If this doesn't make you a Southern woman, I don't know what will

What makes one a southern woman, you ask? Well canning tomatoes, shelling peas, and watching Steel Magnolias of course! Last week my momma and I canned a tomato or two for the upcoming winter. And let me tell you, that is hard work honey! Then last Friday night me, my husband, and my girls shelled some peas. It was fun to watch my kids learn to shell peas, even if half of them ended up in the couch cushions! I remember canning and shelling peas with my mom and great grandmother in her little old house that always smelled like biscuits and tobacco!(yes, she chewed tobacco...Levi Garrett to be exact!) I always loved going to her house. She cooked almost every meal, I'm talking, breakfast, dinner(aka lunch), and supper was always hot and fresh. Every meal she made biscuits or cornbread but I really remember the biscuits(homemade not the kind out of the can!). She would make them in the same wooden bowl and always one at a time. She would have all her dry ingredients in the bowl and add just a little buttermilk at a time, create a biscuit mixed with her hands(I never remember her using a spoon!), put it on a pan and move on to the next until she had the desired amount to put on her table. If my brothers and I were lucky(and we usually were!) she would have some leftover and we would always have a biscuit with homemade jelly(maybe that's why she always had to make more biscuits...hmmm...). These are memories from my childhood and canning and I hope that I can install some well rounded memories of canning for my kids. So, for now, it's back to Mimi's kitchen where more tomato's wait for us to can. I took a few pictures....so pour yourself a glass of sweet tea and enjoy!

A sink of tomato's ready to be canned

Look how pretty those bad boys are!:)

Batch numbero uno

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Welcome to my kitchen......

Welcome

To

My

Kitchen!!

I love my kitchen. It's very open so that whoever is cooking is not isolated from the rest of the family. I love that there is a place for my little Sous Chef's to sit and learn about cooking. A place for them to experiment with their own creations and taste test all of the creations that are made. I love that they can sit there with eager minds and empty tummy's and learn many of life's many lessons....cooking, only one of them.
Welcome to our kitchen, the heart of our home. The place where memories are cooked up and food is remembered.

Cooking....my new love

I love cooking. There I said it! This is saying a lot coming from a girl who, in the past, would open the fridge and say I don't feel like cooking....let's go to Chili's! Of course this was about 6 1/2 years ago when I was a newly wed, had no kids, and for a while(10 months to be exact) had no husband.(Thanks to a little thing known as Operation Iraqi Freedom....have you heard of that? Or maybe you've heard of USMC...you know the Marines?) Anyway, I had no interest in cooking and only a little interest in baking. I enjoyed eating more than actually making the meal that I was eating. Well lets fast forward about 2 years where a little girl named Sweet Pea or, as I'll call her in this blog, Sous Chef #1, was born and changed everything... for the good! I decided to be a stay at home mom. This left a lack of income to go out to eat every night, an opportunity to start making things at home, because it was cheaper.:) Needless to say cooking almost every night has increased my mad skills, cooking abilities. So 6 1/2 years, one husband, and 3 Sous Chef's later....I am a cooking and baking machine. I am still learning new things and will be using old tricks I learned from my husband(who taught me a lot and who loves to cook!)my mom, and the food network:). So here is an outlet for my creative genius, er,learning. Grab an apron, pull up a chair, and enjoy!

(Wannabe) Chef Jessica