My father has told me more than once that he has one huge regret about how he raised my siblings and me.  If he could go back and do it all over again, he would not teach us to love potato skins and the heels of bread loaves because he had to fight for every [...]

Looks tasty, doesn’t it?  It’s crisp around the edges with the perfect balance of saltiness and creaminess in the center.  It’s nourishing.  It’s delicious.  It fills you up.  It only takes five minutes to make from start to finish. But you know what else dings my chimes about this dish? It costs $3.42 for four [...]

I want to give you all a gift.  It’s that time of year, after all.  Taste, beauty, aroma, thrift; this gift has it all.  As a big thank you to keeping me company on the big old internet for this past year I want to give you all the gift of…
Leftover pizza.
It’s more exciting than [...]

Is it soup yet?

We lived in Le Roy for just over a decade.  We loved our home, our church, our community. We had rebuilt the house while living in it.  (This process was helped along by the fact that it was bare studs, floors and outer walls and absolutely-nothing-else when we bought it.)  We could’ve [...]

I come from a camping obsessed family.  My Dad is, by trade, a camp manager.  My Mom likes to take her blanket outside and sleep under the stars (she also wants an outdoor bath tub, but I digress.)  My sister, Jess, and her family are certifiable trail and tent nuts.  My brother, Luke, digs the [...]

We’ve been spring cleaning like crazy around here lately.  It’s so invigorating to be able to open the windows after having them firmly shut since November.  And even though I hate doing laundry, there is something incredibly peaceful about hanging the first couple loads of clothes and sheets and towels on the line.  Everything is [...]

 
I have a problem.  Every single year a couple of days before Easter I tell myself I won’t go crazy on the egg-dying.  And every year I go nuts.  I remember sitting at our big old trestle table when I was a kid and decorating for hours.  My Mom is not a do-the-holidays-halfway type person.  [...]

Déjà Food
Pronunciation: \ˌdā-ˌzhä-ˈfüd\
Function: noun
Etymology: Yo Momma. (Actually, my step-momma… but I wanted to say that)
1. Leftovers.  But with a French name, therefore, more sophisticated.
Among the catalog of wonderful things my step-mother, Valerie, introduced me to when she and my father married are many now-standards for me: SOB Smoothies (‘Strawberry’, ‘Orange’, and ‘Banana’ Smoothies.  What were you [...]

Now, admittedly, I do follow some recipes for a lot of dishes I prepare,  but soups and stews are very forgiving foods to make, very flexible and a great way to use up those bits and pieces that don’t seem to have anywhere else to go. And most of these creations are dubbed by Jim as being [...]

I think it is safe to say that with five sons, one loving husband, two useless male hound dogs and a male goldfish I inhabit a man’s world.  I am outnumbered 9 to 2.  That the cat is also ‘non-male’ is immaterial.  She can run and hide under beds or our vast piles of laundry.  [...]