From the Home Kitchen: Pineapple and Apricot Chicken

It has been a while since I did a “From the Home Kitchen,” Touring or otherwise. I’ve not been cooking a lot from home lately. Once my son grew up, moved out, and got a job in the food business, my inspiration has been lacking. That’s not fair to my wife and life partner. I need to do better. This past week, I was looking through some recipes and found something that piqued my interest, so I made my shopping list, and the lovely Stephanie picked things up for me. In return, I made her a delicious meal. Not the most ambitious thing I’ve done, but it was really flavorful. The sweetness from the pureed fruit mixed with the oniony-peppery-gingery notes made the sweet peppers even better.

Now, I am going to be 100% transparent and tell you that I modified another recipe to make it my own. I am not sure who the original author of the recipe is, so I can’t give credit, just know I’m not claiming the recipe as a whole as my own, but this is my take on it. As a base, I think pasta noodles, jasmine rice, or couscous would go fantastically. I opted for the couscous, and it was very yummy. (And yes, I know that couscous is a type of pasta)

Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 30 mins
Total Time: 45 mins
Servings: 4 (or in our case, 3)
Ingredient list:
  • 4 halves of canned apricots (or 2 whole if you can find fresh)
  • 1 (8-ounce) can of crushed pineapple with juice
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 teaspoon orange zest
  • ½ cup Captain Morgan’s™ Original Spiced Rum
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon onion powder
  • ½ teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 pinch ground white pepper
  • salt to taste
  • 1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
  • 1 red bell pepper, chopped

Directions:

  1. Place the pineapple and its juice and the apricots into a blender or food processor, and puree until smooth.

  2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Place the chicken into the skillet, and sprinkle with lemon juice. Cook until lightly browned on both sides, about 10 minutes.

  3. Stir the butter and orange zest into the skillet. When the butter has melted, pour in the rum. Carefully light with a striker, and let the mixture burn until the flame goes out. Stir in the blended pineapple and apricot mixture, brown sugar, onion powder, ginger, salt, and pepper. Reduce heat to low, and simmer for 5 minutes.

  4. Add the red and yellow bell peppers, and simmer until the peppers are hot but still crisp. Remove from heat, and serve.

If you make this recipe (or your own version of it), send me a message and let me know how it went and what you thought of it.
Bon appetit!!

Touring from the Home Kitchen (Recipes) – Mauritius – Seafood Rougaille

Mauritian cuisine is, typically, a borrowed method of cooking, borrowed cultures, and adapted over years of French, Indian, British, Chinese, and African occupation and habitation. Mauritian dishes are not too spicy, by default, but can be modified to be as spicy as you’d like. On our trip, especially this being the first “trip” we took on the Country Spinner, we went with three dishes, Cheese Fritters, Ojja, and Rougaille. I’m going to split them throughout different posts as to not overwhelm you with text and make it difficult to follow. Also, I’m going to tell you what I messed up on or did very well in true transparency. This is really more of an experiment than how to do everything right. I did mess up some things. We worked around it.

Seafood Rougaille

Here we go…


Prawn rougaille (roo-GUY) is a Mauritian dish that is usually cooked with king prawns in a rougaille sauce. What does that mean? Well, rougaille is a Creole dish that is tomato-based with incredibly rich flavors thanks to the combination of spices used. Rougaille is a traditional dish that is handed down from generations before so recipes will vary from generation to generation. That’s okay. What I made is a Creole-style dish that I made “my own.” This was one of my favorite dishes that I’ve made.

  • 2 Tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 medium red onion chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic chopped finely
  • 1/4 cup white wine
  • 2 cups tomatoes peeled and chopped
  • 1 tablespoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon white pepper
  • 1-4 Red or green chilies chopped (according to your heat preference)**
  • 1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley finely chopped
  • 2 thyme sprigs (leaves only)
  • 1 bell pepper (thinly sliced)*
  • Pinch of red pepper flakes
  • 1/2 cup of diced pineapple (drained)
  • 1 pound extra-large peeled and de-veined shrimp
  • 1/2 pound of cod (or other firm but delicate white fish)
  • 1/4 cup cilantro chopped
  1. In a saucepan heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat.
  2. Add in the onion and half the garlic and fry until golden.
  3. Pour in 1/2 the wine to soften the onion then add in the tomatoes and cook for a few minutes over high heat then reduce to simmer.
  4. Stir in the cumin, paprika, red pepper flakes, salt, and white pepper and drizzle a bit more olive oil.
  5. Add in the parsley, chili, bell pepper, thyme, and pineapple, and remove from heat after just a few minutes.
  6. In another frying pan, heat up a little more oil and fry the remaining garlic until fragrant. Add in the shrimp and cod, season with salt and black pepper, and cook for two minutes.
  7. Deglaze the pan with the remaining wine.
  8. Add the seafood into the rougaille and stir through the fresh cilantro.
We served it on top of couscous, which is popular throughout Africa. Enjoy!

