Veteran's Day

Happy Monday!  I know, I know, nobody likes Mondays.  Well, with today being Veteran's Day, I won't be cooking.  My husband is an Army Vet so he likes to go out and get his free meal.  That means tonight is like a date night!  We decided to go to Olive Garden which is one of my favorite restaurants.  I get to eat great Italian dishes that I've yet to learn how to cook.  And finish it off with a slice of tiramisu my all time favorite dessert!  My husband called ahead, so we wouldn't have to wait for a table because restaurants get very busy when they offer free meals.  The waiter came and took our drink orders.  My husband chose a blackberry blood orange tea and I opted for water because I knew I'd like a special coffee with my dessert.  Once they picked the tea leaves from China and the waiter brought it to him, he was parched!  But it was worth the wait.  His tea was to die for I tell ya!  Throw a little vodka in that and you've got yourself a cocktail!  It was so delicious and full of flavor!  I'm sorry I didn't order one myself.  We decided to try a new appetizer.  I'm partial to their fried calimari and stuffed mushrooms, but Brian wants nothing to do with those items.  We settled on a flatbread something or another topped with beautiful red tomatoes, roasted red peppers, and fresh basil.  Is there anything they serve that doesn't make me feel like I'm in Italy?  For our entrees, I ordered the same thing I do 90% of the time:  the ravioli di portabello, which is my favorite item from their menu.  Hubby ordered from a "special" veteran's menu and got the sausage and peppers with macaroni.  He liked it alot, but it was just okay to me.  I much more prefer the rich, smokey flavor of the mushroom ravioli in that divine cream sauce!  We both saved room (or so we thought) for dessert.  We both ordered the tiramisu and I ordered a cafe latte.  I like the way the bitterness offsets the sweet of the tiramisu.  As with his tea, I thought they had to go pick the coffee beans for my coffee.  By the time the waiter decided to tell us that their machine was down, I was already two-thirds through my dessert and quite perturbed. 

After our meal, we decided to go to Bed Bath & Beyond to walk off a couple of courses.  They have a nice roasting pan with a rack, that I've had my eye on for a few weeks.  I'm tired of aluminum pans at Thanksgiving.  Especially since we cook two every year.  One for at Brian's grandma's house and one for church potluck the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  So we got the pan and we also got a set of lifting forks.  And because he is a veteran, we also got a 20% discount!  How great is that!  I'm seriously looking forward to using that pan next week because I have a Barefoot Contessa roast chicken recipe I want to try. 

So, I'll be back in the kitchen tomorrow and I can't wait!  It's the recipe I've been dying to cook since I bought 2 cans of rather pricey tomatoes at the grocery store last week.

See Ya in the Kitchen!

Cookie Jars

I was perusing Pinterest today, looking for some DIY homemade Christmas gifts for our Dirty Santa game that we play every year at my husband's grandma's house.  We all bring a wrapped gift within the confines of the set budget, then draw names out of a hat to see who gets to pick a gift first.  Then the next name drawn can either pick a gift from the gift tabel or steal the gift someone else picked. Lots of fun!  Especially when you throw in the gag gifts such as a huge skull chain "wrapped" in 2x4s!  So we kinda switch it up between gag gifts and normal gifts.  So...back to Pinterest!  I'm doing a search and come across these beauties!  Christmas cookies in mason jars!  I absolutely love this idea!  I'm a Kentucky girl and I love my mason jars!  I also wanted my gift this year to have a certain rustic look to it as I've been leaning that way in the kitchen here recently.  With these mason jars, you can dress them up or dress them down, which is the look I will give them.  I love antiques and rustic country, primitive decor, so that will be the look that my cookie jars will take on.  Set the jar in a pretty Christmas bowl, attach a spatula and recipe card, and VOILA, I've got a thoughtful, unique, culinary gift to take to Christmas this year!  I've noticed these in stores around the holidays and have always thought they were pretty to look at, but they are also pricey.  This year I'll do my own!  I'm so looking forward to buying the mason jars and the fabric to go on top!  Not so much looking forward to googline and figuring out how to fit the recipe on a downloaded recipe card, but it will probably be better than writing it out myself, especially if I make several of them.  After writing out all those Christmas cards, my hand will be ready to fall off!  What traditions do you have around your house at the holidays? 

See ya in the Kitchen!

Welcome!

Welcome to Jodi's Kitchen!  I'm Jodi!  I'm a born and bred Kentucky girl living in Indiana, hoping to one day move back to God's Country in the Bluegrass State.  I've been married to a wonderful man for nearly seven years, which is why i crossed the mighty Ohio River into southern Indiana.  I'm 39 years young but have only been cooking and baking for about the last twenty years, as my mom wouldn't allow me to cook much more than a boil-in bag of a single salisbury steak or box macaroni and cheese at home.  Or maybe nuke a can of Chef Boy-Ar-Dee ravioli.  However, I come from a long line of awesome country cookin' Grannies and aunts!  I have great memories of my Granny's kitchen being filled with mouth watering aromas and busy bees cooking old fashioned, made from scratch recipes that were, of course, never written down or even measured.  To this day I find myself always calling on one aunt in particular to learn the secrets of Granny's recipes.  She can always help me out because even though she couldn't tell you what she had for breakfast, her long term memory knows no bounds.  What my momma always said about me being in the kitchen is true.  She said, "You're not afraid to try anything, are you?".  The answer is a resounding "No!"  Whether it's a new recipe, technique, or ingredient, I'm not afraid to try new things in the kitchen.  Most of the time I succeed, but sometimes I fail.  What's the worst that could happen?  I'd have to order a pizza?

See ya in the Kitchen!