Butter my Kitchen

Well, it smelled good anyway

2011-09-04T13:18:00.000-05:00

We have several plum trees in our backyard. We hate the trees because they have prickly branches and we have scraped hands, arms and legs when dealing with them. But the best grass in our yard is under these tree......?

Usually we only see the plums on the ground after they are over ripe and bees are busy feeding on them.

This year I wanted to finish something on my to-do list. I was going to bake with the fruit in our yard. I could reach a few branches by standing, then I went and got the golf cart and stood on the seat, stretching to reach ones higher. They were a nice reddish-purple color and they smelled really good. I searched on line for recipes using plums from trees in Minnesota. I found one that looked promising.

It took quite awhile to chop all the plums as they are quite small. I tried to peel a couple, but it took so much flesh with. I was hoping if I cut the pieces small, they would disintegrate while baking in the oven. I was concerned with the amount of sugar in the recipe-1/2 cup sugar and 3/4 cup of corn syrup. I followed the directions and it smelled so good in the kitchen.

I eagerly waited for Dude to come home and have some. Yep-not a good experiment. The peels didn't disintegrate and the cobbler was waaaaaaay too tart. With all that sugar? But I crossed part of my baking with fruit from the yard. As we speak (or as I write this) I have about 6 pounds of apples off our tree stewing to make home made apple pie filling I can throw in the freezer and make Dude a pie in the middle of winter-and it will taste like summer. So I add this to the fail category, but nothing ventured, nothing gain. On to the next challenge.

Grandma Oney's Pickles

2011-08-28T14:34:00.000-05:00

My Grandma Oney was a really good cook. She made meals out of nothing it seemed like sometimes. Having been through the Depression she knew how to stretch a buck. She had a large garden up into her late 60's. It was really no secret that Grandma didn't really care for my Mom a whole lot-other than birthing me. Mom said while it seemed petty, she got a kick out of it when my Dad proclaimed that Mom's fried chicken and potato salad were better than Grandma's.

While Grandma was never outright mean to my Mom, she would be condescending and snarky. However, she did share some recipes with Mom so she could keep her little boy fed. This is a refrigerator pickle that my Dad really likes, so when Mom found it in a drawer with other recipes, she collected several cards and sent them down to me. Dude really liked the pickles. Of course, there are several jars in the fridge since the cukes are going crazy, but on the recipe it says "these last a really long time in the fridge". I am going to bring some to work though-just to clear some room for more pickles!

Grandma Oney's Refrigerator Pickles

6 cups unpeeled thin sliced cukes

1 cup onion, sliced thin

1 TBSP salt

1 tsp celery salt

1 small green pepper, cut into thin strips

1 small red pepper, cut into thin strips

1-1/2 cup sugar

1 cup vinegar

Dissolve sugar in the vinegar. Toss the cukes, onion, peppers, salt and celery salt in bowl and let stand 2 hours. Pack the pickle ingredients into freshly cleaned jars. Pour the liquid over the veggies and place in fridge. It made 2 full quart jars for me.

Dude and I spent a glorious 5 days camping and boating on the St. Croix river a week ago. We had so much fun-we cruised, we beached, we swam, we ate. The best vacation I could have asked for.

Snicker Salad and the Photo that didn't happen

2011-07-21T07:31:00.000-05:00

I never thought it would be so hard to photograph a plate of food. I tried inside, I tried outside, with a flash, without-I just couldn't make this look pretty.

But it does taste good!

Snicker Salad

3 medium Granny Smith apples

2 standard size Snicker candy bars, chilled

1 tub of Cool Whip

lemon juice

Cut apples into bite size pieces. Sprinkle with the lemon juice so they don't brown. If you have juice that has accumulated in the bowl, carefully pour it out.

Remove candy bars from fridge. Cut in half length-wise and then cut the each half into small slices. Chilling the candy bars makes them easier to cut.

Place candy bar pieces in the bowl with the apples. Scoop the Cool Whip into the bowl and stir to combine all of the elements.

Lick the Cool Whip spoon.

While it didn't photograph well, it was gobbled up quickly.

I've Linkedin

2011-07-13T20:38:00.001-05:00

I've linked up my apple salad recipe to the Hearth and Soul Hop.

http://premeditatedleftovers.com/hearth-and-soul-hop-with-premeditated-leftovers-711/
Yeah, I still can't figure out the linking thing....old dog, new tricks ya know.

