This is my friend LeAnn Rice. She’s an amazing woman, mom, servant leader, friend, and so much more. She’s one of the most beautiful people I know – inside and out! She loves like Jesus in every way. And she’s an incredible cooker!
Cookers are the kind of people who like to cook.
I’m not a cooker. But I grew up in a family of cookers. My mom is a cooker. My dad is a great cooker, and my brothers love to be in the kitchen cooking. My oldest brother is even a trained chef.
When I was growing up, there was no reason or room in the kitchen for me to cook. I did everyone a favor and stayed outside chasing boys and butterflies. Then one day I got married and discovered my husband’s love-language is food.
During our first week home from our honeymoon I tried to tap into my lineage of cookers and whip up a traditional meal I’d grown up eating. I was from New Orleans. Surely I could remember what went into red beans and rice: red beans, rice, sausage, and red wine, right?
I wish you could have been there to taste and smell my creation. However, you might have been carded if you had come for dinner that night. I’m pretty sure my newlywed husband got drunk just walking through the front door of our apartment. I think I poured the whole bottle of wine into my “I will just make it up as I go” red beans and rice.
Needless to say, when I asked JJ if he liked the special meal I cooked for him, he sheepishly told me I didn’t have to cook such fancy things and I wouldn’t need to try making this one again. Bless his Pennsylvania heart, he just wanted meatloaf and potatoes.
I’m still not much of a cooker, but I do love to cook for my peeps. Over the past 17 years, I’ve learned a few thing about cooking. First I learned that recipes are a good idea. And that trying to impress my family with fancy fixings is not. They just want their favorites. Simple is best, and homemade speaks volumes of love.
My friend LeAnn invited me to guest post on her website She Cooks. I didn’t have much to say so I simply shared my homemade chicken noodle soup recipe. It’s yummy, I promise. My son Joshua even wrote about it in a poem for his literature class last year. He said I could show it to you here:
Where I am From
I am from being outside.
I am from friends playing together.
I am from trampolines and wooden forts.
I am from imaginations combining together to create something marvelous.
I am from early Christmas mornings in front of the fire.
I am from Halloween in the back of a pickup.
I am from Easters at Grandmas.
I am from Uncle Bill’s lake on the 4th of July.
I am from red beans and rice while watching Moby Dick with a friend.
I am from eating huge piles of cheese fries from Outback with a former NFL player.
I am from crawfish and crab at Grandpa’s house after catching them.
I am from homemade chicken noodle soup that could be mistaken to be from heaven.
I am from mistakes and successes.
I am from fun times and sad times.
I am from wonderful memories.
I am from a wonderful life.
And it’s not even halfway done.
©2009, Joshua Swope.
Did you see how he mentioned his momma’s chicken noodle soup!? And used the word “heaven” in the same sentence. Now that’s progress for a non-cooker wanna be mom. Yes, he also mentioned red beans and rice. He grew up on Zataran’s, without the wine.
Well friend, I don’t know if you’re a cooker. I just know family and friends love when we cook for them. There’s just something about the smells and feelings that spread through the kitchen when memories are made around the table, across the counter or over the stove. It’s so special that sometimes our cookin’ even gets mentioned in poems written by boys about life and the things they love!
I can’t be much help in the cooking department, so that’s why I want you to meet my friend LeAnn. She’s got all kinds of encouragement and wonderful recipes that will make your mouth water! But before I send you off to her site, be sure to enter to win a copy of her fabulous e-book “Sharing Grace.”
It’s full of memory-making inspiration and wonderful recipes. Just click on the word “comments” below this post and tell me if you are a cooker or not, what your family likes to eat, or memories you’ve made over meals. And if you’ve ever gotten someone drunk or sick with your cookin’, ‘d love to hear all about that!
That’s all you’ve got to do to be entered to win, and be sure to include your email or I won’t be able to tell you. Also, last week’s winner of Jill Beran’s book “Letters from Leanne“ is Anonymous who posted at 11:54pm. Jill will be in touch to get your address.
