lizzycooks : Enjoy Your Food!

Peach galette

I've been ignoring my lizzycooks blog. This is my first post of 2024 and it's late August already. There have been some things going on...

In November 2023, just after my last blog post, there was a flood in my house. I then moved into a fancy hotel while it took four dark, rainy, winter months for my house to be remodeled. I have been home sweet home for five months.

I loved living at the new downtown hotel with the killer views, meeting hotel and restaurant staff, hanging downtown with friends, dining out, and ordering room service, but it all did get a touch old towards the end of my 121 night stay. Hilton points!

Why is this hotel story on my food/recipe blog? Due to the effect this entire experience had on my desire to cook is the why. I had no idea it would happen--but for the past three months I cannot stop cooking. I feel like I'm obsessed by my foodie ancestors. I am driven to cook multiple items in one day, all day long, most every day--something I did not do before. I've wondered if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Is it an obsession? Is it due to being in the hotel for so long? Am I craving comfort food? Is it just naturally happening? Is it temporary? What to do with all of this food I'm creating?

So while living in the comforts of room #620, I couldn't really cook anything decent because I had minimal cookware and utensils, a 2-burner stovetop with a slower than molasses heating element, no cutting board, not enough room to spread out, and it simply wasn't MY kitchen. It felt strange and unfamiliar. Keeping myself fed became the focus. I lived on doggie bags, rice bowls, caesar salads, oatmeal, and tortilla soup. And some cupcakes from around the corner.

After returning home in April I unpacked 105 boxes, had the house professionally cleaned inside and out, and in May had a bring your own dip party to celebrate my homecoming. Shortly after the party, my desire to cook greatly increased as did my foodie Facebook posts. I swear I want to post to my blog more often.

Many "firsts" happened during this time. I conquered my lifetime fear of scratch pie crusts and now make them often, made a 2-crust pie, made pizza crust from scratch, made ice cream and sorbet in my new machine, picked cherries-blueberries-peaches this summer and made smoothies, ice cream, cobblers, crisps, and more from the gorgeous fruit.

My freezer now holds 10 bags of frozen sliced peaches for the winter and 10 fruit galettes. Cherry, peach, blueberry, peach-blueberry--all with buttery crusts made from scratch. I've filled up my mom's freezer with galettes as well as mine, and have been giving them away to friends and neighbors. I have made an extraordinary amount of fruit galettes. I enjoy making them and am thankful only one pie crust is involved.

It's not just galettes and peaches filling up my freezer. I made a few pans of lasagna and froze individual pieces, made peanut sauce and red sauce and froze it, and have been creating all sorts of things.

I pickled jalapenos and red onions, made caprese salad, pesto, roasted garlic, pizza, roasted carrots with honey, blue cheese, & pecans, hummus & baba ghanoush, naan, lemon-feta angel hair pasta, mac 'n cheese, cupcakes, and more.

I believe there's a lot of guilt surrounding food in our society but the way I see it--folks should enjoy and celebrate their food.