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Right now witht he shoppig and other Christmas activities we always keep some sea food gumbo hany since my wife is Cajun.She will start the cookie thing about the week of the 20th tho.
Good subject---BUT..... my label will read, "Now That I'm Retired and Don't Have to Cook, What Are My Favorite Restaurants?" LOL-----Actually, love soups, make the house smell so good.
I like soups, chili, stew - things that can cook slow and are easy to heat up in case of drop-in guests. My fave is white chicken chili - it has a kick with the chilis & red pepper. Corn bread muffins whip up fast and go with all those things.
I don't really bake as I don't want that temptation.
I'm not big on holiday cooking, prefer to eat out, but I like making and munching on appetizers. Don't care for baking or eating sweets.
Other than during the holidays, I'm surprised at much I've enjoyed puttering in the kitchen since I retired. I like having time to try out new recipes and browse the supermarket and specialty store offerings.
+1 for soups, stews, chili, during cool weather. When it warms up outside, I turn to salads. Both soups and salads allow for creative experimentation. I'm always tinkering with the ingredients.
Before going wheat-free, I used to bake a lot of cornbread through the winter. Some on here may remember my corn freezing fiasco of last summer. Much to my surprise the defrosted corn is actually a huge success, delicious fresh sweet and crisp! Anyway I often put into the batter the frozen corn and I now use rice flour or garbanzo flour in place of wheat flour, with an extra egg to make up for no gluten. A few secret ingredients too. There's nothing like a steaming piece of cornbread with Irish butter and hot mug of coffee on a cold winter morning.
I love fine chicken broth with homemade tortellinis, a staple holiday dish growing up....but alas the dough is wheat.
Every year I get invited to a holiday cookie swap but didn't go this year, not wantng to come home with four dozen sugar cookies, I know where they would have ended up.
Here are my limits: heating a can of Campbell's soup, frying an egg most mornings, making toast, making oatmeal about once a week, making frozen vegetables, making tuna helper or hamburger helper. Anything beyond that is just too complicated and too much trouble.
Soups and stews over here. In December the crock pot is out all the time. I like making our own soup so we can avoid the salt and a few other ingredients that really aren't healthy for us anymore. Plus, it makes the house smell so good! In addition to the soups, we like to make mulled wine in the crockpot.
We enjoy baking but have to watch our weight so we don't do much of it. I have a big garden, so I'm looking forward to trying my hand at canning. Right now the most I usually do is make fig jam, but maybe that will change. This year we grilled the thanksgiving turkey on our BBQ and that was fun to learn how to do.
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). And here's one of my favorite recipes:
