Getting to know Kara-cooking

The actual clam chowder I made, mmmmmm!!!!!

A while back we went over to my sister's house and made clam chowder and watched WestWorld. As I was making dinner, I realized just how long it's been since I made anything from scratch and really enjoyed doing it. Most of the time when we come home from dinner, it's a quicker meal. We do what I often refer to as "Jeremy dinners", which usually consist of less than 5 ingredients to make (nachos,  quasadillias, tomato soup with a soft boiled egg, pasta with sauce, etc.). Don't get me wrong, Jeremy is awesome in the kitchen. His specialty is making breakfast foods (again, less than 5 ingredients to make). He makes eggs WAY BETTER than I do unless it's hard boiled...I'm good at those 😉

A Jeremy breakfast made with love and laughs

If I think back to some of the first memories of cooking, I think of my sister and I making toast as little 5&6-year-olds sitting on the counter DUMPING the perfect mix of sugar and cinnamon over warm buttered toast. We used to make such a mess! We would climb up on the kitchen counters and make it with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled all over the place and the butter was always a disaster with toast crumbles and sugar leftovers smashed in it.

I've always liked cooking since the toast, even though toast doesn't really count as cooking. My Grandma is an amazing cook! She is one of those amazing ladies that every time you visit she got up early and had homemade biscuits waiting with homemade jam and local honey with scrambled eggs and some sort of breakfast meat. She's amazing and to this day, Grandma's biscuits are a staple during visits. I've tried to remake them a few times at home, but they just never turn out the same. She used to come down and spend the summer days with us at my dad's house and help teach us how to cook...I think we made her crazy because we always made the biggest messes!

You better believe I always eat a spoonful when I
make cookies-this was oatmeal chocolate chip!

Some of the other foods that I remember from childhood include my dad's goolash (mmmmm, my mouth is watering just thinking about it). He mixed together macaroni noodles, tomato sauce, ground beef, and lots of pepper all together and we always had toast. Oh the toast.....we always wanted more toast with it and that always required another scoop of goolash. Jeremy isn't a huge fan when I make it, but it's always nostalgic for me and my siblings. Other foods include my mom's homemade pizza or her cookies, she had this one recipe that had vanilla or chocolate pudding in it and made them so soft! I got an awesome basic dough recipe when I was about a teenager and I always made the breadsticks, rolls, and pizza dough. To this day, I still use this recipe and it's always a big hit. I've upped my game and now we do pizzas on the grill out on the deck when it's nice outside.

Lately, I've been obsessed with these (http://www.aheadofthyme.com/2016/08/easy-fish-tacos-lime-crema/) easy fish tacos that I found on Pinterest. They are spicy, quick, and so good! Even Jeremy has had his hand at making them a few times and they've turned out great! When we have time, we like having meals at home...some days when I work late it's a little harder to sit down and get things going, but it's always worth it to make the time.


I enjoy having my nephews over to help me cook, we even taught them how to use kitchen knives and gave them a set for Christmas last year. Bear seemed to really like it, but Jace took a little more time to get into it. It made my heart so happy to have them not cut their fingers and build up some self confidence to do it themselves. It's a great joy to teach them these things! I really want to teach our child to do the same one day, I think it's really important to get to try different foods and learn how to make them yourself so you can share them with loved ones. I also think that it's a good bonding and learning time to work together to create something tasty. The kitchen can always be cleaned, dishes and such can always be replaced if broken, and you can always redo the recipe if you burn it or accidentally put in salt instead of sugar.