Tormented Kitchen

Hello dear readers! The past week Sparks was host to the annual Nugget Rib Cook-off. Of course we went and it was as busy as ever. This year we just went on Sunday. We caught a matinee at Century 14, Minions, since the big kids hadn't seen it yet. It was cute! We have been in the middle of minion madness, and the movie was the biggest deal to the kids. This was also the baby's first visit to a movie theater! After the movie, we walked through Victorian Square. We ate our fill of ribs from some favorites like Texas Outlaw and Chicago, plus a few of the vendors we don't always get like BourbonQ and Texas Thunder. We also chowed on deep fried pickles, deep fried peaches with whipped cream, a funnel cake, and shaved ice.  My husband also convinced me to help him drink a blended margarita. So what if I ended up drinking most of it? By the way, we seriously considered buying the whole roast pig this year.  Some friends have been hard at work helping another...

Hello, my friends.  It's been quite a while since I've been in the kitchen cooking from scratch.  Being pregnant is hard work!  The baby is now almost 3 weeks old, the garden is bursting with tomatoes, and I've gotten slowly back in the kitchen. Today, I'm sharing with you, my recipe for lasagna. I made a small batch of homemade tomato sauce with bell peppers and pork to use up some tomatoes.  I used that for my lasagna sauce this time, but you can use jarred sauce from the store.  I normally use marinara or a tomato-y sauce in a jar, so use what works for you. Ingredients 1 lb ground beef 2 eggs 1 15oz container part-skim ricotta cheese 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (for mixing into filling) 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper 2 Tablespoons dried parsley 1 box lasagna noodles (I prefer American  Beauty's Oven-Ready) 1 28oz jar Marinara or Tomato-Garlic pasta sauce, or about 3 cups homemade sauce 1 1/2 cups water 1 cup shredded ...

Hello again my readers! It's almost summer time! That means less time running the oven in the house and more time outdoors with the grill. So to wrap up something I've been working on, let's get to it. Say Hello to my delish oven-baked "fried" chicken recipe. A few months ago I tried something new and I'd been making a little tweak here and there, perfecting it. Now I 'm ready to share. But first, some back ground story. When I was a tween and learning to cook, one of the first cookbooks I got was Kids Cooking: A Very Slightly Messy Manual by the Klutz Press. There was a recipe in there for oven "fried" chicken that used crushed cornflakes. It became a regular thing in our house, so I've had a spot in my heart for oven baked chicken since. Now, I've gotten away from using cornflakes and wanted something flour-dredged so it was even more like real fried chicken. And I found a way to do it. I've only tried this with drumsticks...

Hello readers! I'm back with something delicious! And Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there! My son recently turned 9.  Trying to get any birthday ideas out of him was difficult. I had to offer a ton of ideas for what to do party-wise, cake-wise, and even prod at him about what he might want for presents. The good thing about him, is once he found an idea he liked, he nailed down exactly what he wanted. I asked about the cake. At first he just said cake like I always make. Then he said to add bananas to the filling. About 5 seconds later, he changed it to banana cake with strawberry filling. I could definitely work with that. As for the party, we went from maybe having it  at the trampoline party place across town to the petting zoo to go-karts to backyard campout.  Camping won. We had pizza delivered, made s'mores, then had cake. And the boys played with the Nerf guns before sleeping in the tent out back. It was a total winner. Anyhow, I dec...

Hi followers! I'm back with an actual recipe!  It's one of my oldest, favorite things that I learned from my mom. It's the easiest and most delicious fruit dip. We even have a German-sounding made up name for it. We call it Frutenglasa. To say it, the last "s" has to sound a bit like a "j" or "zh" sound.  It's great with strawberries or fruit salad. It's great with watermelon when it's hot during summertime. You can even smear it on crepes or a puff pancake, add some fruit and have a very elegant dish. Mom has a top secret, special change she does to this recipe that I will share, too.  For special occasions, she will substitute orange liqueur (like Cointreau, Grand Marnier, or Triple Sec) for the orange juice.  My last batch, I only subbed 1 tablespoon of Triple Sec and kept the other 2 as OJ. This stuff is almost addictive. And I have even stuffed it inside birthday cake as a filling layer. Super awesome stuff it is. ...

Hello readers! I've been slow to post this, mainly because I forgot to hit post!  Silly me! So let's take a look back at the 2014 Best in the West Rib Cook-off.  It was in the typical location along Victorian Square between the Nugget hotel and the Sparks Century 14 Theater.  In recent years, many of the older building were demolished and turned into a vast parking lot. This comes in very handy for events like this. There were rib booths spread out more toward the theater. Normally they are crowded together all down Victorian Avenue, and the lines of people waiting for food can get very long. It can be hard to even walk. I liked that the booths were further apart. We tried a few places that we didn't recognize. Everything was hot and fresh off the grill.Yum! In my opinion, that is the best way to eat ribs. We didn't get tickets to the Rib Village this time. No, we took our time meandering through the vendors on foot and stopping at places t...