*I used 1/3 each red, orange, and yellow pepper. I don’t like green bell peppers.
**I used just one serrano pepper, seeded and chopped. Use more for more heat.


If you make this recipe, please let me know how it turned out and I’d love to see some pictures. Either email me or hit me up on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Thank you for reading!!

Touring from the Home Kitchen (Recipes) – Mauritius – Ojja

Mauritian cuisine is, typically, a borrowed method of cooking, borrowed cultures, and adapted over years of French, Indian, British, Chinese, and African occupation and habitation. Mauritian dishes are not too spicy, by default, but can be modified to be as spicy as you’d like. On our trip, especially this being the first “trip” we took on the Country Spinner, we went with three dishes, Cheese Fritters, Ojja, and Rougaille. I’m going to split them throughout different posts as to not overwhelm you with text and make it difficult to follow. Also, I’m going to tell you what I messed up on or did very well in true transparency. This is really more of an experiment than how to do everything right. I did mess up some things. We worked around it.

Here we go…


Ojja (oh-zjuh) is originally a Tunisian (northern Africa, Mediterranean coast) dish.  It’s made from eggs, known for its ease of preparation. simple and fast, and super tasty! While Ojja is often eaten with bread, we chose a large-scale cracker. Also, the recipes I found all called for Merguez sausage, a lamb sausage. No one around here (Winston-Salem, NC) had those, so we went with chorizo instead, trying to keep the Mediterranean vibe.

  • 4 chorizo sausages cut into sections
  • 2 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon tomato puree (I took 1 tbsp of tomato paste and diluted it with a little bit of water. Still thick but manageable)
  • 1/2 medium onion
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 1/2 teaspoon caraway
  • Harissa (a Tunisian hot chili pepper paste) – use to taste or not at all, your preference
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 1 fresh tomato, diced
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 8 ounces water
  • 1 bell pepper, sliced ​​or diced, I always use red, orange, or yellow, green bell peppers are too bitter
  • 2-4 eggs
  • Parsley (for garnish)
  1. In a pan pour olive oil, the chopped onion, and the crushed garlic and fry for a few minutes then add the tomato puree and the harissa and simmer for a few minutes then add the fresh tomato cut into small dice, chorizo, and spices.
  2. Add salt and pepper and simmer for ten minutes on low heat then add water.
  3. When the chorizo has cooked, add the pepper.
  4. When the sauce becomes a little thick, break the eggs on top of the mixture. Cook for ten minutes without simmering (cover if you want hard-boiled eggs).
  5. Ensure that every portion has its own egg to break over the dish.
  6. Finally decorate with parsley and serve with good bread, lavosh, or crackers.

If you make this recipe, please let me know how it turned out and I’d love to see some pictures. Either email me or hit me up on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Touring from the Home Kitchen (Recipes) – Mauritius – Cheese Fritters

Mauritian cuisine is, typically, a borrowed method of cooking, borrowed cultures, and adapted over years of French, Indian, British, Chinese, and African occupation and habitation. Mauritian dishes are not too spicy, by default, but can be modified to be as spicy as you’d like. On our trip, especially this being the first “trip” we took on the Country Spinner, we went with three dishes, Cheese Fritters, Ojja, and Rougaille. I’m going to split them throughout different posts as to not overwhelm you with text and make it difficult to follow. Also, I’m going to tell you what I messed up on or did very well in true transparency. This is really more of an experiment than how to do everything right. I did mess up some things. We worked around it. I will say that I can’t find any pictures that I took of this recipe and I realize that sucks. I think I have everything else, though. This picture is from someone else. I don’t know who but it isn’t my picture.

