Gas Stove

Building our current house – just this last August, I wanted a gas stove. For years now we’ve had an electric stove due to the house we’ve been in, and building gave me a chance to choose. I was so excited to finally get my gas stove. The cookies I love to make at the holidays especially needed a gas stove – almost 30 years ago I had to swap to an electric iron to cook them, because they just weren’t doable on an electric stove.

I’d love to have one of the large gas stoves with the grill in the middle and the double oven, but for now I’m just happy that I have a gas stove! That being said, 30 years of electric stoves, makes cooking on gas an adjustment, and the stove we have specifically set out to make it harder. I know I’m attributing feelings to a stove, but it did seem to be trying to discourage use. I love gas stoves for a few reasons that include not having to worry about breaking or scratching the glass, the flame adjustment, and the best part being that they are usable in a power outage. The first thing I noticed though with our new stove was that the flame didn’t seem to change on the burners when you turned the knob. The front burners (and we all know we have a favorite burner!) only operated at full tilt and I had a super hard time not burning everything. I’m sure I set the fire alarm off ten times before the final straw.

The final straw came when the using the stove and flames shot out the knob on the front. I, of course, screamed, my husband ran in and said why don’t you just turn it off – which he did luckily figure out how, and we got the gas turned off to the stove. Being only 3 months old, I located the warranty information and requested they service it. The knob had melted! When the repair person came, he had never seen anything like it. Several parts inside had to be replaced at the time, a knob had to be ordered, and he also adjusted everything to adjust the flames, and showed me how to adjust the temperature in the oven to get it working right. I now keep a temperature gauge in the oven just in case. As scary as it was at the time, it is a future funny story.

Now that the stove is working more the way it should be, I’m slowly adjusting how to cook with gas. Of course our fire alarm is about 5 feet from the stove, so any mistake is heard everywhere in the house. I’ve been trying to use lower temperatures – I think my gas stove definitely goes hotter than the electric I had, use covers more, and use the fan frequently. I also am super careful of boil overs, I’ve noticed the boil overs put out the flame on my stove. Any other suggestions?

I do have to wonder about them repairing a stove that obviously cost less than what they spent to repair it. – Though repairing the old is good for the environment.

stove knob

Air Fryer and Home Chef

We’ve been loving the ease of Home Chef meals, but my husband took over the cooking and is upping the salt and the oil he uses. Not to mention taking into account the difficulty on a gas stove that’s already tried to maime me while cooking – shooting gas out the front knobs while we were adjusting the temperature shortly after getting it (brand new)….

So I decided to try to mix the air fryer with the home chef meals! This time we had asparagus and salmon to be fried on the stove. – I put them into the airfryer, sprayed them with a little oil, added salt and pepper and set the fryer to fish. Perfect! It was a put it in and forget it. I did need to cut up and mix the tomato, onion mix that went on top, but no starting up the stove.

Stuffed Vidalia Onions

Anyone else love Vidalia Onions? I do! I also like sweet onions, but vidalia are special. I normally make stuffed green or red peppers or stuffed tomatoes – so it was time to give onions a try.  – My husband loves the stuffed peppers or tomatoes, but the onions are now my favorite!   Making these is simple!

 

I use whatever I happen to have, but I usually start with a mild sausage.  (You can use hamburger if you would like it less spicy).  I cook that on the stove to make sure it’s done, and throw in chopped up of whatever is in my fridge.  With the onions for the next time I think I will use my food processor to get everything crumbled smaller.

For this try I used the sausage with salt, pepper, garlic, diced up tomato, cheese, and the scooped out pieces of onion diced out.  – Other possible ingredients include aspargus, mushroom, corn, and whatever else you have in your fridge.  I used cheddar this time, but I have sprinkled feta on top before…  All these choices are yum and between this and quiche they are both great choices to use up veggies and things that are in your fridge and need used before they go bad.  – You could even use some egg in the stuffed veggies… or take out the meat and use soy crumbles, tofu, or jackfruit for some protein.

In this case I actually took little pans and put the extra and then put the baked onions on top after I finished baking it all.  (I tried stuffing cucumber but it needed longer than the onion and so it wasn’t baked all the way)….

I used 350 degrees until the onions were soft, and it was ready!  Personally I loved it!  But I can eat the filling by itself even!

Let’s make our own milkshake

I decided to make a milkshake with my little one for fun! Milkshakes are pretty easy to make at home! We just needed milk, sugar, vanilla, and ice cream. Nothing too complicated.

I just use a little milk, as much ice cream as I plan to have in a milk shake and a little bit of sugar added to it. I usually add a small splash of vanilla myself, but that’s optional.  I like to use a blender to mix it all up, but it should be possible to stir it.  My son and I used color changing straws just because it was cool!

Holiday Meal (including a Vegan)

For the holiday we had a wide mix of meal choices. – Our main course was ham and rolls, but we had lots of goodies to go with.  We have been having the leftovers for a few days now and are still doing alright with the variety!

Eating Out Before

Before Christmas Eve (where we always just snack at our neighbors holiday party) we chose to go out to Mellow Mushroom.  They have a wide variety of choices and everyone can get what they want.  The place was fairly empty, so we were able to eat and talk.  There were a couple snafus with our order, but all in all it was a good choice for a large group with our variety.

Green Bean Casserole

Green Bean Casserole

My middle son wanted green Bean Casserole, though I wanted corn pie.  This year I ended up making both!  For green bean casserole I mix a couple cans of green beans (drained), a can of cream of mushroom soup (Campbells),  French Fried Onions, a dash of soy sauce, some pepper and a cup of milk.  I tend to just guess at how much on many of the ingredients.  I bake the casserole for a while, usually around 350 degrees, and then pull it out when it looks about done.  I add a few French fried onion to the top also and bake it a few more minutes and I have green bean casserole!

Corn Pie

My favorite is corn pie.  It does make a huge amount and I really need to figure out how to cut down the recipe some.   The corn pie includes 4 beaten eggs, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 Tbs cornstarch, 2 Tbs sugar, 2 Tbs melted butter, 2 cups milk, 3 cans of corn and a pie shell (unbaked).   I mix all the ingredients up except the pie shell and pour them into a pie pan.  Then I put the pie shell on top of the corn pie and poke a couple small holes in it….  I usually bake it at 350 for an hour – stick a knife in and make sure it’s done inside by making sure that the knife comes out clean.  I usually put mine on a cookie sheet – with sides…. this year I forgot the side and now I need to clean the bottom of my oven.

 

Vegan Meatballs

For my vegan son, I went with vegan meatballs in a onion and garlic spaghetti sauce.  Everyone ended up eating them, so this brand was definitely the one to get again!  They were easy to cook up and my husband and kids liked the taste.

Vegan Mashed Potatoes

Finally I fixed a mashed potatoes.  I use the premade and frozen potatoes, so it was fairly easy.  To keep them vegan I used vegan butter (from Earth Balance) and Cashew Milk.  My youngest, who is super picky, even ate these.  The vegan butter didn’t melt as easily as the dairy butter I usually use, so next time I don’t think I would use as much of the butter – or I’ll pre-melt it, but the little one had the potatoes for left overs for three meals.

All in all it was a meal that worked for our family and they were all items I can use and fix for meals throughout the year.