from my kitchen

Sunday lunch with friends….

October 12, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 7 Comments

I woke up very early this morning for a Sunday…..sometime before 5a and decided to make Sunday lunch. That makes for a busy morning when you figure that we’re usually struggling to get out the door dressed and fed by 9a. But we’ve tried the whole eat-out thing….and it’s highly overrated. And overpriced. There’s nothing so disappointing as eating a mediocre meal at Ruby Tuesday’s and then paying $65 for it…and complaining all the way home how we would’ve rather had a sandwich and eaten it at our own table with our own diet pepsi and our own chips and salsa. So, I put on my monogrammed apron and Eddie Vedder’s “Into the Wild” movie soundtrack, opened up all the doors and windows and let the October breeze wash through the house and went to work.
I set the table with my fall wreath that the girls and I made with plenty of handprinted construction paper. I added painted pumpkins and my favorite plum colored wine glasses.
Then I made chicken florentine…..my version at least with roasted red peppers, spinach, linguine, plenty of garlic and parmesan reggiano cheese. Okay and a few more items which maybe I’ll pen down later into a recipe. But you get the jist.
And homeade peach-blueberry pie, the recipe which I got from here and then added 1/4 cup more sugar(’cause I’m southern) and lemon zest(’cause I watch of lot of Foodtv). Oh, and salad and good bread. It was shaping up to be quite a feast. That’s when it occurred to me that I should invite our neighbors over to share it with us. So, we gathered after church and ate and talked and inspected the plates of various children who actually all seemed to like it.
It’s such a blessing to have good neighbors and good friends who you can call for an impromtu lunch and just enjoy each others’ company. Now Leigh Anne’s off to spray painting stuff, Tony’s off to Lowe’s, Stevie’s off to football, and I’m……contemplating a short power nap…..before I tackle Madame Bovary again. Here’s wishing you good friends, good food, and a good Sunday!

Ramblings on rain, bread, forgiveness, books and dancing…..

October 10, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 4 Comments

Things I hate:

1. driving on the interstate

2. in the rain

3. with little ones in the car

4. at night

5. or driving on the interstate

6. at night

7. by myself

8. without the rain

9. my children getting hurt.

10. to the point that suturing will be necessary

11. while making lifesize sling shots out of old frames

12. which have sharp metal edges

13. while I google ‘Letters of Abigail Adams‘ in the next room.

14. which leads me to why I missed my teenagers’ cross country meet last night

15. which I hate to miss

Things I love……

1. Making homeade french bread

2. with the best recipe ever which you can find here.

3. and serving it to my life’s love, warm

4. with butter on top.

5. and wine.

6. which are to us life’s most complete meal

7. bread and wine…..like The Lord’s Supper

8. which we will be served on Sunday

9. at the Lord’s table

10. for the forgiveness of sins

11. which we don’t deserve

12. and could never earn.

Things I am undecided about:

1. Not who I will vote for in November

2. What new item shall be included in my Thanksgiving feast

3. Shall it be maple glazed turnips

4. Or maple glazed brussel sprouts

5. Or both

6. Will I train for a half marathon

7. or make another loaf of chocolate chip banana bread

8. or both

9. Should I paint my armoire red

10. and my kitchen cabinets a delightful hue of blue

11. or neither

12. Should I read every letter that Abigail wrote to John (Adams)

13. Or is 1100 letters too huge an undertaking in a weekend

14. Should I cry til my heart’s content every time I think of Taylor leaving

15. or should I bake more banana bread

16. or french bread

17. or all of the above?

18. Who will win ‘Dancing With the Stars’?

19. Will I ever be able to dance

20. at all?

21. without embarassing my children?

22. Should I dress up for Halloween?

23. a witch again?

24. Maybe con macdaddy into a little Sonny and Cher?

25. sing “I got you babe” to him anyway, even after he refuses?

26. while I sling my hair and sway?

27. and promise him unlimited loaves of french bread for one year?

28. if he would humor me. just. this. once?