(not my picture)

Here we go…


Cheese fritter is a snack that Mauritians like to consume during picnics or other occasions. It is also very popular during the month of Ramadan, probably because you can premake the batter and do these really quick after sunset.

These Cheese Fritters came out a little overdone because I had the oil too hot, I think. The lesson was learned and the next time (and there will be a next time) I will make sure to have a candy thermometer or similar to make sure the oil is at a good temperature. One thing, we looked for chickpea flour instead of regular wheat flour as chickpea flour (or more precisely, bessan powder for the recipe) is what the Mauritians use.

  • 3 cups chickpea flour
  • 1 pinch of baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon cumin
  • ¼ teaspoon pepper
  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • 2 chopped serrano peppers, seeded
  • ¼ cup chopped fresh chives*
  • 1 cup fresh cilantro
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup water
  • Cubes of cheese**
  • Oil
  1. Pour chickpea flour, salt, pepper, cumin, baking soda, and baking powder into a large bowl and mix everything well.
  2. Gradually pour your water in until you get a very soft and consistent paste. Don’t just dump the water in. Mix vigorously, adding more water if necessary, then leave for 10 minutes.
  3. Pour coriander, peppers, onions, and chopped chives into the batter and mix thoroughly.
  4. Heat your saucepan or pot over medium heat and pour in the oil.
  5. One at a time, add the cheese cubes to the batter, using a tablespoon to cradle it (so you don’t lose it in the batter) but making sure it is completely coated by the batter.
  6. Dip the battered cubes into the oil and brown for about 2 minutes or just before the cheese starts oozing from the crisping batter.
  7. Let drain before serving.

*If you don’t have fresh chives, you can use dried, but I’ve found that fresh has a brighter flavor.
** Use a good melting cheese. We used Dubliner and that was not a good melting cheese. You want one that melts but also keeps its consistency. I suggest a fontina, gouda (smoked or otherwise), mozzarella, or gruyere. And, if you have some pimento cheese sitting around, roll some in a ball and use that, I think that would be good.


If you make this recipe, please let me know how it turned out and I’d love to see some pictures. Either email me or hit me up on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Thank you for reading!!

Touring from the Home Kitchen

Tim and Stephanie in Bruges

If you’ve listened to the podcast over the last few months, you know that Stephanie and I have been doing what we were calling “The Country Spinner.” The Country Spinner is a randomizer in the form of a “wheel of fortune” that we added all the countries of the world, according to the CIA World Fact Book.

Stephanie and I love to travel and our favorite things to do when we travel are to take in the culture of where we are and take in as much of the cuisine as possible. The pandemic put a huge kibosh on those travels. I have also been taking on more cooking at home.  So, we decided to find another way, or ways, to get our fix for world culture and cuisine.

We spin the wheel and whatever country it lands on, we do cultural research, learn something about the country, and come up with recipes “inspired” by the cuisine of the country.

We have been “through” three countries so far, and there are many more to come. I will post about those countries, some facts about each, and recipes that we made as we have gone along here. We spend an average of two weeks (not necessarily at once) in each country.

The first country we spun was Mauritius. Look for that coming soon.

I hope you enjoy the “travels” as much as we did.

From the Home Kitchen: Italian Minestrone

Minestrone in the pot

I was editing a podcast today in my studio and the subject of that podcast was Thanksgiving dinner. Now, I will admit that this has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. Actually, I was thinking of things I may try to prepare for the feast at my family’s gathering and thought that I really wanted a soup. We did chili this past weekend and it was good but I wanted something different. So, instead, I opted for minestrone. With the exception of the pancetta (that I had to hunt down) that I rendered down for the fat and will sprinkle on top of the finished product, there’s no meat in this. That’s odd for me. Most everything has to have meat for me to enjoy it.

But, still, I wanted to surprise Stephanie with dinner when she got home. She’s on vacation all next week and this starts “Uber-Weekend” so I wanted to do something awesome for her.

I got this recipe from Ashley (Baker by Nature) and really did very little to modify it but there are some edits but any variation isn’t significant to my version of the recipe.  Because I don’t do a lot of “recipe posts” I’m just going to list the ingredients and what I did with them.

