Dining in

This cheesy chicken and rice soup IS classic, in fact it reminds me of a similar hot dish experienced late in my college career, early on in my budding romance with my hubs,...only it was called California Medley. It was the same chicken-and-cheesy concoction, but with a bag of California Blend vegetables mixed in, something to the likes of sliced carrots, broccoli spears, and cauliflower florets. I'm SO gonna make this and find inner peace with the tablespoon of butter that goes into every serving. Not that I'm obsessed with butter ratios per serving, but definitely paying attention. Not the kind of attention people should pay to their teenagers' Twitter accounts, what with all the break ups and make ups and swearing going on. I mean, what land of well-raised children allows them to spend every moment broadcasting to the world such nonsensical strewn pronouncements. Must be 2013, or some similar justification.

Chicago girl

I can't be entirely sure if this next pasta dish landed in my lap so instantly because the Internet is so great or because prayer works amazing wonders in our lives. It felt like the latter after my recent plea to pasta, you know, to stand-up and be more representative of their race and all. And lucky for even me, only one link away from The Sisters Cafe was The Picky Palate, which in her archives featured Grown-up Spaghettios. I'll admit when I first saw this recipe I instantly thought, "I'm going ghetto". It was more of a threat, to go ghetto, and I pondered that ditalini and tomato sauce combination for about three days, realizing with more and more joy that this dish also contained our favorite, grilled chicken, along with a stick of butter and a cup of cheese. Hidden Valley Ranch enthusiasts everywhere will be glad to know a tablespoon of ranch dip mix is secretly mixed in. Now I don't know if it was the ditalini itself that was being like, I'm all cute and tiny rings, or if the outspoken cheese was getting all gooey-like, but the three fifteen ounce cans of tomato sauce definitely brought warmth to my soul. It comforted.

Easiest sauce ever

When you have a large family like I do, six kids ages 2 to fifteen, you sometimes insist on allowing inspiration to creep in at the very last minute. Standing in the kitchen gazing into empty space, your core knows a table filled with splendor is in order, your kids, your family's memories, are deserving of your best. You are so glad that during your last trip to the grocery store you indeed grabbed two pounds each of ground beef and ground pork. You stuck them in the back of your fridge, not your freezer, because you just knew from past experience that if all else fails, whipping this up couldn't fill plates any easier. I mean, browning beef and pork together, with a previously diced onion of any size, like child's play, right? Draining the hell out of it with paper towels (never pour grease down a drain!), hot and potentially dangerous, but certainly doable. It's the mixing in of two jars of Giada's Creamy Tomato sauce (available only at Target) that gets you every time, I'd suppose. The noodles? Well if al dente goes by any other name than PERFECT, I'd like to know.

Leaning towards Thai

Not that I'm an expert or anything, on foreign cuisine or flavors. I just know that I love the idea of peanut butter, ginger, and red pepper mixed with spaghetti noodles, and sesame seeds and oil. Almost as much as combining black beans with corn, onions, and jalapeños, being one who tends naturally towards cilantro and Mex-in-general. At times, and I totally know you won't understand this, I want to be led from the start by an inviting rice or a good pasta, radiatore and cavatappi currently in wait for my easiest sauce ever,...gently persuading the large elbows to finally have it out with medium shells...skillet Mac-and-cheese, paired with Mel's Sloppy Joes, a memory made to stand forever.

There is a next best thing

...and I'm making them right now, I'll take you through it. Lemme warn you though, 12 ounces of butter and six ounces of cream cheese go into this alternative EGGLESS chocolate chip cookie. Talk about cream cheese smooshed between chocolate chip cookie, quite literally BONDED together, though sans egg you'll remember. Cream together cream cheese, melted and cooled butter, and both types of sugars. Add vanilla, then flour, baking soda and salt. Don't forget the chocolate chips. Roll into 1-inch balls on parchment at 325 for 14-16 minutes. Slightly smoosh cookies before baking. Should make about three pans, but beware, rolled cookies are OILY!

Cannot be done

An egg-and-a-half short is an unusual predicament to be in. I mean, who uses half an egg, the YOLK expressly,...why, a recipe which requires 3 EGGS to make it possible, two-and-a-half which go into the whole entire production. Bye-bye egg white that nobody thought to create a meringue with. So apparently I cannot make those Cheesecake Stuffed Chocolate Chip Bars because I have ONE egg,...not two, not the required two-and-a-half, nor the three eggs in all that would make this indulgence possible. Here, I wanted to spoil the office with them on Monday, hoped to surprise my loved ones who left together for a movie, and just the thought of the cheesecake alone smooshed between two gooey chocolate chip cookie bars. Sent me upward, straight to heaven.

Been there

If you're going to cook your chicken pot pies at 425, like most people do, just watch that pie crust after about 30 minutes. In our household we enjoy all things nicely browned and golden. It is never worthwhile to just go ahead and eat your pie crust underbaked, besides being tasteless it's ugly. Nor does it make any sense to put your pies directly upon the rack, a baking sheet with edges will catch any bubble-overs, and when lined with foil, clean up couldn't BE any easier. I

It sorta reminds you of those people who won't cook because giving of your heart and soul to others is more painful, due to abandonment issues that began at birth, then continued afterwards. Or they just don't know how.

