The Kitchen...

...is one of my favorite places. I love to cook, bake, can, and create. I also love to clean it up after... 'cept for mopping the floor, taking out the trash and scrubbing the hard stuff. That's why they're the jobs for the men in my home, both young and wise. My 'Young Men' (they're probably getting too old to be called my 'Little Men' anymore *sniff*) also enjoy the kitchen. They jump at any opportunity to help out. Even my pickiest eater loves to create.

My goal is to thin out the little collection of cookbooks I have. Hmmm, a close friend of mine believes I have a few too many and should actually be ashamed. She's right, I'm an addict. There could be worse things to be addicted to, right? (Nothing like blogging in the middle of the night.) Here's a pic of most of my cookbooks (Yes, most... not all.) There are also recipe boxes, magazines, and a binder. I did get rid of quite a few before moving though, maybe a dozen? Maybe.

My Young Men are helping the intervention... of trying what we want in each cookbook and then passing the books onto a friend who has only one cookbook, or tossing the book if the recipes stink! Here was a night from Italian Family Cooking.

We'll start with dessert because that was made first. How beautiful! Speckled Chocolate Sponge Cake. Joseph picked out the dessert. We had fun making it, and didn't it just turn out gorgeous? Well, my sweet tooth, Joseph, didn't care for it. It wasn't sweet enough, which is exactly why both John and Tim enjoyed it. I thought it was okay, but not for all the work. Give me Granny's chocolate mousse or Mom's Devil's food cake anyday!

John's dish was going to be lamb. Nope. This Mama would not be making anything from a poor defenseless lamb. No way! Go to Athenian Gardens if you want good lamb (or the orzo that goes with it.) Then he chose Herb-Stuffed Pork Chops. Let me tell ya, not only did we have fun making them, they were delicious! A definite keeper!!! We did butterfly the pork to stuff them. John and I decided we could also try pounding boneless pork (or chicken) and use the same stuffing. Yummmmmmmm!

Jordan decided to make Garlic Bread. Mind ya, all the guys did their shopping for their part of the night. Jordan wanted to make sure he picked out the perfect loaf. While working with garlic, Jordie decided he wouldn't lick his fingers when done next time. He did have fun rubbing it on and was surprised how little garlic you need for heat. I think his favorite part was brushing on the olive oil. Ours was eating it.

I did choose a dish, Zucchini with Garlic and Tomato, of which I didn't take a finished photo. The vegetable eaters really savoured it. The picky ones, well, they could tell it was veggies.

I'm hoping to have all the guys choose a meal like this at least once a month. Oh, they all jump in to help make dinner whenever I'll allow them, but having them plan it was fun.

I do believe I'm off to bed, but first I want to hop over to Amazon and look at this cookbook I'm thinking of getting. Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Simpson is suppose to have great recipes for getting kids to eat their veggies. What's one more cookbook?

~Jenny~

♥