Magic Freezer Week

First, a quick mention that I forgot yesterday. I took a bit of a departure this week at Well-Fed and tried my hand at writing for a different platform- The Cook's Kitchen. The article I submitted was a product review, that you just have to check out to believe.

This week has been all about eating out of the freezer. I honestly did not do that on purpose. I guess not feeling too much like cooking for a few days makes one get a little more creative to not do work-yet feed the family well. (Does that make sense?)

It started Monday with the found pan of enchiladas. Then on Tuesday I had planned to attempt egg curry, but was missing some ingredients when DH declared his intention to grill. A quick rifle through the freezer uncovered a pork tenderloin that was thawed and marinated to accompany some cheezy rice and vegetables. Wednesday was ballet class, and a snowstorm to boot, so I made some homemade bread and pulled a frozen container of chili out of the freezer to warm in the crockpot while we were gone. Wednesday to Thursday I also managed to but something INTO the freezer as I gently simmered up some ham stock from Sunday's ham bone, and now I have a pot of navy bean soup waiting for further instruction.

This brings me to last night. Zander wanted spaghetti. I wanted something different. Peering into my little freezer I found the container of leftover smoked salmon from a few weeks ago. This needed to be used and was going to be my inspiration. A month or so ago in an issue of Everyday Food magazine, they had featured a pasta made with smoked salmon, cream cheese and capers. I remember eyeing it up because it looked really good. I decided to play off of that. I did have to run and pick up some cream cheese- as I wanted the chive and onion flavors and my chives were buried under snow. I also picked up some bowtie pasta- I wanted those little curvy shapes to pick up the luxurious sauce I would be making.

It began with a few tablespoons of chopped yellow onion. They gently cooked in butter until translucent before meeting up with a little bit of milk. Next came 8 ounces of chive and onion cream cheese, and plenty of black pepper. This was stirred and stirred until combined and creamy, and then the salmon was pulled into pieces and dropped in. After this had simmered together for awhile, I added a handful of leftover green peas for color, and a bit of the pasta cooking water to loosen the sauce up and it was done. A quick toss with some bow tie pasta and some thinly sliced raw red onions proved to be delicious. Smoked Salmon Pasta is in the recipe trove, but please adjust the ingredients as you see fit. I think you could use the commercially smoked salmon with no problems, and I also think this would make a good cold salad if done properly. Anyway you do it, the flavors really sang together, and we enjoyed this one.

Are You A Thinker?

I am honored and humbled to be a recipient of the Thinking Blogger Award. Mimi, at French Kitchen In America has honored me with the title of Thinking Blogger. That means a lot to me, as sometimes I wonder if people really care much about what I am posting, and I do try to post real content- not the fluff that many blogs succumb to. The tough part (which Mimi also wrangled with) about such a distinguished award is that I must pass it on to five other bloggers. Is it more tough to limit it to five? Or is it more difficult to find the five I feel are full of thinking content?

I think the latter- there are so many wonderful food blogs, and I have a hard time myself keeping up with all of them. I could easily spend an entire day visiting with my food blogger friends and checking out their kitchens, and then discovering even more through them. The food blog world is a close-knit group, despite our global differences. And so here I list five food bloggers that I share the award of Thinking Blogger with.

• Alanna at A Veggie Venture
• Kevin at Seriously Good
• Alysha at The Savory Notebook
• Janelle at Talk Of Tomatoes
• Joe at Culinary In The Country
  

If you haven't visited with these bloggers before, you're surely missing out. And for even more thinking bloggers, you can check out the list at Mimi's blog for other thinkers. Who knew there were so many of us!

Is There Any Better Smell...

Than that of freshly baking bread and a pot of ham stock simmering on the stove?

I don't think so. :-)

There is a snowstorm on its way as I type this, and I'm really not looking forward to it. But at least we will have freshly baked bread and a pot of soup waiting for us when we get home from ballet tonight. Provided we have ballet tonight...

And if you happen to be looking for a new snack idea, check out today's article at Kids Cuisine. Other than that, it's been a quiet couple of days. Bear with me, I have ideas in my head, and the wrong opportunity to cook them. I am still batting around an Indian food menu- I'm just trying to figure a few substitutions, and work out the timing.

