Guest Blog: Rach and her Perfect Recipe Book

I'm so excited to reveal our first guest blogger! Rach has a knack for organizing and you'll see more from her along the way. Enjoy her Perfect Recipe book and ideas!

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The Perfect Recipe Book…and so much more…

True story…my husband T and I had been married about two weeks when I decided I wanted to have my first dinner party. I was beyond excited…Set the date, invited the guests, cleaned the house, picked out a menu…wait a minute, a menu? I was 22, and didn’t have a clue in the kitchen. Being the young, naïve newlywed that I was, I thought all recipes were created equal and I was about to learn a big lesson. For some strange reason I decided that a corn casserole would be a wonderful addition to our dinner that night. Let’s just say…it wasn’t! Easily one of the worst things I have ever eaten…and that’s a stretch. Maybe I should say the worst thing I have ever tasted. It was not edible. At all. Ick!

After that I stayed out of the kitchen for the most part. Well, maybe it was after the dinner party we had when I served lasagna. It was not too bad, but a one of our guests found a ladybug in her lasagna. Not good. So it was after the ladybug incident that I stayed out of the kitchen. Then we moved, had a baby, had another baby, another move, and before I knew it I was a SAHM on a little budget with four mouths to feed. Every morning, noon and night. I need recipes. Good ones. Fast. I turned to everyone one I knew that had more experience in the kitchen than I did. My favorite aunt gave me a subscription to Southern Living. So I cooked, copied recipes, cut them out, and stuffed them into every nook in the kitchen. They were everywhere. It was time to do something.

I was able to scrape together about eight dollars. I bought a 3-ring binder, a pack of 5 dividers (with pockets), a pack of sheet protectors and I came up with a book that 7 years later I live by. It’s my bible. I love it. I want to marry it. It gets me through the days, weeks, and months. Can you feel my love for it? It has pockets in the front and in the back. It holds all of my recipes, and any other ideas and thoughts that I love. I cut and stuff on a weekly basis and everything goes into this notebook. It’s a must have for any and everyone. It’s a combination of all of my favorite magazines and idea books without a bunch of fluff. Everything in it I love, I know I love, and my family loves. It makes my life easy!

The front inside pocket is filled with house and decorating ideas.

The back pocket is filled with gardening ideas. 

And the middle is filled with recipes tried and true that my family loves. It’s divided into five sections: appetizers/salads, vegetables/vegetarian, chicken/fish, meats, and sweets/breakfast.

I keep plenty of extra page protectors in the binder for days when I cut things out of magazines. It works great…nothing needs a hole punch, I can just slide them right in and the page protectors do just that when things get messy in the kitchen. I could have used this book and long time ago, but I am thankful it came into my life when it did!

Rach

CSA

Well fellow blog followers, we've been super busy and super slackers this week. We'll make up for it later this week when I reveal my chandelier spruce up, which by the way looks fantastic and just needs a few last minute touches!

In the meantime, I wanted to write about our new food journey with a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). We signed up for a crop share hosted by D & A farm and each Wednesday we pick up a box of veggies straight from the farm. It's kind of exciting to see what's going to be in the box! Last week when I opened the box and found two HUGE, GORGEOUS heads of lettuce, I knew I was in love. 
Some things I have ZERO clue what to do with... i.e.: turnips. Who actually eats turnips? How in the world do you cut them? What in the world do you do with them? How can I get my 2 year old son to eat a turnip? After much research online, I found a recipe that included the turnips and sweet potatoes in last week’s batch and shockingly enough, we actually LIKED turnips! I know. Equally surprised. Did my child eat them? No. But at least we ventured out of our cooking comfort zone and tried something new and different.

Here’s what’s in the box this week: Lettuce, boc choy, arugula, radish, winter squash and collards.  Lovey hu?!


I'm looking for ideas on how to cook with any of this! The squash and lettuce I can do, but the radishes, collards and boc choy I’m clueless. Send me your favorite recipe using any of these things or just some ideas on how to cook them! Thanks!Katie

Sponge Bob Square Cake ?!

OKAY ... my four year old, I mean five year old, is obsessed with Sponge Bob!  His birthday was this week and all he wanted was the $50.00 SPONGE BOB CAKE AT PUBLIX!  YIKES.  People, we are in a recession ... $50 doesn't come easy.  So, what to do to make the little man's dreams come true?! 

I decided to make one myself!  I can do it!  Sure.  With a little patience (a lot!), lots of icing, food coloring, and a coloring book, this is do-able. 

I started with this:

9 x 13 metal pan, spray bottom with canola spray

Bake your cake as directed on the box.  Let it cool for about 10 minutes, then flip it upside down on a big tray.  (Unless you are Martha Stewart or Betty Crocker, you probably won't have a cake stand enormous enough for this big rectangle!  I used a cute acrylic tray.)
 
While the cake is baking, start mixing your icing with food coloring.  This step was quite hilarious in that I had icing everywhere, including my hair, and I had a major sugar rush ... okay yes, I HAD to taste each color "just incase" it was bad.  Ha ha ha.   Hello 5 lbs.  Why do I even GO to the gym?!

The most difficult color to mix was brown for Sponge Bob's pants.  Of course I was not smart enough at the grocery store and did not buy chocolate icing.  Instead, I bought 2 jars of vanilla.  Duh?! Why?

SO my husband and I couldn't figure out how to make brown.  NO, you cannot mix all 4 colors in the food color box to make brown (red, blue, green, yellow).  That makes army green!  After many tries, we figured it out (Seriously?  We went to college, I promise!)  You mix RED and GREEN food coloring with white icing = light brown Sponge Bob pants!  Yeah. (Yes, that brown stuff is icing.) 

All of the colors are finally mixed.

This picture is my inspiration ....

I waited 10 minutes out of the oven, then flipped it over on this cute tray.  Make sure you use the bottom (now the top) for the top of your cake.  Makes a flat surface to ice. 

First is yellow everywhere except the very bottom.  I found that the longer my icing sat out on the counter, the thinner it became.  It was perfect for this step.  Later, when decorating the eyes and tie, etc. put your icing back in the fridge for about 10 minutes to harden a bit. 

Add a small thin white line for his shirt, and brown for the pants.

Eyeballs ... I put 3 big spoonfulls of white for each eye.  Then spread with the back of my spoon in a circle (lightly!).  If you notice the spoon ... it is small and from Sweden.  Sorry USA.  It is a little bigger than a baby spoon.  So make your adjustments accordingly. 

No ... I do not suddenly have "man hands!"  This is my hubby drawing the black lines.  He is a really great artist.  After I tried once, then had to remove my black line, then refrost yellow, I decided to ask for his help! 

We used a small tube of black "gel" icing.  Worked great!  Draw a nose, mouth, medium sized circles for the cheeks and eyelashes. 

Add some pink for a tounge.  I used the back of my spoon to spread the tounge.   A little pink for cheeks.  I used my fingers to swirl the cheeks.  I also added red in 2 small globs to make the tie.  Then spread it out with a butter knife. 

2 spoonfulls of blue on each white eye. I spoonfull of white for each tooth.  I used my finger and a butter knife to form a square tooth, once it was on the cake. 

Black circles with the black gel on top of each blue circle. 

So we are finished .... 1 hour later!  Whew!  Put it in the fridge quick.  We kept it in the fridge all night, the icing reset, and the next morning it was perfect. 

Charlie LOVED it!  He didn't even ask for the Publix $50.00 cake ... he said can I eat some for breakfast?  My answer?  OF COURSE!!!  It's YOUR birthday.  :)
Good luck making one for your little one.