Lissa Matthews

Food Posts Coming Your Way

by Mlissa | Dec 1, 2018 | In the kitchen with...

You may not want them and I totally get that.

Then again, maybe you’ll enjoy them again.

The truth is, I love food. I love being in the kitchen. I love to bake, to cook… Every so often I even like going grocery shopping.

One of the things I’ve always wanted to do is be a food blogger. I don’t take professional photos. I don’t use fancy ingredients. I don’t make foods that only one person in my house will eat. I make comfort food. I make relatively easy food. I use my phone to snap pictures. I don’t have backdrops or special plates/glasses. I don’t create recipes, but I do adapt some. I don’t follow food trends, just as I don’t follow romance writing trends. I just cook what sounds good to me at any given moment.

I just like food and it makes me happy and it’s been suggested more than once that I should share that with others. And being a food blogger of any sort seems like fun to me and so, this section of my blog is going to be used for such.

Not to mention, I use food in my romance books. My characters cook and/or bake. They like real food. They like delicious food. I’m a Southern girl who grew up cooking from the age of 8 or 9. I had chores and sometimes that included dinner. I’m a self-taught baker, too. My first attempts were a disaster, but I learned and learned quickly how to read ingredients, recipes, and measurements.

So, that’s all for now, but as it had been nearly 3 years since I’d added anything to this section of the blog, I thought the beginning of December would be a good time to start over.

~lissa

What Are Leftovers? My Attempt At Meal Planning…

by Mlissa | Jan 9, 2016 | In the kitchen with...

When I was growing up (yes, it’s one of those stories), eating out was a rare thing. Special occasions were when we went to Red Lobster. You also dressed up to go there or to a steak house. You didn’t wear jeans.

Fast food was rare, too. We’d stop at McDonald’s on the way out of town for a quick on the road dinner or breakfast. Taco Bell was a once every couple of weeks thing. And we rarely ever ordered pizza out unless it was for a party.

No, we ate at home. You wanted pizza, we made it. Tacos, we made them, too. Cheeseburgers? There was a secret recipe and they were famous among family and friends. We didn’t eat out on a regular basis as we all do now. And when I say we, it’s a collective society WE.

My parents worked, sometimes crazy hours, but 90% of the time, we ate at home.

But, it’s been a problem in our house, the eating out more than we should. I’m the only cook. My kids have no interest in cooking (they better marry a chef or have a really high paying job so they can eat out). I’ve tried, but nah. My spouse has no interest in learning how to cook much either. And, I get tired of being the only one, no matter how much I love doing it. But eating out is too expensive on a regular basis. Too many meals can be made from just what a family of four spends eating out at some place like Applebee’s.

Now, I’ve tried this before and life got the best of me and it was working out really well. I’m doing it again in the hopes that it sticks this time.

I loosely plan meals. I find dishes I want to make or try and buy all the ingredients for them for the week. I pick a cookie or something to bake (I haven’t yet this week). I buy all the breakfast stuff and the lunch stuff to make sandwiches. And I do my best to stay out of the store the rest of the week. It didn’t work this week, but maybe it’ll work better in the coming weeks.

I make things that are hearty and will have leftovers. Casseroles. Stews and chilis and soups.

We used to dread leftover when I was a kid. It was like, “but we had that last night’. Little did I know how much I’d come to love having leftovers in the fridge. It makes life so much easier, especially on the weekends when people are hungry ALL THE TIME!

The links to the recipes I made this week are as follows:

Most recipes I try I have found on food blogs and Pinterest. I haven’t decided what we’ll have in the upcoming week, but I’m thinking something with shrimp, and maybe a beef stew… It helps to know what we’re having each night, using the crock pot especially, even just once and yes, I know there were only 4 recipes, but, there are enough leftovers for Friday and Saturday without someone eating the same thing more than twice in one week. And dinner on Sundays is typically, breakfast.

Do you cook at home? Do you plan meals? I’d love to know your tips and tricks.

~lissa

Sweet Saturday – Banana Pudding

by Mlissa | Jan 2, 2016 | In the kitchen with...

So, yesterday I made Banana Pudding.

I’d been craving banana pudding for months, ever since I saw Desmond Howard dig into a big bowl of it on ESPN College Gameday. Well, yesterday, for New Year’s, I finally made some.

For years, the recipe I’ve been using doesn’t use the normal ‘Nilla wafers and it’s not layered into a bowl. I use the recipe for ‘Not Yo Mama’s Banana Pudding‘. Paula Deen made this one famous on her Food Network show and it is a delicious, easy banana pudding. It can be made with fat-free, sugar-free pudding and Cool Whip, as well as with light or fat-free cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk (I’ve never done light or fat-free cream cheese or sweetened condensed milk in mine cause just NO, but I don’t see why it couldn’t work if that’s important to you. However, if it doesn’t work, not my fault.).

It makes a lot, too. 13×9″ pan full, but I break mine down to a 8×8″ pan and then make 4 individual servings. And no matter how I make it, it never lasts longer than 2 days in my house.

Big desserts like this or cheesecake are special occasion desserts for us. Holidays or birthdays. A few times a year. It’s what keeps them special and keeps them tasting more and more delicious. They’d lose their luster, just as anything would, if I made them more than I do.

But,if you like Banana Pudding, I’d encourage you to give this recipe a whirl.

~lissa

Sweet Saturday

by Mlissa | Mar 28, 2015 | Cover Reveal, In the kitchen with..., Inspiration, Pinterest

Lone Star Sweets has new covers created by TEZ Graphics. They’re beautiful. Bright. Light. And reflect the series.

I’ve flipped out the older covers and inserted all the new ones. I’ve uploaded all new information to Amazon, All Romance eBooks, and Barnes and Noble. Amazon seems to be taking the longest to get everything going in the right direction, but eventually, they’ll all be there and looking good. (more…)