Kitchen Chaos

A baguette is an incredibly easy yeast bread to make with no complicated ingredients. The first bread I made was "white bread" and that had a fairly long list of ingredients. This is much simpler. This is the bread that Daisy made to go in her pineapple bread pudding for youth fair.

This dressing comes with a special recipe for salad complete with apple and cranberries and is probably pretty good. I have never made it though. I have only been interested int the dressing. This dressing is amazing. Think of a tart lemonade. It's good on a salad, good as a fruit dip, and good as a marinade.

I have to confess, I thought split pea soup would be gross. I am not too fond of canned peas (I don't pick them out of things though) and that was my thought of what this would taste like. I was wrong. It doesn't happen very often, but yes I was wrong. Hubby also was not thrilled with the idea of trying it, but he likes it as well. About the only way I can think of descibing this is a spring vegetable soup. It just tastes like spring. This is great with grilled cheese, or bread or any number of things I can't eat. 10 cups water 1 pound dried split peas 1 pound ham cut into pieces or ham bone 1 medium onions 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper 2 or 3 carrots chopped 2 or 3 celery stalks chopped Heat water and peas to boiling, boil for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and put in crock pot. Let sit for one hour then plug in crockpot. Toss in remaining ingredients. Cook on low for eight hours or high for 4 hours. Ok, now a confession: if your family

Oh my. This stuff is the best ever. If you ever had that jarred muck in the store, and thought it was gross, try this. It's like apple pie and applesauce had a child. Great on toast or applesauce bread. My kids love it in peanut butter sandwiches. A fruit butter is fruit cooked down slowly with sugar to make a spread. Butters use less sugar than jams or jellies and so would be somewhat healthier. With the really sweet fruits, butters can taste better because of the less sugar; peach butter is divine, but I find peach jam too sweet.

I got this recipe from Recipezaar.com - one of my favorite places to get recipes. Apparently the person who posted it on recipezaar, found it on Hillbilly Housewife 's website. In any case, this is a yummy filling recipe that even my "I don't like black beans" Hubby liked as well as my "I don't like soup" son. I served it with the gluten-free corn bread which went nicely. Oh, why dried beans? They are cheaper, lower in salt, and that's what I had. I had bought the beans before finding a recipe, I know a bag of beans will make a good sized pot of soup. I am not sure how many cans it would take. I think this recipe could be converted to gluten-free it just has the bullion cubes which have wheat and I am not quite sure how to replicate their flavor with ease.

This stuff is absolutely wonderful!!! It is a bit unusual, but great on chicken or fish. Katie's Peach Salsa

Absolutely Yummy Gluten-Free Cornbread recipe came from my Grandmother's Mexican Cornbread dish. Its a wonderful meal and really isn't spicy-hot. I have made it somewhat healthier than her original which called for bacon drippings and I am pretty sure more than 1/3 of a cup (I think it was 1/2). I am pretty sure this could be done even healthier but I haven't really puttered with it too much. First the Mexican Cornbread recipe and then I will do the regular cornbread. Oh, I make this in a number 8 cast iron skillet (which for some reason means 9 or 10 inches) and it fits perfectly.

Another post I was going to do before Christmas but didn't. I love sweet potatoes and it doesn't have to be a major holiday for me to make them though, so I will go ahead and share.

I had planned on following a recipe I found for gluten-free gravy but I couldn't find it. I did remember it used a gluten free cream of soup as a thickener -- so that is what I did, and then made the rest up. Here is the recipe

Just so you know, I am not against the canned stuff. I just like the homemade so much better and it is so simple. Hubby likes the canned stuff. With the canned shape. EWW. Ok maybe I am against the canned stuff but it is more of a personal choice thing. I won't force anyone to eat homemade if I am not forced to eat canned. But this is really good. and since you make it to your taste, you should like it too.

I was going to do this post before Christmas . . . but it didn't get done. Since it was full of goodness, I finished it and am going to run it now. I know, its after Christmas but really except for the turkey these would be good any night. Just not all at once. So here it is - - - My Christmas challange Menu Every time I have a holiday dinner at my house I tend to go a little nuts. See the thing is, while I hate to cook dinner every night, I love to do something like Thankgiving or Christmas. I just don't know when to stop.

For some reason I have never had this classic Southern dish and so thought I would try it this year. I had gotten the recipe after reading A Year of Crockpotting and reading some of the comments on her first trial of black eyed peas. Anyway the recipe I sort-of used is right here . I say sort-of because I added way too much cayenne. The recipe called for 1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes and since I couldn't find that I used ground red pepper. A little over 3/4 of a teaspoon. I should have used 1/4 teaspoon.