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Vegetable Beef Soup

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I was scrolling through my blog last night, looking for a recipe, and ran across this post from 9 years ago. Wow! NINE years. I think I was blogging before blogging was cool. And then I kept blogging when blogging wasn’t cool. Now, I’m just waiting for it to come back in style again. It was funny because we just had homemade vegetable beef soup and homemade bread the night before, for dinner. It’s still a classic.

Here’s the post!

It’s the perfect Fall meal. There’s nothing better than homemade soup, and vegetable beef is a family favorite at our house.

 

I’m always a little surprised when my kids gobble up their soup. Look at all of these veggies!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t use a specific recipe when I make this soup. I just start chopping up a few veggies. My kids like carrots, beans, and potatoes, so I put a little more of those in the crockpot. They don’t like celery as much, so I only use about 2 stalks. Once all of the veggies are chopped, I add water and beef bouillon. I add as much as I need to fill up the crockpot. Then it cooks all day.

Sometime during the day I cook up a little stew meat and throw that into the pot too. Finally, about 30 minutes before dinner time, I add about a cup of barley.

 

 

 

 

 

 
Add a loaf of homemade bread and this is the perfect meal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Fall!

Farmhouse At Heart

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You guys, I recently fell in love with a magazine. It’s called The Farmhouse Movement. I stumbled across it online and I felt like it was written for people just like me. I don’t live in a farmhouse and I don’t live on a farm. I don’t have a barn or chickens, but I love everything about farmhouse life and I’m trying to implement many aspects of the farmhouse life into my own little suburban world.

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I’m going to share a few things this magazine says on the very first page of every issue:

*We believe there is a movement happening in our generation.

*We believe it is the epitome of days gone by.

*We believe that this back-to-our-roots movement embodies families moving toward sustainable options.

*Whether we live in a big city or a wide-open prairie, we are embracing natural products, mindfully made things, and the renaissance of lost arts and skills.

*We believe that our culture is coming full circle.

*We desire a more authentic lifestyle, similar to those lived out in the households of quieter times – where family values prevailed; ingredients were simple; mason jars, quilts, and shiplap were commonplace; neighbors were friends; and time well spent trumped task lists.

Friends, this is me. I swear they were inside my head when they wrote this. Do you believe these things too?

I subscribed to the magazine as fast as I could and even bought a few back issues. Picture a kid waiting by the mail box when grandma says she sent you a card with birthday money inside. That was me. I was checking the mail all the time. I could hardly wait to get my magazines. When they arrived, I poured through them and they did not disappoint. I saved every single one in a cute little wooden box in my family room. I usually don’t save magazines, but these felt more like books. Then, I got the letter in the mail. The letter that said, “Sorry, we will no longer be producing The Farmhouse Movement magazine.” Nooooooo!!!!!! I had just found my people and it was already over! They do have a website and the letter said that new things were in the works. I will anxiously await their next bit of work.

Then I ran across a new magazine. Farmhouse At Heart has many of the same ideas as the Farmhouse Movement. It talks about the sweet joys of homesteading, back-to-basics gardening, cooking, and crafting. All of these things are right up my alley. It’s part of a bigger company of magazines, which is ok. I really liked The Farmhouse Movement, knowing I was supporting a small business.

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So, I picked up Farmhouse At Heart and I was thoroughly pleased. It’s one of those magazines that comes out once in a while, but you can’t subscribe to it. That makes it much harder to get my hands on, but I’ll do my best.

To be honest, the farmhouse dream for me includes an actual farmhouse, room for animals (chickens, dogs, and bunnies), and enough space to have a large garden. My current garden is quite small and its sunlight is blocked by the neighbor’s large trees. Herbs and lettuce are my best bets in my garden space right now.

I think, with our current state of affairs (#pandemic2020), people are finding that they really are capable of doing things the good-old-fashioned way. Flour has been sold out for months at the grocery store. I haven’t been able to find yeast at all and finally had to do a bulk order and split it with a few neighbors. That tells me that people are baking again. Garden centers are still open because they sell vegetable starts and they are considered essential. They have lines wrapped around buildings to get inside. The local butcher is not taking large orders. They are limiting the amount of meat each customer is allowed to buy because they are selling out. Families are learning how to make their own cleaning products because the cleaning aisle at the grocery store is empty. We are sort of being forced to ask our grandparents how to do things (or just google it). Honestly, living through this pandemic is tough, but it makes me so happy to see families spending time together, bread being baked, and seeds being planted. We are getting back to the basics and I’m ok with that.

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Happy homemaking!

