Kitchen Labels via Sharpie

Some people use their computers to create and print fancy labels for their kitchen containers. Not us. No way. Give us a Sharpie and we'll just write on the side of the Tupperware.

We actually have two such Stites family masterpieces. The first one, pictured here,

is powdered sugar. You may have figured out that part. It says some form of "powdered sugar" or "not flour" on all four sides of the container. Because, well, some of us can use a little reinforcement. Jeffrey Stites is a really good cook. He's not afraid to try anything in the kitchen and has conquered things like coq au vin and homemade Cuban bread (is it still Cuban if it's made in North Carolina by an American of European descent?). But he has also made French Onion soup using powdered sugar instead of flour to make a roux. Twice. Twice he did this. The first time we chalked it up to being an honest mistake. But the second time? We don't even keep these two things anywhere near each other in the cabinets. We really laughed at him the second time. Since I wanted to make sure that never happened again, I took a Sharpie to the plastic and voila! There should be no more mistaking those two in this house.

The second container also has a story. We were working on Brunswick Little Theatre's summer musical a couple years ago. We were doing "Into The Woods," and the plan was for a teenaged boy to carry a cow to portray Milky White. We needed flour to make the cow white. It was a brown cow that needed a light dusting to make it stand in for the white cow and...well, go see the show live if you can find it playing on stage anywhere and otherwise, rent the movie. Anyway, we needed to keep a supply of flour backstage. Being the ever -resourceful stage manager that he is, Jeffrey borrowed our flour container and labeled it "Instant Milky White."

Surprisingly, those are the only two we have felt the need to label so far. Knowing us though, they won't be the last.

Noodle-ing around in the kitchen

Get your mind out of the gutter - this is a family blog. 

I made homemade noodles! I feel so much more Italian now. 

Jeffrey and John got me a pasta roller kit for the KitchenAid stand mixer for Christmas. They also got me a pasta cookbook (more on that later) and some cool little tools – a pasta cutter and a ravioli form/cutter. The pasta cutter for the mixer is a separate attachment, and I am undecided if we’ll even need that. My favorite noodles can be made without it, I think.

We tried it out recently, settling on the basic pasta recipe in the book that came with the mixer attachment. We’ll save fancy pasta recipes for when we have a little more skill.

What are you doing? Can I have some?

I was a little unsure how this would all go. When my Mom was a newlywed, her mother-in-law, my Grandmother Pasquarello, taught her how to make homemade pasta. Grandmother Pasquarello was not actually Italian, but she had married into an Italian family so of course she had to learn to make sauce, pasta, hot sausages, etc. My Mom only did this that one time because she said she used every pot in the house. Twice. They didn’t have the spiffy equipment that I do now, and I have never been afraid of making a mess in the kitchen. I mean, I can make a mess boiling eggs (oh, yeah, I have a story about boiling eggs I’ll need to share sometime too).

Running through the pasta roller

All of us worked on this dinner. Jeff got started on the chicken. It’s sort of our version of Chicken Milanese, breaded and sautéed with, well, let Jeffrey tell you.

Well, it was kind of a feel your way as you go along thing. Plus, I was trying to keep busy while Lisa and John rolled and cut noodles. The chicken is simply breaded with the usual milk, flour, seasoned breadcrumb assembly line then fried up in some canola oil until it’s nice and golden brown. I didn’t worry about cooking the chicken through as I knew I had time to finish it in the oven, which I did end up doing. When this is done, you’re left with a nice bit of chicken-flavored oil. I deglazed with a bit of white wine, then put a little olive oil in to allow for more sauce and sprinkled flour onto it (while it’s nice and hot) to make a light roux. Then in went the juice of two lemons. It’s really just a matter of watching to keep the sauce the consistency you like, adding a bit of wine or oil (or lemon juice if you have any, but I didn’t) to loosen things up or letting it cook down to thicken. I fiddled longer than need be but I think it may have helped in the long run as I kept adding wine and cooking it down again. The sauce ended up pretty rich and, if I do say so myself, delicious.

Not too much of a mess...

It was delicious. I had made the pasta dough and let it chill and then John and I fired up the pasta roller. We had some successes and some not-so-great attempts. And I think next time I would run it though the next setting to make the pasta a little thinner. I figured out that if it didn’t come our pretty, I could just fold it in half lengthwise, run it through the roller again and it would be ok. As we made sheets, I cut out fettucine noodles. I coiled them up as best I could, and kept a towel over them until they were all finished so they wouldn’t get dry. Then we boiled them in salted water. We put a little butter and parsley on them, and voila! Dinner. The best part is that we were all in the kitchen together. And I have to mention that John was photographer for this post. I think he did a great job!

I think next I will try ravioli J

Iced Coffee with Coffee Ice

This is not my idea at all, but it's one I finally decided to try. When I want iced coffee, I usually just make coffee and chill it. With regular ice in it, I end up trying to drink it before the ice cubes melt though, so the coffee won't get too diluted. Enter coffee ice cubes.

They're really as easy as they sound. Just make coffee, pour into ice cube trays and freeze. We added some Bailey's flavored creamer too. After they were frozen, I put them into a freezer bag to keep them fresh. Today I decided to try one, and of course, since I was going to blog about it, I wanted pictures. I tried taking one of the glass with just the ice cubes in the living room with the laptop as the background, but I didn't like the way it looked. So I got up to take it to the kitchen, and I knocked over the glass with the coffee and it all went onto the carpet. Aaaahhhh! Help! Luckily, my fellas are used to this, and John sprang into action with paper towels. He even sacrificed one of his bathroom towels for the cause (it's in the washer now).

