Jacky Hackett: Cooking, eating, reading, riding my bike that goes nowhere — living my best porch life.
We are heading out of town for Thanksgiving so we celebrated an early Thanksgiving with my family, Fauxgiving. It was a great celebration, well minus the fact my dad got stuck in the hospital awaiting the removal of his gallbladder. Delicious food, fun stories, all around good cheer. It is always a good time to…
This blog all started with me posting during the Halloween party preparations. Here we are again! This past weekend we had our Halloween party, 10th year running. There were a ton of fun costumes, great food, lots of friends. Most importantly, no rain. Mother nature is clearly a fan, we have had favorable weather all…
Thinking ahead to holidays I got some apples from the farmer’s market and used my weekend in the kitchen to get a jump start on pie making. I am not a huge baker, the necessary precision is my down fall, so any help to make it easier is welcome. Especially this year since we will…
My favorite use on all the green tomatoes I got from my garden at the end of the season is this Green Tomato Jam With Ginger. Ginger is one of my favorite flavors and it works perfect with the green tomatoes. The only change I made to the recipe was to add in fresh ground…
While the husband was in East Lansing celebrate the big win I spent the weekend in the kitchen. Like all weekend. Totally by choice though, I was really looking forward to it. I wanted to get some of the end of the season goods canned and ready to enjoy come winter. As planned I…
Chili weather is officially upon us in Chicago! Next weekend is the big chili cook-off at our Blocktoberfest. I haven’t decided what I am going to enter, but I do have it narrowed down to three options. Better figured it out soon! Here is the recipe I made last year that won me a delicious…
Lots of fall vegetables on-hand from the farmer. I transformed them into roasted vegetables. Easy peasy! Roasted Vegetables carrots winter squash new potatoes sweet potatoes beets brussels sprouts fennel Cut vegetables of choice in a similar size dice. Toss in olive oil and salt to coat. Roast 40 minutes at 400 degrees. On a cold…
I LOVE fall, and everything that comes with it. Sunny chilly days, changing leaves, crisp apples, Halloween, football, comfort foods, our fall black party. A chili contest has become something of a tradition at our block party and this year is no exception. I am on the hunt for a good chili recipe to enter. …
Sunday, I picked all the leeks from the garden. Made this Potato Leek Soup with Poblanos and Crispy Bacon. For the kids, I skipped the poblano and added some shredded chicken. Made for a delicious dinner, very creamy and filing. Which is good thing since I made a triple batch for freezing. Submitted to Life…
A friend raved about this recipe on Facebook a few weeks back, not sure how I overlooked when it was posted on Simply Recipes (a favorite blog with great recipes). At first glance I have to stay it did not sound too good to me. I decided to give it a try anyway since a friend…