By Georgia Osten
Cooking – One of my most favorite things to do! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m a fantastic cook, not even a great cook! But, I do enjoy getting there in the kitchen and going after it. Especially with wine, a glass or two that is! I have several cookbooks, and several are my favorites. You can tell when they automatically open up to the recipes I use over and over again. You can also tell by the food stains and spills on some of the pages. Like my meatloaf recipe or my banana bread recipe, the pages just open up. In some cases, I can even remember what page they’re on. For instance, banana bread is on page 22 of one of the most worn out books I have. I have two books bound in dark red, one doesn’t have the spine cover anymore. One has pictures, that’s the meatloaf book. Another favorite is a huge book that I gave my mother 100 years ago. It has my favorite cabbage recipe in it.

My famous cheesy potatoes don’t require a recipe, and it’s a family favorite for sure. When my son is around, it’s devoured/gone! Fried chicken too, no recipe required, but such a production and such a mess!

At Christmas, I use the Pillsbury cookbook, the ones you get at the register check out line. The pages became so brittle, my husband had to laminate the Jam Strip Cheesers recipe.

Then, I have this binder. This is where I stash all the printed-out recipes I’ve found over the years. I’m addicted to Pinterest. So many ideas, so many flops. Just recently, I found a recipe for Beef Enchiladas. I gathered all the ingredients, what I didn’t have, The Big Store did! I cut up the peppers and onions and cooked them the night before along with the beef. The next night, I rolled them up in flour tortillas, topped it with Plenty of cheese and served it up for dinner. WHAT A FLOP!

So, I threw that recipe in the trash, no way we’ll have that again, no way will it go into my binder. The next night, we had California Pizza Kitchen BBQ Chicken Pizza. Freezer to oven for 18 minutes. Voila! Every once in a while, I’ll go through my binder. If never used, it would get thrown away, and if never used more than once, it would get thrown away.

I love the holiday meals, Thanksgiving & Christmas. But, to be honest with you, I’ll wait for a certain request these days. No more dressing, I don’t think that’s a family favorite anymore (too many veggies). I’ll leave that up to another family member. My daughter-in-law and I are the only ones who like yams, so either she or I will make that for  US! The Granddaughters are the pie champions these days, so we leave the apple and pumpkin pies up to them.

Times change, and I love it! Besides, I’ll have to admit it takes me 3 times as long to prepare a meal than it used to. It’s all good!

Bon Appétit y’all!

[April-5-2021]