Check out Alea's site. She has so many great ideas about saving money, using fresh ingredients, and has wonderful recipes!

Apple Salad

2011-07-11T21:46:00.001-05:00

Real heat has hit Minnesota. It is hot. It is humid. No one wants to cook in this heat.

We took our boat out to the St. Croix river which separates Minnesota and Wisconsin in the middle section of the state. The St. Croix is a nice river for water sports-tubing, skiing, jet ski(ing) and just taking a ride.

We brought our friend J along again, this time with both of her daughters and Dude and I. We boated for about an hour and a half, then beached our boat on one of the several islands that sit between Hudson WI and Lakeland MN. Most of them were pretty full, but we motored around one larger one and found the one side empty. We got our bag of snacks, the cooler and the portable gas grill out and set up camp on the beach.

I had made hamburger patties and wanted something a little sweet, a little tangy for a side dish. Something without mayo that could sit out for a little while when we had our picnic.

Enter the apple salad. I first had this dish about 23 years ago when I was first dating Dude. We had gone up to his parent's lake home for a weekend and my MIL (to be at this time) put this dish out with our grilled burgers and brats.

I have stated (numerous times) that I'm not a big salad person, but have come to like several over the last 10 years or so. This one however, it was love at first bite. It included three ingredients-6 if you count the lemon, water and cornstarch-and I love all three.

It is sweet from the pineapple, tart from the Granny Smith's and just plain tasty.

Apple Salad

3 Granny Smith apple, washed, sliced and chunked into bite size pieces

1 small can of pineapple tidbitd (6-8 oz), juice drained into small saucepan

1/3 to 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

2 TBSP cold water

1 to 1/2 tsp cornstarch

Half of a lemon

Drain pineapple juice into small saucepan. In small container, shake the water and cornstarch together until well mixed. Heat pineapple juice to slight boil. Shake the water-cornstarch mixture again, and slowly pour into hot juice, whisking constantly. Bring to a boil and stir until thickened-maybe a minute. Remove from heat, and pour into another container to help it cool faster.

Chop the apple slices into bite-sized pieces, place in a medium size bowl and squeeze lemon juice over apple pieces several times as you are chopping the apple so it does not brown.

Place drained pineapple in bowl with the apple chunks. Chop the walnuts into smaller pieces so they are easier to chew. Place them in bowl with the fruit.

Pour cooled dressing over the fruit and stir to distribute the dressing over all of the pieces.

Cover and chill in the fridge until serving time.

Sneak some into a small container and hide in the back of the fridge to take to work the next day.

Oh, and if a boat beaches next to you that has a dog.....make sure all the meat is off the grill and eaten or stored in the cooler. We had a guest help himself to our last burger while we were all chatting. It was the funniest thing ever! His owner came over with a $10 bill and offered to pay for whatever his dog had grabbed. We laughed and waved away his offer and told him it was just a burger and we hope he enjoyed it.

Independence Play

2011-07-09T20:06:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe 4th of July. We celebrated with our good friend and one of her daughters. You may remember me speaking last year around this time about my friend. Her and her husband were our very best friends. We went on vacation, had BBQ's, went to car shows, out to dinner, spent most of the past 17 years together on New Year's Eve eating junk food and playing cards. He cheated, for the about the whole time we knew them, and it broke her heart. She is picking up the pieces of her life and mess he left her with.

We had been waiting to get her out on the boat and as we normally spend the 4th together, we thought this would be the perfect way to celebrate.

We laughed so much-all day. After boating and tubing we came back to our house and grilled up dinner, played a game and laughed some more.

It was the ultimate 4th of July celebration-my hubby, my girls and our dearest friend.

We are so very blessed.

Hermit Crab

Drama Queen and Hermit Crab holding on for dear life!

Our friend J and her daughter B

J and B on the tub-squealing

Drama Queen and Hermit Crab-one last ride before we leave

What has been happening around here.....

2011-06-25T14:10:00.000-05:00

I celebrated my 45th birthday. Dude took me away to Minneapolis for a weekend.

We enjoyed rooftop bars, an awesome dinner, and just hanging out.

Drama Queen graduated high school.

How did this happen so fast?

We have cruised the local lake in the boat.

