Joy in the Kitchen!

We recently traveled to Tennessee to help our daughter and her husband move to Utah.  So happy to have them closer to us!  Happy Happy!   While we were there, we celebrated her birthday by going to dinner at their favorite BBQ place, Top Hog BBQ in Gallatin, TN.  It was a delightful, homey place and the food was plentiful and delicious!  Our server welcomed us with southern charm.  We were obviously not the only ones to love this place as even though we were seated right away at 11:30 am on a Saturday, before we left there was a fair bunch waiting to be seated.  Our daughter said there is often a 30 -60 minute wait on a weekend evening.  SO worth the wait!     Barbecue there seems a little different than here in Idaho.  The sauce is much thinner.   The sides were different as well!  So much fun to try different foods!   I enjoyed BBQ Smoked Pulled Pork, Hoe Cakes, and Onion Rings, and I tasted Keeley's coleslaw that was close to the best I've ever had!  I sampled my dau

It's been a lazy Saturday morning and my girls requested Puffy German Pancakes.  They are quick to mix up and take about 25 minutes to bake which gives me time to make home made maple flavored syrup to go with them.  (You can find that delicious home made syrup HERE . Just scroll down past the buttermilk pancake recipe.) With a large family, I've doubled this recipe and baked it in a 11x15 pan.  Today we fed 5 of us with a nice sized piece left for the girls to take to Grandpa when they went to work in his yard this afternoon. It is fun to see what shape each pancake takes as sometimes it will puff more in the middle and less on the edges and sometimes it will puff right over the edges of the pan making an odd shape.  It's always fun to open the oven when the timer goes off to see how creatively it shaped its self! Puffy German Pancakes 1 C. milk 6 eggs 1 C. sifted flour 1/4 tsp. salt 6 T. butter or margarine With hand beater or whisk blend milk,

This fun little dessert is so simple, easy, and tasty we should have it more often!  Mom always bought bushels of fresh peaches and canned them in quarts at home and they were in the most beautiful little halves.  Just lovely!  They were good all by themselves, but once in a while, especially if the milk cow was giving a lot of cream that needed used, Mom would make these for dessert. I just had cool whip when I made these this time, but to do it justice, you should have freshly whipped, sweetened cream that smothers the whole thing.  YUM!   Easy Peach Dessert Per person: 1 full graham cracker broken in half so you have 2 squares 1 peach half syrup from canned peaches whipped cream In each individual bowl place one graham cracker half, then the peach half with the cut side down, then top with the second graham cracker half.  Spoon a few spoonfuls of the peach syrup (from the can/bottle of peaches) over the top and then generously top with whipped cream! If you let i

I love a good, innocent prank now and then.   Nothing mean or particularly wasteful, just all in good fun!  April 1st is a great day to surprise your family with a chuckle or two!  Here is what we did this year:   This morning when Wesley got the milk for his cereal, it was BLUE!  He swears it tastes like Easter Eggs. A few googly eyes made for fun looking lunches for the kids! A little tablet of egg dye tucked in the water faucet was a surprise as well!  (It does only last a minute before the tablet dissolves and you're back to clear water) Dinner tonight will be breakfast:   pancakes, bacon, and hot chocolate.  (You would LOVE my favorite Buttermilk Pancake recipe!) Happy April Fools Day! You can see a couple of our other April Fools Celebrations through the links below: Chicken Sandwiches    Meatloaf Cupcakes and more...