29. Should I read Madame Bovary this weekend?

30. Or John Adams?

31. Or Abigail’s letters?

32. Or New Moon?

33. Or What’s so Amazing About Grace?

34. Or forgo sleep and general hygeine and read them all?

35. Or just make bread and dance?

36. Should I listen to Lifehouse’s Learn You Inside and Out

37. or Eddie Vedders’ Rise

38. or this on worry?

39. What would you do?

I clearly have more questions than answers. Have a great weekend!

Sweet Home Alabama, baking, and plumbers……

October 3, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 7 Comments

I’m going out of town. By myself. Tomorrow. I have the same feeling as I did the night before I went to Disney World when I was 7. Sheer childlike anticipation. I’m going to Birmingham to watch my son race and to stay with one of my dearest friends in the whole world. I also plan to eat (food that I didn’t cook), shop, drink Starbucks, listen to Madame Bovary on tape, listen to Sweet Home Alabama, read, think, stay up all night and talk and cry and laugh and laugh til’ I cry. My friends Johnny and Susan are so wonderful and so funny and even though I haven’t seen them in a couple of years, it’ll be like I never left. Don’t ya love friends like that. So, in their honor and because I like things with themes…..I listened to Sweet Home Alabama all day.

My girls asked me at 4:00, “Mom, how many times are we gonna listen to Sweet Home Alabama?” Until you can say Lynard Skynard three times fast. Okay?
Then, it started. My crazy ‘going out of town’ routine where I temporarily go insane. Let me remind you, I’m only going to be gone 48 hours. I bake and clean and pack and write notes as if my family is likely to never see me again. So, pretend you can hear Sweet Home Alabama in the background and let me show you some of the stuff I did today.
I fired this guy up. My double ovens which I like to call ‘W’ ’cause I love George Bush and my last name starts with ‘W’. And they work like pack mules all day long for me…..most days….while I bake as if I’m runnin’ some kind of bakery. Like yesterday, when I whipped up four dozen of these babies……
so that the bachelors will have plenty of cookies while I’m gone…for forty eight hours….
then ‘W’ baked pumpkin bread which I “spiced” up by adding butterscotch chips! Oh dear, you need to try this. It’s like the reserved, smart , red -headed twin sister to my chocolate chip banana bread. Some members of my family did not warmly welcome the twin……they ONLY like blonds, apparently. But you can’t always make CCBB (choc.chip ban bread). And it’s fall. So I made pumpkin. They’ll warm up to her as soon as the rest of the CCBB is gone. Then they’ll regret their lukewarm welcome.
Okay, now don’t tell the members of my family, but I did make one more loaf of CCBB and I’m sneaking it out to the car to take to the Wards who live in sweethomeAlabama. Noone can know. They’ll break into my car and steal it. And eat it. All. Shhhhh.
To prepare for tonite’s dinner and for the manfood extravaganza that is sure to take place while I’m gone, I marinated 2 london broils with these ingredients and then browned them on the grill……(at 9am, BTW)
I then cooked one of them in a slow roaster all day at 200 degrees, to cut up and put in the man-chili. The other one was broiled about 8 minutes per side and served as traditional london broil with garlic mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts….at 7pm. It was fantastic and will lend itself to yummy leftovers…….I see nachos in Marcus’s future…
The chili is still simmering and will be ready for the bachelors to partake of tomorrow.
Then, I got my hostess and sitter gifts together. These fun aprons with a jar of my homeade strawberry jelly. My darling sister is taking the two ‘little’ girls camping with her! I’m so thankful for her in their lives. They adore her and her only request was homeade strawberry jelly. Check.
