Happy 4th July to all the Americans out there!  I decided to embrace the fact that we now live in the US and went all out with what we considered to be stereotypical American food.  Lots of cooking, lots of eating, but it was worth every minute of it!

I actually had the Friday off in lieu of the 4th this year, so it was a long weekend, which was very greatly appreciated – I’ve been working some long hours recently, even a couple of night shifts, so I enjoyed the time the day off gave me to spend on my favorite hobby – cooking!

Chicken fried steak and gravy – When Grant and I drove along Route 66 a few years ago, we had some chicken fried steak that was absolutely smothered with gravy and it wasn’t all that nice.  And when I tried to make it a few weeks ago, the cut of beef I had, and the gravy, just wasn’t right.  We’d seen that you could have chicken fried chicken steak as well, so I thought I’d give it one more try.  And it was awesome.  With Glutino gluten-free bread crumbs, potato flour and an egg helping with the batter on the chicken, with the gravy made from shortening, potato flour, coconut milk and a packet mix of gravy powder, all the family enjoyed it.  Add in the stereotypical veggies of mashed potatoes, sweet corn and green beans, and this was an All-American meal!

Pecan Pie – The last time I made pecan pie was a bit of a disaster – the pastry wasn’t thin enough and the filling was basically soup.  I have been hanging out to make pecan pie again for ages, so used this as an excuse.  I also had some corn syrup from the Anzac Biscuit challenge (see here) that I’ve been wanting to use up (any ideas for any other recipes that uses corn syrup?).  And this worked really well.  With my neverfail ugly crust recipe (see here) and a recipe from the cafe that brought me the ugly crust recipe, it was good.  It was more than good, it was great!  I’ll post the recipe for pecan pie shortly so you can all share the love!

So that was Friday’s meals.  But there’s more … 

Gluten-free Angel Food Cake – this one Abby actually made pretty much all by herself.  We found a packet mix for gluten-free Angel Food Cake and have been waiting for an opportunity to try it.  I was procrastinating because it called for 12, that’s right, 12 egg whites.  And what would I do with 12 egg yolks?  Considering my recent successes (read failures) with trying to make custard from scratch … anyway, Independence Day was a good excuse for biting the bullet and making the cake.  With whipped cream (non-dairy for me), strawberries and blueberries, it was a great red, white and blue success.  We made this on Friday and it was supposed to be for lunch on Saturday, but we decided to try it on Friday night … and ate most of it over the course of the evening!

4th of July – INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Sloppy Joes – OK, so we could have done a burger, but we had burgers last weekend for the FISH meal (using this recipe here) and I wanted to try sloppy joes again.  I found a recipe on the Food Network from The Pioneer Woman that I adapted, used turkey instead of beef and it was an instant success with the family.  So much that Henry wants it for his birthday lunch this year!  So, ground turkey, a few spices such as chili powder, onion, garlic, mustard, tomato sauce and Worcestershire sauce and it was great.  I had it over a salad, but the rest of the family had their hamburger buns toasted to perfection (thanks Grant) and I served them with some veggies, couldn’t help myself!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream Pie – OK, this was a late addition to the menu for the weekend, but how could we have All-American food and not have the delightful combination of chocolate and peanut butter?  And this also used up 3 of the egg yolks from the Angel Food Cake which was the real reason (cough) that I made this.  The cream filling was the normal one I use (recipe here) but the rest of it was pretty much made up.  I made the crust from some peanut butter mystery cookies (recipe here) and added a peanut butter swirl on top.  Grant said it was the BEST chocolate peanut butter pie I’ve ever made, which is pretty good praise coming from him!

We were going to have pizza for Sunday lunch and hot dogs for Sunday dinner, but plans kind of changed when we ended up going out to a BBQ place for a friend’s farewell lunch and then we didn’t feel like cooking anything for dinner so we just had leftovers.  But, all in all, I think it was a successful All-American food weekend!

Hope you enjoyed reading about the adventures in the kitchen – remember you can subscribe to get the latest recipes, and tell your friends, family, enemies about this website and the awesome recipes on it!  And you can also follow me on Twitter (@sarahcookathome)

Until next time, enjoy cooking at home!

Sarah