Cooking From Cookbooks

I think I made an unconscious resolution to cook more from my cookbooks.   I have a lot, it's an addiction, but it has been far to easy to just hop on Google to look things up.  So far the round up this week has been:

Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison.  This book was a birthday gift from my sister-in-law.  It is a beautiful book.  I made the carrot cake recipe.

It even looked like the picture!  Not everyone enjoys carrot cake here but everyone tried it and loved it.

Another winner:

Shell pasta with cauliflower and red pepper flakes.  I am the only one who likes cauliflower and everyone had this and liked it.  My husband said, "It's the best way to choke down cauliflower."  

More of a common sense recipe I made was pan fried potatoes from this book, another gift from my sister-in-law:

The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone also by Deborah Madison.  

Last night I made this in the slow cooker:

From:

Art of the Slow Cooker by Andrew Schloss.

It was good but over cooked due to user error not the recipe.  Even though I increased the recipe my slow cooker runs hot and I have to remember to adjust times not only for this fact but I did not use bone in chicken thighs.   I do look forward to making this again. 

I have had the first two cookbooks for months and the the slow cooker book for well over a year and hadn't cooked from them.  I seem to make more from my bread books. 

Into The New Year

I did not mean to be away for so long.  I hope everyone had a great holiday season.  We are are healthy and well but for a few friends it was not so great and life was a little hectic here.  

I think I have sock knitting down and will have to post more on that another time.  Hats also but I do not have pictures since they have been flying out of here.

I do want to share a gift that my mother-in-law gave me over the Thanksgiving holidays.  

Quilts!

They were both hand stitched by lamp light.  My husband's grandmother made these in the 1930's and 1940's.  The homestead did not have electricity or plumbing until 1954.  My mother-in-law shared stories about having to crawl under quilting frames in order to eat at the table.  The bottom one needs some restoration, they are a treasure and I am happy to have them.  

My sewing hasn't been going well, I think my brain lost it's function to adjust patterns lately so I think I'll take a break from that.  I can hand stitch anything but get me around a machine ......

Also, Big Food, Big Garden, Big Life has new digs over a Word Press.  I finally updated my links to reflect this.  Another post soon!