 

Bee’s Wrap Sustainable Food Storage

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It’s been forever since I’ve shared a kitchen product I love, but it’s also been forever since I’ve found something new that I’m in love with.  Today, I’m sharing Bee’s Wrap Sustainable Food Storage.  I’m an Amazon affiliate, so I do get a little kickback if you decided to purchase Bee’s Wrap using my links. If you want to skip my background story and get to my info about the Bee’s Wrap, you’ll want to scroll down a bit.  I have a story to tell about how I found the Bee’s Wrap first.

As most of you know, I had a stroke 2 months ago.  The stroke was centered in the Cerebellar region, which controls balance and motor function.  I look fine, when I’m walking (most of the time), but I have a dizzy feeling in my head and sometimes sway, find myself off balance, or take a little tumble.  Grocery stores are the WORST!  Turning my head as I walk causes all sorts of problems like extreme dizziness and nausea, and you’re constantly turning your head to look for the items you need when you are in the aisles.

(Side story… words are really hard since my stroke and aisles took forever to figure out.  Isles? Ailes? I finally asked my husband.  Aisles isn’t normally a word that would have challenged my brain.)

Back to the story. My physical therapist gave me some homework.  She said to walk down the mall on a day when it’s not too busy.  Walk, looking straight ahead, and once in a while go ahead and glance into a store.  She thought that would be a good step toward being able to do the grocery store more than 5 minutes.  It started out ok.  I started with the outdoor portion of the mall because outdoors are always better for me.  Unfortunately, there was stamped concrete and the business was too much for my brain.  I sat down in a little chair because I was starting to feel like I was going to fall over and… HEY, there’s Williams Sonoma.  It sucked me in, Friends.  I started to look for some gifts I needed and spotted the Bees Wrap on the sale rack. I have to tell you, I have been looking for Bee’s Wrap for about 2 years. I saw it in a magazine.  I have put it on my Christmas list many times, but no one can ever find it.  So, when I saw the Bee’s Wrap sitting there, I had to buy it.

I bake a lot of bread, so the Bee’s Wrap bread wrap was the way to go.

Bee's Wrap Sustainable Food Storage

Saving the environment, one Bee’s Wrap at a time!

(Another side story: Going to the mall as my physical therapy assignment didn’t work out so well for me.  I wound up with the headache to end all headaches, which put me back at the walk-in-clinic to get help with the pain.  There are very few things I can take for pain, so they tried a shot.  No luck.  They finally found some meds that worked, but sheesh!!! One little trip to the mall and they were just about ready to send me back to the ER for another MRI and and IV to administer pain meds.  I’m thinking it’s because I didn’t follow the rules.  I went into two stores and looked around.  On the plus side, I found Bee’s Wrap and got a cute new shirt. I know, I know, next time I’ll follow the rules.  “Strokes are nothing to mess with.  Your brain takes time to heal.  Rest is important.  Always stop the activity when you begin feeling too dizzy or nauseated to continue.”  Those are the doctor’s words.)

My son, who doesn’t really care much about kitchen related purchases, commented on how fresh the two day old banana bread tasted.  I was just happy that the bread wasn’t wrapped in plastic wrap. To wash and reuse the Bee’s Wrap, the directions say to wash with cold water and a little dish soap, hang to dry, fold to store, and reuse for about 1 year.  Friends, I’m saving the planet one Bee’s Wrap at a time.  I know you want to do the same!

Happy Bee’s Wrapping!

Favorite Hobbies

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There was a time, when my kids were very young, when I put aside absolutely everything I enjoyed doing in my free time.  “Free time” was the craziest phrase I could imagine.  There weren’t enough hours in the day to work full time, feed my family, keep a fairly clean house, bake cookies, and still have enough time to do something for myself.

Now that my kids are older (my son turns 17 tomorrow and my daughter is 13), I’ve taken back a little time for myself.  They are off doing their own things, spending LOTS of time at sports practices, plenty of time chilling in their rooms, and a good chunk of time doing homework.  Sadly, when they have spare time they don’t usually say, “Hey, mom, do you want to play a board game?”  Nope, those days are gone.

