Sunday Morning

"Food is not about impressing people.
It's about making them feel comfortable."
Ina Garten,
The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

Lots of from scratch baking and cooking have been keeping me busy in the kitchen. So busy a homemaker have I been, as to not have been very diligent in keeping notes on it all!

The kitchen is being prepped (cleaning, organizing, stocking and so on) for canning --- my first real season of it. I shan't pretend to not have a level of intimidation at even starting but start, I must.

The lovely harvest is graduating from a first cucumber and growing zucchini to hands full and finally, shirts are being filled and we will next need a basket. Each morning, we are amazed and delighted (yes, delighted) over a new gift and God's goodness astounds us without fail.

Hopefully, I will be a wise manager of time and some journaling will be accomplished of the canning process. I am starting out with cucumber pickles, zucchini pickles and maybe a relish or two. My goal is to have no waste from the bounty heaven blesses this humble spot of earth with.

This morning, I got up at 5:00 am ---praise God for my recent return for early risings --- and got a few things done in the quiet glow of getting up before everyone. It even afforded me time to stir together some luscious muffins to make for my family to wake with. Smiles. . . they were a welcomed gift and so 'just right' for a before church eat.

Here they are and I will try to share more from my wrick wrack work as I go!

I just love what the man wrote with this recipe:


Buttermilk Oatmeal Muffins

Submitted By: Robert Luebke
Servings: 8

"These delicious muffins were a significant part of the first dinner I had with my wife when we were courting. She's an excellent cook, and that first meal was truly a gourmet's delight. Now whenever she plans a menu and asks for my suggestions, I make sure these muffins are on it."
-Robert Luebke, Appleton, Wisconsin

Ingredients:
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil 1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:
1. In a bowl, soak oats in buttermilk for 15 minutes. Stir in egg, sugar and oil. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; stir into oat mixture just until moistened. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 400 degrees F for 16-18 minutes or until muffins test done. Cool in pan 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2010 Allrecipes.com Printed from Allrecipes.com 6/27/2010

H.O.H. Tomato Sauce

If I have already shared this recipe, forgive me!
I have been too busy to get posts written but along the way have still saved recipes and meals here and there to share. This was in my drafts folder so I thought I would go ahead and post it in case I haven't.

It is still important for me to keep a record of what we make and to make those things available for those who have been interested in getting them, too.

Sandy’s H.O.H. Tomato Sauce

H.O.H. Have on Hand --- Using the ingredients I have on hand to make the sauce we were going to buy. The store version is sun dried tomato sauce and I don’t remember the brand but it comes in a glass jar next to the alfredo sauce. We don’t use such high sodium, high fat, and high sugar processed foods usually but Lauren had a friend over and she wanted some to go over tortellini. We got that on sale today but no sauce so I made something similar.

We really liked it!

Garlic
Butter
Olive Oil
Flour
Heavy cream
Cheese
Garlic powder
Parsley
Salt & Pepper
Freshly grated nutmeg

Drizzle some olive oil and a few pats of butter in a skillet until butter is melted. Add fresh, chopped or pressed garlic and stir frequently to keep the garlic from burning. Keep on low to medium heat.
Sprinkle a small spoon or two of flour over the oil/butter mixture in the skillet and stir with a whisk. When it is smooth and blended well, add heavy cream. Just add approximately how much you’ll need for how many are eating (it is easy to make too much so keep that in mind) and keep stirring and heating up until heated thoroughly but not boiling.

Add just about any shredded cheese (If I had ANY parmesan, it would have been amazing for this) … I used sharp cheddar.

When cheese is melted t hrough, stir in some garlic powder , parsley, and the rest of the ingredients.

Pour this over hot, cooked tortellini!