Then I gathered tools for my next ‘job’ of the day. What am I embarking on, you ask? As if this display of tools doesn’t give it away, I’m gonna clean out the tub drain in the downstairs bathroom. I honestly don’t know why the ‘Oh-to-be-25-again’ nail polish is in the line up. I don’t have plans to use her for the clean out. She’s just there-for moral support, I suppose. Why, when I have plenty to do, would I pick today to clean out the drain? Because I have plumber skills and am I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. (And the last time I hired a plumber for the job, it costed me $40 per drain…..I have no lies to tell–that’s $160 for four drains….I could buy a mulitude of MAC eye shadows and a new purse and some new shoes for that……or you know invest it or something) Back to my plumber skills.
I had to solicit the help of macdaddy and Marcus to muscle the drain-thingy out. Then I started digging. This is not a job for the faint of heart and if you’re feeling a little nauseated, don’t look at the next picture, ’cause I’m not exactly sure what kind of gargantuan-hairy-gooey mess came out….
I nearly dry-heave just to show it to you. But I just wanted you to know that I have plumber skills……and no crack……showing, that is….
Now you Southerners may not know this little ointment wonder. It’s apparently loved by vets everywhere. Stevie’s family from MN taught me all about it and showed me how to squeeze a little into a small container to function as ‘chapstick’. I LOVE IT. It’s called Corona and can be used for various and sundry purposes such as “preserving the natural moisture balance of the horny wall?, to protect and prevent drying and cracking teats and udders, and minor cuts and lacerations from ropes and wires.” Or as chapstick. But you use it for whatever you want.
So, I scooped a little into my empty MAC eye shadow container and I’m good to go. Ready for ALMOST anything.
I applied some in the car……on my lips…..and thought you might want to see the effect. I like it. It’s udderly soothing. Sorry. I’m easily amused.
Then we arrived at ballet where I wisked Emme into class (isn’t she just adorable) and then commenced the much dreaded job of purse clean out. Which I last tackled when I bought this current purse. It’s not pretty, but here’s a few random items I found sloshing around in the bottom…..
a toothbrush, a rope of NERDS, a booklight, 12 tubes of lip gloss, a Jesus Saves cross made from popsicle sticks, a pair of running socks, 12,000 receipts, lotion, motrin and m&m’s apparently spilled from somewhere and in various states of decay…..okay I won’t bore you with the rest…..but let’s just say, it took nearly the whole ballet class. It’s a big purse, cut me some slack.
Back at the compound, I noticed what a beauty this little ensemble is. It better not freeze while I’m gone. Will the bachelors take the time to cover these pretty little flowers with a warm sheet? Will they feed Scooter? Will they watch football?
There they are right now, scrambling to get the new HD receiver hooked up. It’s been sitting there for many days, so what would drive them into such a frenzy to get it hooked up tonite before 9:30 EST? The Cubs play tonite……at 9:30 EST. I’m cookin’ and packin’ and retrievin’ large scary things from the drain……and they are, well dealin’ with important issues of sports in high definition.
I REALLY need to get the oil changed in this bad boy before tomorrow but as you can tell…..it’s dark and there’s no time left. So, if my engine blows up on my way down South , people will eat well and drains will drain well, and I’ll be sittin’ on the side of the road waitin’ for AAA listening to Sweet Home Alabama eating CCBB.

Have a great weekend! I’ll be back and blogging on Sunday with pics from Birmingham.

So, how do you prepare to go out of town?

What does homeschooling have to do with chocolate chip cookies, anyway?

