We've had kitchen success!!!
AND KITCHEN FAIL!!!!!
All in the ongoing quest for good food!!!!
If you've read The Lawman's Holiday Wish you've seen this recipe that we featured here in April:
Rainey McKinney's Tres Leches Cake
Huge thanks to Virginia for guiding me on the basics of Tres Leches Cakes! I discovered that tres leches are like Italian Cannoli cakes: Each area has their own little quirks, twists and versions, so in the book I had Rainey develop a traditional recipe, a coconut pineapple recipe and an apple-and-eggnog recipe. Now a local Inn/Lodge wants her to develop one specifically for them, exclusive!!! :) I love how I can engineer things in fiction... and then transfer some of them to real life! My family considers this a mega-win!
And I'm working on a pecan/sweet potato pie recipe for next Christmas's book.... and yes, we're experimenting (Loving Piper Huguley's post on sweet potato pie!!!! ) with some fun variations to delight the family... and readers.... because it's so much fun to bring folks right into the kitchen!
Last year I did a stuffed mushroom recipe that you can find here: Ruthy's Stuffed Mushrooms 1
Now those are real good, but this year I refined the recipe a bit. The basics are the same... and a grinder is your best friend for consistency, but check this out!
2 lbs. White Mushroom (Ours were kind of small once cooked, although Dave was sure they were BIG ENOUGH when he bought them. :) )
1 lb. country breakfast sausage
1 cup parmesan cheese
1 cup bread crumbs
1 tablespoon dried onion
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 Tablespoon parsley flakes.
Wash mushrooms, remove stems.
Cook sausage and mushroom stems until sausage is cooked through. Add a little olive oil or water if needed. Grind sausage, mushroom stems through grinder. (hand or electric)
Mix in bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, onion, parsley and garlic. If dry, add some of the drippings from sausage pan....
Saute mushrooms lightly in olive oil in frying pan on stovetop. don't cook through, just soften a smidge....
Remove from heat. Drain and stuff with sausage filling. Heat under broiler.... or if you're like us, you just zap 'em in the microwave and feed the teeming masses!!!
OH MY STARS, DELICIOUS!!!!
And fairly easy!!!! Right???? Normal, in the kitchen ingredients except for the fresh mushrooms and the Bob Evans sausage.... WONDERFUL FOR PARTIES!!!!
So that's our normal life.... Oh, wait, WRONG.... This is our normal life:
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| Headdress design time! |
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| Little White Dove and Pearlie Morning, hard at work! |
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| Princess Megan of the Iroquois Nation!!! |
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| The Indian on the left looks a little worried about that feast thing!!! |
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| First storm!!!! But then it died and we ended up with 4 inches. Pfft. |
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| Xavier makes licking the bowl an art form!!!! And it's the end of shotgun season for whitetail deer: |
The guys "drove" the woods.... and they ended up with a few bits of venison for the freezers.... Whereas my freezer has beef and chicken. And a few turkeys. :)
Although venison is always welcome here!
And colorful!!!! Sing, o ye Cherubim!!!!
