My Favorite Room in the House

I was tagged by Megan to do this kitchen questionnaire and thought it looked really fun...

1. How many meals does most of your family eat at home each week? How many are in your family? It is pretty rare for us to go out to eat unless I'm running errands in Savannah or something and it happens to be over lunch time. There are three of us, one who eats crackers and fruit mostly!

2. How many cookbooks do you own? Hmmm, I'll have to go count...about 25. There are 3 or 4 that are my favorites and, like Megan, I have pared down many of the cookbooks I did not use and passed them on to someone else.

3. How often do you refer to a cookbook each week? Probably 3 times, if you count referring to the recipe box where my faithful few reside, then probably more often.

4. Do you collect recipes from other sources? If so, what are some of your favorite sources (relatives, friends, magazines, advertisements, packages, the internet, etc.)? Yes, I am a recipe collector, but have tried to pare that down to cut the clutter. I have a photo album with plastic sheets that I can slide the recipes into to try and then I can purge those easily. My favorite sources are Kraft Food & Family, friends, and lately Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine.

5. How do you store those recipes? As I mentioned above, I use a photo album with plastic sleeves. Another thing I do is stuff them in between cookbooks until I get around to cutting out the part I'll actually use.

6. When you cook, do you follow the recipe pretty closely, or do you use recipes primarily to give you ideas? I usually follow it very closely. The two exceptions to that are if I want to leave something out or if it says to use multiple separate bowls to mix things - I skip that and mix in one bowl.

7. Is there a particular ethnic style or flavor that predominates in your cooking? If so, what is it? I think of and describe our eating style as homey and farmhouse-like. We don't do gourmet at all and I'm getting to the point where I'm choosing simpler and quicker recipes.

8. What’s your favorite kitchen task related to meal planning and preparation? (eating the finished product does not count) Planning ahead and doing what I can ahead of time to simplify dinner time, it just makes the whole experience more enjoyable.

9. What’s your least favorite part? Aside from this, probably the clean up.

10. Do you plan menus before you shop? Usually.

11. What are your three favorite kitchen tools or appliances? Kitchen Aid mixer, enamelware tea kettle from an antique store, and dishwasher!

12. If you could buy one new thing for your kitchen, money was no object, and space not an issue, what would you most like to have? I'm not sure...but I know David would enjoy this!

13. Since money and space are probably objects, what are you most likely to buy next? Salad tongs - I know this sounds silly, but it is always tricky for me to figure out how to serve salad!

14. Do you have a separate freezer for storage? Yes.

15. Grocery shop alone or with others? Almost always with Emily.

16. How many meatless main dish meals do you fix in a week? Dinners? Probably zero. Breakfasts are almost always meatless and I eat leftovers for lunch.

17. If you have a decorating theme in your kitchen, what is it? Favorite kitchen colors? Our kitchen is sage green. I guess I would say the theme is, "Things I Like". This is one of my favorite rooms in the house and where I spend so much time, I think of it as my "office" and since I am a homemaker - it technically is! Really though, probably a cottage theme would best fit.

18. What’s the first thing you ever learned to cook, and how old were you? Hmmm, the first thing? (Mom, do you remember?) I remember helping my Mom grind nuts, and watching her can tomatoes and her allowing me to help, thought I can't say I remember what the first thing was.

19. How did you learn to cook? From my Mom! She would encourage us to be the chef for the night sometimes and we could pick whatever we wanted to fix: Chef's Choice! My sister was the adventurous one who would check out a library book on food from a different country and prepare us a meal from that. Remember the peanut butter drink? :) For canning, I remember watching my Mom - but re-learned from a book she gave me with great step by step directions and photos.

20. Tagging… I’m tagging Mary Ann, Kathryn and Stacy if you're interested in joining in!