October 1, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 16 Comments

This is our 5th week of homeschooling! I can’t believe it. We’ve learned so much, had so much fun, strengthened our mother-daughter bonds and I’ve had one tiny break-down. I’d call that a success. We’re following Susan Wise Bauer’s book “The Well-Trained Mind” which is a classical method for homeschooling. Our curriculum is centered around history and literature, which both happen to be my favorite subjects. Take last week for example: we’re studying ancient Egypt and learned all about Cheops and the great pyramid at Giza. We also studied Joseph and how he was sold into slavery in Egypt. These studies lend themselves to cool and exciting projects. We made pyramids and a coat of many colors which we all thoroughly enjoyed.
We decided to make the ‘coats-of-many-colors’ doll size, so that our American girl dolls could wear them….
Anything painting or crafty goes over so well….my girls love art and are both talented with their hands…..
Their dolls, Kit and Emily, even made guest appearances at school while we made the ‘coats’. They sat in their own little desks and did their own little spelling sheets. They were quite well behaved except for the fact that Emily (the doll) kept falling out of her seat! We had to spread her legs really wide to keep her from falling. We all though it hysterical! Then there’s the latin, grammar, writing, spanish, spelling, art, music, memory work……all of which I love…to learn about and teach. I hope my enthusiasm is contagious. It seems to be. Then there’s math…….
So, why is it that I can’t manage to make math exciting enough for them to get those blasted math facts in their heads? It has to be the most frustrating half hour of the day for me. I seems to always pray that someone will visit or the fire alarm will go off or something during math. I sometimes use that time to switch out the laundry or water the plants. I just don’t like math and I don’t know how to make it fun. I’ve tried the manipulatives but we end up making some fun art project out of those usually.
Secretly, inside my head, I am frustrated, feeling like the worst mother ever to embark on the monstrous task of teaching her own children, and yelling at the top of my lungs (all to myself remember) WHY CAN’T YOU JUST REMEMBER THAT NINE PLUS EIGHT EQUALS SEVENTEEN? WHY? JUST MEMORIZE IT. OKAY. AND DON’T ASK ME TO ANOTHER ART PROJECT UNTIL YOU’VE GOT. GOT IT? Hence, my tiny breakdown. All to myself. So, how do I handle tiny breakdowns? I bake chocolate chip cookies and eat them warm….with milk. And I solicit the help of two darling little girls who are creative and love to bake and paint and craft and memorize……and who may never be mathmeticians. God help us when we get to multiplication.

So, we measure (that’s sorta like math)
and mix…..
and scoop…..and voila….

oh, sorry, it doesn’t turn into this. This is the cake I made for my son’s 18th birthday with the cross country runner on top that everyone made fun of because they couldn’t figure out what it was…..it’s a runner, okay? Just humor me here…..I’m in the middle of a tiny breakdown and making chocolate chip cookies…..

then we bake and enjoy. This recipe happens to be Kimmie’s and I’m gonna go out on a limb and say I’ve made it a good 150 times in the last few years. It’s the best recipe ever. Ever. For chocolate chip cookies. Ever, I tell you. You must try it.

“So, if mom ate nine chocolate chip cookies and Elea ate four and Emme ate four, then how many did they eat total?” See how I make math fun? At least they’ll be able to do the word problems where cookies are involved.

Kimmie’s 9+8 Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks butter, softened 1 t. cream of tartar

1 cup oil 1 t. salt

1 cup white sugar 1 t. soda

1 cup brown sugar 1 t. vanilla

1 egg 4 1/2 c. all purpose flour

1 T. milk 1 12 oz bag chocolate chips

Combine and mix well. Scoop onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Do not overbake. Enjoy! Even better if you practice your math facts while you eat!

Friday Night with the Wadsworths…….

September 13, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 6 Comments

You can call us ‘boring’ if you’d like, but here’s how our Friday night went down. We made BLT’s and chocolate chip banana bread.…..yep, you heard that right….and I’ll never make nor eat nor associate with banana bread again that does not have a generous amount of chocolate chips added. This is a must-make. Just take your favorite banana bread recipe and add chips, and bake. Now, you ask, “Why this feast? What is the special occasion?” Well, I’m so glad you asked. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a huge hurricane about to hit Texas. No, we don’t live in Texas but Geraldo is gonna be there covering the storm live!! Like we told our 21 yo who just moved in with us last month, if you haven’t spent a Friday night eating chocolate chip banana bread and watching Geraldo cover the “big storm”, then you haven’t lived.