The type of non-cook who justifies stalking you and just about everyone they know ONLINE, because for some, too much closeness and actual relationships that require honesty and accountability, must be too hard. A dreamworld where OTHERS are always envious of you, and all you've accomplished, is preferable to bonding with nieces and nephews and admitting you were wrong.

 Very wrong for digging in garbage cans at work trying to find dirt on your peers, dirt on anyone who you feel superior to, hoarding dirt like it's going out of style and sharing mud pies with your technician who you fired. Obsessed, is how she referred to you.

Old friends of yours who don't buy it anymore, "it's been TOO long, we should get together" reunions are now answered behind YOUR back with... don't you find that as strange as WE do? I mean, it's not like she doesn't have our phone number. Yeah, me too.

Don't forget to refrigerate

When making Killer Crunch Brownies, but upping the ante with milk chocolate both times, you are cautious as you attempt to make two chicken pot pies for your family. The work it entails (hardly any), the ingredients already bought (well, not counting the previously GRILLED chicken)...a 26-oz can cream of chicken soup, a 2 pound bag of frozen mixed vegetables, half that can of milk, and a sprinkling of celery salt and fresh ground pepper. Only thing I forgot after my shopping excursion today was that refrigerated pie crust you unroll on top, I'd already secured a two-pack of FROZEN extra deep pie crust (which you'll pre-bake before filling, at 350 for 10 minutes). So mix that one-and-a-half cups of sugar into your waiting 2 sticks of butter and 12 oz bag of milk chocolate chips, previously melted. Add the teaspoon vanilla and four eggs, each mixed in individually. Add 1-1/2 cups of flour and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. And again, bake As Mel recommends, for 25-30 minutes. Add fluff, add crispies. Then REFRIGERATE, REFRIGERATE, REFRIGERATE....or else your marshmallow will become drippy, and totally ruin the planet.

One-and-a-half cups of sugar SHORT

It was so simple, just start preheating the oven to three-fifty, then turn on that burner and reheat on LOW those two sticks of butter and bag of semisweet chocolate chips (I used MILK, but had to leave MID-recipe), should take all of ten seconds. Let it cool, add one and a half cups sugar, and stir in a teaspoon of vanilla. Add 4 eggs, one at a time, stir in completely. Then one-and-a-half cups of flour combine with one-half teaspoon salt to make brownies (and bake for 30 minutes in a foil-lined, then greased, 9 x 13 pan). Next layer is totally seven ounces of marshmallow fluff spread upon warm aforementioned brownies. Bear with me as I combine on the stovetop on low, 3 cups of rice crispies mixed with a cup of melted chocolate chips and a cup filled with peanut butter. Press onto the top of the fluff, and you've got my free evening being spent repairing my almost-lost recipe. Thank God I had to run to the store to buy SUGAR!

Vistas

When nothing's changed between old college friends, and the memories flood back, the laughter and ties immediately remembered...you feel proud of that Mediterranean Pasta Salad that needed only diced banana peppers to take it over the top. Staying up until 1:30 in the morning reconnecting after almost twenty years of life going on, it's an amazing feeling to have people in the world who have always known you, still do, and consider you to be like family. Catching up on everything you remember to be true about each other, reaffirming that these people resonate with your core self, and standing firm that a yearly repeat of this familiarity and celebratory reunion must occur, only next time at the cabin. It's good to know that old memories can be reignited so effortlessly, that today's successes can so seamlessly weave into the stepping stones of the past. And alongside, it affirms those who ARE family in this little ol' farming community we've been so blessed to reside in for twenty-some years and counting.

Freezer cookies

Peanut butter cookies and oatmeal raisin cookies stored as rolls in the freezer for slice-and-bake preparedness.  A simple recipe times four, take a look at the oatmeal raisin:  1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup packed brown sugar...whipped together.  

Add 1 egg and 1/2 tsp vanilla.  1 cup flour, 1-1/4 cup oats, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt.  1/2 cup raisins.  Roll into 8-10 inch log, cut 1/4-inch slices, bake 10-12 min at 375 degrees on lightly greased baking sheets.

Quadruple everything into: 2 cups each of butter, sugar, packed brown sugar.  4 eggs, 2 tsp vanilla. 4 cups flour, 5 cups oats, 2 tsp each baking soda and powder, 1 tsp salt.  1-2 cups raisins.

For the peanut butter: 1/2 cup shortening, peanut butter, sugar, packed brown sugar.  

1 egg and 1/2 tsp vanilla.  1-1/4 cups flour and 1 tsp baking soda.  Roll into 8-10 inch log, cut 1-inch slices and then quarter and roll into balls. Bake on ungreased baking sheets at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Quadrupled into: 2 cups each of shortening, peanut butter, sugar, packed brown sugar.

4 eggs and 2 tsp vanilla.  5 cups flour and 4 tsp baking soda.