By Mary Rarick

Since I love to cook our family tends to make meals from scratch. And so I have no idea why I’ve never even attempted to make pizza sauce.

Yesterday, after discovering we were out of bottled sauce, I started scouring cookbooks and the internet to see if I could find a recipe that would please both the adult and teen palates that grace our household. (more…)

By Mary Rarick

You can always tell a novice gardener by the number of zucchini seeds she plants, or should I say leaves. Most people put three or four seeds in a group and then thin them down to “couples” once it’s apparent which plants are hearty. Depending on the size of your family, a couple of “hills” are usually enough. Any more than that and you’re just begging to be overrun by vines worse than wisteria. (more…)

By Mary Rarick

I’m not exactly sure how a recipe for stuffing–or dressing, if you happen to call it by that name–ends up in my blog except for the fact that when I mentioned to my tweets that I was making it in a crockpot, the requests for the recipe were numerous. But the “legitimate” reason to write about stuffing, if I need a real reason, is that it reminded me of how I use it to occupy my kids when they needed something to do.

Let me backtrack and tell you that our family loves bread products with virtually no exception. We like rolls, French bread, croissants, bagels, biscuits, as well as regular old sandwich bread. While I will occasionally make bread from scratch, more often than not I buy it, a few loaves at a time.

Now here’s the problem with bread where our family is concerned: with the exception of yours truly no one likes what we affectionately refer to as “the heels.” And, frankly, I probably wouldn’t be eating them either except that I was raised to not let good food go to waste.

But for every problem I try to come up with a solution, and I wanted to share what works for me. I tear all “heels” and other unwanted, uneaten pieces from the end of the bread bag into bite-sized pieces and toss them into a large ziplock bag in the freezer. But here’s the beauty of it all: actually, my kids tear up the bread. And they love it!

And so when the weather turns cold or I’m in the mood for some comfort food I draw on my frozen bread supply for stuffing ingredients. Without further ado, here’s my mother-in-law’s recipe:

Dressing Recipe:

1 loaf of bread, torn into bite-sized pieces

1/4 c. margarine or butter

chopped onion

chopped celery tops

2 eggs

1 can cream of mushroom soup (We’re from the Midwest where they believe you can’t make anything good without Campbell’s.)

sage

salt and pepper

chicken broth and/or milk

Cook the onions and celery in the butter until softened. Place bread pieces in a large bowl. Pour onion and celery mixture over the top and mix. Add eggs, mushroom soup, sage (to taste), salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. Add chicken broth and/or milk to moisten further. Mixture should be of a soupy meatloaf consistency.

Pour mixture into a crock pot. Set to low for 4 hours. No peeking.