From the Kitchen

We've been experimenting with cooking here in Savannah. Of course, I own about 17 cookbooks, and yet we've been finding most of our recipes on the internet. We still cook a lot out of the trusty Richie family cookbook, and many of those recipes have now been requested by our guests or the people who watch David eat leftovers at work.

In honor of branching out with food we actually ate a delicious steak dinner on our fine china. It was the first time I've cooked steak on my own, which feels like quite an accomplishment to me. David is usually a big help around the kitchen. It's become our tradition to plan meals, make grocery runs, and cook as a tag-team. Sometimes, though, he lets me follow a meal through from start to finish so I can claim it as my own. He learned his lesson after nearly yanking the spatula from my hand the first time I tried to cook him a meal back in Birmingham. Now that he has a kitchen and gets to cook some he is more willing to leave me in control of the spatula.

Sidebar: the picture of the twice-baked potatoes was taken with our lovely new (vintage) Nikon D70, compliments of David's mom since she has just updated to a 16 megapixel camera. Not only did she give us the camera and a lens, but I now have the ability to autofocus with the lenses I already have. The camera needs a little care, but I've learned that sharing a hobby with one's mother-in-law can be a wonderful thing!

We wanted to share one of our favorite new finds. It's a pretty simple mac and cheese. Instead of pre-cooking the pasta you just let it cook in simmering half-and-half. It's delicious. It's no crock-pot, but it's much faster! I leave out the onions, and we've gone against the suggestion to avoid pre-shredded cheese. It does get stringy, but it's still tasty.