A Girl's Gotta Eat!

This is a preemptive post in light of the impending weather coming to Middle Tennessee in the coming days as well as an effort on my part to plan out meals with a little more, well...planning. I have found several recipes I really want to try over the past several days, but the idea of the healthy, hearty Smoked Sausage Cassoulet warming in the Crock Pot all day won first place as the one to try first. I think it will last a couple days in the fridge, as my guess is that I won't feel like getting out in 7-degree temps to go grocery shopping! The link above will take you to the recipe as well but here's a sneak peek of what I hope mine will look like and the ingredients needed in case you want to follow along at home on this one. I'll post again with the how-to and my photo after I get it together. 2 slices bacon 2 cups chopped onion s 1 teaspoon dried...

So, we were lounging about yesterday morning, thrilled at having no plans for the entire weekend (a rare occurrence indeed). We were enjoying some (deer) steak and eggs for breakfast and watching The Pioneer Women on the Food Network channel. We like Ree a lot. They seem to have a really cool family, and her recipes sound delicious and totally make-able. Anyway, while we were eating breakfast yesterday, Ree was making Rigatoni and Meatballs. The meatballs looked amazing, and the more we watched, the more we thought we needed meatballs for dinner last night. I've made meatballs plenty of times, but have always used either my mom's recipe or no recipe at all. We decided we needed Ree's meatballs. And so, as we ventured out in the rain and drizzle for a few Christmas things, we stopped by Kroger for meatballs fixin's. And nothing against rigatoni, but decided we really wanted spaghetti with our meatballs. Three things we did differently: We used 3/4 cup breadcrumbs...

With Mike having today off for President’s Day (I, sadly, did not), he decided he would pick a new recipe to try so dinner would be ready for me when I got home. I arrived to the delightful smell of pork chops and apples cooking on the stove…yummy indeed. He found the recipe for Pork Chops with Apples and Garlic Smashed Potatoes in an issue of our Food Network Magazine , and the only thing that was a little different was that our pan sauce didn’t get quite as dark as the photo in the magazine. We chalk that up to using a nonstick skillet instead of the recommended cast iron. He said it wasn’t difficult to make, and it was very enjoyable. The only thing I might do a little different is to cook the apples just a little less. The flavor was great, but the texture might have been a bit better with a little crunchiness left in the fruit. Overall, though, it's another keeper (as is the husband who made it)!

After picking up new herbs at the Nashville Farmers' Market over the summer, our breakfast nook is now full of basil, chives, and rosemary. The basil isn’t a problem for us to use; we often throw it in when we’re making some sort of pasta dish (which is fairly frequently) or when we’re making a dip or appetizer (also a frequent occurrence). This is not quite the case with the rosemary. We do like rosemary (otherwise we wouldn’t have bought it), but we have found ourselves with quite a bit and are unsure how to use it all. We don’t often think about cooking pork dishes at home, and I’ve seen dozens of recipes that combine it with rosemary. And so, here’s the recipe we used, found both in Recipes Worth Sharing (a compilation of many cookbooks) and Tables of Content (see reference in previous post). [Both books can be purchased at HALF PRICE until the end of December.] The recipe was really easy, and while I made it over the weekend, I think it would be a great weekday meal as we...