  • 4 ounces diced pancetta (I had to hunt it down because “P” didn’t carry any. The HT did, though.)
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (I didn’t add these because her instructions didn’t say where to put them in and Stephanie doesn’t like things too spicy).
  • 1 large yellow onion, diced
  • 2 stalks celery, diced
  • 3 large carrots, diced
  • 1½ cups green beans (trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces)
  • 6 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning (I make my own Italian Seasoning – that’s for another day)
  • 5 tablespoons tomato paste
  • (1) 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
  • (1) 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes (for the diced and crushed tomatoes, I use Pomi chopped and Pomi strained which comes in 26.5 oz packages)
  • 4 cups low-sodium chicken bone broth (slightly less than)
  • 4 cups low-sodium beef bone broth (no sodium added)
  • (1) 15 ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
  • (1) 15 ounce can Cannellini beans
  • 1½ cups elbow pasta
  • 2 cups fresh spinach
  • ¼ cup fresh basil, chopped
  • ¼ cup fresh lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • ½ cup parmesan cheese, grated

Minestrone in the bowl

  1. In my Dutch oven, over medium-high heat, I cooked the pancetta until crispy, slightly less than 6 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, I transferred the pancetta to a small plate on a paper towel and set aside. I left pancetta drippings in the pan and splashed in the olive oil and onion and let it cook until the onion was translucent.
  2. I then added in the celery, carrots, and green beans and cooked until they begin to soften but not too much. Tossed in the garlic and cooked it about 30 seconds; until fragrant. Then came the Italian seasoning and tomato paste. I also added salt and pepper at this time.
  3. Time, then to stir in the Pomi tomatoes, chicken broth, and beef broth before bringing that to a boil. I reduced the heat to medium-low and let it simmer for 15 minutes.
  4. I then stirred in the kidney beans, Cannellini beans, and pasta and let that cook down about 10 minutes. I put the spinach in and cooked until it was all wilted.
  5. Once all that was done, it was time to remove it from the heat and stir in the basil and lemon juice.
  6. Ladled the soup into bowls, sprinkled the reserved pancetta bits on top and used a grater to shave some parmesan cheese over it, added a little hint of parsley to add bright green to it and, voila! Minestrone.

I was happy with the result. I do think it could have used a little more salt but that’s one of the things I keep pulled back. I can add S&P when I eat the next go-round. It paired nicely with the homemade pimento cheese that I made, too. Again, more on the pimento cheese in a later post.

If you make this, either from my modified recipe or from Ashley’s original, snap a picture and let me know. I’d like to hear about your results and thoughts.

Bon appetit!

Taking My Place at the Table for a Second Helping

I was honored to be a guest contributor to Triad City Beat, for their “Dinner Guest” column in “Triad City Bites.”

This time around I stayed with the minimalizing sodium theme and talked about making spaghetti sauce. Executive Editor, Brian Clarey, allowed me to use my humor in it and I was proud of the result.

So, if you’ll do me the favor, you can read the article either in the print form, which can be found all around the Triad, or you can read it on their website, and you can do that HERE.

Thank you so very much Brian and Triad City Beat for the opportunity.

And, thank you to our readers and listeners for supporting our blog and podcast.

From the Home Kitchen – Modified Spinach Foggia Pizza

I have said it before and I will always repeat it. There is nothing like cooking with your son what it’s something that you both have a passion for. Tonight, we made homemade Spinach Foggia pizza. Never heard of Spinach Foggia pizza? Then you never went to Prince’s on the Park in the 80s and 90s or didn’t look in Harris Teeter’s frozen pizza aisles.

Spinach Foggia pizza was a creation from Mike Prince when he owned Prince’s on the Park which for those in Winston-Salem, now, it was where The Tap sets now in the West End. It was a pizza parlor/sandwich shop/wing joint that had the best pizzas in town, the best baked wings and the best sausage sub. It was a creaky old place and it was run down. That wasn’t Mike’s fault it was the building owners’ and one of the reasons why they closed down. Their signature item though was the Spinach Foggia pizza. 