There is a new skipper in town, or so she thinks!

Enjoying Father's Day night on the boat.

It has been really busy-graduation, the party, getting her registered for college-that starts in 4 weeks.

I've been a little overwhelmed and taking some time to get stuff in place and trying to relax. Throw in a couple health'ish things and I'm looking for a lounge chair, a pool boy and a bartender!

Off to make some stuff to hopefully put up here soon.

Hope all is well with everyone, and I will see you soon!

Where in the World is Waldo?

2011-05-04T08:51:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note-I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth, but we have our youngest daughter graduating in about 4 weeks and her party in 5. We are busy with projects, planning, renting, yard work and finally enjoying some sunshine!

Whatever has been on our table lately is not blog worthy (burgers, sandwiches, grilled chicken) so once the madness is done, I'll be digging in again.

Until then, have a wonderful Mother's Day to all you Mom's!

Creamy, dreamy pie

2011-03-27T20:37:00.000-05:00

It was a beautiful, sunny day out today. After rising pretty early, Drama Queen and I went to the grocery store for food for the week. We have pantry items up the ying yang, but got some fish, shrimp, veggies and dairy. And almost fainted at the bill.

I was in the mood for baking and had asked Dude recently what other types of pie he liked. He popped off a few and then said "coconut cream". Hmmm, don't ever remember seeing him order this in a restaurant or at his grandma's house, but I was game.

I looked in a couple of cookbooks......and the recipe was exactly the same in all 3. Is there really only one recipe for Coconut Cream Pie?

This is from Best of Country Pies-Taste of Home-but it was the same in a church cookbook from Idaho and also community cookbook from, well, I think it was Wisconsin.

Coconut Cream Meringue Pie

1 unbaked pastry shell

6 TBSP sugar

5 TBSP flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups whole milk

3 egg yolks, slightly beaten

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup flaked coconut

TOPPING

3 egg whites

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

6 TBSP sugar

1/2 cup flaked coconut

Line unpricked pastry shell with a double thickness of tinfoil. Bake at 450 degrees F. for 8 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 5 minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool. Lower oven temp to 350 degrees F. In a saucepan, combine sugar, flour and salt. Slowly pour in milk and whisk together. Turn heat on to a medium-high and heat until thickened, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and cook two more minutes while still stirring. Add a small amount of hot milk mixture to beaten egg yolks, then stir yolk mixture into the saucepan containing the milk mixture, stirring while slowly adding. Stir constantly while bringing mixture to a gentle boil. Cook and stir for another 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla and then coconut. Pour into cooled shell.

For meringue, pour egg whites into stand mixer bowl. Add cream of tartar and beat on medium speed until soft peaks form. With mixer still running on medium, add sugar, one tablespoon at a time, until stiff peaks form. Pour over topping and spread over filling, making sure you cover all the filling. Sprinkle with the coconut. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

Let cool on a wire rack. Store in the fridge.

Dude was a member of the clean plate club-times two!

Haters need not reply

2011-03-20T22:55:00.001-05:00

I'm a nice person. Really-I have been told on numerous occasions that I always have something nice to say to someone, a ready smile, and a helping hand.While I know how FAR from perfect I am, I think when I reach the pearly gates they will know I always tried to be a nice person.

our Ash tree that succumbed to the evil bug

I received an email a while back regarding my blog. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't full of loving remarks regarding my blog either. Briefly, I am boring, food is bland and not imaginative and pretty much people are looking for more than I had to offer.

the fire pit is almost visible!!

Then I was thinking back to what another blogger I follow posted about people who say they create recipes, etc on their blogs but they truly don't (I'm paraphrasing here). Hmmm, maybe this person has a point. While I have never, ever stated here that I create my recipes, maybe I don't make it clear enough that I make old family favorites from my childhood that I 'created' out of memory, but surely didn't make up Tater Tot hotdish. I get recipes from my MIL. I get recipes from other blogs. I get recipes from cookbooks that I mashup together because of an ingredient I or another family member do not care for, or we may not have it on hand. I have several subscriptions to different cooking magazines that I read cover to cover the day I get them. I get recipes from friends. I get recipes from co-workers.

