Food!

I have been failing miserably on the count of trying one new recipe every month (#73).  As a matter of fact, I am realizing exactly how little I cook at all.  It really is appalling!  But a few months ago, I did get a strange craving for a dessert called "peach stuff" we used to eat when I was growing up.  I never knew what the proper name for it was, but in searching the internet for baking instructions, I found out that it is essentially a dump cake.  It could not be easier to make... canned peaches, a yellow cake mix, a little cinnamon, and butter!

It's not particularly attractive, but it is sooo yummy!  The cake mix makes almost a crust on top, so it comes out a little like a cobbler.  Perfect with a glass of cold milk!

For the holiday season, I decided to make "mix" according to my grandmother's recipe.  It's a chex mix, but so much better than any other I've ever had.  It's fairly easy to make, though, except that you have stir it every 15 minutes for the 1 1/2 hours that it bakes.  And it makes two huge roasting pans.  I've never had an oven large enough to fit both pans in at the same time, so I have to bake them separately which doubles the time committment.  The end product is always worth it, though!


It's hard to tell the scale here, but these are the largest foil roasting pans you can buy!



It is the perfect salty, savory snack, and it always makes me think of my grandmother.  She used to give it to everyone for the holidays, usually in Pringles cans that she had covered with foil wrapping paper and topped with a doily.  A very good memory!
Even though I don't cook very often, I am constantly looking at recipes and cutting them out of magazines.  I have a huge stack of them, all organized into categories(!), just waiting to be tried.  Because of that, I had become intrigued with the idea of brussels sprouts.  My initial reaction is still "eww, gross!", but that is mostly based on the mushy bitter sprouts that probably came out of a can or freezer bag back when it seemed like all vegetables were cooked by being boiled to death.  And I have discovered over the years that there are many foods that I thought I hated, but it turned out I just didn't like the particular variety or method of preparation that I had been brought up on.  So when they had cases of brussels sprouts at Trader Joe's last week, I bought a stalk...

Nothing intimidating about that bad boy!  Nope!  So it sat there on the counter for a few days.  When I finally checked the recipes I had pulled out, and I was mostly interested in pan roasting or oven roasting them, I found that I didn't have any of the other ingredients that I needed.  So the next day I talked it over with one of my co-workers who cooks a lot, and she said she had recently gotten into cooking brussels sprouts, and that she usually just tosses them with some olive oil, salt, and rosemary.  Now that I have!  Or so I thought.  I threw out a lot of my spices and herbs when I moved last summer, because many of them were old and I figured this was a good way to refresh my stock.  Unfortunately, it has mostly resulted in my searching for something that I know I have only to find out that I actually don't.  So, I ended up using some garlic-infused olive oil, salt, and thyme, and then they roasted in a 400-degree oven for about 15 minutes.  It could not have been any easier.

The finished product along with some Trader Joe's turkey and dressing

 And to answer the big question...  I am pretty sure that I still don't like brussels sprouts.  They seemed a little dry on the inside, which might be from sitting around for a few days before being cooked.  They were okay, and I will probably try them again sometime, but I don't see these making their way into my regular cooking rotation.  Hey, but at least I tried them, right?  And they do look really pretty!