Happy 600th post to me today! And we've passed my two year blog birthday without me noticing. The very first foodie post was a recipe for Mocha Truffle Cookies originally shared by the fabulous Sweetnicks. Those cookies are still a regular and still manage to impress adults and children alike. Maybe one of these days I'll come up with a proper post to commemorate the road behind and the road coming ahead. I've been thinking about taking a new direction with Tummy Treasure, and focusing a bit more on some particulars. But I think I like it being across the board- a little bit of this, a little bit of that. There may be a big visual change coming, as I've asked someone special to work on a re-design, so stay tuned. 600 posts behind me, and so much more cooking to do, and so much more to say.

A Freezer Surprise

Yesterday in my comments section I mentioned that I was going to clean my fridge and freezer yesterday. Well, I didn't get very far, to be honest. Today maybe? But as I was standing there looking into the freezer I spied a forgotten item. I pulled it out and then of course, remembered what it was. "White chicken enchiladas 8-30-2006"- hey hooray for labelling and dating! This had been an experiment. I wasn't totally sure that enchiladas would freeze okay. But as I looked at this frozen entree in my hand I became overjoyed- I didn't have to cook dinner! It was already done for me!

Although I was skeptical, I roasted up some potatoes and made a chopped salad with jicama, cucumber, and baby carrots, and popped my frozen enchiladas into the oven in a frozen state. One hour later, I pulled them out, and they looked okay- in fact, they looked really good. And the verdict? They tasted like I just made them that day! Not only did I not have to work hard at a tasty dinner last night, I actually discovered something that freezes very well. My recipe for White Chicken Enchiladas is in the Recipe Trove, freezing directions included.

On tap for today, I have plenty of Easter Eggs to use, and I have it in my mind that I want to make an egg curry of some kind. I've never made one, but I've seen them, and I still have a craving for Indian food, so that may just be the ticket. I will leave today on that note, but I do have a couple of fun pictures to share. The first is a picture of Zander. He wanted to help make pizza on Saturday, and Andy got a great picture of him spreading the sauce- he was concentrating pretty hard. The second picture is both kids being silly. They decided to line the stairs with all their stuffed friends so that they could do a play for them. They never did get to the play- but the friends all lined up was so cute. The two shadows at the very top are Zander and Abigail.

Cooking Slump

I'm officially tired of leftovers and comfort food. I'm running out of creative bones to reinvent those leftovers just one more time. Ugh. And it's April! We're supposed to be firing up the grill from time to time, and instead it's like 30 degrees out- so no grilling yet. All that to say that I have no idea what's ahead for the week. There is a chance that Andy may actually be back to work this week. If not this week, it will be within the next two, so that is a HUGE happy thought. In the meantime though, I'm in a bit of a cooking slump, with not so much ambition. Tonights dinner will probably be a chicken pot pie, because I have leftover chicken and different vegetables that need to be used up. (Thank goodness I've had that inspiration at least!)I've posted about that a few times already- the recipe is here for anyone interested. Maybe I'll bake something today...

Happy Easter!

This morning was the return of the annual egg-coloring festivities. Nothing fancy here yet, the kids just enjoy getting the colors on the eggs.


A little later today we'll be heading over to my brother's house, in addition to Easter being tomorrow, it also happens to be my niece's third birthday, so we're having the birthday party today. And of course, Easter and birthday would not be complete without a blanket of snow. And blowing wind. Where did spring go?

Cakey Cookies

Last nights dinner was a reheating of leftovers, so there certainly isn't an exciting dinner post. But despite being gone most of the day having fun with the kids, by the time I got home I was ready to bake something. I decided to knock another cookbook off of my list and make a cookie out of Sara Foster's Fresh Every Day. This cookie intrigued me- pumpkin white chocolate cookies sounded really different to me, and I had all the ingredients on hand. So while the oven warmed up, I pulled some frozen pumpkin out of the freezer to defrost and gathered the rest of my ingredients.

