My Simple Wyoming Life

So small rant incoming! Who else has a love hate relationship when it comes to cookbooks? I have who knows how many physical copies of cookbooks and most likely as many or more on my kindle! I love to find new recipes that sound not just interesting but also good, anything from a simple to whip up appetizer to wondering if you got everything for that 50 ingredient cake actually in the mix and whipped the egg whites enough before you folded them in. However it seems though as of late that more and more cookbooks (at least the ones I can borrow via amazon kindle unlimited or I can buy for for under $3 on amazon or spot in the wild at some store) have a lot of recipes that are almost the same and or over the top with what is needed to make them. I mean avocado toast something or other, salsa guacamole, cocktail/mocktail spritz the list goes on.

Now I know I am being a bit snobish/whinny but the amount of newer cookbooks hoping on food trends and in some cases cost a small fortune to make a single recipe is just mind numbing to me, which I hate as on occasion these same books have had at least one recipe that actually sounds good and won’t cost a liver and a kidney to make but I have had to trek through about 50 recipes that I swear I have seen in at least 6 other books. I am honestly tired of cookbooks that have loads of recipes that contain avocados, chickpeas, tofu, plant based milk ( I have issues with milk and I have yet to find any plant base milk that tastes remotely decent), fake vegan meat, just to name a few and I am not even looking at cookbooks targeting certain dietary requirements/restrictions either. Any recommendation on cookbooks or even recipe sites lets hear them!

Now to what I am getting up to in the kitchen as of late. Well it’s fall but in all honesty to me here in our area of Wyoming it started to feel like fall in july and now feels like we are in winter and we are expecting our first snow fall in the next few days or so the weather apps etc say. But with fall and winter it’s time for soups, stews, chilli’s and other comforting cozy foods, which lately I have been making vegetable beef soup and vegetable soup that is potatoe heavy because the 50lb box I bought only a couple of weeks ago ya the potatoes are quite green and starting to sprout now even though I have them in a single layer in boxes that allows air flow and in a cool dark area. I am also currenty making a lot of sweet treats with peanut butter as I knew I had a good amount of peanut butter but had no clue I have the amount I do have so the only thing I can think of is my parents bought some for me and just added it to my lot! So I have been going through the lot and of course using the stuff with the closest expiration date and putting the ones with the farthest date in the back. I am making peanut butter cookies, I found a youtube video about peanut butter bars so made those I am even making peanut butter bread who’s recipe I found in my old The Royal Guide To Meal Planning (Compiled by the educational department of standard brands incorporated, royal baking powder) copyright of 1929. I also have made a few other recipes from the royal guide to meal planning like the royal master recipe for baking powder biscuits, corn bread, georgia sally lunn, blueberry muffins, doughnuts, blueberry tea cake just to name a few. The georgia sally lunn is my favorite!

I have also made a copycat of panda express honey sesame chicken, well the sauce because the sauce can go on anything and it turned out great! I have made a couple of loaves of the Italian bread recipe I got from my panasonic bread machine recipe book about 3-5 years ago now I think, it’s one of my favourite bread recipes and it only needs bread flour,yeast, salt and olive oil but I use extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil. I have also made a large batch of challah bread, I have some that are braided, I have some that are rolls and one that was put in a pullman tin as I like the taste of challah bread for a turkey, mustard and lettuce sandwhich. I plan on making a few salmon dishes to see how well I like them, I saw one youtuber Sonya’s Prep do a delicious looking salmon with a dill sauce I believe so I want to try making it asap! I also have a few other salmon recipes from various books I want to try and I am so happy I have frozen salmon sides weighting in at roughly 1 1/4- 1 1/2 lbs so I can try out these recipes and not have spent a small fortune on them (they were roughly $5.99-$8.99 I went to like 3 different stores over a single month so some were on sale some were not). Meat is getting more expensive specially beef, chicken has it’s moments and I can honestly say if what I am reading is right that in the last 30 days over 4.4 million bird have had bird flu, then chances are eggs are once again going to go up in price and along with their meat. So meat is going to be used sparingly over the next couple of months to strech what meat I have in the freezer, now if meat does come on sale etc then we will of course buy a bit to rotate what we have on hand. But like I said meat will be used sparingly over the next few months and will most likely only be seen on Friday night’s & Saturday night’s dinner in the form of a soup, stew or crock-pot roast.

I have also been reading various books (that are not cookbooks) that I bought ages ago for example about 11 years ago (so before I moved to the UK) I bought pretty much the whole Dear America Diary series along with all of the Royal Diaries spin off and most of the My Name Is America spin off as well. I have a few kindle books by a Doreen Tovey about her life with Siamese cats which they are great books! Quite a few different books on holocaust survivors as well other books based around WWII and WWI. I am also reading books on herbal medicine and square foot gardening along with canning & food dehydrating. I have also got my daughter playing scrabble with me to help her with her spelling, I am looking into homeschooling more currently as a boy at my daughters school is bullying her and is calling her a liar about being British because apparently to him the United Kingdom does not exist! I am going to be having a meeting with the school to get this sorted out and if it keeps going then she will be homeschooled or I will see if she can be transfered to the same county that he brother is currently doing schooling in, I find it sad because my daughter likes the teachers etc but if she is just going to be bullied I am not going to stand for it! Has anyone done homeschooling if so what did you use as a base? was it religion based or non religion base? What tips would you give to someone that is looking to/starting out with homeschooling? Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope your having a great day and hope you have a wonderful week/weekend/month and year! Until my next post! Thank You Again!