COVID Cooking

 

Cooking has always been one of my favorite things to do.  I love trying new recipes and sharing them with my family and friends.  I enjoy baking as well and many people lovingly refer to me as the Cinnamon Roll Lady.  I know so many people who don't enjoy cooking or they don't think they are very good at it.  For many of my friends, they have had to cook more due our current circumstances.  Over the last few years, cooking during the week has become difficult because it is late by the time we all get home from work and daycare.  I know so many of you are crockpot lovers but that is just not me.  I can only think of a few things that taste good when they are in the crockpot for 10 hours and all of those recipes involve some sort of roast.  

We tend to save our fun recipes and cooking adventures for the weekend.  That has definitely been the case during this global pandemic.  We have three kitchen appliances that have helped to make our COVID Cooking more fun and two of them we bought during all of this craziness.

Instant Pot

This was the one thing that we had before all of this craziness began.  We have been cooking frozen chicken breasts and rice in our Instant Pot for months but during COVID we have tried some other things. Our two favorites have been risotto and making our own jam.  We have tried strawberry and blackberry.  Both have been delicious.  We used frozen berries both times and we had jam from start to finish in less than 30 minutes.  How cool is that?  

Smoker

We love to grill but there is something about smoking meat low and slow.  It is absolute perfection.  We had my parents old electric smoker at our last house but it would always trip our breakers.  Right before we all went on quarantine, we ordered a gas smoker from  Home Depot and we have loved it.  We have smoked chickens, ribs, pork shoulders, and beef brisket.  We have loved our smoker.  

 

Pasta Roller & Pasta Cutter

We finally broke down and bought the Kitchen Aid Pasta Roller and Pasta Cutter.  We have had our Kitchen Aid Mixer for 8 years but we were ready to try making our own pasta.  This has been a game changer in our house and because we never do things half way at our house, we have been making our own pasta sauce to go with it.  My friends, I don't think we will ever want to go back to store bought spaghetti and sauce in a jar.  Homemade pasta is not meant for a weeknight dinner, it takes some time.  But let me say this, I can almost guarantee that you have all the ingredients you need to make homemade pasta in your house.  The hardest part is just the waiting.  Pasta has to rest.  It needs beauty sleep just like I do.  

Do you want to know my favorite part about COVID Cooking?  Greg has done most of it.  Greg is the one who smokes the meat and Greg is the one who makes the pasta.  I love it!  We get to cook together as a family and it is the absolute best.  

Here is my final tip.  If you have little kids who are picky like I was as a kid, bring them in the kitchen with you.  Let them stir, let them pour, let them be a part of the process.  If they feel like they were a part of making dinner, they are much more likely to eat it.  There are so many things that Carson has tried simply because he was right there with me as I made it.  

Happy COVID Cooking friends.