The very first step is one I should talk about because it is vital to this cookie, and is different from other cookies that I've made. You begin by placing your flour and baking soda in a food processor and whirring to combine. Then you add 1 cup of butterscotch chips to the flour, and process again. This chops up the butterscotch chips into the flour and adds a very light flavor of butterscotch to the cookies without being overwhelming. The rest of the ingredients are stirred in and then the whole mixture is chilled for a bit before baking. I did not make these cookies as big as the recipe recommends. My cookies were more like two inches, and it made about 40 cookies for me.

And they were a very different cookie! They were not a crispy cookie, which disappointed me at first, but the flavor was good enough to get me going back for another cookie. The pumpkin comes through, and the white chocolate bites are really balanced, and not overwhelming like white chocolate can get. Overall, a really good cookie. Next time I make them I plan to add a dash of cinnamon, but other than that, these cookies are a winner and different enough to make them a repeater. You can never have enough variety when it comes to drop cookies. Then last night as I was putting away these cookies, I was struck with inspiration. These are on the cakey side, and it occurred to me that they would be really good with ice cream. So I pulled out the vanilla frozen yogurt and placed a generous scoop between two cookies. This I wrapped with plastic wrap and tucked into the freezer for a few hours to meld. A little bit later, Andy and I had ice cream sandwiches while we got caught up on The Amazing Race. These cookies make very excellent ice cream sandwiches. In fact, those sandwiches were so good, that these cookies are worth making just for that purpose! Pumpkin White Chocolate Chunk cookies are really good, and the recipe is in the trove, ready for sharing. Thanks Sara Foster!

Meatloaf in a Crockpot?

It's been a while since I made a meatloaf. It's one of those things that we enjoy, but it just slipped off the radar for awhile I guess. I was trying to figure out what to throw in the crock pot for yesterday, and I had originally thought of some leftover country style ribs. But given that Abigail had some dental work done, and ribs are her favorite, that wouldn't be very kind to her. Then I thought of some ground beef in the freezer and the thought came to me to try a meatloaf in a a crock pot. I wasn't completely convinced that it would work well, but it seemed worthwhile enough to try, and set about looking for some specific crock pot recipes. What I was really looking for was to see if the recipes for a crock pot were any different than for the oven, and I didn't find many differences. So I chose a couple of recipes and ended up with an amalgamation of them to create my own.

The result was a surprise to us. It was very good! It was moist and full of flavor, and really much better than I'd anticipated. My only "beef" with it was that it wasn't very nice to look at, as you can imagine coming out of a crockpot. So when making this, I strongly recommend topping it with sauce before serving. Whether that be BBQ or ketchup or a beef gravy, make it on the side, warm it up, and pour it over the top and you'll be good to go. I didn't think that far ahead, and it really would have been spectacular with a sauce of some kind, and thinking more on it, I think gravy would have been the way to go this time.

My recipe calls for herb crackers- I used a rosemary and black pepper organic cracker- so use that as your guide. I would stay away from butter crackers or soda crackers- what you want is something that packs some flavor. The rest of the recipe is fairly standard meatloaf fare- just make sure you chop your veggies pretty finely, and you'll be good to go. No doubt this could be made in a conventional oven if you want as well. My recipe for Crockpot Meatloaf is in the Recipe Trove, and if I had to guess, you could feed about 8 people on this recipe. As it is, Andy's enjoying sandwiches the rest of the week, and he's thrilled with that. I only cooked mine for about 6 1/2 hours, and it was perfectly done, so gauge the timing according to your crockpot. Mine cooks a little hot, so I had planned for it to be done then instead of at 8 hours- by 8 hours, it may have been dried out. Oh, and sorry, no picture, as I said...it was rather unappealing to look at- but very good for eating.

Checking In

Not much to post about today. I should have a new crockpot recipe for tomorrow, so you'll want to come back and check that out- it has potential. Today I'm taking Abigail for her second round of dental work- wish me luck with that nightmare! In the meantime though, I do have an article up this week on Kids Cuisine - the sneaky mom is back, so be sure and check that out for another sneaky idea. Today we woke to a scattering of snow and some pretty vicious winds- where did spring go! We're supposed to hover around freezing for the next week, so if anyone would like to send spring back our way, I sure would appreciate it. This is soooo not spring break weather!

Spring Break

That means some sporadic posting this week. Abigail has spring break this week, so I'm busy spending time with her that I don't usually get to, and the kitchen is not the top priority. But I'll post when I can and when I have something interesting to post.

