This weekend, for the first time in along time, I attempted to make homemade tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes. While I love cooking, I usually just buy some of my favorite canned marinara sauce when I making a pasta dinner. The sauce is very tasty and has the natural ingredients my family prefers. But recently a friend of ours had more ripe tomatoes from her garden then she knew what to do with. So she gave me a big batch and I decided to try and make my own sauce with them. Unfortunately my skillet wasn’t as deep as I would have like and I had to make it in two batches so it didn’t spill over onto the stove. I really could have used a skillet like this Rachael Ray Porcelain Enamel 12 Inch Saute Pan. more…

My sister loves her Romertopf clay bakers. She has a few of them actually. One is extra large, I think they call it the maxi baker and it’s big enough to hold a seventeen pound turkey at the holidays. She also has a large baker she uses quite frequently for roasts, stews, soups and other meals throughout the year. Plus she has some of their neat small bakers like the apple baker and the banana baker. I always enjoy her cooking and I guess I dropped enough hints about her cookware because she bought me my own Romertopf Small Clay Baker for my last birthday. more…

If ever there was a dish perfectly suited for crock pot cooking, it’s chili.  You can’t go wrong with a classic Crock Pot Chili recipe.  Use basic ingredients and you’ll find that the results will be very favorable.  Since my family already loves chili, I knew that if I stuck to a basic recipe, they would surely love the chili I made in the crock pot.  After you make a basic chili, experiment a little with the spices, the meat, or the beans.  I like to brown up a little spicy pork sausage to add to the ground beef or change from pinto beans to kidney beans. more…

Kitchen organization requires a fine balance. I am the sort of cook who likes the utensils I use daily within easy reach. After all, I don’t want to be fumbling for a silicone spatula while my risotto burns! However, I’m also not a big fan of everything “out,” such as the current trend of having utensils hanging on a sort of curtain rod or up on pegboard in he kitchen. I think it looks great at first, but after about three meals it is a mess unless you can devote time to its constant upkeep. That’s why a kitchen utensil holder are a good compromise between accessibility and neatly “put away” organization. more…