If you are new to my blog, I want to wish you a warm welcoming, and with that, a big ole hug. If you keep coming back to my blog, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Today in this post, there won't be a recipe. The only thing I will be sharing with you is about me! I want to share with you a little bit of my life in food, my story and how I got here (shout out to my mom and dad), and how food became such an important part of my life.
You just can't beat a black and white cookbook! While, yes I know, pictures are nice....but so is the simplicity of an old cookbook:)
I mean, how pretty is this illustration?! I want to learn how to draw like this! (Future cookbook idea? Let's bring back the oldie but goodies!)
Another key component of my kitchen is a stand mixer, I have a Kitchen-Aid mixer! My dream is an old sunbeam mixer from the 50's! I am hoping to find one at an antique shop or a garage sale this summer:)
One of my most prized possessions!
Many of you don't know a lot about me. You probably know that I love to bake, live to cook, and LOVE to eat. In the words of Julia Child (aka one of my idols): "People that love to eat are always the best people." I like to think that I have her sass in the kitchen and I tend to channel that whenever I am cooking or baking. (And I am over six feet tall so I kind of got that going for me, too.)
One of Grandma Joan's recipes for Polish Cabbage Soup
Grandma Joan's recipe box :)
Grandma Joan's recipe for Rhubarb Delight! (what a treat!)
From the time I was little I was thoroughly interested in cooking and baking. I had an easy bake oven and granted, it wasn't a real oven and some of the first things I baked were from a box, but I was young and everybody has to start from somewhere! (And who doesn't like the simplicity of a box mix? I mean come on people!) I grew up around both of my grandma's and to this day, looking back, they are some of my biggest influences in the kitchen. I like to think that looking down, they are very proud of me and that they are with me whenever I pick up a whisk or a cutting board. While my parents were traveling in Italy and China when my sister and I were little, we would stay at my Grandparents on my Dad's side. I vividly remember my Grandma Joan one evening making chicken and gravy over biscuits, also known as chicken a la king. And she was so short (she was about 5'2') that when reaching for the paprika in the spice cabinet, she grabbed the cinnamon and sprinkled it on the biscuits with the chicken gravy before she put it in the oven. I can say that with 100% honesty, they were the best chicken over biscuits I have ever had! Now at age 23, I was about 5 or 6 years old at the time and I can still remember that evening so vividly. When I was little, we would all have Sunday dinners together and to this day that is something I cherish. All the cousins and aunts and uncles would get together on my Grandparent's farm, where my dad grew up. My Grandma would put on this amazing dinner spread on her huge dining room table and it was always amazing! My Dad always remembers her saying before every meal "I hope it tastes good" or "I'm not so sure about this one" but IT ALWAYS turned out! That was something that anybody that ever knew her will remember about her, her humbleness.
Not to mention that my Grandma Joan and her sisters and her mother typed up a family cookbook on a typewriter and compiled the recipes in this beautiful floral binder!
Heirloom Recipes...top secret! Letters like this were always passed from my Grandmother to one of her sisters, Diane.
More fond food memories come from my Grandma Arlene (my mom's mama!). She always made THE BEST chili growing up. Being from the Midwest, she always added spaghetti to it and it was the best. There was never a recipe for it, she just cooked using her intuition. That's what I tend to do. (Does anybody else add spaghetti noodles to their chili? I've made it for people that aren't from the Midwest and they literally thought it was the weirdest thing ever! But still, they loved it! How can it be bad?) My Grandma Arlene would always make a big chicken dinner too! From fried chicken to mashed potatoes and gravy and cranberries (oh my!). We would also go to a little restaurant called "The Big Chicken" and it was my absolute favorite! We would always order a big family sized dinner and it was my absolute favorite! From the moment you walked in, it smelled like fried chicken and I was in HEAVEN! Then I got a letter with a newspaper clipping from my Grandma with an ad in the paper saying that The Big Chicken was closing and I cried over it when I was little because it was sooooooo good:( I still have the article I'm sure, I'll have to find it and share it with you all. Then they re-opened in a gas station and we all went and tried it and it just wasn't the same! Alas, I need the recipe for the chicken gravy because it was the best, maybe I should track down the original owner? I must. Whenever we would go visit my Grandma Arlene and Uncle Ricky, my Grandma, Mom, Sister, and I would stay up late and sit at the kitchen table and clip out recipes from the old cooking magazines.