I love how the ice formed around the leaves and in the indents in the stones

While I stated that I feel that I am a nice person, I also suffer from being very shy and I always have had a problem with self esteem. I admit I was this close to taking my blog down completely. Not out of spite or hurt feelings, but more from the feeling that if one person was ~~honest~~ ballsy enough to email me, maybe others felt the same but never said anything.

my strawberry leaves never died off this fall-I don't know what that mean for this spring

After several weeks of re-reading my posts to make sure that I had given credit to others, or said that I combined recipes from various sources, or that it was a family favorite on a battered old recipe card-I realized something. Who cares if this person doesn't like my blog. Like I say to people who complain about music or programs that offend them-TURN THE CHANNEL! If what I offer isn't what you think it should be, there are 1,498,633 other blogs you can look at. Maybe they are professional chefs or actual recipe creators, cookbook authors or just way smarter than me. I. me.

So there it is. I'm just a middle aged wife and Mom. I enjoy my job. I enjoy my kids and hubby. I enjoy my cat (who wouldn't-she is cuter than the dickens). I like to make people feel good with my food. I enjoy watching them eat something and really enjoy it themselves. I enjoy beer, and wine, and apparently last night a little too much Cuervo. I love bonfires, camping, fireflies, tulips, fresh cut grass and riding around our yard on our white trash golf cart.

And I like hanging out here.

all the pics were taken today on a walk around the yard. I can't wait to plant the garden, use the fire pit, and barbecue. It has been winter waaaay too long!

It's Easy gettin' Cheesey

2011-02-26T08:59:00.003-06:00

I love bread. Like, A LOT. I am the first one in the bread basket when it arrives at the table. Bread, butter.....a match made in heaven.

I get email updates from Kraft, Betty Crocker and Pillsbury and I click and look and will say "Hmm, that might be good" or "my family would bolt from the table if I ever served that". One day I got the email and it was a round Sourdough loaf that was cut, drizzled with butter, stuffed with cheese and then baked.

I'm really not a Sourdough fan. Please do not send the hate mail (like the ones I received when I admitted to not liking ice cream, strawberries or any pie other than pecan and chocolate). I know lots of people enjoy the taste of Sourdough, but not in this house. I kept looking for a round loaf I could use and finally found this in the bakery section of our local grocery store.

mmmmmm, bread

The recipe, if you can even call it that, is pretty much 3 ingredients-bread, butter and cheese. I, however, wanted to bump up the flavor, so I added a fourth element. Garlic powder. I mean, c'mon-who doesn't like garlic bread?

Cheesey Party Loaf

(adapted from on-line recipe**)

1 loaf round bread

1/2 stick butter, melted

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1 cup shredded cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Slice across the loaf in 1-inch increments, not cutting through the bottom of the bread. Turn the loaf 90 degrees and cut across the loaf again in 1-inch increments. The bread will have 1-inch 'fingers' now. Fan the bread a little to open it up. Stir the garlic powder into melted butter. Pour the melted butter down the rows of the cut bread, making sure to cover horizontal and vertical rows. Take pinchfuls of the shredded cheese and stuff down each row, again making sure to go across all rows, tucking the cheese down into the crevices.

Wrap the loaf in heavy duty tin foil, or a double layer of regular tin foil. Place wrapped loaf on your oven rack that is placed in the middle of the oven. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the cheese is all melty and gooey.

The second time I made this, I melted a little extra butter and just sprinkled a little more garlic powder in then brushed it over the top of the loaf.

It is so simple but oh so good. My family devoured it at our family Christmas a couple of weeks ago. You just break off a hunk and go. I also made it last weekend for our Girl's Night and brought the half loaf home and we re-warmed it to go with our leftover Prime Rib.

Your tummy-and your family-will thank you.

On to other business.

Twenty years ago at about 5:25 AM, we were blessed with our first daughter Ally. Happy Birthday Baby! I love you even more now than I did when they placed you in my arms all those years ago. I'm sad that I don't get to make you a special dinner or a cake, but I know you have fun plans tonight with your high school BFF and your sister who are driving up North as we speak. Be good, be careful, have fun!

** I checked all of my on-line recipe e-mail sites and can't find the original recipe, so I'm not sure who gets proper credit. UPDATE: it is from Taste of Home, just got an update and checked their site :)

Raise your hand if you are sick of winter...Or, how delish are these leftovers?

