Most of my life I have been collecting recipes from cookbooks, newspapers, magazines, product labels, cooking shows and online. Currently, I have 60 cookbooks, 32 cooking magazines, 20 cooking booklets, 3 binders and 2 recipe boxes of loose recipes.
This is a blog where I will share all my thoughts and experiences when trying out recipes. I will also include my experiences visiting restaurants for the first time.
Pasta with Veggies and Black Beans
I have collected many cookbooks, magazines and clipped recipes. I still look for cookbooks to buy or get from the Library! This recipe is from a Library book- Easy Everyday Vegetarian Cookbook. It is written or put together by Taste of Home. I have had several rounds of subscriptions to the Taste of Home magazine…
Lamb Kabobs
We love this recipe! It has been a favorite for years. I found it online https://www.food.com/recipe/lebanese-lamb-kefta-lamb-kabobs-437869 by Sommer Clary. I have changed a few things, but most of it is the same as her recipe. I won’t post the recipe here but please click the link. It is really great. One of the few changes…
My Comfort Foods Together
I’m so excited to talk about my comfort foods! I put 3 of my favorite dishes together and it was delicious! I have had them with other side or main meals, but not together!!! Ok, so the pictures may not look very appetizing, but it tastes so good! The first dish is the Kidney Beans…
Chunky Vegetable Lentil Soup
I’m still in the soup mode and made an easy lentil soup. This recipe was in a January 2014 Better Homes and Garden magazine. My very kind and caring Mother in Law used to give me a subscription to the magazine for Christmas. She knew how much I liked cooking and dabbling in the garden. …
Winter Bean Salad
Another recipe from the Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Guide, but with variety of changes. This is a remake of the “Italian White Bean and Tuna Salad” recipe. I wanted a bean salad that was a whole meal so I replaced the tuna with pasta. I also used the Royal Corona bean instead of a smaller…
Pasta E Fagioli
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been trying different recipes. Last summer I made some wonderful meals using veggies from my garden and the Farmer’s Market. When the gardening started to wind down, something happened to my cooking abilities. Everything I made seemed to flop so…
Vegetables and Tofu in Tomato Sauce
I have been cooking from the Start Simple cookbook by Lukas Volger. It was another Library book. I really enjoyed it. When it was time to bring the book back, I wanted to copy the recipes that I had made and the ones that I wanted to make. While I was making the copies, my…
Erlin’s Hot Dish
I’m not sure who Erlin is or how this hot dish came to be called by this name, but it was my absolute favorite hot dish growing up. This is another hot dish that came from the McKinley School cookbook. Here is the recipe in the cookbook: My meat lover Mom increased the meat by…
Hamburger Rice Hot Dish
Ok, so this dish may not look very appetizing, but it is very special to me. My Mom was the queen of the “Hot Dish” and we grew up on them. This particular hot dish was written out for me by my Mom. Another cherished recipe because it is in her handwriting. Her handwriting is…
Orange – Berry Muffins
I made this recipe a couple of times with different adjustments each time. They were really good whatever way I made them. The recipe is adapted from a Taste of Home Magazine, but I did not include which issue it was in when I cut out the recipe. The original can probably be found on…
My Sister’s Potato Salad
I took a break from cooking much over the summer and thru October. I love being outside in the warm weather and tinkering in the garden! I miss it. We finally got to visit a couple of times this summer with one of my sisters who lives in Canada. She and her husband are fabulous…
Sesame Tofu
Another Tofu Recipe! My sister sent me this recipe when she was living in Australia. I can’t remember the year, but I’m guessing it was around 1989 or 1990. This was before cell phones and face chats. The only way to keep in contact was though letters and very occasional phone calls. The recipe is…
Today’s Favorite Dishes
I’m sharing a couple of my current favorite dishes. I have a lot of favorites and they change throughout the season and the years. But my current ones were both found online- Sweet and Spicy Grilled Tofu https://thefitchen.com/sweet-spicy-grilled-tofu/ and Garlicky Mushroom Sheet Pan Gnocchi https://twomarketgirls.com/galicky-mushroom-sheet-pan-gnocchi/ . I liked them together because they are my favorites,…
Potato Burger Buns
I was feeling pretty good about making bread so I decided to branch out to hamburger buns. I tried a recipe from American’s Test Kitchen (love that show!) the 2016 Season. It looked like a recipe that I could tackle. This one brought me back to reality! Mastering the art of making bread or buns…
pane di Genzano
This Italian bread recipe is in the Making Bread at Home cookbook by Jane Mason. I have no idea how to pronounce the name, but I really enjoyed the bread. The last couple attempts making bread were not successful for me. I was going to give it up and find a good bakery, but I…
