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Newly single, it was a Valentine's Day that fell on a Saturday. I met up with a couple of girl friends and we picked a favorite place to go for dinner. I had not anticipated that every table would be taken by romantic couples, besides this being their busiest night of the year. We waited what seemed like forever for our food - I am sure it was an hour before the waitress took our order. Another reminder Valentine's Day is a good day to eat at home.

Our church sold sub sandwiches on Super Bowl Sunday, and that went over very well. This should be easy to do at your office. I think people really enjoy cold cut sandwiches, especially when they can pick their own toppings.

Green Eggs and Ham - loved reading Dr. Suess to my kids.

I think some of the days are invented by Hallmark, like Grandparent's Day and Boss's Day. My kids and I celebrated Junk Food Day (usually Super Bowl Sunday).

I have been cooking for over 50 years, but never heard of the term mise en place until I started reading this blog. I had to learn the hard way. For example, when making stir fry I would think I could peel the onions while the carrots were cooking. So wrong. Good advice to get everything peeled, chopped, and measured before turning on the heat. For big meals like Thanksgiving, I will write a timeline. Works great, especially when you have helpers in the kitchen and all can refer to the list of things to do. Be easy on your self and know it all comes together with practice. Another rule of thumb is not to try a new dish for company or a special occasion. I still break this rule, but it is a good idea to give a new dish a trial run.

I love a little raw garlic rubbed on toast for bruschetta. Other than that, I prefer it cooked. I used to put raw garlic in my salsa, but discovered I like my salsa better without the chopped raw garlic. I recently read a recipe for Garlic Soup, which used cloves of roasted garlic and cloves of raw garlic so you got the flavors of both.

Lots of good advice in the comments above. For a helpful tutorial, go to ThePioneerWoman.com and browse her cooking blog for steak recipes. Lots of helpful pictures to help you judge doneness without a thermometer. The key is to get the best well marbled steak you can afford, even if you have to share the steak. ThePioneerWoman has a great method for Steak Bites using a good piece of sirloin steak cute into bite size pieces and cooked very quickly in butter in a regular fry pan. So good!http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/01/steak-bites/

Take out your anger and frustration by pounding the steaks thin with a tenderizing meat mallet. Slice into thin strips, get thee an onion, and make Marlboro Man's favorite sandwich. There is a of butter in this recipe, but compensated by no mayo or cheese.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/marlboro_mans_f/

I love my aunt's spaghetti sauce, which starts with pork and whole tomatoes. Cookedall day until the tomatoes and pork become one. In the summer I do exactly as @Ken G says, which is even better if I can freeze a portion or two of the sauce for winter. I will also use @Ken G's method when tomatoes aren't in season, subbing a can of tomatoes and dried basil.(See recent talk thread on the best brand of canned tomatoes.) The butter/tomato/onion sauce found on quite a few blogs is also good. I also love using a cream sauce on pasta. Saute diced ham, frozen peas, and garlic in a little olive oil/and or butter. Add cream, black pepper and grated parm and serve over egg noodles or linguine. This can be put together in the time it takes to cook the pasta.

Use as a base for spaghetti sauce. Brown the pork steaks and add a couple of large cans of whole tomatoes and simmer 4-6 hours until the pork and tomatoes fall apart and become one. My aunt used to make this traditional Italian sauce. So good. I did a quick search and see recipes using pork neck bones, but my aunt used the pork steak.

I bring my nice thick steaks to room temp before I broil or grill them. I think this helps so by the time you get the nice sear on the outside, you have the right shade of pink inside. Example, if you would throw a frozen steak on the grill, it would still be icy inside by the time you get a nice brown crust on the outside. The other day I put a mostly frozen pork shoulder roast in the oven to braise so I could pull it apart. I don't think it made much difference on that cut of meat, except for the extra cooking time I allowed because it had not defrosted.

Beef tenderloin is my favorite. My family owned a butcher shop when I was growing up. There was not a big demand for beef tenderloin, so our family got to eat them often!!

When I bought my Kitchen Aid it came with a recipe book. I use the method described in the book to convert other bread recipes to my stand mixer. The Kitchen Aid cook book says to mix all the ingredients and all but a cup or two of flour with the dough hook at speed 2 for a minute or two. Then continue to add the flour, 1/2 cup at at time, until the dough cleans the side of the bowl. Then continue at speed two with the dough hook and knead the bread for 2 minutes - I go a little longer. I would search the web for a recipe similar to the one you want to make with the directions for using a stand mixer. One of my favorite recipes for rolls is from the Land O Lakes site and has directions for using the stand mixer for mixing and kneading the dough. The smaller Kitchen Aid can handle a recipe with up to about 5 cups of flour.