Baking in the Backwoods

I love to bake. I love to cook. (And I love to eat.) I'm not a very original cook...nearly everything I make starts from someone else's recipe. But nearly every recipe I use, I alter...a little more of this, leave out that, substitute those...and sometimes the final product is actually something good enough to merit the words "that's a keeper!"

I live in a small rural town in northwest Nebraska. Access to fresh ingredients is spotty at best (except in the summer when gardens are growing), and access to any "out of the ordinary" ingredients is, well, nonexistent - except for the occasional trip to Rapid City, SD, where I try to stock up on any "out of the ordinary" ingredients I might have occasion to need. My local grocery stores just don't like to think outside the box, so there's a lot I buy either in Rapid City, or online (amazon.com has been a good source for my pantry more than once...).

But even with the limitations I sometimes face re: ingredients, I manage to create some pretty decent dishes in my kitchen. I love my kitchen...it's truly the heart of my home. And this summer it was remodeled from the top to the bottom. Here are before and after collages:

BEFORE

AFTER

I now have a kitchen truly made for cooking, and I fully intend to use it to the max! The "keeper" recipes are what I plan to share on this blog. Hope you enjoy them, little ones!