And that’s when we began to have the “hunker” down conversation. I think this has become my very favorite phrase in the English language. I love saying it and I especially love hearing news reporters say it over and over and over again. So, after 37 games of Connect Four, I interviewed the family and asked them to give their best live demonstration of what the phrase “hunker down” actually means.
Here are my results…..Marcus first…….is he ‘hunkering’ or boxing?
then Emme……I think she has confused “hunker down” with hip-hop……
then it’s Daddy’s turn……who may have confused “hunker down” with TaeBo……
then there’s me……I always imagined that “hunker-down” involved more provisions than just my own scrunched up body…….at least some sort of cover……
and the smallest child refused to “hunker down” for fear that she wouldn’t ‘know how to do it right’ or for fear that I would ‘blog’ about it…….or both. We looked up the definition. Hunker means to crouch or squat for a long period of time. At any rate, it’s Friday night and we’re hunkered down, eating chocolate chip banana bread and watching Geraldo. Marcus may never want to leave!

And on a serious note, we pray for those who will be affected by the storm. May God have mercy.

Beef-Cabbage-Potato Stew, Southern Cornbread, and the World’s Best Chocolate Mocha Cake

September 1, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 17 Comments

This is no place for vegetarians, people from Connecticut, people on the Adkins Diet, or in general people who have forsaken trans-fat. The rest of you stay. I am about to make you very happy. This creation is inspired by my friend Ronni’s recent discovery of “chipotle-cinnamon” seasoning that her mother found at Walmart. I’m very discouraged by trying to post recipes on this blog because I can’t figure out an easy way to do it. If I take the time to type the recipe into “Word” , this program won’t let me copy and paste it directly into the post. I’m not a techie so I’m not sure about a URL address for it. Any experts willing to help? Until then, here’s what I basically did. It’s better to make this soup-stew-chili when you have left over roast meat of some kind. You can do it without it though. Saute an onion and about 1/3 of a head of caggage (chopped coarsely) in some olive oil. When those are starting to carmelize, add about a pound of ground beef, salt to taste, and minced garlic (1-2T). While this is cooking, parboil (boil until almost tender) about a half a bag of baby carrots (whole) and 6-7 red or yellow potatoes, skin on, chopped into quarters. Salt the water liberally. Then add 3 cans of stewed or diced tomatoes, the cooked potatoes and carrots, 1 can of tomato paste, 3T garlic-herb seasoning (I get mine from Sam’s), 2-3T chipotle-cinnamon seasoning (to taste), any left over roast meat you have, hot sauce to taste, and a good amount (~2T. ) of honey. FYI- I add honey to everything I make. Reseason with salt and pepper. Let simmer for a while, the longer the better…an hour or more….then enjoy! This is an AWESOME football/autumn day dish. Wonderful balance of flavors with all the veggies….even the kids ate their carrots without needing ranch dip!
You can’t make a good southern stew without some good southern cornbread. You healthnuts need to skip over this section. It’s rated X (nutritionally speaking). This recipe was handed down from my “mamaw” to my aunt and then to Jamie Knoxville who has coached me through it in person. The reason you need coaching is because of the sheer amount of oil in it. So here goes: 2 cups cornmeal-the highly processed kind–Three Rivers or something like that, 1 c. buttermilk, and a very large amount of oil. When I first made this with Jamie she said, ” add a 1/2 cup then close your eyes and pour some more in. Don’t measure it ’cause then you won’t eat it.” Wait though, I’m not finished with the oil. Pour a’ good amount’ –no I’m not sure what that means either–of oil into an iron skillet and put the skillet into a 450 degree oven until the oil is scorching hot. Then, add the oil-laden mixture into the oil and bake until golden brown, ~15 minutes. Let’s face it, this is more like a pancake or corn cake. But it is fantastic to eat and goes great with above stew. As you can tell from the picture, dirty paws can’t stay out of it.
I saved the best for last, but don’t skip the first two. I have to say that I have fond, vivid memories of the first time I was introduced to this cake. It’s by far the best cake I’ve ever had. I make it 3 or 4 times a year and my family is always curious who it’s being made for….translated “are we going to get any of it”. I love making it, eating it, sharing it….I love everything about it. The recipe was originally given to me by a neighbor who has long since moved. I can’t even remember her last name but the cake legacy lives on. The recipe, which needs to be given precisely, is too long to post, so anyone who wants it, just email me with your address and I’ll mail it to you. That’s how committed I am to this cake, to its’ preservation and propagation! Ya’ll enjoy!