Nothing Special...

But they sure tasted good! This last weekend I was at the grocery store when I saw that cake mixes were buy one get one free. Not a girl to pass up a bargain like that, I picked two up and headed for home. By the time I got home, I had decided that the chocolate fudge mix was going to become cupcakes. And by the time I got in the door, I had decided that they needed something special about them. So it was back to the store and the Easter candy aisle for some mini Milky Way bars. And I'm sure you can see where this is going. I mixed up the mix according to package directions. Then I put half the batter in the bottom of the cupcake liners. A single square of Milky Way found itself nestled in each mound of batter, and then those were topped with the remaining batter.

And while you wouldn't think that a single Milky Way candy bar could enhance a cake mix cupcake very much, let me assure you that these cupcakes were fantastic. The chocolate of the candy bar kind of melted into the cupcake itself, adding some richness, and at the very center of the cupcake was this yummy caramel-nougatey bite that was almost decadent. And since I was worried that these might be on the sweet side, I made a cream cheese frosting to hold back on the sweetness, and the cupcakes were perfect. My kids ate two a-piece, and all the company seemed to enjoy them. So imagine my almost-embarrassment when I was asked if I was going to post the recipe on my blog today. Er- no recipe. Just cake mix. And candy bars. And for those curious, the cake mix this time was Pillsbury Chocolate Fudge. Sometimes a box of mix just fits the bill perfectly.

Friday Night Fish Fry

I love the adventure of trying to re-create something at home. Part of being on a budget means that if I really want something, I need to make it myself. If I crave Indian food, I need to go to the trouble to make it myself. If I want pizza night, I need to remember to make dough far enough ahead of time. And last night, it was the Friday night fish fry. We have several restaurants that we go to that make excellent fried fish, but since it's not in the budget to go out, I was determined to learn how to do this at home. In my mind I had a vision of good pub-style fish-n-chips, so I needed to find a good beer batter first of all. There are many different beer batters out there, and I actually ended up with my own adaptation, but the one I used as my starting point had a beaten egg white in it to give it extra lift- I liked that idea.

Since my husband is a home brewer, I had my choice of ales for the beer batter, and settled on a Pale Ale for the beer component. I assembled my batter and let it rest. This step is important, I let the batter rest for a full hour on the counter before dipping in the fish. That was okay, because in the mean time I got my tartar sauce together, got my fat melting and heating up, and got my fish ready for dipping. I used straight up cod that I'd cut into smaller chunks so it would have plenty of room in the fryer. I started with a nugget. A small amuse bouche to see if my fat was hot enough, and to check and see if this batter was even any good. My fat was hot enough, and we both thought the batter was excellent. So the batch was fried up, and in no time we were sitting down to some beer-battered fish.

It was very good- the texture is fantastic. It's very light and crispy, and really lets the fish shine. I have decided that Pale Ale was not the beer to use, and for my taste, I would prefer a lighter beer next time, and I also think that a pinch of heat would be excellent. A touch of cayenne or maybe something smokey like chipotle. But overall, for a first time fish fry, this was really very good. We're already planning on a redux very soon when we can get ahold of some better quality fish. The little local store just didn't have much to pick from, and our fish was not of the highest quality. But we did have ourselves some very good fish. My chips were sadly from a bag, and I'll have to work on that next. But for a first time out, the fish was very good and the Beer Batter for Fish is a keeper.

Links of Love today

I don't have any food to post about today. I have a batch of muffins in the oven- but nothing new or special. And last night, while watching Throwdown with Bobby Flay, the hubby and I both came down with a sensational craving for fish-n-chips. So I ran to the store today, and tonight I'm going to attempt homemade fish-n-chips, since going out for them is not an option. What I won't have is good homemade fries(a bag of frozen will have to do) and no malt vinegar on hand, but otherwise...wish me luck. I'll report my findings sometime over the weekend.

As to the weekend ahead, we're thinking about doing something spontaneous. Don't know what, but it's the beginning of spring break for Abigail, and since next week she has her second dentist appointment, we thought we should do something fun over the weekend.

