What's cookin' at the Kelly's

I really enjoy cooking! I probably spend more time in the kitchen than any other room. With 4 little ones, cooking is an all day process. I start prepping in the morning and do bits and pieces here and there all throughout the day. For instance, for dinner tonight, we had pork shoulder steaks, baked potatoes, salad, Marionberry pie, and I made the cinnamon rolls for a treat. This morning, I made kefir, ground and measured flour and dry ingredients for the pie crust and dough and set out the Marionberries to thaw. Later, I made the dough and let it sit for the rest of the morning. At noon, I made the marinade and set the meat in it. After the children had gone down for naps, I made the dough into the rolls and baked them. At 4:30, I put in the potatoes and made a salad (I prewash lettuce, shred carrot and beets once a week so putting together a salad is easy). At 5:00, I browned the meat and then put it in the oven to bake. During the baking time, I finished making the pie crust and made the pie filling. While we were eating dinner, I baked the pies. After dinner, I put away the food and made a new batch of kombucha while I was waiting for the pies to be done. And now, I am typing away instead of doing the dishes!

The rest of the day is spent with the children. I give them structured play time, read, do homeschooling activities, play, etc.. And of course spend quite a bit of time nursing and cuddling Little B. I try and get a nap in but that doesn't always happen. Most chores are done in 5 minute incriments here and there - sweeping, check on animals, load/unload dishes, laundry, etc.. I very rarely have the house clean and clutter free. It is impossible to do so! Phil comes home around 4:00 and takes over with the children so I can bustle about in the kitchen. Then it is play time with Daddy and cleaning time for mommy. So..there you have it, a typical day here at the Kelly household


Oh, how I love this little shelf system between the kitchen and the livingroom.

The drinks: kefir and kombucha. Phil was very frightened by the kombucha (I have to admit, putting a weird floating "thing" in a tea mixture and letting it sit for over a week is a bit strange) but now that it has brewed for 7 days, we had a little taste and he is hooked!! It was a tad sweet so we are going to do a taste test each day (it brews 7-12 days) to find our favorite brew time.

Resting dough. I made Indian flatbread the other day using this dough and it was tasty so I decided to try and make cinnamon rolls with it. They weren't very good. When it comes to baking, I would say a 20% success rate is generous.

If you are going to cook meat, cooking from Julia Child's cookbook is the only way to go. It is more time consuming, a casserole is a must (and I don't have one), and you need to have a selection of cooking wines and liquors...but once you have eaten her recipes, there is no going back. It is totally worth the extra time and extra money because it is extra good!!