Cooking in Quarantine

                                                                      I love to make soup! Soup may be my favorite food group actually, if that's a thing. I have made soup for so many years that I rarely follow a recipe but instead just use what I have available or what sounds good at the time. Occasionally, I go online and look at recipes others have created and use them as a guide or I use a recipe a friend or family member suggests but invariably what is created is unique in some way. Maybe creating soup is fun to me is because you don't need to follow a recipe and make it exactly the same each time. It can be wonderful even if the same variety tastes slightly different ( or incredibly different) every time you make it! Almost every soup I make begins with the same basic ingredients: Onions and garlic ( the more the merrier) sautéed in 2-3 tablespoons of the oil ( I prefer Extra Virgin Olive Oil ), broth, and seasonings. Most of my soups also have diced celery and carrots

I love it when I can buy a few key ingredients and know that they will cover multiple meals. One reason our family loves pork shoulder so much is exactly that. My hubby and I love it for the ease and we all love it for the taste! We live in the Midwest where pork is king. Under normal circumstances, we wait for sales and stock up, so we usually have 2 or 3 big (7-8 pound) pork shoulders in the deep freeze. We can get it here for as low as $.98 per pound, so it's incredibly economical.  I'll share three different styles of preparation for the pork shoulder over the next three posts. We do all three of these with one large pork shoulder. This time around, we cut the shoulder in half. The bone side was smoked by my amazing hubby in our PitBoss smoker--low and slow overnight. Delicious. Today's recipe is for Carolina Pork Wraps . This mix of flavors is really yummy and appeals to crowds of all ages in our house. Ingredients Smoked pork shoulder, warm an

In my last post I mentioned that we cut it in half and smoked the bone-in portion. With the other half, we love to use a recipe from the sweet and lovely Rachel and Polly at Thriving Home . These ladies are amazing and I want to be like them when I grow up. ;) I had the privilege of being on the recipe test team for their latest cookbook, From Freezer to Cooker , which released in January 2020. The cook book offers delicious recipes in numerous categories and with each one teaches how you can cook it from fresh, freeze it for later, and cook from frozen. Cooking instructions include both slow cooker and Instant Pot, so however you roll, you can figure out how to put their recipes on your table. As soon as this recipe came across my email, I ran to the store to get all the ingredients. We have been making this at least once a month ever since. Now, I did promise them that I wouldn't share those recipes as part of the testing team, but since then their cook book has been rele

In 2013, I went to Sierra Leone, West Africa. It was an amazingly humbling trip where I got to see awe-inspiring landscapes and witness how God provides abundantly. It was also an incredibly difficult trip physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It sounds ridiculous but one of the most difficult things for me while I was there was eating rice for almost every meal. Rice has never been my favorite food, and after five weeks of eating rice, I swore I would never touch it again. However, there was one food that we ate there that I remember loving, and every now and then, I crave it like crazy. In Sierra Leone, it is called Ground Nut Soup. A few weeks ago, I  started craving it, so I started googling. I am a total hypocrite for admitting this, but one of my pet-peeves is when I have to scroll through pages and pages of someone's blog just to get to a recipe. Every time a recipe blog has. "jump straight to recipe" button, I click it. However, I found myself reading ab

If you are someone who is used to using premade mixes, I get that. It often feels simpler and faster. But, let me give you a little confidence and say that if you have a decently stocked spice rack, you probably have everything you need to create those mixes from scratch! An added benefit of making mixes like the below taco seasoning is that you start to get to know what flavors go well together and you can adjust specific elements to make it perfectly to your taste. Taco Seasoning Mix A recipe from my mom. Here are her directions. 1 Tbsp Chili Powder 1 tsp onion powder 1 tsp Ground Cumin 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp paprika 1 tsp oregano 1 tsp sugar 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp cornstarch Combine all ingredients. Use as you would a package of taco seasoning, to season 1 pound of browned, drained ground beef: Add 3/4 cup water and simmer 5 minutes. OR use less water (1/4 cup) and heat in the microwave for 4 minutes. Elizabeth's notes: I actually don't like highly seaso

One of the things I've been most thankful for in this time, is the skill of meal planning. Meal planning, like any other skill is something that is practiced. For some people it is easier, and for some people it's more difficult, but we can all always be getting better at it. I wanted to share what meal planning looks like for me, especially right now. 1) Find recipes. I do this in a variety of ways, through cookbooks, past recipes, magazines, but mostly through pinterest.  If you have not tried pinterest, it is worth it-just for the recipes it is worth it. But, hopefully you'll be able to find some recipes on here too! Look for recipes that sound good! Try to find some that have the same ingredients. Try to find variety, not just all pastas or all rice bowls or all pizza, pay attention to how much time each one takes and try to add some variety in there too. Try to find recipes that stretch-these often are things like rice bowls, pasta, quinoa, gnocchi, lentils, or tons o

Am I the only person who struggles to find an Asian recipe that tastes as good as restaurant food? Try as I might, I never seem to get it right. I don't know where to begin when it comes to seasonings and don't necessary want to have a cupboard full of  spices and sauces I will use only once in a blue moon. As a wedding gift a friend of ours gave us a few meals from HelloFresh and we ordered Sesame Beef Tacos. All I can say (or those who know my husband he would say) these are PHENOMENAL! We've already made this recipe more than once and most certainly will keep it as a regular in our household. I hope you'll love it as much as we do! Sesame Beef Tacos P.S. Did you know you can see the ingredients and step by step instructions on HelloFresh website/app for all of the recipes they offer? No subscription needed, though you may need to make an account