Cut into 8 wedges.
Place the wedges 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 400 F for 15-18 minutes.
Devour while still warm. SO GOOD.
The glorious finished product.
Believe me, these are simply amazing scones. They are not sweet like muffins. The scones are perfect with tea or coffee, and are perfect as a light breakfast or brunch. Kudos to my daughter for making these! Er, maybe instead of kudos she’d prefer a gold bullion.
Try them, you will like!
What’s Your Apron Style?
I admit, I was never much of an apron gal. I SHOULD be, Lord knows. I’m probably one of THE messiest cooks in the kitchen. I usually have a dishtowel draped over my shoulder, or a large flannel shirt that I wear to, um, wipe my hands if necessary. No matter how careful I am, I always manage to get my shirt spotted and speckled with cooking crud.
I think the problem was that I didn’t have a decent apron. The one I got — I got it from a well-intentioned friend as a bridal shower gift — was a jade-green flimsy wrap-around housecoat/apron type of contraption. You sorta put it over your head and then insert your arms through the holes and sorta tie it… oh forget it, I’m not wearing this thing! It was so lightweight that all food seeped through right onto my shirt, anyway. So for years, I wore no apron– although that jade-green apron hung, ignored, in the pantry closet for 20+ years.
Over the years, I’ve kept my eyes open for a decent replacement, but never got one. Maybe it was inertia or maybe it was because I never found any suitable kitchen apron. Oh, I could grab one of those Marcus scrubs and use that, but I don’t want to look like a surgeon in the kitchen…. although the image of me in a doctor’s suit holding a cleaver and cutting board makes me snicker, hee hee.
And when looking for a replacement, I saw a lot of stuff that repelled me. Frills, pretty fabric, super-tight bodies, skinny ties that would tangle. What the heck?! Are we going to cook or are we going to compete in the Miss America contest?! These are supposed to be aprons not kitchen cocktail dresses!
But a couple of years ago, my husband came home with an apron he’d got from the grocery store he worked at. He had ended his work there and he could keep the apron. I kept the apron but never used it because I’d gotten out of the habit. But today I had to hack away at huge pork loin and didn’t want to soil my clothes.
Oh my word, what an apron! Why don’t they make them like this for housewives?! This thing is thick linen, like canvas. And you simply put your head through a small loop. The strings are extra long, so I can tie it loosely in the front and not in the back (I could never manage to untie the blasted knots after I’d made them– someone always had to rescue me after the kitchen work was done, lol). The store apron is thick but very comfortable. And no matter how much you slobber that juice, broth or batter, it’s not getting through the tightly-woven fabric. Nice!
So I think I finally found my apron.
How about you? Are you an apron wearer? What kind meets your needs?
Bulk Buying, Storing, Cooking
When the kids were younger (and our incomes smaller), I was a fanatic about buying food in bulk and pre-making meals for the week. I’d get one of those huge 10-pound ground beef rolls, cook it all up at once, and bag it in freezer bags. I also remember going on fruit and vegetable binges, where I’d grab 50 pounds of discounted, bruised peaches or green tomatoes. I’d spend days peeling, chopping, slicing, bagging, freezing. (I don’t can my food because I don’t know how to do it, and I don’t have the supplies).
I feel out of all that work a few years ago. I can’t put my finger on why I stopped, exactly. Maybe it was when the kids hit a certain age and they were able to make their own meals. Or maybe it was when I started babysitting a bunch of kids and became too busy for all that kitchen work. Or maybe it was when I started my at-home job. That takes a lot of time and energy, actually. And I’m getting older, too. I sure wish they had a Battery charger for us as we age. Coffee just isn’t working so much anymore, lol.
Well, ANYWAY, I’m thinking about bulk cooking because I actually did some today. It has been a loooong time. I have been taking advantage of some good sales, and one of them was on a 20-pound slap of boneless pork loin. I’m not too fond of pork (no one is in the house), but the price was right and I figured I could make a couple of meals out of it. Which I did, today. Can you believe it— it’s not even 10 am and already the entire loin is washed, chopped, bagged and stored! Some of it is simmering in a crockpot with carrots, onions and black beans. I feel so… so… domestic!
Regarding canning– I would love to learn how to can. The food prices make me queasy and sometimes when I read the news headlines I get a little nervous. Everything seems so tenuous. Is it just me? Is it truly tenuous? Or does every generation always feel this way? I imagine how it must have felt for folks going through the world wars…. wow. Anyway, I think I will try to get back into the bulk food preparation habit again. Maybe I’ll even shell out the bucks and get a canning set.