So today, I thought I'd share some links for some food blogs that I have really been enjoying lately. I don't share links often enough I think. And there are so many good blogs worth noting, it's hard to pick a few, but if you're looking for something good, check out these guys.

First up is Hooked On Heat. Every time I visit this blog I get a serious hankering for Indian food. I need to do something about that one of these days too.

Next you should visit the doctor-to-be, Cooking Is Medicine from down south. Claire is such a sweetie, and always has an eye towards lightening something up a bit. She could cook for me anyday.

A newer blog to me is My Husband Cooks. Their photography is simply stunning, and the recipes as well. The banter between hubby and wife is precious. And speaking of precious, be sure to welcome their new addition!

Simplicity is what I think of when I visit Talk of Tomatoes. Janelle does what Sandra Lee wishes she could do. Use good ingredients in a quick and easy manner to produce spectacular results.

If you're in the mood for a chuckle, be sure to stop by Brilynn at Jumbo Empanadas. Some days the kitchen is out to get her, but the food always looks incredible.

And finally, if you have a craving for some BBQ, you chould check out Sylvie's kitchen at Soul Fusion Kitchen. Silvie has actually won contests with her BBQ, my mouth waters just looking at her pictures!

An After School Snack

I spent a lot of this morning catching up on some housework and getting my church cleaning done for the week. The whole time I felt the urge to bake something, but forced myself to do my "chores" first. Of course, by the time I was finished, the urge to EAT something baked was there, but not so much the urge to do a lot of baking. I picked up my box of Heart Smart Bisquick and determined that I needed to do something with that. I had been thinking of muffins specifically, so I headed to the internet to do a search, but ultimately, ended up with my own adaptation.

Quick Applesauce Muffins turned out okay. They are not my best muffin, nor are they my favorite. But they have a nice apple-cinnamon flavor to them, and the almonds and cinnamon add a nice crunch to each bite. The inside is not as moist as I would have liked, but overall, they're not bad. Considering that these took mere seconds to whip up, and mere minutes to bake up- they're not bad at all. They took less than 20 minutes total before I had a pan of piping hot muffins out of the oven. And like I said, while they're not my favorite, they turned out better than expected, and at 20 minutes start to finish... these might just get repeated from time to time.

In a Pickle Today

Don't have much to post about. Don't have any big plans today kitchen wise. So maybe after a few puzzles with Zander I'll come up with something... I'll be back...watch this space!

Could It Be? Weigh In Wednesday?

Well, don't get too excited, I haven't shed any more unwanted weight yet, but I do have plans to do so. The weather is turning and it's gradually getting warmer, and the days of being outside are coming. Monday we were in the seventies, and I got a taste of life to come. My son was a maniac! We were literally outside all day, and I have no doubt that once we can do so again, Mommy is going to get a great workout playing with her little boy. My goodness he was busy. And of course it also has felt really good to throw open all the windows and just feel all the germs leaving the house as the cleansing breeze sweeps through. So with illness banned and days of play on the way, I'm feeling a re-charge.

We're also heading into the home stretch of Andy being laid off. He could get the call any day now, and we're all looking forward to that! He's been home for over three months now (going on 14 weeks!) and we have actually used this lay-off as a learning process. For example, we have found that it is indeed possible to live on $355 a week. It's difficult, but we can still pay all our bills on time and put food on the table by making wiser choices. When I look at my grocery budget over the last three months, it's quite remarkable to see the difference. Here's my grocery spending:

December 2006 total grocery expense: $719.72
January total grocery expenses: $409.93
February total grocery expenses: $365.97
March total grocery expenses to date: $196.96

Look at that!!! And if I go back further to November and October, it's enough to choke a horse. Now some of that excess was for the purpose of stocking the pantry a bit, but lets just say my grocery spending has gotten back in line. And look at March! I'm going to have to go shopping- probably Friday for milk, eggs, fruit, and chicken breasts, so that will go up about another $40. That's less than $250 for an entire month! That is truly amazing to me. And we have not been starving. We've just been careful, and much better about using leftovers and what needs to be used up. Rather than let leftovers languish in the fridge and go bad, we eat them for a few days for lunch, or wrap it up and tuck it in the freezer for another day. I've been doing a lot of scratch cooking- if I want bagels, I make them. I bake bread several days a week, and we've all taken to enjoying a slice of homemade bread with our dinner at night. I've discovered that not only is homemade pizza delicious, it's actually very economical to make, and we've been able to eat more of our favorite food. And I've travelled the world in comfort food! From Irish Shepherd's Pie to Filipino Lumpia, to British Bangers & Mash, and Indian Curries. It's actually been a blast, and I hope to keep it up.