So, how do I spend my time?  I really love to cook.  I enjoy looking through cookbooks, Pinterest, and blogs to find new recipes.  If I can cook with ingredients grown in my own garden, this makes me even happier.  As much as I love to cook, I must confess something.  There are days when I ask myself, “WHY, oh why, do my children want to eat 3 times a day EVERY single day?”  I try not to use too much processed food as I’m cooking, so that makes things a bit time consuming, but I have a hard time keeping every meal on the healthy side.  I really love cheese, and cooking with butter and cream just makes things taste better.  It’s a work in progress to find healthy meal options, but I’m trying. (If I don’t try hard enough, my naturopath gently reminds me at every appointment.)
chicken basil and sundried tomato pasta

I’ve always loved to bake.  Cookies and bread tend to be my favorites.  Lately, I’ve tried to change things up and try whole wheat breads or flourless cookies.  When my kids were younger, we’d have Cookie Friday.  Our district dismisses early each Friday and I’d always have cookies ready for the kids when they got home from school.  There would usually be a handful of friends and neighbors and sometimes a cousin or two.  Those were the good old days.  Now the kids just hurry home so they can take naps.  Ah, teenagers.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sometimes (most times) I really wish I lived in a sunnier location so I could happily enjoy my garden day in and day out.  To say that I love to be outside is an understatement.

Most of my edible garden space consists of herbs and veggies that don’t require full sun.  My neighbor’s trees have grown so tall that they shade my veggie garden.  I’m barely able to produce tomatoes any more, so I’ve just given up on things that needs tons of sun.

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My basil and mini tomatoes have been moved to a plant stand on the deck.  The deck gets a good amount of afternoon sunshine and the heat reflects from the house onto the plants. Basil is probably my favorite thing to grow and we eat a lot of pesto in the summer time.

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I have my fair share of perennials in the center of my yard.  I love that I don’t have to replant them every year.  Every few years, I get to divide them.  Score!  Free plants!

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The best part about gardening is the end of the day.  I love the “golden hour” in my yard.  After spending the day getting my hands dirty, I absolutely love putting my feet up and enjoying the view.  I do miss the days of the kids playing on the swingset or jumping on the trampoline, but there is also something incredibly relaxing about the quiet of the backyard.

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Sewing and quilting are my winter hobbies.  When I can’t spend time outside because of the relentless rain, my sewing room is my happy place.

My mom taught me to sew when I was about 7 years old and I insisted that both of my kids learn to sew.  I make all of my own home decor items.  I love making curtains, valances, pillows, and quilts.  I love the personal touch handmade items have on a home.  I’ve even been designing my own quilt patterns with a quilting program for the computer.

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I’ve had to start changing pillows and quilts out seasonally because I’m running out of space. I’ve started putting zippers into my pillow covers so they are each to wash and change out frequently.

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This was one of my favorite projects.  When my daughter was younger she picked out a fabric line that she thought was pretty.  I bought the fabrics and she chose a pattern that she liked.  We painted her room a color that coordinated and her new room was born.

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I love looking through blogs and seeing cohesive quilts that all have the same feel, but I can’t seem to stick with one theme.  I love vintage/scrappy, French General, warm and cozy, and also whatever is new and trendy.  As much as I like the cohesion, I also like to try new things when it comes to quilting.

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I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to photography.  I love trying new things with my camera.  My favorite subjects are my own kids and my YoungLife kids.  My YL kids are Juniors in high school and I feel so lucky that they’ve allowed me to follow them around with a camera on my neck, capturing memories of Summer camp and school dances.

Of course, these two have my whole heart and they know to always pack “picture clothes” every time we go to the farm or the beach.

 

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Christmas Card 2017

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How about you, friends?  What’s your hobby?

I’m sharing a few of my favorite photography items that are sold through Amazon.  I’m part of the Amazon Affiliates program and if you choose to purchase through Amazon, I get a teensy-tiny portion of the sale.

 

Vegetable Beef Soup Recipe

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Let’s be honest.  There’s really no such thing as a pretty bowl of vegetable beef soup.  It just looks like mushy brown soup with over cooked vegetables.  But, I can’t even tell you how much my family loves vegetable beef soup.  I have been sick, non-stop, since Thanksgiving.  Please don’t feel sorry for me.  This is the story of my life.  I get every illness that walks into my kindergarten classroom and it’s been that way for my 22 years of teaching.  It’s just the way things go.  This vegetable beef soup recipe is my go-to when I need a little pick-me-up and feel like I need to eat ALL of the vegetables NOW.

My kids aren’t horribly picky eaters.  My son will eat anything you put in front of him.  My daughter usually tries new things but then falls back on chicken nuggets.  But, vegetable beef soup is the one thing they will gobble up and go back for seconds.  They LOVE this stuff!  Enjoy!

