The Kitchen is my domain

I am a kitchen diva. A domestic goddess. :) It is what I do. I LOVE cooking. I love the whole process. I am a foodie. I take pictures of my meals and post them on facebook, lol. It's no wonder I have a weight problem. :)

The pillsbury doughboy is my homeboy.....




Someday I want to redo my kitchen. A funky decorative mix of the pillsbury doughboy, cupcakes and vintage 60's & 70's decor. Someday. Pier One has the polka dot dinnerware I want, someday I am going to go buy it. Hopefully they still have it when someday comes around. :)


I love coming up with my weekly menu. During the weekend I will go through cookbooks and make out my menu for the following week, make out my grocery list and go shopping....

Here's next weeks menu. I bought this giant package of chiken tenders from the food co-op this month, but it's all frozen together, so once I thaw it out, I have to use it all soon, so this week we are having lots of chicken...

I love my little dry erase menu board. The kids love being able to look at it and know what is for dinner that night too.




I have lots of cookbooks. I used to get any and every one I could get my hands on, but in the last year or so I've gotten very selective in the ones I keep around. Great recipes so easily accessible on the internet (allrecipes. com is one of my favorites) so I only keep around the books that I love, the ones I will use the most, the ones that just make me smile. :)



I could sit and look at cookbooks for hours, picking out what I want to make....



And all of my favorites of course have their own website that offer recipes too. Paula Deen , The Pioneer Woman , The Farm Chicks

I have little torn peices of paper sticking out of all of them to save the spots of my favorite recipes....




These are some of the ones I use most often these days....



So far out of the Pioneer Woman book I have made her cinnamon rolls, macaroni & cheese, pizza crust, chicken fried steak, creamy mashed potatoes, comfort meatballs, burgundy mushrooms, and creamy rosemary potatoes. Tonight I am making her olive cheesy bread, and them tomorrow her meatloaf.... mmmmmm...

When I checked "The Cracker Kitchen" out of the library about a year or so ago, I thought it was talking about a place called the cracker kitchen, or it was being used as a food term, but no.... it meant the white trash kind of cracker, lol. It has fun stories in it of growing up a "cracker", and it is full of yummy southern food. It even has a chapter on how to cook various wildlife....I had to buy it.

I can't even help it, this one cracks me up......





This one is a library book. In fact that's how I decide if I want to buy a cookbook, I will check them out from the library and cook a couple things out of it, and if I like it and it has lots of recipes I will use, then I put it on my list to purchase. I try to get them used on amazon or ebay, why pay full price if you don't have to?



So far I have cooked Easy Cheeseburger casserole, roasted sweet potato wedges, and turkey & black bean burgers with corny salsa. Next week I am making their grilled tilapia po'boys with homemade tartar sauce. Mmmmmm....

I love books with pictures, in fact these days I usually won't pick up a cookbook without good pics. I love that The Pioneer Woman puts a pick of almost each and every step. I'm such a visual person.

The farm chicks also have arts & crafts instructions and fun stuff to make in theirs, I also have their Christmas book. And fun stories of them growing up and how they came to be the Farm Chicks.



and I have tons and tons of cake books, I love making cakes! When I know someone has a birthday or special celebration coming up, I take down my books and look through them all trying to pick out the PERFECT cake for that person. To me, that's part of the fun. I love making cakes for people. I think of this as a way to share my talents, which is what God wants us to do. He blesses me through various people so that I can bless others, and baking cakes is one of my favorite ways to bless and love on people. :)



and lets not forget cupcakes and brownies....and my Sweety Pie book which has lots of fun stories about the women whose pie recipes are in there. It is mostly african american women and their stories of growing up and making pies, I find it fascinating.



I want to have a bake sale someday. I REALLY want to participate in the Great American Bakesale one of these days, to end childhood hunger. I think not only would it be so much fun to bake everything for it, and to actually sell it, but it would go to a wonderful cause. I need to find a good venue for it and get to work on putting one together. Hopefully this spring. That's my goal anyways.

I love feeding people. There's not much that I love more than preparing a big meal for the people I love. I love having people over for dinner and cooking for them. I love hosting parties where I can fix lots of food. It's what I do. :)