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What perfect timing to read your blog for the first time! Definitely NOT a cooker!! While I was making dinner tonight (of which the main dish was Kraft macaroni & cheese) I made a mental note that I really need to work on this whole cooking thing! I'm excited to explore LeAnn's website and look forward to making your chicken noodle soup…won't my husband be surprised!!
Hi Renee
Thanks for sharing your red beans and rice story:)
I love to cook and bake…..
My family esp my husband enjoys my cooking.. (the kids at 6, 5 and 4 like some things and not others)
But the faves here are: my lasagna, poppyseed chicken , my creamy cooker chicken (crockpot)…etc…. my hubby likes anything in the crockpot….
But when it comes to baking.. I love to bake but mixes are my best friend and I add to them to make them semi homeade:)
Would love try some of LeAnns recipes.. introduce us all to new things.
Chrissy
I am a wanna be cooker! I can feed my family. Thats about it. I follow She Cooks too and love, love, love LeAnn. Have made some of her recipes and they are fantastic. Would love to have her book! Thanks for the chance to win.
Kim
I am a cooker, baker and tryer of new recipes. It has taken a long time to get here but I really enjoy it now. Thanks for a great post on a Friday!
My hubby cooked for the first few months of our marriage as my only specialty in the kitchen was hotdogs:) Even toasted cheese sandwiches were/are a challenge. They brown perfectly on one side .. and then I'll get distracted 🙁 Our two sons knew that when the smoke detector went off, lunch was ready !
Love your blogs, Renee!
Sharon
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I was a cooker when raising my daughters. I'm not as much a cooker now that they are married with families of their own and I am on my own.
I consider myself a cooker. Don't cook as much as I use too, since the kids are out on there own. I like to think of spaghetti with homemade sauce that has cooked a couple of hours as my speciality.
One time several years ago, my father was visiting when I fixed spaghetti. A fly was bothering all of us. When all of a sudden the fly landed in my husbands sauce and died. My dad moved his plate away and said he wasn't sure he wanted to eat his spaghetti now or not. We had a big laugh over it.
I am most certainly NOT a cooker. I cook because I don't want my children to starve. When I met my husband of almost five years, my seven year old daughter and I (single mom) "survived" (if you can call it that) on Ramen Noodles & take out. Pitiful. After a few crash course lessons in cooking the essentials, I developed a small handful of low-maintenance, on the table in thirty minutes dishes which I love to share with my friends. I've always wanted to love to cook, but coming up with three meals a day, and having them not be the SAME three meals a day makes my head hurt. Too much prep time and cooking terms that I don't understand, also make my head hurt.
I love reading your blog, and anxiously check for a new post to read, every day. 🙂
I love cooking. I HATE cleaning up after it!! LOL
It is so much fun to take all the indvidual ingredeants that aren't much and put them together in such a way that they become something wonderful. Then to see everyone enjoy the meal you have made just makes it that much more satisfying!
I recently found LeAnn's blog and LOVE it. I've got several of her recipies on the menu for the next couple weeks.
I'm a cooker and I love to please my family cooking a dish that they really enjoy.
My mom and grandmother were more of the good ole southern wives in the kitchen. They made things from scratch with a little of this and just a bit more of that until it "felt right". I really was concerned that I might never become the wife who could fix such meals for her family.
My husband really helped to get my own personal cooking adventures off to a "spicy" start when he purchased me a 36 bottle spice rack. I had no idea how to use all of those spices, and so began my recipe hunt and the hobby of collecting great cookbooks.
Thus, some 28 years later I've perfected many of my families favorites including homemade spaghetti sauce and lasagna or homemade vegetable soup (using many now familiar spices in each dish).