The infamous recipe cut outs from when I was little! So precious to me!
To this day I still have those recipes, I just can't let myself get rid of them. They mean so much to me. They remind me of the bonding of generations that would happen over a dining room table. To this day, whenever I go visit, my mom or dad or sister, a stack of cooking magazines either arrives with me or a stack comes home:) For awhile there, my mom and sister and I would keep re-gifting the same stack of magazines to one another every time we would see each other (kind of like the sisterhood of the traveling pants, if you are familiar with that). Something about them just makes me feel good and makes me reminisce of all of the good times with my family! So if you ever come over to our house and you see a stack of magazines, know that it is not clutter, but more of a past time for me:) (please and thank you!) Last summer at a garage sale, we scored a huge couple of stacks of Cook's Country magazines (probably at least 50!), and I just finally cut out all of the recipes and have them organized! Love the recipes in there, so good and so practical and old fashioned in a sense.
More modern magazines but still great content:)
Don't be afraid to really use your cookbooks! All of mine have notes in them about how great they were, the date made, and always sauce or batter splashes on them! Don't be afraid of getting things dirty in the kitchen! While I always try and protect and preserve them, sometimes things just happen!
Always have a notebook (or twelve) on hand to jot down recipe ideas and/or in the kitchen with you so if you make a really good recipe, you can jot it down! (Trust me, you won't remember the next time you try and make it! You might end up leaving out a key component!
I love desserts. Howboutya'll?
While I love all of my cookbooks, I rarely cook out of them unless I am baking or unless I intend on following a recipe. Some of my favorites are the Pioneer Woman cookbooks, the Back in the Day Bakery cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking of course by the one and only Julia Child, and my newest recent purchase at the Barnes & Noble bookstore is a signed copied (yes, signed copy) of Giada's Italy. Those are some of my current faves right now. While I am not Italian, I really love and have always loved making homemade pasta and sauces and Italian desserts. I feel as though I am an honorary Italian sometimes, so hey, we'll go with it! I also thoroughly enjoy reading chef narratives and books about cooking and seeing how everybody got to where they are in the food world. One might even say I am a collector of all things cooking, baking, kitchen antiques, and cookbooks.
One of the best coffee cakes I have ever made! Pecan chocolate espresso coffee cake from The Back in the Day Bakery cookbook! (yum)
I always thought I would go to culinary school, while that is still a huge possibility for me, for right now, I am "just" a home cook. The term "home cook" is something when people hear that word they automatically assume you are cooking out of cans and just making grilled cheeses and hotdishes and tuna casserole and yada yada yada...you get what I'm saying? Who's to say that you can't homemade wild turkey fettuccine alfredo, elk lettuce wraps, and make amazing desserts? Nobody! Because you are the master of your kitchen, make whatever you want! (Sorry just had to vent!) When people hear the term home cook, they assume you are not capable of greater things and quite frankly that makes me upset. Let's get rid of the labels people! (K. Thanks.) Some of the best cooks I knew were "self taught" and "home cooks".
Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon aka "Boeuf a la Bourguignonne" in French:)
The most beautiful recipe! If you have never made it before, don't be intimidated. It's just a fancy term for beef stew in red wine, with bacon, onions, and mushrooms :) ( I give it an A++ )
So in a nutshell, this is me. Cassie. No filter. No front. Just me. I hope you thoroughly enjoyed reading about my past and my passion for cooking!
Oh ya know just kneading some dough!
*So....get in your kitchen, put your apron on, and let's get Cookin' with Cassie!*
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