Samarkand Restaurant
We haven’t been going out to many restaurants lately and I miss it terribly. I was happy to finally make plans to eat out, but where? So many choices and it was my turn to pick! After much searching, I decided on Samarkand Restaurant in Plymouth, MN https://samarkand.restaurant/ . It is a Russian restaurant from…
Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit the More You Eat, the More You…
My funny oldest sister gave me this little recipe pamphlet for my birthday. Old Farts Recipes by Anna Laural. It’s pretty funny to read through, but this recipe got my attention. My Grandmother and Mom used to make a version of this recipe when we were kids. I still make it like my Mom once…
Basic Bread
Making Bread at Home by Jane Mason is perfect for the newbie to bread baking. In the beginning of the book she goes through each essential part of bread making, but in a very encouraging way. It put me right at ease especially when she said it was hard to mess it up and if…
Crispy Chickpeas and Spiced Beef Topping with Pita Bread
This post is about two recipes that I tested. One is the Crispy Chickpeas and Spiced Beef Topping that is from Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street magazine in 2018. I had some delicious hummus leftover from Holy Land Bakery in Northeast Minneapolis (it’s the best!) that I wanted to use up and this recipe seemed to…
Christmas Lima Bean and Roasted Cauliflower Salad
Another recipe from The Rancho Gordo Vegetarian Kitchen by Steve Sando. The Lima bean in the title may have dissuaded you from looking further, but this bean is not like any lima bean I have ever tasted or seen. I just refer to it as the Christmas bean. It is really good- the texture is…
Black Bean, Potato and Corn Chowder
This recipe comes from The Rancho Gordo Vegetarian Kitchen cookbook. Another cookbook from the library. I was on a waiting list for a few months, but it was worth the wait. This is a quick soup, if the beans are already cooked, and it tastes great (what a surprise!). If you have seen any other…
Butternut Squash and Bean Soup
I love butternut squash. I love beans. Put them together and WOW! Can you tell I really liked this soup? This recipe is from the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper. It comes from Beth Dooley, one of the food writers for the paper. I’m not sure when this recipe appeared in the paper, but I wish…
Charred Zucchini, Corn and Bean Salad
I’m still catching up from taking the summer off from blogging, but I’m getting closer. This salad is in the “Cool Beans” cookbook by Joe Yonan. I borrowed the book from the library. Libraries are great! I can try a variety of cookbooks and not spend a dime. The recipe is actually call “Charred Zucchini,…
Queen Emma’s Avocado Salad and Shopska Salad
Queen Emma’s Avocado Salad- HawaiiServes 6 The next cookbook of the month is the International Friendship Circle Cookbook from Cottey College in Nevada Missouri. My Niece attended this college for 2 years and gave me this cookbook. It is an interesting cookbook to read, but most of the recipes have ingredients that are not commonly…
Pasta with Pesto and Garlic Honey Carrots
These are the last two recipes I made from the Garlic Cookbook. I’m sure that I will be trying more from this cookbook. I really like this one. I made a few vinaigrette recipes from the cookbook that were not mentioned in this blog. Of course, I loved each one of them. It has become…
Pasta with Roasted Garlic Basil Sauce
Still cooking from the Garlic Cookbook by David RiResta and loving every bite! I really improvised with this recipe. I wanted to make it into a whole meal instead of a side dish so I added a protein and vegetables. My family loved it and not a speck was left. I used frozen meatballs for…
Bruschetta
This is another recipe from the Garlic Cookbook by David DiResta. I love this cookbook!!!! Of course I am a garlic lover! I looked online to see if David DiResta had a website that I could look for more recipes and find out more about him. I didn’t find a website, but found that he…
Lemon Garlic Chicken
I really liked this dish!! It may not look scrumptious to the eye, but I thought that it tastes great. I found this recipe in a cookbook that I have had for a long time, but rarely gave it much attention- “The Garlic Cookbook” by David DiResta. My plan for the next couple of months…
Roasted Chickpeas and Broccoli Burritos
I was looking for a recipe to use the fabulous beans from Rancho Gordo ranchogordo.com and found one in the Thug Kitchen cookbook. The cookbook has a lot of interesting recipes, but the language is over the top. It seems like the author tries too hard to be funny by frequently using the F- word…
Asian Spiced Edamame and Tofu Soup
This recipe is from Better Homes & Gardens Plant-based Recipes magazine 2020. Santa put it in my socking for Christmas this year – isn’t he fun! The soup is cooked in a crock pot which gave it great flavor, but the vegetables were still crunchy. I made another batch of soup on the stove top,…
Minnesota Food Lover 