When you make something good

I've spent the last week typing up recipes.

342. So far. I have roughly 10 to go before I'm down to a confusing bunch of recipes.

Here's the deal. These are recipes from the recipe boxes of 2 deceased family members. And if I've learned anything from this process, it's the following:

#1 - If your family member cooks something you absolutely love, ask them for the recipe while they are still alive. You may not be able to find it after their death, and if you do, you may not get complete instructions. See #2

#2 - Just because you know how to do it, doesn't mean the next person to read the recipe knows how to do it. I have 20 recipes specifically, in which the writer either left off an amount of something, or instructions, or the NAME of the recipe. Is this a marinade? Is this a salad dressing? I do not know. I have 7 recipes I will have to blindly make to find out what the heck they are and then name them, if I can't find someone who recognizes them as something they ate.

#3 - When you pull a recipe from a magazine, mark the one you pulled it for, or the one you used. I know that I have extraneous recipes in my collection, because a magazine page containing 7 recipes was in the box, but it didn't indicate which one it was cut out for.

#4 - Just because an appliance, like a crock pot, comes with recipes doesn't mean you used all of the recipes. Once again. Mark the ones you tried and liked. Same applies to stacks of recipe cards, if you used it, mark it.

#5 - Take the time to write it down. I know that a lot of cooks make something good, Something that everyone loves that they make. They don't make it the same way every time, they don't really have a recipe for it, take the time at least once to write down what you do as you do it (or have another person write it down as you do it.) Ideally, then take it out the next time you make it and see if you can write down any variations. If you don't do this, your recipe will die with you, and what will they make at your memorial party if they can't make the dish you made the best and bitch about how it's still not as good as when you made it even though you gave them the recipe and how much they miss you?

Your future grandson's or nephew's wife will appreciate it. Trust me.

Cookin'

What else is a holiday for?

On Friday I tried The Pioneer Woman's Pineapple Skewered Shrimp. I actually, also marinated some chicken the same way and the chicken was better than the shrimp to me.

On Saturday, Clinton tried quiche again, only to discover that he does actually like it, despite his many years of protests. La Madeleine, here we come.

And then yesterday we had a small BBQ, for which I made this cobbler. Except, I made it in 2 pans. And I didn't have pineapple in the cherry one, and I made a black berry one for the other half.

We also smoked some ribs and chicken quarters and sausage. And invited a few people over. And then I took absolutely no pictures.

Landon got to play in the pool for a few hours with some kids who were a little older (3 and 5 1/2). They taught him a little trick of going over the wall between the hot tub and the pool. He practiced it a lot. I'm sure we'll be seeing it for the rest of the summer.

Tomato Soup from Scratch

Yes, I realize they make tomato soup you can open the can and pour in the pot and warm up, or tear open the envelope and mix with water and boil. But as an experiment, I thought I'd try to make tomato soup from scratch.

Using a recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook for Fresh Tomato Soup. I left out the few dashes of hot pepper sauce (because I didn't have any), and I traded basil for parsley.

Before:

During:

After: (I didn't take a picture of the whole finished product, because I forgot, but this is what was left over.)

Verdict: It's thicker than we're used to, but has a good flavor, next time I'm going to seed the tomatoes and possibly add a little more water.