With the mess cleaned up, I made another cup of coffee and put it into a plastic cup to chill in the freezer. I wanted to keep my ice cubes on ice too. I was about to put the glass in the freezer too, but I decided I'd better switch them into a plastic cup too. That way, if I drop it later, it won't shatter. Follow my thinking here?

I think I'll get a festive ice cube tray now, like this one especially made for all the geeks out there.

Sometimes there needs to be chocolate

There are times we just need chocolate. Not like to have, but have to have chocolate moments.

I had one of those nights last week. And then there were brownies. I used to make a brownie recipe from one of my best go-to cookbooks, the Better Homes and Gardens red and white cookbook that everyone should have (more on that later). For 20 plus years, I have been using that recipe. It calls for melting chocolate in butter, adding sugar, vanilla, eggs and flour. But then I tried a recipe from Hershey's. I didn't have baking chocolate and needed brownies one day, so I used the Hershey recipe since it called for cocoa. Now I am hooked on this recipe. These brownies are just perfect. They have the perfect gooey texture, and I use Special Dark chocolate to make them even more decadent.

I used the Pioneer Woman's recipe for mocha frosting, though I cut it in half. I have used a dark roast recipe in this frosting, but this night we used a mocha flavored coffee and it really pushed it over the top.

These brownies were just what I needed. Gooey chocolate equals a happy Lisa.

One of my favorite cookbooks

We moved to North Carolina in 1993. We were so young, only out of college a few months. We hadn't even learned yet not to put everything we wanted on credit cards. We've come a long way since then, but this is one impulse purchase I am so glad we made.

This cookbook, called Southern Elegance, is a collection of recipes from the Junior League of Gaston County. I have no idea where we got it, because we live nowhere near Gaston County. Jeffrey thinks we bought it at a street fair, or maybe the Cotton Exchange in Wilmington.

One of the recipes is for Louisiana Barbequed Shrimp. This is not your typical barbecue. It's not even thick red sauce. Think lemons, Lots of lemons, And butter. Lots of butter. There's garlic, of course, and Worcestershire (Lea & Perrins) sauce and Tabasco, rosemary, salt and pepper. The sauce gets cooked briefly, and then gets poured over the shrimp still in their shells. The dish goes in the oven and very soon, there is delicious shrimp for everyone. This is one of our go to meals. We even entertain with this one. We put plenty of paper towels on the table along with bowls for shrimp shells. And we serve it with some crusty bread for sopping up the sauce. It makes a terrific mess but it is delicious!

You can tell we really like this recipe. Just look at the page.

This book is literally falling apart, but I will find some way to keep it. For some reason, this is also my go to book for a quiche recipe. Actually, I just look up the egg to milk proportion and make up the rest, but it's still where I look. I have a couple cookbooks like this one -- used and abused and messy.

Just like my kitchen.

Chicken + a cast iron grill pan = a fabulous dinner

I am trying to change the way I eat because I know it's what I need to do to be healthy. I have a sweet tooth but I don't indulge it every day. I don't snack between meals and I don't eat a bag of potato chips in one sitting. But I do have a problem with carbs.

So I've been looking for meals that are healthy, interesting and delicious. Watching "The Kitchen" on Food Network this weekend, I saw the hosts giving tips for grilling chicken breasts. That's what we did for dinner tonight. I didn't look at a recipe, but just cooked it like they suggested.

We pounded out the chicken breasts. I did two and the boy did two. He said it would be great therapy for anyone who had a bad day. And I'll be honest. He did a much better job on pounding them out than I did. They really did cook more evenly since we made them flat. All we used was Kosher salt, fresh cracked black pepper and garlic powder. A little Canola oil brushed on the grill and that was it.

There are chives and parsley in the yard that survived the winter, so we chopped some of them to add to some spring mix greens. All we added was a little olive oil and balsamic for a quick and light dressing. I topped the chicken breasts with the salad and a pinch of salt. I also made some roasted purple potatoes -- just a few pieces for everyone. That's a much better choice than making enough mashed potatoes for six people when we are only three, right?

I thought it looked great, and the proof was in the pudding. Or actually, the empty plates. Everyone loved it. You're probably wondering if my plate really has snowflakes on it. Yes, it does. Don't judge. I forgot to run the dishwasher and this is what was clean. I think Jeffrey got the random flower plate.

On a side note, we did have one small mishap. Jeffrey somehow flung balsamic vinegar into his eye. Naturally, the boy and I laughed. And then I got Jeff a damp towel. Apparently healthy food can be dangerous for some people, but we'll keep trying meals that are good for us anyway.

Cookie butter

How have I not heard of this before?

It can't be any kind of good for you, so I probably will not even try it. Because if I try it and like it I'll want more and that would be bad. I already eat enough things that are bad for me.

I saw a video on Facebook about making a cookie butter mug cake in the microwave, and I thought cookie butter? What the what?

Naturally I immediately Googled it and found that it's a real thing. I mean, Trader Joe's sells it so it must be a real thing in the civilized world. I live in the middle of nowhere, so I have to find this stuff out via the interwebs.

Then I found pages dedicated to all the luscious but artery clogging things you can make with cookie butter. Kind of like the the pages I found the other day with recipes for your Peeps. I really need to stop looking at these things. Are there salad pages? Salad, green things pages? I need to go find out.