Home Cooking

Apparently, I have food on the brain lately.  I promise it's not the only thing happening in our house.  For instance, yesterday I vacuumed up a harmonica.  However, Blair and I have been reading through the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and so much of that series revolves around good food!  I first started reading these books as a five-year-old.  I've read them all at least once a year (sometimes more!) for the last 22 years.  I adore them.  I have much of them memorized.  Blair, however, has never read a single one.  I was almost offended.  However, rather than taking the offended, emotional route, I took the educational high road and handed him Farmer Boy.  He loves it.  He hasn't finished it yet, because he is a very busy man (much like the male characters in the series), but he reads a little of it every evening. I'm pretty sure if there was a farm house for sale in our county, we would be buying it and raising livestock.  Tomorrow.  Instead of falling into financial ruin by buying a house and animals we can't afford, I have been channeling that homesteading energy into the kitchen.  Last night I baked parmesan crusted chicken (locally raised, organic, and free range), creamed potatoes and peas (both garden fresh, though the potatoes were from a friend), corn on the cob from my parents' garden, risotto, my Mama's Biscuits, and chocolate peanut butter cookies.  I probably went a little overboard, but I shouldn't have to cook for the next couple of days.  I don't have a single photograph to show you, but, despite Garth Williams' amazing illustrations, neither do the Little House books.  I shall just let you use your imaginations.  Now, go read a book and bake something!