Cookbookaholic

Veggie Burger Success!

I decided to make “Corn Burgers with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Goat Cheese” from Lukas Volger’s Veggie Burgers Every Which Way. The ingredients were simple and most were already in my kitchen. Yeah for that! I only had to go out and buy buns, scallions and goat cheese. And it’s a seriously easy recipe: I just substituted Jiffy Corn Muffin mix instead of cornmeal and opened up a can of Summer Corn instead of fresh/frozen corn.

Let me tell you—between the sun-dried tomatoes, scallions and corn, the smell of the mixture was amazing. I was cautiously optimistic until Colin walked by, put his face in the mixing bowl and said, “Wow—what is that? It smells so good.” Yeah! This has possibilities!

 

I used small, whole-wheat potato buns (Martin's) and made the corn burgers into sliders. The batter is kinda soupy so it fries up in the skillet flat like a corn fritter. Making them last night made the house smell like my Grandma’s kitchen on a Saturday afternoon. 

Here's the excellent news: Colin actually ate the whole thing! Plus, I really enjoyed them as well. Note that the goat cheese is in the recipe but also used on top of the burger. I found it a little overwhelming so I just put a smattering of Laughing Cow Light/Garlic & Herb cheese spread and it was awesome. Definitely worthwhile and makes me curious to try some more veggie burger recipes!

I Feel a Road Trip Coming On...

Check out this awesome email from Nicole! It was in my email inbox when I got into the office this morning:

Dear Angela,

I share your passion for cookbooks, and really enjoy your blog.  It just tickles me to death to check your blog and find new entries!  Thank you for taking time to share!  

I visited a store called Ollie's this weekend in Hickory.   I'm not sure if you have this store in Charlotte, but if you do, or if you want to head to Hickory, it might just be worth the trip. This store is a lot like Big Lots, and I've only just been once--but they had one full aisle of cookbooks--brand new, most of them $5 or less.  There might have been a few that were a little more.  It might be that their products vary from time to time, and store to store, I'm not sure.   I don't know that you would be interested, but I thought I'd pass on the info. 

When I walked in the store and saw all the books--specifically cookbooks, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  I had a ball looking through all those books.  And of course several went home with me!  They also had a very good selection of Paula Deen and Rachel Ray kitchen products--I very nearly swooned, between those things and the cookbooks!  

Thank you again for your blog, and happy shopping and cooking!  God Bless!

Nicole

Thank you Nicole!!! I definitely need to check out Ollie's and fast! And thanks for the kind words about the blog. I'm trying to post things more often so you'll have reasons to come back more often!

FYI: This Was NOT Me!

Here's the link to the story. But please remember these important points:

A. It happened out in California

B. It was between two old dudes

C. I wouldn't fight someone over a cast iron pan

D. If the sale had opened early, this wouldn't have happened!

www.modbee.com/2010/08/27/1312554/sonora-yard-sale-dispute-turns.html

Opposite Ends of the World: Part Three

Okay, this isn’t about cookbooks—but it IS about cooking stuff. When I had secured all the cookbooks in the big box, my big rear end and I looked around at the other items for sale. In a huge box of pots, pans and muffin trays, I found a really gorgeous but heavy duty Bundt cake pan. Then, as I was going through the house, I found an unopened package of three stackable cooling trays by Wilton. I remembered giving those as a birthday gift to my friend Mary Dana a few years back. It seemed like a great idea to help maximize Christmas cookie production while economizing the counter space. So I grabbed that one for myself very quickly!

 

Later when I got it home, I gave that Bundt pan a more careful “going over” and found that it was also made by Wilton. Nice quality items!

 

What a seriously long drive! But I’m so glad I listened to that inner voice and made it out to this sale in Monroe. I wish that inner voice would tell me some lottery numbers next time...

Opposite Ends of the World: Part Two

Then it was back in the car to head to the opposite side of the world: Monroe. Thank goodness for the 485 loop because that was probably the “quickest” way to get there. “Quickest” being relative because it still took me a good forty minutes to get there! This particular listing started at 8am and specifically mentioned cookbooks. Something told me that I needed to ignore the other two stops on my list and just get there! Hopefully working in my favor was the caveat “no early birds”—which would buy me enough time to make it to the opposite end of the earth!