2011-02-20T20:43:00.006-06:00

photo by Amanda Glaus from MN

This is what the weather looks like where I live right now, and this is good compared to what it was like down in the country where we live. It was Girls Night tonight, but got pushed to Girls Afternoon due to the impending weather. I get together with my friends C and M, whom I used to work with at the Bank. We get together not as often as we would like, but usually every other month or so. We all make food then sit and eat said food and talk about what is new in each of our lives. Today, our food was awesome like always! C made turkey meatballs with a glaze of Cocktail sauce and grape jelly and some mustard and her famous guac, M brought veggies and dip and a pan of chocolate chip cookie bars and I made popcorn salad and made a loaf of cheesy bread (which I will share this upcoming week). I also brought a bottle of Rose Regale for them to try-it was a 10 on everyones list.

My plate of food this afternoon

Last night Dude and I were going to have date night and decided to ask Drama Queen to come since we were going out for Prime Rib-and she hadn't had any for a long, long time. We went to Wiederholt's in Miesville, MN. It is an old fashioned supper club that has been owned by the same family for maybe 60 years. It is old school. Dark paneling, red curtains and carpeting, old fashioned chandeliers with the orange bulbs. They serve you a tray of crudities with dip and ice sprinkled over the veggies to keep cold, an assortment of crackers and fresh buns, a stick of REAL butter, salads and your main course. It is always busy on the weekends, so a nice man offered DQ and me his chairs and we all enjoyed a cocktail while we waited-DQ had a Shirley Temple only (she was our sober cab-I must say it is quite handy!) We all ordered the Prime Rib-Dude and I had the 24 ounce cut will Boo had the 16 ounce. We knew we would have enough to bring home and enjoy this evening. I made some baked potatoes, warmed the meat in au jus and reheated the remaining cheesy bread from this afternoon. It was delightful. Just enough for a small supper after watching an awesome Daytona 500. We are not big sports buffs in our house, but we love us some racing! We have a local track only 16 miles from our house, so we like to get to at least one race each year.

So, while the weather is awful (I don't even want to think about us having to drive in this crap-thankfully DQ is off due to the holiday) we had our fair share of wonderful food this weekend. Can't remember the last time we had a dinner bill of $114......darn Cosmos!

And they didn't even bring a Hostess gift

2011-02-19T11:53:00.002-06:00

Some freaking bug has entered my body and refuses to leave. I had to cancel my lunch date with my best friend from high school and feel the need to go back to bed again. So much for plans of cooking this weekend.

I do hope to have an appy to share with you, as I am having Girl's Night with my former co-workers tomorrow (if this personal attack on my immune system will allow me). It was so easy-saw it on Kraft or Pillsbury maybe? I made it last weekend for my family Christmas party---and forgot to take a picture, so am making it again for the girls for tomorrow, along with Meg's favorite Popcorn salad.

I'm off to drink hot water and honey, gargle with some salt water, and slowly chip away at the layers of skin on my nose.

Devils Food Heath Bar Cake

2011-02-16T00:00:00.001-06:00

While perusing several of the blogs I follow, I found this over at Framed. I did change it up a bit as I'm not a big fan of Butterfingers. Plus, since Hermit Crab was home with her boyfriend, I totally missed a step and an ingredient, but I actually liked it better this way. The cake the original way was very good, but it totally fell apart. I like my cake a little more...toothy, or at least in one piece on the plate. It is VERY rich, so we cut it in 12 pieces; next time: 16.

Devils Food Heath Bar Cake

1 box Devils food cake mix
--ingredients called for on box
1 jar Hot caramel sauce (for ice cream)
1 container Cool Whip (or homemade-I didn't have the facility to whip the cream)
2 regular size Heath Bars (I had minis, so we crushed up about 12)

Bake cake according to directions on package for two 9-inch round pans. Let cool in pan for about 5 minutes. Flip out onto wire rack, then flip again onto a cookie sheet. Poke holes all over the top of the cake. I used a chop stick. Heat up the Hot caramel sauce in the jar in the microwave for about 40 seconds. Pour over the cake and let it seep into holes and pool on top. Let the cakes cool, then place one top of the other and let cool completely. Right before serving, top with Cool Whip (if you have limited options) or fresh whipped cream. Sprinkle with crushed Heath Bars.

