The Unkempt Kitchen

Southern Pasta e Fagioli A couple of years ago, I started getting into eating more seasonally. I'm even working on my own collection of favorite seasonal recipes. In the South it's pretty easy to do. Much of southern cooking revolves around seasonal cooking. I know I'm not strict with it but it makes cooking more interesting and I think it's a great way to make better, more nutritious, food. Now collards are an interesting vegetable. Many people only talk about collards around the New Year. Get your black eyed peas and collard greens for a prosperous New Year. But collards are a good green to keep around. I like to cut mine up and freeze them and use them throughout the cold months. I'll throw them in smoothies, make up some traditional black eyed peas and greens or put some in a soup. The thing you have to remember about collards is that they are a tough green. They can handle lots of cooking, whether is sauteing or boiling. It's best to cook them for awhile...

Amazing vegetarian Enchiladas So I have had a butternut squash in my cabinet for months. Long enough that I can't remember when I got it but I'm sure it was before Christmas, probably sometime in October or November. I love how with winter squash you can get it and you have plenty of time to use it. I probably bought it to make a soup with but I'm kind of tired of soups. I found this recipe for butternut squash and black bean enchiladas on the Edible Perspective website . There are some great recipes on there. I like how butternut squash and sweet potatoes are pretty interchangeable. A few years ago I discovered the great combination of sweet potato and black beans and Mexican seasoning. So I figured butternut squash would be a decent substitution. We go through a lot of beans around here, especially black and pinto, so when I can I try to buy dry beans and cook them myself. I was glad when I came across this method of cooking beans in a slow cooker (and without ha...

I love pancakes. I also love waffles. But growing up we never had a waffle iron so pancakes were a special breakfast item we would make. With blueberry syrup or with apples in the batter, they were good. I got a waffle iron as a wedding present and love making waffles BUT it can get messy and sometimes you don't want to pull out the waffle iron. A friend of mine made up this great recipe for your own pancake mix (think that generic baking mix you buy at the store and add the liquids). I was so thankful for this because it saves time AND I am in more control of what's in it.  The recipe is posted on Once A Month Mom . In my experience, it creates great, fluffy pancakes, especially when you make plain pancakes.  But this last weekend I wanted to make pumpkin pancakes. My mom was in town and I had some leftover pumpkin puree that I wanted to use up. SO, I took Pioneer Woman's pumpkin pancake recipe  and merged it with the OAMM recipe. Here's what I came up with: ...

I have a love/hate relationship with make-at-home pizza. It has even caused me to almost cry a couple times. I have tried many ways to make pizza - with and without a pizza stone, in the oven, on the grill, and I'm sure many others. At one point I didn't have a pizza peel, then I decided to get one and I still had problems. My attempts at making pizza in the oven got so dramatic that my husband decided we should get it perfected on the grill. We still had problems with that but we've pressed on. Now in my opinion, homemade pizza and restaurant pizza are different. I don't feel like you can really compare the two. We have our favorite local pizza joint that we love. We also can get pizzas for a reasonable price. I see making pizza at home as a fun, weekend activity. I don't think I have ever tried to do it during the week. It is fun to create your own toppings and use fresh ingredients. But I don't think it'll ever replace take-out pizza for me. I find the ...

Hi! Welcome to my new blog - The Unkempt Kitchen To learn about me and this blog, check out "The Cook" tab at the top. One thing that I thought would be good to start out with is my recommendations for a small kitchen. I've been living with a small kitchen for the past seven years. Granted, this is small for South Carolina. This isn't New York City small, so small I can fit my kitchen in a closet small. Our first kitchen was a galley style kitchen where you couldn't have the fridge and oven open at the same time. Now ours is larger but there still is limited counter space and out dated appliances (no dishwasher! Eek!). This means that the larger appliances (stand mixers, food processors, blenders) don't get taken out much, if ever. I am always on the border of throwing out our ginormous microwave but then I remember how helpful it is when you're trying to fix a quick lunch or heat something up and you want to dirty the minimum number of dishes. It'...