I enjoy cooking! Before being put on the disabled list due heart problems, I would enter an annual Chili Cook-off at the Presbyterian Urban Mission. I managed to take away a few awards and to this day have a chili recipe that might be worthy of taking to the International Chili society cook-off to win there. That is a completely different type of competition. I have cooked for my church doing a Bean dinner one year to conclude the stewardship campaign; I have cooked turkeys twice for our annual Thanksgiving Dinner the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I worked with the youth group in the 1990’s to do a fund-raiser for their annual mission trip. We took orders from the congregation for submarine sandwiches to have ready on Super Bowl Sunday. Of course, that was when the Super Bowl was still around the last week of January. The youth actually looked forward to it every year (and so did the congregation). We were selling $5.00 foot-longs long before Subway started. I have cooked for the Men’s’ Breakfast on the Third Saturday of the month, and recently I requested and was given permission to restart the first Sunday Breakfast every month. This is beginning to sound as if it is all about me. Let me clarify that I am but one of many members that love to cook for the church. I do not care which denomination You belong to, having a meal together as a congregation is part of worshiping together as a family. It is also a good way to reach out to the community around the church to bring them into that warm family environment, to share your faith with them. Whenever we would have significant leftovers, we have taken them to one of the shelters in the area.
Enough of the “Why” I like to cook and share with others. Many friends have asked me for my recipes to different dishes and I have always said, “yes I will share them”. I never figured out how the best way to do this until last Sunday, I was being asked for a specific cake recipe and I realized that having started this site as “a daily dose of common sense”, what better way to share with everyone some of my favorite recipes. Let me first state that most of these come from so great sources such as the Chef’s on The Food Network, some passed down in the family and others were done as an experiment to explore the subtle differences in the use of spices to enhance the enjoyment of devouring a good chili or salsa. As is the disclaimer for this site “treat this as a buffet, take what you like, and leave what you do not care for”. As always, I will accept comments as well as any different ideas. So let us begin I will categorize each recipe in the group it belongs. Bon Appétit…