I'd be lying if I said that we can maintain this grocery budget forever. And you can bet that once Andy is working, one of his paychecks will be like a fortune to us, and I will most definitely be filling a grocery cart or two, but I do think that I've gotten a little wiser. I've realized that sometimes canned soup and grilled cheese is a fantastic meal, and everyone enjoys it! Breakfast has been making a weekly appearance, partially because it's super cheap to make, but also because we all enjoy it immensely. And while I still don't particularly care to eat leftovers, I have gotten really creative at re-inventing them, and that's one of the things I hope to keep up. Right now I'm thinking about the smoked salmon we had a few weeks back. The last little bits are in the freezer, and I can't wait to pick up some cream cheese to mix with my freshly grown chives, bow tie pasta, and some of that smoked salmon.

I do think I've shown over the last few months that it is possible to feed a family well on a budget. We haven't gone overboard with carbs and saturated fats, mostly it's just been good eating all around. With a few more weeks to go, you can bet there will be more to come, but we're nearing the light at the end of the tunnel here, and I'm at the point where it can't get here fast enough.

And for something a little different, pop on over to Kids Cuisine this morning to find out a new way to be a sneaky mom!

Southern Charm

This past Sunday, for Company Dinner, we decided to do the first burger/hot dog cookout of the year. We couldn't have planned it better. The weather was perfect for grilling, and I think its been long enough since the last burger/dog grill out that we all were in the mood for it anyways. I decided at the last minute to do a dessert, and I decided that a Southern dessert was in order. I turned to the queen of Southern hospitality, Paula Deen, and a yet unused cook book from my collection.

The Lady & Sons Just Desserts is a cookbook that I look through often, I just haven't made anything out of it. It just all sounds so decadent, or it calls for ingredients I don't have on hand at the time. This was also the case with this week's choice, but I quickly remedied that one. The Lady & Sons' Peach Cobbler was calling my name, and all I needed to put it together was some self-rising flour. Not usually a staple in my kitchen, it certainly will be now because this peach cobbler was luscious. It was decadent and sweet, and so darn good!

The procedure was different, I will say that. The first step was to melt the butter in a baking dish, then pour the batter onto that, and THEN put the peaches and their syrup on the top. When it goes into the oven, magic happens, and the batter rises to the top, creating a cakey crust while the peaches sink to the bottom and turn into the sweet and gooey goodness one expects from a peach cobbler. Texture wise, it's very similar to a pudding cake, and just as delicious. This one will be made often this coming summer for cookouts and such because it really was very easy to make. My only complaint is that I didn't check the date on my flour when I bought it. It has a best by date of next month, and with leavening in it, I suspect I need to adhere to the date. So I'll be in search of recipes that use self-rising flour over the next few weeks or so.The Lady & Sons' Peach Cobbler fills the need for a sweet and gooey dessert, and checks another book off my list. Thanks Paula Deen!

Thanks Judy!

This weeks kudos go to Judy for e-mailing me another awesome recipe. You may recall that a week or so ago I was excited to be e-mailed a couple of surprise recipes. Judy sent me this recipe to me as a thank you for my recommendation of Rick Bayless's Tacos de Picadillo Oazaqueno- which her family thoroughly enjoyed. I finally made Judy's recipe on Saturday, and it was really, really good. Did I mention really good? Rachael Ray's Carbonara Pizza was inhaled by all- even the little girl with a sore mouth. A play on pasta carbonara, this pizza uses the same ingredients and puts it on pizza. Even thinking about it early in the morning makes me want to whip some up right now.