You can check out Kathleen's site for original recipe from where she got the recipe. The original includes mixing the Hot caramel sauce with a can of sweetened condensed milk, then pouring it over the holey cake. It was terrific, but you need to not layer the cake or it will crumble, and it will crumble a little on the plate.

A weekend full of food and lazing

2011-02-13T10:04:00.002-06:00

My family celebrated Christmas yesterday. Yes, we are a little late, but there were circumstances that occured that were beyond our control. We were afraid that we were going to have to postpone again, as my Mom ended up having emergency surgery on Wednesday, but here she is below with my niece checking out said niece's new IPhone and all the cool technology that she doesn't understand.

The big surprise was that Hermit Crab and her boyfriend came home for the weekend and we didn't tell anyone so we could surprise the family. It sure was fun to watch every one's faces as they walked into my sister's house and saw them on the couch!

Today the morning is all about lazing around...mostly with a Tofu on my lap. I think I may go out and make some waffles for the kids and then nap until it is time for our dinner date with some long time friends. We have both heard excellent reviews about dinner, so I may need to bring the camera with!

Divine Swine

2011-01-29T09:46:00.003-06:00

Oh Paula Deen, I do love you.

I have made many attempts at pulled pork over the last couple of years. Both of my children and I love pulled pork. Dude will eat it and enjoy, but not with the vim and vigor that the girls and I do.

There is a huge festival in our town called "Defeat of Jesse James Days" that happens the weekend after Labor Day every year. It brings in tons of visitors and it has really grown over the last 21 years that we have lived here.

They re-enact the famous bank robbery, there are arts and craft fairs, live entertainment, a midway, the rodeo comes to town, and there is food. Good food and bad food, but the town square shuts down and it become the food court for 4 days.

The Lions have a booth and serve the most delicious pulled pork sandwiches I have ever eaten in my life. Seriously, I think they put crack in it or something, because they are huge and I have eaten 2 in one day....along with the awesome grape Hawaiian shaved ice....but that is another story. They serve it two ways: plain or barbecue. I love plain the best. The flavor just shines.

While at the grocery store last weekend, they had a combo pack of loin pork on sale. It was $1.49 a pound and it had 6 pork chops, 6 Country style ribs and a roast in it. I so should have bought at least two. My cousin was on Facebook when I said I was cooking up a storm last weekend and he said his wife had pork roast going to make shredded pork and they were using his "favorite Southern Belle's" recipe. He has a thing for Paula Deen.

I looked up the recipe and hers cooks in the oven low and slow for around 4 hours. Because of my work schedule now, I would need to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to get it done or wait for the weekend. I didn't want to freeze the roast and thaw it and do it the next weekend, so I modified the recipe and used my slow cooker.

Here is my adapted version. Paula's can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/bbq-pork-sandwich-recipe/index.html

(yes, I STILL haven't figure out the link thing so it just shows a word and takes you to it-sorry)

Paula's Modified Pulled Pork Sandwiches

2 TBSP salt

2 TBSP black pepper

2 TBSP brown sugar

2 TBSP paprika

1/2 TBSP chipotle powder

4-pound pork loin roast (with nice fat layer on top)

1/2 cup apple juice

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1 TBSP Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp liquid smoke

1 tsp garlic powder

BBQ sauce

Combine in a small bowl the salt, pepper, brown sugar, paprika and chipotle powder. Pat the roast with paper towels so it is dry. Press the rub mixture into the roast and place in a plastic zip-top bag and put in fridge for at least two hours (I did mine for about 4). After marinading, place the roast in a slow cooker. Add all remaining ingredients except the BBQ sauce. Cook on low for 9 to 10 hours (I started it when I went to bed). When time is up, remove the meat from the slow cooker. Set aside to cool, then shred. While the meat is cooling, strain the juice from the slow cooker and pour back in. Stir in shredded meat, and squirt about 2 to 3 tablespoons of BBQ sauce in; stir and cover and cook for one more hour.

Serve on hamburger buns, topped with coleslaw (we didn't) and extra BBQ sauce.

This made about 8 sandwiches. Um, I ate 5 over 3 days....just sayin'

Butter is Busy

2011-01-23T13:39:00.003-06:00

It is a flurry of business here today in the Butter kitchen. My poor family has been STARVING since I took this new job (no, they shouldn't be, but l-a-z-y). "There is nothing to eat" is the mantra of everyone in this place. I have been guilty of that too, but normally at midnight when I want something gooey and chocolate....