As you may guess, it has spinach. Yep, great leafy green goodness on a pizza. I hadn’t ever heard of that at the time. In addition to the spinach, it had mushrooms, tomatoes, oregano, garlic and olive oil with mozzarella cheese. If you notice, there was no “sauce.” On this pizza, it was just the ingredients; the olive oil made it “sauce,” from what I remember. In addition to making it in the restaurant, Mike put it in stores. It was mostly Harris Teeter and Golden Apple (a high-end grocery store that was ahead of its time, which closed in 2016). I will be honest, I never had it in the stores. But, I had it plenty of times in the shop.

So, when I was looking for something for our Thursday night menu on Sunday, I decided to do my own version of this. I had never made it before and I was excited to do so. So, Trey, my 16-year old son, and I modified it up a bit.

Another pizza that Prince’s made was a White Lightning pizza. I don’t know what that was exactly but it was made with a white sauce instead of red sauce. So, I kind of wanted to mix the two ideas. Also, I don’t like pizzas without some kind of meat on it so we got some loosely packaged Italian sausage and sauteed it to put on the pizza.

We started by making our own dough, adding honey to sweeten it a bit.

My son made the white sauce. He melted 2tbsp of butter and put 4 cloves of minced garlic in there, sauteeing them before adding 3tbsp of all-purpose flour, ¼tsp each of salt, black pepper and oregano, whisking it until mixed. He then added a ½cup of heavy cream (we should have used whole milk instead but it still tasted great). Letting it set up, he added ½cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese. It was a little thicker than we wanted but that’s where the milk would have made a difference. But, again, the flavor was great.

So, for the pizza, we spread out the dough on a pizza tin, spread a little cornmeal over it, and spread the white sauce. We put a little olive oil over it. We thinly sliced a tomato and cut the slices in half. We placed them around the pizza, followed by baby bella mushrooms. I didn’t put garlic on the pizza because it was already in the white sauce. We spread the sausage and put freshly chopped oregano and basil on the pizza. We then covered the pizza in freshly grated mozzarella cheese. We popped it into a 500° oven for around 15-17 minutes.

We were both very pleased with the outcome. The dough wasn’t overdone or underdone. The ingredients worked well together and it was quite a filling pie. It was really good.

I believe it was extra good because I did it with my son. I hope you try it and I hope you have great success with it. I thank Mike Prince for introducing me to that delicious pizza all those years ago. I am also glad that I got to do my own modified version, again, with my son.

I do apologize that the picture isn’t up to my usual standard, but I was kind of “off the clock” and it is what it is.

From the Home Kitchen: Szechwan Shrimp & Broccoli w/Garlic Butter and Cashews

Welcome to the first of the actual “column” of “From the Home Kitchen, here on The Man Who Ate the Town.

A few weeks ago, Stephanie, Trey and I made this Asian treat for dinner. Szechwan Shrimp and a Broccoli with Garlic Butter and Cashews side. Sweet, slightly spicy (our choice) and very delicious. We don’t rate our food in any way other than: “would we make it again?” and in this case, it was certainly a resounding yes.

The Recipes:

Szechwan Shrimp (from FOODGU1 on All Recipies)

  • 4 tbsp water
    2 tbsp ketchup
    1 tbsp soy (we backed it to half and used lower sodium sauce)
    2 tsp cornstarch
    1 tsp honey
    ½ tsp crushed red pepper
    ¼ tsp ground ginger
    1 tbsp vegetable oil (we subbed olive oil)
    ¼ tsp chopped green onions/scallions
    4 cloves of garlic minced
    1 pound of shrimp, tails removed
  1. In a bowl, stir together water, ketchup, soy sauce, cornstarch, honey, crushed red pepper, and ground ginger. Set aside.
  2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in green onions and garlic; cook 30 seconds. Stir in shrimp, and toss to coat with oil. Stir in sauce. Cook and stir until sauce is bubbly and thickened. Serve over rice. 
  3. Makes 4 servings. About 20 minutes total time. 142 calories/serving.