Vegetable Beef Soup
Print Recipe
Vegetable Beef Soup
Print Recipe
Ingredients
Servings:
Instructions
  1. Heat the olive oil in the pan. Brown the beef and then add garlic and onion. Cook until onions are softened. Add the diced, celery, carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes. Add the bag of frozen green beans and beef stock. Let simmer for several hours. Add barley at the end of cooking and cook according to package directions. The brand I use says to add the barley during the last hour of cooking.
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Chicken with Creamy Basil Sundried-Tomato Sauce

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I saw a yummy looking recipe floating around on Facebook recently and wanted to give it a try.  Like most of my cooking, I didn’t stick to the recipe and changed things up a bit to put my own twist on it.

chicken basil and sundried tomato pasta

My kids said they like my thick and creamy Alfredo sauce better, but my hubby liked this recipe because it was lighter than an Alfredo, but still had a bit of creamy texture to it.  This was one of my favorite recipes I’ve made in a long time.  I’m a big fan of basil and sundried tomatoes, and love using ingredients from my garden, so this one made me happy.

 

Chicken with Creamy Basil Sundried-Tomato Sauce
Print Recipe
A light creamy sauce, fresh basil, and sundried tomatoes gives this sauce a Tuscan flair. Serve over noodles for a complete meal.
Servings Prep Time
4-6 people 10 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Servings Prep Time
4-6 people 10 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Chicken with Creamy Basil Sundried-Tomato Sauce
Print Recipe
A light creamy sauce, fresh basil, and sundried tomatoes gives this sauce a Tuscan flair. Serve over noodles for a complete meal.
Servings Prep Time
4-6 people 10 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Servings Prep Time
4-6 people 10 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Ingredients
Servings: people
Instructions
  1. In a large skillet, heat olive oil and cook the chicken until brown on each side and no pink in the middle. Remove the chicken to a plate.
  2. Add heavy cream, chicken broth, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and Parmesan cheese. Stir and heat until it starts to thicken.
  3. Add the spinach, basil, and sundried tomatoes. Then, add the chicken back to the pan.
  4. Serve over pasta.
Recipe Notes

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My New Favorite Food – Homemade Guacamole

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If you know me well, you know I’m a very picky eater.  Over the past several years I’ve been trying new things, mainly things that I cook and have complete control over.  Guacamole is something I NEVER thought I would enjoy, but lately I’ve been addicted.

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Smooshy green food has never sounded appealing to me, but when we were on vacation with another family, over Spring Break, they ordered some guacamole that looked very fresh.  I tried it – just a little, and I was surprised at how much I liked it!

Who knew?  Me. Liking smooshy green food.

After returning home, I decided to try to replicate that yummy guacamole that we had in Palm Springs.  I have made this once a week for the past 2 months and last time my daughter said, “Really? Again? I think you’re addicted.”

 

So, here it is… my recipe for homemade guacamole.

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Ingredients:

1 Large avocado

1 TBSP chopped cilantro

1/2 TBSP chopped red onion

1 TBSP diced tomato

1 tsp freshly squeezed lime juice

salt to taste

Directions:

Peel and chop 1 large avocado.  Use a potato masher to smoosh (technical term) the avocado to desired consistency.  (I like mine a bit chunkier.)  Add cilantro, onion, tomato, lime juice, and salt.  Stir gently. Serve with tortilla chips.

 

Easy peasy!  Happy chopping!

 

Super Fast White Chicken Chili

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I’m not sure why, but I’m noticing that I haven’t been cooking as much lately.  It’s not that I haven’t been feeding my family, because I have.  Our meals have been very rushed and crazy lately.  I’ve been throwing French Dips together or making a Panini out of the leftover lunch meat.  I haven’t actually been cooking over the stove or chopping vegetables for a new dish I’m trying out.  It could have something to do with the fact that my entire pantry collapsed and the contents are now sitting on my dining room table.  But, I’m chalking it up to just being really busy right now.

Last night I decided that I needed to make something really yummy.  My mom had made a bunch of chicken in the crock pot for me, while she was staying with my kids this weekend.  I used the chicken for tacos and had a lot of left over, so I decided that I’d make the white chicken chili that my family loves so much.  I wrote a blog post last year about the SUPER fast way to make this dish, so I thought I should repost the recipe.

Here’s what I did:

I started by cooking a pound of chicken breast in the crockpot.

