Are you a chef?

"Are you a chef?" This was the question the cashier at the supermarket posed to me after taking a look into my shopping cart and seeing a lot of produce...and not much else. I regretfully replied that I was not, but did request his rationalization for asking. His response, "Oh, usually the only time we see this much produce and so little of anything means that it's either a chef or a caterer." Does this mean that I'm a legitimate foody now?

Cooking with Grandma

My mother has always been amazing about cooking with children. The pictures her childrens' childhoods are littered with baking pictures.  Grandma has continued this tradition with grandchildren. Andrew loves to bake and cook. A major reason why; is a Grandma willing to do this.

Ladies Night to Cook

Sundays are reserved for family dinners. Our two families have been great about arranging things so rotating weeks work well. A couple of weeks ago the Stuart family dinner ran into a couple small issues for Sunday dinner.

1. The patriarch and matriarch of the family were out of town.
2. The oven at the family home was out of commission; making it slightly more difficult to cook meals.

Fortunately Wendy and I have an oven that works (the stove is a bit finicky but usually works).  With the reduced size of the family dinner we had our Sunday dinner at mine and Wendy's home.

There is a slight problem with having home-made meals made here; the kitchen is tiny. The meal was fairly complicated so multiple people needed to help prepare. It got a bit crowded in the kitchen so I channeled my inner masculine slacker and hid in the family room while the ladies cooked dinner. Despite small twinges of guilt I enjoyed the meal the ladies prepared.

Ladies cooking

Time to eat

Making Cream Puffs

There are few things as delectable as cream puffs. They have a good pastry, soft gooey filling, and chocolate on the outside.  Something for everyone! We decided to make some.

Making the filling

Finishing up the pastries

More filling

Frosting

 

Eating!

 All I can say is...YUMMMMM!!!!!

Bountiful Basket

Last month the relief society in our ward had a couponing and money pinching seminar for their enrichment. We’ve started to test out the waters for a couple of the different strategies. The one that Wendy was most excited about was a food cooperative that buys fruit and vegetable baskets. We picked up our first basket today. I have to be honest I wasn’t sure that the basket thing was worth the effort; it appears that I may have been mistaken. There seems to be a large amount of food in the basket.

Peach Days!

Wendy has jumped whole-heartedly into her job in Brigham City. Last weekend Brigham City had their peach days festivities.  As a Brigham city employee Wendy felt duty bound to participate.  Peaches were on sale; she had to support the city by buying fresh peaches. It was pure charity; it had nothing to do with the fact that Wendy loves fresh fruit…especially peaches.

We bought an entire box of peaches.  Which led to us to a conundrum. Fresh peaches are really good; overripe peaches, not so much. Wendy loves peaches, I love peaches but even together we couldn’t eat a full box of peaches fast enough.

Never fear. Wendy has experience in these things. So for the past two days, with some minor help from her husband Wendy has jammed and dryed her way into preservation nirvana.

I present to you Wendy’s work.

Kitchen during Peach Days

Peeling Peaches

Cutting Peaches

Drying Peaches

Jamming Peaches

BBQ

A hallowed Saturday tradition in the Stuart household when I was growing up was the main meal of the day. We always had burgers made by my Dad. The manner in which they were made and the condiments that they were accompanied with changed as Dad became more concerned with health. One thing didn't change though. We always had hamburgers.

That ingrained in me the love of hamburgers and bbqing and grilling. I've always wanted to do some pseudo-serious bbqing but was always limited by my equipment. I only had a small camp grill; just didn't to quite as well as I would have liked.

Fortunately, my siblings knew about this. They all pooled together and gave Wendy and I a great wedding gift. A brand new BBQ.  It didn't come assembled; but that's all right. That's what I ended up doing today!

Before assembly

After Assembly

Wendy and Ben's Story - Cooking

The question in our future won’t be who has to cook dinner; it will be who gets to cook dinner. Both of us enjoy cooking. One only has to look at our kitchens to realize this.  Both Ben and Wendy have lots of spices and bunches of kitchen appliances. The great thing is that not only do we enjoy cooking; we enjoy it even more when doing it together.