Oven Roasted Garlic SO easy SO delicious!!

This is so easy and absolutely delicious!!  If you like garlic then you HAVE to try this!!

Select fresh garlic that is nice and firm...

Cut off the tops about 1/4 inch...dont cut off too much!!

Drizzle a little bit of olive oil over the top of each bulb...

Cover with parchment paper...

Bake at 400 degrees for about 30-45 minutes...depending on how soft and roasted you want it...

Let it cool and those little soft cloves of garlic will slip right out of their bulbs and will add a burst of flavor to any dish it joins!

Turkey Stock

Whenever you cook a turkey or chicken, dont throw away the bones! I always save my bones in several large freezer bags until I have plenty of supplies to make a large batch of stock!

Then I just put all the bones into my large stock pot with few onions, carrots, celery, and garlic...cover with water and let it simmer!! Now this is one of my favorite things to do in the winter when the wood stove is roaring because I just let it set on top of the fire and boil all day! But when I am running the stove top I usually will just boil for a few hours. 

Strain out the liquids and its that easy!! You know you have some good stock when it gels. I usually let it cool after straining it and then divide it up into various pint sized canning jars. We use it up fairly fast, but it can easily be pressure canned or jut put into the freezer. Ive also taken the gel chunks and put them into a gallon size freezer bag...then they are really easy to just pop off a chunk out of the freezer to add a little extra flavor and nutrients to a meal.

Zucchini Bread

Zucchini is in abundance this time of year and there is always a dilemma as to what to do with it all!! Grill it, fry it, make cookies and breads, pastas and raviolis...the list goes on and on.

I love Zucchini bread and have to recommend this recipe from AllRecipes . This is by far the best Zucchini bread I have had...moist and delicious! I did a double batch and made 3 regular loaves and 4 mini loaves. I like to do 2 different sizes so I can wrap them with parchment paper, stack them and tie a fun card to them as gifts.

What is everyone doing with all the extra squash and zucchini you are getting right now?

Kitchen Remodel 2009

These pictures are long overdue! I have a whole section on renovation and yet I had not posted any "after" pictures! To be perfectly honest, I have not even taken all the "after" pictures because this little place is constantly in remodel or one more project is always on the horizon. 

I thought I better start updating as many projects current status and then even more picture updates to come as we finish various projects.

Welcome to our Kitchen!

from the "before" picture on the left, you can tell that we had to start over! We tore everything out...even the walls and designed the kitchen into a U shape with a large open bar on one side. We had to move around all the wiring and plumbing to make room for the appliances we wanted.

This wall was the step down entrance into the "den", but a portion of the den became the laundry room so that is where we put a cut out wall for the pantry and refrigerator to set. 

The entrance into the kitchen was a small door which we eliminated as well and made a large archway over the bar to give the room a good open floor plan. This was crucial for the layout of the house, since the house is only 1000 sq feet we wanted to make sure to make it as open as possible to make it "feel" larger :)

*notice Peaches standing on our back deck railing ;)

We installed the cabinets, appliances and plumbing ourselves, but had the counter tops installed by a granite company. We were able to take our time and find several sales on cabinets and counter tops and got a custom kitchen for a fraction of the cost!!

This was a tremendous amount of work, but well worth it in the end!! 

If I had to do it again, would I do anything different? Nope :)