About The Kitchen
I love to cook.
Actually I love to feed people. I think it might be my love language. I recently saw a t-shirt that said, “I bake. It’s how I hug” and I totally identified with it.
I spend most of my day in the kitchen and it has become my happy place. My mother-in-law had only lived with us a short time when she asked me if I looked forward to having a day when I didn’t have to work in the kitchen and frankly the thought horrified me. Unless I could be outside in the garden or doing something with the animals; I think I might would be okay then.
Our kitchen doesn’t have state of the art or even the newest equipment unless you count the heating element in the oven that we recently replaced because I burned up the old one. As a matter of fact, the fanciest appliance we have is the drawer microwave which we readily admit is one of the coolest things ever but we also readily admit given their price tag we only have it because it was here when we bought the house. Ironically it is used most by our son to pop popcorn, to reheat my cup of coffee three or four times on any given morning and to melt butter in a pinch (I prefer doing it on the stovetop.)
Our home was built in the mid 1990s when tile of all things was the top counter surface and I do not know who thought it was a good idea to have grout be a part of a working kitchen surface but they should have to go around with a toothbrush and clean it regularly. But it does cover a massive island that one day we will redo with a nice smooth finish.
I have close to ten thousand pins on Pinterest and while not all of them are recipes or food related more than half of them are, I’m sure. And obviously I cannot say that I have cooked or baked everyone of them but I do use them regularly. (That could be a kind of fun series though, couldn’t it? Choose a board and work my way through the recipes I have saved. I need to give that some thought!)
When we talked about having a website for the farm and me blogging again we knew we wanted to include a kitchen area that would give us a place to share recipes. One reason being that we want to showcase ways you can make use of the best pork and chicken you’ve ever tasted before in your life. Another reason being that we believe what we eat has a huge impact upon our health and ultimately how we live.
I am going to be very upfront with you. We try to steer clear of as much processed and prepackaged food as possible and we try to eat as much whole natural food as possible.
But you are going to find a couple of cans of cream of something soup in my pantry. Store bought vegetables also have a home on those shelves and in my freezer. My rainbow baby carrots are organic but my bananas are not because my people didn’t like the taste of them. We eat potatoes liberally seasoned with salt and real melted butter, we eat jasmine rice over brown rice and no, quinoa is not a staple in our house.
We like sugar and sweet things. I use as much unprocessed regular sugar as possible but I’m not big on applesauce as a sweetener in every recipe, I make my own brown sugar because the flavor is better but I buy my confectioner’s sugar from the Walmarts. I do grind flour from my own buckets of soft and hard wheat berries but I also use unbleached King Arthur flour. Some things are gluten free and some are not.
We believe in making smart choices, diversity in our diets, eating meat and colorful fruits and veggies, full fat as opposed to fat free, and we don’t think that the occasional fast food burger or bowl of ice cream is going to kill us. (I mean, we’re old enough that we might actually feel it the next day when we do eat something like that but we’re not gonna die.) We also don’t believe how we choose to eat in our home should be imposed upon others in their homes when they invite us to join them for a meal. We receive with genuine gratefulness what is offered to us.
We don’t believe everyone has to eat the way we do but we do believe everyone should give a good hard look at our nation’s food system and evaluate their health and the connection between the two. We don’t believe in specific diets as much as we believe in moderation and we also believe that both fasting and feasting are good for the soul.
We don’t believe convenience should be a top priority in food choices.
We believe people should have the option to pay more to have better.
Our youngest daughter was in a culinary program and one of her professors made that statement that people should appreciate being in the presence of greatness and we think that also applies to knowing the difference between eating food made with subpar ingredients and food cooked and baked with high quality components.
Because ultimately we believe good food really should be commonplace. But we also know that we are a generation that was raised on convenience foods so tastebuds need to be retrained, and appreciation for real food has to be cultivated. It takes work and we ‘ve been making small changes and trying to make better choices for years now and feel like we have coming into our own a little when it comes to what we’re putting into our bodies and why.
So with all of those caveats and backstory let’s talk about the recipes you’ll find shared in The Kitchen. The majority of them will be easily accessible although there will be some that are, shall we say, more involved. Most of them will not have outlandish or unusual ingredients but I do think cooking should be an adventure so hopefully we will cook up some wild deliciousness too. I would love to do some kind of regular or at least occasional feature where I highlight cajun/Louisiana food (trust me when I tell you food just tastes different here…fantastic but unlike anything I have ever eaten anywhere else. And, if I can be completely honest, better than anywhere else. The food here is good.) Along those lines, what do y’all think about you sharing your favorite recipes and I could make them and post the results here? I think I like that idea even if it does make me a little nervous.
Let’s do this. Message me if you have a recipe you think I should try and we’ll give it a go
As for today’s recipe…
You might be seeing it making the rounds on social media and trust me when I tell you it is worth making!
I have gone round and round about what should be the first recipe I post here on our website and I think I am going to post a regional sort of one. Boudin cornbread is a recipe The Farmer came across a few weeks ago and after making it we all agreed it was definitely something we would make again!
I will also admit that my recipe is slightly different than the original because I usually make a recipe once and then tweak to suit us.
Sunday a week ago I made it for our church fellowship meal and by that afternoon I had three people text me for the recipe. It is so darn good so be sure to pop over and check it out. If you happen to live in some sad place where you cannot get ahold of some boudin then I imagine you could substitute sausage in its place. (But seriously get some boudin in your life as asap as possible and then make it again.) Be sure to let me know if you try!
It is slightly ironic that the first recipe out the door is one that involves a packaged cornbread mix but like I said, it’s not gonna kill us unless it is a steady diet of food stuff pumped full of additives and junk. I believe it fits perfectly with the culinary prayer you will see on the header of The Kitchen.
Bon appetit, friends!
And be sure to send me recipes or suggestions.