Chicken Parmesan is one of the great dishes of all times. It’s rich, elegant, tasty, and economical. For a weekday night meal or for company, Chicken Parm is hard to beat. But here’s another way to fix it and it’s easier. Instead of a chicken breast, use ground chicken patties. It cooks quickly and it’s guaranteed to be tender and juicy. First, make the patties. I use a pound of … [Read more...]

  When the nighttime temperatures plunge into the 20’s, it means one thing. Time to make soup. The three soup staples at our house are turkey and rice, vegetable beef soup and chili – if chili can be called a soup. This week, when the brrrr-factor kicked in, I decided on a slight change of pace. Chicken soup made with chicken thighs – the most flavorful of all the chicken parts. … [Read more...]

There are probably as many recipes for meat loaf as there are kitchens in America. Every family has their favorite. I was particularly fond of my Mom’s meat loaf. She used – among other things – tomato paste and lots of onions in her meatloaf. When we married, Nancy used her mother’s recipe with lots of catsup. It took a while, but now I’m used to that recipe and enjoy it. Recently, I … [Read more...]

It’s fall, you know, the time we all turn into pumpkins. Whether we’re carving pumpkins for the front porch or baking them into pies. Pumpkins are a hot item. Recently, I became so enamored with the large, orange spheres, that I made a batch of pumpkin cookies and they turned out well - a nice change of pace in the cookie department. And they’re easy to put together. Here’s how. In … [Read more...]

Really? A Chardonnay Cake. Yes, really. My wife Nancy used this recipe to make a cake for a company event and every crumb disappeared. So, I suppose you really can bake a cake with wine. Says Nancy, “This recipe was from a friend. It’s not mine, I just tried it and found it to be delicious! Chablis can be substituted for the Chardonnay if desired.”   Chardonnay Cake 1 yellow cake … [Read more...]

It’s fall, and that means raking leaves, football Saturdays, Halloween, and soup. Nothing beats the celebration of a crisp, fall afternoon like a bowl of good soup. I made some last week. Really good Creamy Potato Soup. Like most everything I make, it was super easy, and it all fit nicely in my crock pot. Here’s how. First, put a liner in your crockpot for easy clean-up. Add one 30-oz. … [Read more...]

I was in Kroger’s this week and saw a family pack of chicken drumsticks for five bucks. I hadn’t planned on drumsticks for a meal, but this was too good to pass up and I happen to like drumsticks. There were a dozen fat chicken legs in the package, enough for 2 meals. $2.50 a meal for 2 people? You can’t beat that in these days of spiraling inflation. Now, what to do with all these … [Read more...]

Somehow, I had managed to find two partial loaves of white bread in my stash, and both were over a week old. Usually, I’ll toss stale bread like that out for the birds, but I had a better idea. Bread Pudding! Bread Pudding was a favored dessert in our house when I was growing up. Mom also made good use of old bead and we loved it. Sometimes we’d have it warm, like a pie, but I enjoyed it cold … [Read more...]

I don’t eat enough oatmeal. Some doctors say that if you eat oatmeal every morning for breakfast, you might live forever. It’s healthy stuff. I will, however, eat oatmeal cookies. How many ever oatmeal cookies you give me are how many I will eat, especially with a glass of cold milk. Oatmeal is an interesting and varied product. Mr. Wiki says that oatmeal is a preparation of oats  that have … [Read more...]