I started with pizza crust. I made my own, but you could use whatever your preference is. After stretching out the dough to fit a 16" pizza pan, I drizzle it with olive oil, poked it with a fork, and popped it in the oven to pre-bake. While that was going, I beat two egg yolks and then added ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, black pepper, and 2 cloves of grated garlic. The recipe called for one clove, but Judy recommended two, and two was perfect. I also took a half pound of bacon, diced it, and fried it up. The recipe calls for pancetta, but seeing as how I'm a girl on a budget, I used our favorite hickory smoked bacon instead.

Next, I pulled the pizza crust out of the oven and brushed it with some of the bacon grease- hey I'm not one to argue with the tiny addition of pork fat. Then the ricotta mixture was spread evenly over the crust- the aroma right there was excruciating. Hot crust + bacon grease+ garlic=Mmmmm. Anyway, after the ricotta mixture, I sprinkled a mozarella/provolone cheese blend over the top and then topped that with the crumbled bacon. The whole thing went into the oven to bake for about 12 minutes- or until golden brown and bubbly. I left off the parsley since I didn't have any, but we hardly missed it. This pizza was pure heaven. It was incredibly good and gives me a ton of ideas for variations. It was wonderful as is, but I can't help but wonder how some additions would taste- like grilled portobella slices, roasted red pepper strips, or some caramelized leeks or onions.Carbonara Pizza. It's as delicious as it sounds. Make sure you pop back in tomorrow sometime as a down-home dessert from Paula Deen is making an appearance that will make you swoon.

Thought for the day

I have welcomed spring in with just a touch of a cold. Of course winter couldn't let go without one more round of germs, I'm just glad it's a mild cold. So you'll have to forgive me for what I've been eating for lunch. With taste buds at a low point, nothings really sounded good, except for the case of canned ravioli in the basement. I bought this at Sam's club at the direction of my son who said he would eat it for lunch. Until I made it for him for lunch and he looked at me like I was feeding him poison. That case of ravioli had been headed for our local food pantry until this week, and now it might just stick around a bit.

Anyway. Yesterday I was biting into one of these raviolis, and my thought to myself was "don't think about what's inside." I mean, who knows what random bits and pieces make it into the filling of these canned pasta puffs. That led me to thinking about hot dogs and what goes in those, and other canned meat products like spam. And here comes my profound thought. Why is it that when a major company, like Chef Boyardee, uses the off bits and such to make ravioli filling they are chastised? Companies that make hot dogs are scorned for stuffing those nasty bits into tube shapes. Yet world renowned chefs can take those same awful bits and turn them into something... interesting, and they are praised for it. A chef in New York City can cook chicken bones and serve them up as an appetizer, and be hailed as a genius. Yet when a chicken processing company utilizes those sames bones, they are touted as disgusting.

I understand that there will always be those who rail against big industry and the likes. But there are real people world-wide to whom this is a way of life. They utilize every part of an animal, so that nothing goes to waste. And I mean every part. I fail to distinguish the difference between a chef combining offal to create a delicacy in their restaurant and a manufacturing company who makes a hot dog out of the same bits. And I'm certainly not bashing the chefs who do so. I applaud them for being less wasteful, for opening up eyes to the possibilities. What I am bashing are those people who insist on 100% all-beef or 100% all-chicken hot dogs because they don't want to eat "mechanically separated parts". Yet when it comes time for a nice dinner out, they clamor to order chicken bones and kidney pie.

In some ways, this is along the lines of food snobbery to me. And if there is one thing that I have learned while cooking on a budget, is that a wonderful meal can be created out of practically nothing. While there are still foods that you won't find in my kitchen because I don't care for them, what you won't find is a food snob any longer. I welcome the canned raviolis and the mechanically separated pork parts disguised as a hot dog. I also welcome the Alaskan wild salmon and the prime fillet of beef. I welcome the whole grain quinoa, yet I also welcome plain old white rice and white bread. Local food, and locally produced food is wonderful when I can find it and when it is affordable, but sometimes Chilean produce is a welcome respite in the winter, and a kiwi from New Zealand is the most wonderful treat. There are no food snobs here, nor do I see them returning any time soon.

A New Season

Means a new look for Tummy Treasure. It seems many of my blog friends are doing their own spring cleaning, so I thought I'd join in. It may change a bit in the coming days, but this is a start, I think. As usual, let me know if you have any problems or issues.