Broccoli with Garlic Butter & Cashews (from SALSIEPIE on All Recipes)

  • 1½ pounds of broccoli but into bite-sized pieces
    ⅓ cup butter
    1 tbsp brown sugar
    3 tbsp soy (we backed it to half and used low sodium sauce)
    2 tsp white vinegar
    ¼ tsp ground black pepper
    2 cloves of garlic minced
    ⅓ cup chopped salted cashews (I put a handful in a resealable bag and used the bottom of a glass spice jar to crush the cashews, worked perfectly)
  • We also added mandarin orange slices to the mix because this is an Asian inspired dish and I thought it would be a great addition and I think we all felt that it was
  1. Place the broccoli into a large pot with about 1 inch of water in the bottom. Bring to a boil, and cook for 7 minutes, or until tender but still crisp. Drain, and arrange broccoli on a serving platter.
  2. While the broccoli is cooking, melt the butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Mix in the brown sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, pepper and garlic. Bring to a boil, then remove from the heat. Mix in the cashews, and pour the sauce over the broccoli. Serve immediately.
  3. Makes 6 servings and can stand on its own as a dish. About 20 minutes total time. 187 calories/serving.

These two dishes were a very wonderful one-two punch if you’re in the mood for some good Asian dishes. It was healthy (especially when we backed off the low-sodium soy sauce), too. That’s what we’re trying to do with the cuisine we choose for our family cooking adventures: have a bit of time together, listen to some records, choose healthy but very tasty meals and just have fun.

If you’ve never used All Recipes, I’d highly recommend it. You can find just about anything there. Many of their recipes have video demos as well. You can visit their YouTube channel for more videos. I also recommend any videos by Food Wishes and Chef John. He’s entertaining and insightful. I’m a member of the All Recipes site and a subscriber to the magazine. I am not endorsed by All Recipes and this isn’t a paid or implied advertisement for them, I’m just a fan and get a lot of food recipes from there.

I hope this sounds intriguing to you. I’d love to hear that you tried it for yourself, if you modified it, if you did or didn’t like it, and I would love to see your pictures of it. Send it to our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram page. Or, you can email me at tim@themanwhoatethetown.com. Tell me if you don’t want me to publish any of it. It can be public or we just have a conversation about it in private. Either way is perfectly fine.

Thanks for reading and thanks for listening!
Slàinte Mhath!

From the Home Kitchen: The Introduction

No rights assumed for this picture.

This blog has always been about food. That’s why it’s called The Man Who ATE the Town. I have always focused on restaurants in Winston-Salem and fear not… that’s what I will continue to do; no doubt. I moved into being a food news source, as well. Most of that again, focusing on WSNC, but sometimes venturing outside of that realm when need be. Then I added the podcast on The Less Desirables Podcast Network (which I also own). All of that is fun and good and I’m not stopping any of that.

But one thing has changed for me. I’m cooking at home more, now. Why? Don’t I like eating in restaurants as much? Well, yes. I absolutely love eating in restaurants. Truth be known, I’d much rather eat out all the time, but it’s not financially feasible or realistic. There are two main reasons why I’m doing this, now. My wife and my son. There’s a lot of other smaller reasons but those are the two biggest.

On Thursdays, my son, Trey, and I have “guy time.” That time includes us cooking a meal together and watching a movie (currently that means the James Bond series). I’m hoping that he develops a love for food like I have. He gets to do a good bit of the chopping and stove work. We do some simple stuff and some intermediate level stuff. A little this. A little that.

On Sundays, I have Trey with me, as well. The bonus is that Stephanie is home with us, as well. So, we have started cooking, the three of us, together. We each take our places in the fray and do what we need to do to make the best meals we can. It’s fun. We get bonding time and we get great food out of it. Mostly. Sometimes we overdo something or underdo something. We’re not professional chefs or cooks, we just do what we can. I’d say we’re professional eaters, though. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I like to say it.

So, that brings me to the reason of this post. This is the start of a new column that I’m going to write called: From the Home Kitchen. I will be writing this to highlight the creations that my boy and my wife and I make. If you don’t hear about it, don’t think that I’m going to forget about it, we’ve really messed something up or we didn’t do anything. Sometimes we make things that aren’t that exciting or sometimes we may actually mess up, you never know. Just be on the look out for it. I’ll leave recipes when possible and pictures, as well.

I hope you enjoy it and I’d love to know if you tried the recipes or if you have recipes that you want to share with me that we can do. A few things to remember, onions are okay as long as they’re minced very finely, shallots are okay in the same instance, no asparagus, no grapefruit. Those are the rules. If you have recipes, send them to me via email. As always, thank you for reading and thank you for listening to the podcast…

Slàinte!