In a pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter.
Add 1/2 small diced onion, cook for 3 minutes
Add 1 clove of minced garlic, cook for 1 more minute
Add 1/2 cup flour and mix
Slowly add 1 cup of half and half and 1 cup of milk
Add 8 oz of light cream cheese
Add 1 1/2 cups of Monterey Jack Cheese, shredded
This mixture makes kind of a mac and cheese type sauce.
Slowly pour in 3-6 cups of chicken stock (depending on how thick you like your chili)
Add 1 can of diced tomatoes, drained and rinsed
(or chop your own)
2 cups of frozen corn
1 can of white beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 tsp chili powder or a little bit of taco seasoning
1 tsp salt
dash of pepper

It made a thick, yummy, cheesy, chicken chili that everyone loved.

My hubby says this recipe needs to go in our regular rotation. The kids both loved it too!  My son had a second bowl after we got home from the Young Life corn maze at 9:45pm.  This morning I found him heating another bowl and putting it into a thermos to take for lunch.  I guess that kid really loves this chili!!

By the way, those little tortilla strips on top were just cut and tossed with olive oil and a bit of taco seasoning.  Then I baked them for about 5 minutes to crisp them up.  They were a perfect little topping for the chili.

Happy cooking!

Nap-Time Creations
Dolen Diaries

Time To Make Pesto!

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My garden is overflowing with basil this year.  We have had a warm and dry summer, with very little rain, and my basil plants were VERY happy with those conditions.  Last year I waited too long to use the last of my basil and the frost got to it first.  This year, I made better choices.  I chopped that basil down and brought it inside for some pesto-yumminess.  This is from just one plant.
Oh, the smell!  I made all of the teenage boys, who were at my house watching football, smell the basil and appreciate the home grown goodness.  (They are good kids and happily smelled the basil and pretended to care that I was going to make pesto.)
Sometimes, when I make pesto, I just throw in a little of this and a little of that.  This time, I actually measured.  Here’s what I did.
I put the following ingredients into the food processor:
2 cups packed basil
4 small cloves of garlic
3/4 cup of pine nuts
3/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 teaspoon natural sea salt
After a few second in the food processor, it’s all done!
I was able to make several batches with the basil from my garden, so I put some in mini jars and put them in the freezer.  I was really wishing that I had ice cube trays because I think that would have worked out better for freezing.  Oh well, maybe next year.  
***Here’s a little tip.  Pine nuts are not cheap. If you are making lots of pesto, buy the big bag from Costco.***
I made those teenage boys some sandwiches with my (borrowed) panani press (thank you Leslie).  The sandwiches had sourdough bread, homemade pesto, turkey, provolone cheese, and sundried tomatoes.  They enjoyed the sandwiches and told me the pesto was really good… I told you they were good kids!
Happy pesto making!

Early Summer Dinner Group – How to Host a Dinner Party Without Cooking Ahead

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Every few months I share photos from my dinner group and tell you all about how much fun we have.  For those of you who are new to my blog, here’s how it works.  Every few months (we shoot for once a month) the hostess chooses four recipes that she has never tried before.  She purchases the ingredients for those recipes and sets up four cooking stations in her kitchen.  When the guests arrive, we each choose a recipe that we are interested in making and start cooking.  When you are at your own house, in your own kitchen, cooking alone, it can sometimes seem like a chore.  But, when you are cooking with friends, it is so much more fun!

This time, we had Dinner Group at my friend Dawn’s house.  She has a beautiful backyard and the weather was sunny and warm.  We ate outside, after dinner was done.
(I usually bring my fancy camera, but I forgot this time.  It was a good chance to try out the quality of the iphone 6 camera.  I think the color/white balance was slightly off, but overall it took nice photos. Gotta love technology that you can take with you!)
I’m not a drinker, but we usually have some sort of cocktail along with dinner.  This one was called a Hula Girl.  I stuck with water, but this smelled really yummy!

Ooh, check out the bokeh (background blur) with my iphone picture.  Not bad, Apple!

We had salad, pasta, drinks, and dessert.  The pasta had chicken, tomato, spinach, and cheese.  You can’t go wrong with that combination!

The salad was very interesting because it was a combination I would never have thought about putting together.  It had fruit, spinach, and quinoa.  It was really tasty and I was surprised that I liked it!

The recipe I made was the cheesecake puffs for dessert.  Um, I think you can tell just by looking that these were SUPER tasty.  It was a puffed pastry, stuffed with cream cheese filling and strawberries, topped with powdered sugar, chocolate, and almonds.  I could live on these!

I think I say this every time I post about my dinner group, but I will say it again.  This is really the perfect dinner party!  You don’t have to do any cooking ahead of time and it’s just a great way to spend quality time with friends.  I also love the fact that it gets me trying new foods, that I know I wouldn’t try on my own, and trying new recipes too!  
Happy cooking!