 

When I arrived at the house, there were already a lot of cars but I found a great parking space in front of the house. I spotted lots of racks of ladies clothing and boxes of gorgeous woven baskets. Then, as I entered the garage, I almost lost my mind:

 

Holy Moly! I couldn’t believe it! But I did manage to sputter out enough words to ask for an empty box. Between the big empty box and my big rear end, we must’ve filled out the walkway from the garage into the house because one of the ladies working the sale kept telling me to hug closer to the shelf! No matter, I was in that zone of trying to look and chose carefully but still at supersonic speed before anyone else started to grab at them.

 

Here’s what I got:

 

Cook Smart (Pam Anderson), Secrets from the Southern Living Test Kitchens, Home Cookin’ (Shiloh Advent Christian Church), Southern but Lite (Avis & Ward), Have Fun Cooking with Me (Lela J. Clarke), This and That (Pageland Women’s Club), SC First Lady Cookbook (1982), The Good Cook’s Cook Book (Fancy Free Senior Citizens), Cookin’ from Scratch (Belmont Junior Women’s Club), Apple Lovers Cook Book (Munson & Nelson), Great Chefs of New Orleans, Great Chefs of San Francisco, Southern Sideboards (Junior League of Jackson), Savannah Style (Junior League of Savannah), Charlotte Cooks Again (Junior League of Charlotte), Cook’s Collage (Junior League of Tulsa), The Nature Museum Cookbook, St. John’s Family Treaures (St. John’s Lutheran Church), Tiger-Riffic Cook Book (Clemson), Tea-Time at the Masters (Junior League of Augusta), Christ Church Cooks, A Taste of Georgia (Newnan Junior Service League), Bethabra Moravian Cook Book, Favorite Recipes of The Church of the Holy Comforer, Sharing Recipes (Southside Baptist Church), The Sugar Mill Hotel Cookbook and The Old Red Cook Book (First Presbyterian Church of York, SC).

 

Whew! And that’s only the ones that could fit in the first picture! Here’s the rest:

 

The Martha Stewart Living Christmas Cookbook, The Martha Stewart Christmas Cookbook, Cooking with Class (Charlotte Latin School), Sassafras!: The Ozarks Cookbook (Junior League of Springfield), First Chair Gourmet (Charlotte Symphony Women’s Association), We Know Pies! (Wyatt & Elliott), Atlanta Cooks for Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School and Froggy’s Favorites II (Gaston Day School).

 

I’m still in shock at the amount of cookbooks I snagged! Woo-hoo! As I was checking out, I was able to spend a few minutes with Dennis and Linda, the couple running the estate sale. They were helping Dennis’ mother, Bonnie, clear out her house as she transitioned to a nursing home. Dennis told me that his mother owned a dress shop as well as a catering business all while she held down a full-time job at Conbraco. Wow! In her later years, he said she liked to watch TV and buy stuff! That’s probably true, the driveway, garage and each room was packed with very nice items.

 

She sounds like a really outgoing person who never met a stranger. But then I asked about the cookbook collection. Dennis said that she probably used them to get ideas for her catering business. But he noticed that when she cooked Sunday dinner, “neighbors we hadn’t seen in fifteen years would appear!” And with her catering experience, she’d have enough to feed upwards of twenty people. That’s a really great talent.

 

Then I asked Dennis if he’d inherited his mother’s knack for cooking. Apparently, he didn’t. He confessed that he could only claim to “nuke a hot dog in the microwave” but that his son in Charleston did manage to get to get the cooking gene.

Opposite Ends of the World: Part One

Or, at least, that’s how it felt. Today proved a long morning in the car, but well worth all the driving. My morning started off by heading over to Gastonia—what? Yep, I made a very special trip over to Gas-town. Max’s girlfriend, Deborah, was having a moving sale. She said she had cookbooks and that’s the magical phrase to get to the top of my list!

 

I actually got up made it to her house just before 7am. She ushered me to the cookbooks and here’s what I snagged:

 

Best-Ever Cake Decorating, The Best of Southern Living, Southern Living Cookbook Classics, Le Cordon Bleu: Dessert Techniques, Frightfully Fun Halloween Recipes (!), Hopewell Heritage Cookbook (Hopewell Presbyterian), Tastes from the Country (Alexis Baptist Church), Mt. Zion Country Cookin’ (Mt. Zion Baptist Church), Butter ‘n Love Recipes (Gardner Park Elementary School), The All-New Roadfood (Jane & Michael Stern) and The Southern Cook’s Handbook (Courtney Taylor and Bonnie Carter Travis).

 

Wow! What an awesome, amazing haul!!! Those Southern Living books are outstanding! Not to mention, I drove all the way to Gastonia to find the Hopewell Heritage cookbook—that church is only about two miles away from me in Huntersville. Isn’t that something?! Great trip—I’m so glad I made the trip over to Deborah’s yard sale! 

