What's Cooking?

Since moving to a very small town...well, actually since moving to the country, outside of a very small town, I have had to do a lot more cooking. Had to? Well no, actually, we could go eat at Chicken Express or have hamburgers every day. Oh, and a Mexican food restaurant just opened, so there are a few choices of ready made food in town.

BUT, it would get old very quickly to eat at the same restaurants all the time, and it would also break the bank very quickly since we went from two paychecks to one. Besides that, I do like to cook, and since I am home during the day, I am able to cook now. I have decided that the crockpot is a brilliant invention and use it several times a week. The best part is that our big crockpot is programmable, so I don't even have to be at home when it is time to switch from cooking to keeping the food warm. The crockpot does that on it's own. Now if only I could find a programmable 3 quart crockpot...then we'd really be in business.

So I've been looking for recipes, and I found the Taste of Home Casseroles, Slow Cooker and Soups, before we left Dallas. It has lots of yummy stuff, and for the most part, there isn't a lot of prep time involved. Perfect!

I also love baking...always have, but with the no dairy and no egg thing, most baking was out. Until I found this website that is. It is The Food Allergy Mama. She makes all kinds of yummy baked goods that are dairy, egg and nut free for her kids because she didn't want food allergies to make them miss out on things. She has a cookbook and also shares many recipes on her blog. Everything I have made has been great!

I will be sharing some of what I have made with you in the future. But I am also working on changing things a little bit. For example, I have made her chocolate banana bread before and we all absolutely love it. But yesterday when I made it, I started using whole wheat flour. I will have to play with the recipe a little more to get it just right, but when I do, I will tell you all about it.

Since I am getting brave enough to start changing some things, I may try some traditional recipes, too, and just modify with liquids to replace eggs and almond milk rather than milk. We'll see what I can come up with. And whatever turns out well, I will share with you :)