Let me tell you how this all started (my interest in having a food blog)....
Step One: Being a FACS teacher (Home Economics Teacher for those of you still using the 'old school' label) I am constantly watching the Food Network, reading recipes, uploading recipes on my SCHOOL site, buying cookbooks, having demonstrations in school, cooking for my sweetheart etc. Busy, busy cataloging recipes EVERYWHERE.
Step Two: Watching the Food Network I got hooked to the Ace of Cakes show. I logged into their website and read Mary Alice's Blog...there she had a funny link to another site called Cake Wrecks. Cake Decoratings on CRACK!!! I was so amused that I sent the link to all my friends and family for them to see the HILARIOUS cakewrecks !!!
Step Three: My cousin Sue (wheeeeee, cred to you my CUZ!) looked at my link and found it equally amusing then sent me HER food blog favorite: Orangette. I looked her site....LOVED IT. I then noticed all her links to other food blogs...(like a child in a candy store)
Step Four: I travelled from link to link on Orangette....followed more links from other sites. Copiously copying recipes, pasting recipes, trying some, etc. OMG. I couldn't get over how ignorant I was of the food blog popularity and the enormity of them!!! My cousin Sue told me she was going to start her own food blog one day soon and it got me thinking...
Step Five: This was ideal for me. I needed a place to FUSE my life of the FACS teacher and my own personal cooking triumphs as well. I have a web page for my school but there are so many rules and content can get limited or edited or removed. Although I constantly add recipes on my school site this blog would be a place where I can give 'props' to those recipes I've tried or admire, AND write about the FUNNY stories that come with the territory of being a FACS teacher, etc.
Step Six: Finding a blogger home I had to research. I needed something easy to manage yet allowed me to grow when I got more blog-experience. Of course I am totally in AWE of some of these food blogs for the pictures they include are incredible and some blogs are so overwhelming (having a pic of EACH STEP of a recipe-it must take them twice as long to make it due to: take pix and mix, pix and stir--LOL)
Step Seven: So here I am weak and 'wobbly-legged' approaching my way to this new and inspiring world of food blogs. I realize my blog is bare-boned today for I need to find a perfect heading picture and I know future tweaking will follow. So fellow food bloggers....I am new...please don't eat me....LOL
BTW....Happy New Year!!! Jenny Mac's Lip Smack- A new food blog for 2009
Happy Anniversary Sweetheart - Another Wonderful year ahead!
My First Recipe Submission:
Tonight's Menu: My Copycat "Honey Baked" Ham
Lemon Pepper Asparagus Spears
Sweet Potato
Here is the copycat recipe for glazing your ham:
1 fully-cooked shank half ham, bone-in (pre-sliced is best)
1 cup sugar (I used brown sugar)
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. paprika
dash ground ginger
dash ground allspice
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and put aside. Cook your ham for dinner. When all your side dishes are cooking and your ham is resting, cover your counter with waxpaper (or saran wrap or whatever). Place the spice rub all over the waxpaper on your counter and spread it around evenly. Pick up ham and roll it over the sugar mixture so that it is well coated. Do not coat the flat end of the ham, just the outer, pre-sliced surface.
Turn the ham onto its flat end on the plate. Use the blowtorch (I have one of those mini torches you use for creme brulee) to caramelize the sugar. Wave the torch over the sugar with rapid movement, so that the sugar bubbles and browns, but does not burn. Spin the plate so you can torch the entire surface of the ham. Serve the ham cold or reheated, just like that 'ahem-"baked ham" place.
Notice the lack of of honey use in the above recipe...
"Keep the treats coming..."
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