Kitchen Komments

While I am not Martha Stuart, I can tell you that I am a fairly decent cook. Thanks to a mother who knows how to cook, I fair pretty well in the kitchen. Now trying to figure out what I want to cook is a whole different ballpark. I get really bored some days with cooking. Trying to come up with just the right meal that the girls will like, Tom won't complain it is too "heavy" and I feel will be the best benefit to my family is not always easy. We all have different tastes that are unique to our bodies and what I like Tom may not like. Of course the girls would rather have junk!! Since I do try to keep the "junk food binges" to a minimum, I have to find the right food to satisfy their appetites too.

Tricia is my hardest child to feed. From the time she was born, she would vomit her food out. At one point all she had to do was smell something. She would look at a bowl of cereal and just start gagging. She wasn't sick so much as she did not like the different textures of food. To this day she won't eat bread. This makes it really hard to find food she can pack in her lunch for school. Now she doesn't have quite the problem. I can't tell you the last time she gagged on something that was on a plate. But she still doesn't eat a big variety of food. We just try to make sure that there is something on her plate that she likes and encourage her to eat something she has never tried or may not like. It is a struggle.

Katie on the other hand is a little garbage disposal...lol. She loves food. She will eat any kind of fruit, loves bread and butter which she calls "buddies" and eats most any vegetable you give her. She doesn't care much for meat but she probably will outgrow that someday. She is not hard to feed at all. I just have to be careful as she grows older that she doesn't get hooked on starchy foods and foods with a lot of fat in them.

That being said, I thought I would post a couple of our favorite recipes for you to try. They are simple and easy to do and don't take a lot of ingredients. I love casseroles because it's all in one dish and you don't have so much to clean up after your done. One of these is a casserole and the other is like a soup. So here they are.

Potato Sausage Casserole

1 pound bulk pork sausage

1 can (10-3/4 ounces) condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/4 teaspoon pepper

3 cups sliced peeled raw potatoes

2 cups(8 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese

Chopped fresh parsley, optional

Brown sausage; drain and set aside.

Combine soup, milk, onion, shalt and pepper.

In a greased 2-qt. casserole, layer half of the potatoes,

half of the soup mixture and half of the sausage.

Repeat, ending with sausage.

Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until potatoes

are tender. Sprinkle with cheese; return to oven, uncovered, for

2 to 3 minutes or until the cheese melts. Garnish with parsley if desired.

Yield: 6 servings

We add buttered bread to this and make it a meal. It is so good and it works with hot or mild sausage. It's whichever you prefer.

Sausage Potato Soup

One or two rolls of polish sausage (depending on how many you want to feed)

6 potatoes peeled and diced

Cabbage (however much you desire)

1 stick of butter

Salt and Pepper to taste

Put potatoes, sausage (cut into small chunks), butter and

salt and pepper into a medium pot. Bring to a boil and let cook for about 8 minutes. Add cabbage as desired and cook until all vegetables are tender. You can add carrots if you want to but they take a little longer to cook. Add some buttered bread or crackers.

Hope you enjoy. Bonn appetite!!