Through the years I've also developed of few of my own "scratch" dishes that I know just feel or look right in my hands. But, it still pleases me the most when I make a dish, (whether from a great recipe or a box) and I get that smile from the family that tells me I made one of their favorites.
Thanks for your ministry! It is absolutely a blessing!!
Bridget
I am a cooker. There is nothing more satisfying for me than creating memories and sharing love through food. Sometimes that love is through a creative spaghetti squash and sometimes with sweet baked goods. Sometimes it's slow-cooked in the crock pot and other times it's flash cooked int he microwave. Always with a secret ingredient. Always made with love.
I am a cooker and there have been many times that we haven't liked what I cooked, but I don't think that I have made anyone sick – yet! lol
I am stuck somewhere in the middle. I so badly crave to be a cooker! I toss things together and they come out okay but my family is bored with my plain ol' suppers. With money being tight for everyone we know and my husband having to work a few hours away, I decided to prepare all of his and our meals for a week all in one evening. This saves us both time and really helps stretch our budget. So once a week after work I spend 4-6 hours in the kitchen making enough food to last all of our family a week and pack up half of it for him to take in his ice chest. I love that even though I can't be there for him each morning, he still gets a warm home cooked meal or two every day. It is my way of smiling and saying I love and appreciate you even when you are not at home.
As far as repeat request, they love my mashed potatoes, meatloaf, chicken fried stead, chicken salad, pasta salad, and lasagna.
I am not a bad cook. Although my son told me last week that he likes restaurant food better than my food. I love to cook and I try really hard to make great things for my family. Meals are a big deal to us, not just a means to an end. It is a social relaxing time that I look forward to each day!
I am not a cooker. But, I am a cooker wanna-be. I dream of being a good cook. But, with LeAnn and your good recipes, I can get crackin with no excuses. I would so love to give my husband and son some good surprises from our kitchen and show my love in such a warm way. Thanks for the good chicken soup recipe to get started, and I love LeAnn's website.
Donna
I like to think of myself as a cooker. I love recipes and could never do very much of a pinch of this or a whatever another one of those measurements would be. I like cups and teaspoons and such.
In a high school French class we had a French potluck, and I brought peaches flambe with full intent to flambe it at school to the mouth-watering delight of my classmates. (That's how I pictured it anyways.)
The school would not let me flambe my dessert even though I told them how much alcohol was in there due to fire codes or whatever. I was willing to light it up outside, but I was not able to convince them.
My friends did enjoy the dessert even though it did have all that alcohol that would have burned off. It was high school, and alcohol was a good thing then.
I should try that dessert again. I always wanted to see the flames shoot out and then to taste the real flavor and the crepes and the peaches.
I love your story about the red beans and rice! I am a cooker, but didn't start out that way. I've morphed into one over the past couple of years. We love spaghetti in our house! 🙂
Hello Renee. I love to cook. To me it's relaxing if you can imagine cooking for 6-10 kids on any given moment but it is because I can pour the love out of my heart right into their food. They think I'm doing it for them but I'm the one who gets the greatest blessings out of making great things for them to eat. And I do mean great. In fact I make the best macaroni and cheese with hotdogs this side of the Mississippi! 🙂
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RENEE!!! You said the sweetest things about me. I was all choked up and teary… then I started reading the comments. Now I'm rolling on the floor laughing. I just love a little emotional roller coaster when I'm already hormonal! Hah 🙂
Love you and your awesome peeps! They are so much fun!
Hugs,
LeAnn
I am most definitely a cooker… I'll try any recipe once. I love this Chicken Noodle soup recipe. Gonna have to do that one. The best part of it for me is using the store bought rotisserie chicken. For mom's who work, that is heaven-sent!! 🙂
My kids love my spaghetti, and the usual chili, casseroles, etc. But, their favorite thing for me to make above all is potato latkes. They love to hear the food processor going and see me get out the taters and onions. They know those fried potato cakes are coming!!
I'm an avid recipe collector, so keep them coming!!