Cooking Questions

This is a questionaire from a friend of mine. She tagged me to do it and I thought it would be fun.

1. How many meals does most of your family eat at home each week? How many are in your family?
We eat almost every meal at home. We do eat out on Sunday evenings and sometimes Sunday noon. There are five in our family.

2. How many cookbooks do you own? Six! I've been cleaning them out and I've given away lots of them. I've been putting my favorite recipies in my recipe box so I don't have to hunt through an enormous pile of cookbooks to find that one recipe. My favorites are:
1. Miserly Meals written by Jonni McCoy and
2. Kraft Food and Family magazine that is FREE if you sign up online. Supermom introduced me to it and I love how most of the recipes are simple but delicious. I don't usually sign up for magazines because they become clutter around my house but this one is worth it!

3. How often do you refer to a cookbook each week?I usually look at them weekly. I try to have my meals planned a week at a time and plan them on the day of the week before Errand Day so that I'm ready to go grocery shopping.

4. Do you collect recipes from other sources? I always love getting a new good recipe. Anything I eat at someone else's house or a potluck, I ask for the recipe!

5. How do you store those recipes? I usually store them in my recipe box. But Michelle mentioned putting them in a photo album and that sounds like a great idea!

6. When you cook, do you follow the recipe pretty closely, or do you use recipes primarily to give you ideas? I do both. I like following by the book but if I don't have an ingredient then I put in something different. Some of our favorite meals came out of improv!

7. Is there a particular ethnic style or flavor that predominates in your cooking? If so, what is it? Home-style. I try to have creativity throughout the week if I can. For instance: Chicken casserole, meatloaf, Tortillini, Vegetable soup, and something in the crock pot for Errand Day.

8. What’s your favorite kitchen task related to meal planning and preparation? (eating the finished product does not count) Choosing the meals and thinking through the week.

9. What’s your least favorite part? Washing the dishes. I don't mind loading the dishwasher it's just the hand washing that drives me crazy. I know it doesn't take that long but mentally I have a block.

10. Do you plan menus before you shop? Yes, it helps me stay focused and not be tempted to buy extras, saves money.

11. What are your three favorite kitchen tools or appliances? My dishwasher, my ceramic slow cooker ( my mother-in-law gave me for a wedding gift and it's still working wonders), and my coffee maker (can't deny loving that Heavenly juice).

12. If you could buy one new thing for your kitchen, money was no object, and space not an issue, what would you most like to have? A new oven. Mine is old but it still works fine. But if money were no object I would enjoy all the new gadgets on a brand new one.

13. Since money and space are probably objects, what are you most likely to buy next? Pampered Chef vegtable steamer because my sister keeps raving about hers.

14. Do you have a separate freezer for storage? Yes, and it's a large one. I love it! It's especially great when I'm having company. I can cook ahead and freeze.

15. Grocery shop alone or with others? Mostly with others since I homeschool and my kids are with me most of the time. But I shop at Aldi's my most favorite store. My kids are great at being my runners. We also form an assembly line to bag all the groceries; unload them into the house and put them away. It actually takes much longer now when I go alone. I don't have all my helping hands. L

16. How many meatless main dish meals do you fix in a week? Probably one. It's either mac'n'cheese or some other kind of pasta.

17. If you have a decorating theme in your kitchen, what is it? Favorite kitchen colors? I don't really have a theme other than a romantic look. The colors I have now were there when we bought the house. It's dark blue and cranberry with floral wallpaper. I like it. But, if I could pick my favorite kitchen color it would be a sunny yellow. We are in there so much that I would like it to be light and airy with bright color accented elsewhere, like red, orange, purple, and green.

18. What’s the first thing you ever learned to cook, and how old were you? Hmm, it would either be chocolate chip cookies, mac'n'cheese or tuna casserole. I was probably in 4th or 5th grade.

19. How did you learn to cook? I learned a lot from watching my Mom. She was an incredible cook but I didn't really take an interest until I was engaged to be married. It was sort of a crash course. Then I continued to learn just by following recipes and doing it. (Still learning by the way)

20. Tagging… I’m tagging Supermom and Kyle. But only if you have time and want to play, of course… I won't be offended AT ALL if you opt out. It's kind of lengthy, I know.