Do you need an excuse to Souffle?

I had a really bad excuse to make a souffle, I had a bunch of egg whites in the freezer that had been calling to me lately to do something with them. So feeling in a bit of an odd mood I made a French dish with Irish cheese. It wasn't as hard as I was expecting and tasted fabulous!

It did fall pretty quickly after the picture was taken but I was sort of excited that it rose as well as it did. 

For the Brussel Sprout lover in you!

I have discovered there are so many things that as a kid I probably would not have even contemplated eating and actually enjoying. Brussel sprouts are one of those things, but pare them with sauteed mushrooms, bacon and onions and a little cheese and you have yourself quiet a tasty dish.

It is a bit difficult to give an actual recipe with measurements since I have stopped using recipes when I cook. I usually just go by feel and see what happens. This was about 1/4 lb of brussel sprouts and a handful of shiitake mushrooms, half an onion, one and a half strips of bacon.

Give Brussel sprouts a a chance.

The Marmalade Incident

I like orange marmalade. Since I am trying not to buy things that I can make for myself I haven't had orange marmalade in quite some time. Oranges are not commonly grown here and I don't  think I have ever seen them at the farmers market so I did have to buy them from the grocery store. So I set out to make my marmalade and first you cut up the oranges, the peel and some water, let this simmer for 5 min. then cover and let sit over night. So check those steps off. Yesterday at the end of my 12 hour wait I start adding the sugar and cooking the marmalade. I cook it until what I thought was the gel stage, it was getting think and it had been boiling for a while so I start putting it in jars. Immediately it is apparent that I don't have enough jars. The recipe said it would make 7 half-pints but what I ended up with was 5 pints, 6 half pints and 5-4oz jars. After processing all those jars the marmalade didn't set.

Today I went and got more jars and lids and opened all of the jars I processed yesterday and tried to re-cook the marmalade. I think that it worked this time. Orange Marmalade at high temperatures is like having a vat of bubbling hot lava on your stove that spits hot sticky goo on you. I have a few burns but I also have Marmalade!

New adventures

So I have been given a new opportunity that could either fizzle out or take off and become something new and exciting. Since Jan. my hours wt work have been cut down to almost nothing and I am beginning to wonder how the bills are going to get paid. Then I thought why don't I teach canning classes. People want to learn how to do that and they want to save some money on food bills. It's a win-win!

More info to come as I get something finalized and figured out.