My Most Used Cookbooks

While reading all the lovely blogs I enjoy, I saw that Kristan of Confessions of a Cookbook Queen was asking what our four favorite cookbooks are after listing her own. If you haven't seen her hilarious, truthful, full of recipe goodness blog, you are so missing out. 

Of the four she listed, I've only cooked from one: The Pioneer Woman Cooks, which is an amazing book of fantastic photography, great stories about ranch life and, of course, delicious recipes. Although we didn't get to meet her, my youngest daughter and I went to her book signing at Changing Hands Bookstore a few years ago. We stayed over 5 hours and didn't even get close to her but she signed our books and left them for pick up.

My favorite PW recipe is Comfort Meatballs ... and they're going on my To Make List ... yum!
It's just plain impossible to choose my four "favorite" cookbooks. I have over 200 - on a bookshelf in the garage and on the bottom shelf of my kitchen baker's rack. Whatever I'm cooking from most frequently of late is rotated through to my baker's rack. While I can't choose absolute favorites, I figured the books with the most bookmarks/sticky notes were the winners today …

Pictured from top to bottom, they are:

Happy Holidays from the Diva of Do-Ahead by Diane Phillips ~ Exactly what it says, recipes that can, all or in part, be prepared ahead of the meal so you can enjoy time with your family and friends. Love the Roasted Red Smashed Potatoes with Olive Oil and Rosemary and all the compound butters.

The Mac + Cheese Cookbook by Allison Arevalo + Erin Wade ~ One of the newer books on my shelf, this one features a basic béchamel sauce that is the start for 50 mac and cheese recipes from the Homeroom restaurant in Oakland, California. The Spicy Mac recipe is ridiculously good!

The Cake Doctor by Anne Byrne ~ Over 150 dessert recipes that begin with a mix. So many great recipes, but I've made the Peanut Butter Frosting to ice chocolate cake many times.

The White House Cook Book by Hugo Zieman (Steward of the White House) and Mrs. F. L. Gillette ~ Published in 1907, I may never make a single recipe from this book but for sheer entertainment value, it can't be beat. Gifted to me by my baby sister, my copy is full of handwritten notes from a previous owner on yellowed pages. This one may be hard to find, but would be well worth the search.

Thanks for stopping by!

One Stitch at a Time

My youngest daughter sent me a photo from etsy a few weeks ago showing knee socks that rise above the top of the boot, embroidered with a 3-letter monogram -- $20 if you order them made for you. This was the perfect opportunity to use the lovely box of embroidery thread I found at a garage sale last year, even though I had to put a little WD40 on my rusty hand-embroidery skills.

The socks I found at Target for $2.50 a pair. I did purchase a roll of Sulky Water Soluble Stabilizer (with a 40% off coupon at Joann's) that I'll be able to use with my embroidery machine as well. I had the embroidery thread, needle and hoop on my shelves.

The first thing I did was spend a little time on the laptop looking at typestyles to see which font would look good for her monogram. With a 3-letter monogram, they go in this order: small first initial, large last initial, small middle initial. I settled on Snell Roundhand because it's a little fancy but not too much for hand stitching.

I printed this out on plain white paper to get the correct size, cut a small piece of water soluble stabilizer, laid it over the paper and traced the monogram onto the stabilizer with a Sharpie. (Used green ink so it would stand out from the black thread and make it easier to see my stitches.) I laid the stabilizer over the sock, figuring out where I wanted it to land (just under the heavy cuff) and hooped it. I used straight pins to help pin the rest of the cuff out of the way so I didn't accidentally stitch the top of the sock together.

I used black embroidery thread, a back stitch for all letters and went over the middle of the C again with a chain stitch ...

One thing to remember when doing a pair of anything: be sure to put your stitching on the correct side, i.e., to the outside of each sock.

It was fun to wash the water soluble stabilizer out of each sock and see it magically disappear. I ended up doing it twice because after they air dried the first time, I could still feel a little gluey stiffness that was left over. Rinsed them in the kitchen sink with a little warm tap water and a dab of hand soap.

We were finally able to celebrate Heidi's birthday with her belatedly last night and I think she liked her personalized knee socks. Hopefully, it will be chilly enough for her to wear them soon with her cute boots!

On an ooey gooey delicious dessert note, I made the Gluten Free version of Caramel Apple Butterfinger Bars by Confessions of a Cookbook Queen as a substitute birthday cake. A little heaven on earth that includes fresh Granny Smith apples, oatmeal, Butterfinger candy bars and Caramel ice cream topping. I didn't say it was calorie free, just gluten free, using GF Bisquick and Red Mill GF Oatmeal ...

Warmed up with a scoop of French Vanilla melting into all that caramel-y goodness ... just yum!

So many projects, never enough time!