30 Days - Day 24: The Kitchen

I decided that during these 30 days, a post about my kitchen was in order since I spend a portion of my day in there cooking and washing dishes and did I mention washing dishes??? I'm reminded of an episode of "I Love Lucy" where Lucy and Ethel get tired of washing dishes and try to demand dishwashers. I'm with those girls. I'd LOVE to have a dishwasher. I was so hoping when we bought this house there would be one but to no avail. Actually, I can't complain too much. Since there's usually only 3 of us for dinner and no one around much during the day, my load of dirty dishes has decreased so I'm down to a manageable amount.

Then there's cooking. When Cliff and I first married, I could cook a few things. I could make virtually any Italian pasta dish thanks to my Italian friend, Suzanne but after that it was sheer trial and error. One of the very first Sunday dinners I cooked was a ham (a canned one). Now I had seen my mother do something with a sort of brown sugar glaze so I'm not sure what I did but my brown sugar glaze caramelized and burnt way before the ham was even remotely done. Of course we had a guest this Sunday also. So while Cliff was entertaining our guest, I somehow cleaned all the ash of the ham, wrapped it all in tin foil and finished cooking it. I came out pretty good. We laugh now that my first Sunday dinner was Ham and Ashes!!

Three years later, I went through a phase where it seemed almost everything I cooked came out of a box or a can (except for my italian dinners). Now that I have been cooking for a family for some 23 years, I can say with pride that I can cook fairly well and I enjoy it. I'm also enjoying trying some new recipes of late. (If you've never checked out the Pioneer Woman Cooks, it's worth a read) She has some great recipes and Cliff likes that the majority of them seem to be man pleasers!!

As a kid, I remember having homemade baked macaroni and cheese and not liking it. I much preferred KRAFT!!!! Can you believe that???? Over the years, I've tried to find a mac & cheese recipe that replicates what I remember it tasting like and have NOT been successful. Tonight I'm making another attempt at it with a recipe I found on all recipes. If you have a tried and true recipe for good old-fashioned, comfort-food macaroni and cheese, let me know.