Frank is Coming on the Show!

Hooray! Frank from the show American Pickers on the History Channel will be on Bob & Sheri next week!

If you're familiar with the show, Frank is "The Bearded Charmer" who collects the old cans and advertising pieces. I'm always blown away when those two whip out unbelievable amounts of money for items. Can you imagine laying out hundreds for an antique John Deere sign or thousands for an old motorcycle engine? Plus, I don't think I could dig around in those old buildings. Too scared I'd find a snake--or, rather, it finding me! 

I'm very excited and can't wait to hear the interview! One co-worker, Brad, overheard me talking about the interview and popped in my office to say he loves watching the show as well. Then I said that I could curl up in Frank's beard and take a nap. Oddly enough, he didn't feel the same way.

Thrift Store Find! Or, That Guy Must Still Be on Vacation

I had a run of good finds during my last few visits to the thrift stores. That must mean the manager dude is still on vacation because I’m sure he would’ve snatched them before they made it to the bookshelf.

 

Actually, I made the rounds to two thrift stores over two weeks. One is usually very busy and I never find anything. The other store has a more laid back feel and only occasionally do I find something (because of that manager dude). But this time around, I found some really interesting gems!

 

At the busy thrift store, I walked up on these two cookbooks:

Martha Stewart’s Christmas and San Francisco a la Carte. I’m thrilled about the San Francisco one because it’s a Junior League cookbook. Awesome!

 

Now, over to the laid back thrift store. It’s in one of those old strip mall stores so there’s plenty of room and it never looks busy.  For my first trip, I found these three interesting cookbooks:

 

Emeril’s Creole Christmas by Emeril Lagasse, Fashion Cooks by The Fashion Group of Chicago and The Hole Thing (Volume I) Favorite Recipes from Jackson Hole from the St. John’s Hospital Auxillary. The Fashion Cooks one was printed in 1955! Plus, the Jackson Hole cookbook has this recipe called “Sand Cake” and then written underneath is this little sidenote: “The Swedish name is Sandkaka” Suddenly, it doesn’t sound so yummy….

 

The next week during for my return trip I found this!

 

The White House Chef Cookbook by Rene Verdon. This is a particularly interesting find. An accomplished French chef, Verdon was appointed the White House chef during the Kennedy administration. Of course, he blew out of there when LBJ demanded he cook the presidential chow Texan style…I guess that meant over an open pit flame with some fella named “Crusty” stirring a pot of beans?

And It Fit in the Mail Slot?!

Don’t know if you can tell from the picture, but this is a very, very thick package that was in the mailbox at work.

 

Yeah! It’s addressed to me! This is a good bit thicker than the self-help books that usually show up here at the station. When I opened up the package, it turned out to be a copy of The Commonsense Kitchen by Tom Hudgens.

 

It’s jam-packed with recipes and super heavy! The author studied at this place called Deep Springs. It’s an organic farm, school and working cattle ranch in Sierra Nevada. The students learn a farm-to-table philosophy and Tom passes that same knowledge on to you. I noticed a bread recipe that eased you into the process with a breakdown of times of when to mix the dough, shape the loaves and bake the bread. There’s even a homemade soap recipe! This book is big on sustainability—remember that buzzword from a few posts back with Kealy in Davidson? I bet she’d love this one!

 

Did I mention how huge this cookbook is? It clocks in at about 2 inches thick! Yowza!!!

 

Patience Pays Off

I mentioned in my previous post that I found a bunch of Stampin’ Up stamps for my mom at the nearby church yard sale. Well, I was finished with my rounds by 8:45am so I called my mom and told her what I bought. She was very happy so I thought I’d drive down and just spend the rest of the day with her in Flo-town. (Scott and the boys had gone tubing for the entire day.)

 

With no set schedule, I decided to drop by my favorite used book store and take a peek at their latest cookbook finds. Good thing I did, because something I’ve been waiting on forever was finally there!

 

A Taste of Greek Tradition: Sharing Faith and Feast by the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral! I can’t tell you how excited I am to have found this one. This is the church that sponsors the huge, huge Yiasou Greek Festival every year in Charlotte. I remember seeing the cookbook for sale—but never got around to buying it. We always spend our money on the baklava and loukoumathes, imagine that…

 

I’ve kept my eye out for it for the past five years or so but never spotted it at a yard sale. I’m so super psyched to have finally found it!!!  Opa!