First "Official" recipe

Woo Hoo hooty hoot hoo!!!  I can say I officially started on my Julia Project today!!!  The journey has truly begun!  It was a simple dish, and one that my husband had Friday night at that quaint little French restaurant where we dined with our traveling abroad friends, Kay and Steve.  The dish was mussels cooked in wine (lots of it), butter, fresh herbs (fresh picked from my garden moments before their bath with the mussels) and shallots.  The mussels were snarfled up in less than 10 minutes by my husband Joe, daughter Jessica and son-in-law Winston.  Lest one forget... I am... picky Vickie... not a fan of mussels, but I watched the others enjoy them, and enjoy them they did!  It was Winston's first mussel experience... he was instantly addicted.  I am quite pleased that my first official recipe was a HUGE success... but honestly they pretty much cook themselves.  All you have to do is measure the ingredients in a big pot, bring to boil, add mussels... cook for 5 minutes covered... occasionally shaking the pan to cook mussels evenly.  Then... VIOLA!  Perfectly cooked mussels in 5 minutes flat!  Sprinkle some fresh chopped parsley (again fresh from my garden) on top and serve with some good bread for sopping up the juices and you look like you cooked all day.  

Tomorrow my plan is to tackle homemade bread.  Sandwich bread!  From scratch!!!  I focus most of my attention on cooking and very little on baking.  I bake the annual Christmas cookies and the occasional pan of brownies or a pavlova in the summer... but other than that, I rarely even think about baking.  But I'm not the least bit intimidated because I bought plenty of flour and yeast and plan of making bread til I get it right.  Once you get it right, it's a breeze!  You just need to know how it is supposed to look and feel.  Feel being a keyword.  I'm so excited for really good sandwich bread, it's been a long time since I have eaten good sandwich bread.  I have no clue what they have done to the standard sandwich loaf, but no matter what brand I buy, the bread has a flat flavor and too firm of a texture... nothing like I remember from my childhood.  I think they have changed either the recipe or technique on how they bake bread today.  Maybe they add more chemicals now to prolong the shelf life more than they did back in the 20th century...  I grew up in the 20th century, and bread was really good back then... as in... I could easily eat an entire loaf in one sitting, just because it tasted good and was soooo soft!  If nothing else... the house sure will smell good tomorrow with all that rising yeast and fresh baked bread!!  

Bread or bust!  Bon Appetit!