Tormented Kitchen

Hello dear readers! I hope you are all enjoying the amazing food specialties that accompany this holiday season. I have been on a pie kick. You could say I have been crazy for sweet potato pie.  Now, normally we have pumpkin pie with Thanksgiving Dinner, and that is the only time of the year canned pumpkin is in the house. Well, I always have at least one sweet potato lurking somewhere. I don't know what got me so fired up, but I just had to have sweet potato pie. So I made one, for practice. Then we ate it. It did not suck. So I made another one. That one didn't last more than two days. It may have been breakfast one morning. Then, I had to make one more so we could have pie for the whole family at my folks' house for Thanksgiving. After mowing down three of these babies in a row, I knew I had to post this for everyone to enjoy. Ingredients Unbaked single crust for a 9" pie, use either  Pie Crust No. 1 or Pie Crust No. 3 2 garnet yams or other oran...

Hello, dear readers! Comfort foods seem to be a no-brainer when the weather gets chilly, especially here in the mountains near Lake Tahoe. Soups, stews, casseroles, and the like come to mind.  One of my favorite comfort foods is scalloped potatoes and ham. It's also seasonal for us since we only get a big ham a couple times a year, usually near a holiday, if not for a holiday meal. My dear hubby is also a fan of scalloped potatoes although his Italian grandmother makes hers a little bit differently.  She puts whole pork chops on top of the potatoes instead of mixing in diced ham. Her way is pretty darn good too. One of the best reasons to make this is that it's easy to assemble. The second best reason is that it's kid-friendly.  Any parent of a picky eater knows how foods tend to be white and full of potatoes. So, yes, this is guilty as charged! Although who's going to argue with you for making this? Ingredients 3 lbs Russet potatoes, peeled and sliced ab...

Hello, dear readers. What did you do for Labor Day weekend this year? We consumed mass quantities of ribs, like we always do! We split up the rib-snarfing over two evenings. I was keen to go Friday night because of the live band. It was Vertical Horizon! The kids hung with a grandparents so hubby and I could cavort in public with other grown ups. We enjoyed a few cold ones with the music, some food like these piles of fried potatoes, and meandered through the market. We ate a few rib samplers, fried pickles, and funnel cake, but we didn't actually get any alligator. You know that stuff isn't native around here. The next day, we came back with kids and one grandma.  We did the Rib Village. Baby N was not patient. She was starved and devoured applesauce and ice cream after sampling some ribs too. We did some shopping in the market stalls. It was perfect weather. We walked our behinds off. Thank goodness for the bu...

Hello, dear readers.  We've had a great season for fruit.  The peach tree is absolutely drooping it's so loaded with peaches. One of my favorite things to make with juicy fresh peaches is ice cream! Mom used to make peach ice cream when I was a kid. It was basically vanilla ice cream with peaches mixed in.  Simple enough, right? Yes, but also so good! There are two versions of ice cream base that are good with peaches. The first one is a cooked custard base.  It is a richer, thicker ice cream with nice yellow tint from the eggs. It takes slightly longer to make this since you have to cook it and then let it cool overnight. It's super buttery and luscious. It freezes very hard and keeps a smooth texture. The second base is still really luscious without the cooking. It's a mixture of creams and sugar. I think I prefer this one. It's not quite so rock solid when frozen and it lends a really pure creamy flavor. The peaches really need to be ripe, dripping swe...

Hello, dear readers. Welcome back! My garden is growing at an amazing pace.  We started late, thanks to worries about frost. We finally planted things in early June.  I figured the garden might be a little bit small from having plants die in the heat, but we've actually had very little die-off. We have a single zucchini plant and it is producing at a good rate.  I already have enough that I used a few in the lasagna for dinner, a batch of this zucchini bread, and I still have a few that I haven't touched. Plus, there are more on the plant! Quite a while ago, I picked up this recipe off of a message board for scrapbookers. There are so many lovely people out there making beautiful creations, not just scrapbook things, but food, crafts, and things for the home. I've been too busy to keep up on the message board, but I did friend a many of those crafty people on Facebook so I can keep up with them. Now, on the recipe details. I've made a change to ho...

Hello, friends! I have something new to share. People who know me know that I'm a tea drinker.  I don't like regular coffee. I tried it ages ago, but it didn't hit the spot.  Once in a while, I might drink a fu-fu coffeehouse drink made with espresso and lots of milk and flavorings. So rewind back to last April, when I was pregnant with Natalie. I have no explanation for this, but I suddenly loved coffee. I would wake up at night dreaming of lattes. I'd fix myself an afternoon treat with the Keurig machine and doctor it with cocoa mix and lots of cream. My husband likes espresso and we'd talked for years about getting an espresso machine. It just happened to be a really low priority since I've been a tea person and not an espresso person.  Suddenly it made sense to me to get the espresso machine for his birthday so I could also have it to satisfy my cravings. Isn't that how marriage works? I got one of the Nespresso Lattissima+ machines. It's bee...

Hi Friends! Today I'm sharing a recipe for a casserole that I learned about when I got my first real job out of college.  It was informally called tamale pie. Essentially, the original recipe consisted of a can of this and can of that layered in a pan. There was corn bread mix from a box, layers of seasoned meat, cheese, salsa or Rotel, beans, and so on. (I'm skipping details on purpose. They're boring.) Then you baked it until it was hot. Yeah, I customized my procedure and ingredients to match what we liked. I started making the mush with a little cinnamon and used regular milk instead of canned milk. I used taco seasoning on the meat and skipped the salsa/Rotel step. I added frozen corn and sliced olives. I couldn't skip the cheese since we love cheese. But it has evolved from the original can of this and a can of that. Now hold on for one second.  Have you seen other tamale pie recipes? You know, the ones that put the corn mush on TOP?  What is that about? F...