For the love of cookbooks.....

First, I wanted to start by thanking you all for the kind comments left on my previous post.  I appreciate them and I'm glad that you all understand the reasons why I have to do what I have to do.  :)

Being away from the unnecessary things in my life, has done wonders for my soul already.  I feel free, and as if this huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  I am ever so thankful for the Lord's influence in my life and the way that he constantly shows me when I'm going in the wrong path.

Funny how you never think it's the wrong path but you don't feel happy, and you don't feel comfortable....and then you decided to follow your instincts and suddenly it's like a whole new outlook on life.  Night and day, that's what it feels like to me :)

Today I had to write my new menu plan, but instead of relying on online recipe searching, I decided to forgo that and make use of my vast collection of cookbooks. I have so many, and they just sit there on the shelves, so, I snatched a few off the shelf and sat down to some planning.

I started with Secrets of Better Cooking, first published in 1973.  This gem of a book is filled with amazing information, tips, recipes, illustrations and everything you need to know to cook meals for your family.

This table of measurement conversions is so helpful to me.  Having grown up with the metric system, I still get a little confused when it comes to the way things are measured here in the USA.

Give me grams, centimeters and liters any day, but throw pounds, inches and gallons my way and I'm a mess.

A lot of my old recipes are also in grams and milliliters so this helps me convert them.

It's also helped me with pastry making and knowing how to roll it out and transfer it to the pan etc.

I ended up not writing down any recipes because I spent most of the time enthralled in it's pages of information.  It's such an interesting book.

The next book I pulled out is one that I purchased back in South Africa, when I was a teenager, and I've had it all these years.  Truth be told, I forgot about it, it sort of got lost in my shelf of cookbooks and I recently came across it again.

Lemon Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce, THAT went straight into the menu plan for next week.

This cookbook takes me back home, meals I hadn't even thought of in so long, like bobotie, biryani, milk tart....*sigh*

I wrote down a few to make and I'll share them with you too.

Finished with this one which I love, wrote down quite a few from there.  So menu plans and grocery list compiled and it was time to move on to normal day to day stuff.

Have another giveaway coming up for you guys next week, so had to get my items all sorted out and ready.

Trying out some recipes and cleaning the kitchen while watching The Mary Berry story on BBC2.

It was so fascinating. I love Mary Berry, she is such an inspiration to me when it comes to cooking and baking.

Buttermilk bread thawing on the counter.

Starting some sweeper covers using my summery colors cotton yarn

Making dinner...I love the heat coming from the wooden spoon.

It's usually a busy time in the kitchen, and there's always a pug under my feet which finds me tripping and jumping all over the place.

Finally sitting down to a home cooked meal, we love dinner time because we get to sit and chat about our day.

My poor husband had a dentist appointment this afternoon, ended up with 3 fillings so he's not feeling all that well, so I'll be sitting down with him to watch some of our shows on DVR.

Have a wonderful night,