I have been reading books, websites and blogs trying to figure out a way to make dinner when the three of us all eat at different times.....and it hasn't been easy. I have done some batch cooking-making double the lasagne or frying up several pounds of ground beef or poaching a lot of chicken to shred and freeze. I am now trying to knock out several meals to have in the freezer, in portion-sized amounts, so we can all eat good food and a healthier option than say, chips and salsa. Oh yeah, that has happened here many times lately.
I am not up for a full on Once a Month Cooking. I just don't have the attention span to do it. Today I worked on 7 things, but it yielded many servings. I even had DQ in there with me chopping vegetables and sausage, cleaning up dishes and re-organizing some cupboards. She even took it upon herself yesterday when we got home from the supermarket to wash out all the crisper drawers and clean out the old, moldy things we found in there. I was quite impressed with her.
While cooking up a chicken dish, I had two extra chicken breasts left over. She suggested making a burrito type dish that she has had at her friend M's house, who is Latino and will also be her roommate when they go off to school this summer.

Boog's Burritos

2 skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts

2 cups chicken stock or broth

1/2 tsp taco seasoning

1 can cream of chicken soup

1/2 an envelope fajita seasoning

1 tsp taco seasoning

chopped pepper slices, green and orange

tortillas

rice

shredded cheese

Poach the two breasts in the two cups of chicken stock and 1/2 tsp of taco seasoning. I added about 1/3 cup water to make sure the chicken was covered by liquid. I poached over low heat (little bubbles, not a rolling boil) for about 2o minutes, until internal temp was 175 degrees. Remove chicken to a plate and cover with some foil to rest and cool slightly. When cool enough to handle, remove skin and bones and shred chicken with your fingers, into bite sized pieces and place in a saucepan. Sprinkle with the fajita and taco seasoning. Pour soup over meat, add about 1/4 cup of water to loosen it up. Simmer over low heat until heated through. While the chicken mixture is heating, put instant rice on to cook (or if you have left over in the fridge, heat up). When rice is done, fluff with fork. Heat the tortillas up in microwave for 30 seconds to make pliable. Top with some rice, the meat mixture and cheese. Roll up burrito style and enjoy. Boog only likes a little cheese on hers, so I didn't get a photo with the cheese on.

Below are some of the other dishes I worked on today: carnitas style pork loin, peppers used for several dishes, sausage for his gumbo and a slow-cooked chicken and veggie dish. Tonight I am tackling a shredded pork dish, some chops and making a large batch of meatballs.

If I hear one more person utter 'there is nothing to eat' I won't be responsible for my actions.

Sauced

2011-01-17T10:06:00.004-06:00

What exactly did you think you were going to find when you saw the title of my post? Sorry, no fun stories of a drunken weekend in Wisconsin with my family-our family gathering was postponed due to possible inclement weather.

I stayed home all weekend and did all of the laundry, washed many dishes and never got out of my PJ's until I went to a movie on Sunday with a friend. If you get the chance, go see "The Fighter". It was a wonderful movie, and let's face it-seeing Mark Wahlberg without a shirt in many of the scenes is just icing on the cake...

The only way to get Drama Queen to eat meatloaf is to make it in mini form and put a ketchup sauce on top. Having only learned this about a month ago, I put it on the menu for this weekend. Dude had expressed early in our marriage about no sauce on his meatloaf. I grew up with sauce so it took me many attempts to make a loaf that was moist and tasty.

Then we go to his parents and she served mini loaves....with sauce! I nearly threw mine at him.

Sauced Mini Meatloaves

2 pounds ground beef

3 pieces white bread, crusts removed

1/2 to 2/3 cup milk

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. thyme

small pinch of nutmeg

small pinch of salt

Sauce:

3/4 cup ketchup

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

squeeze of lemon juice (1 wedge)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Soak bread in milk for 10 minutes. Squeeze excess milk out of bread and tear into small pieces and place in medium size bowl. Add rest of meatloaf ingredients. Squish with hands just until bread is absorbed into meat. Shape into 8 small oval loaves. Place on a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes. While loaves are cooking, mix up sauce mixture. After the 20 minutes, spoon a good amount of sauce on top of each loaf. Bake another 10 minutes.

Serve with your favorite side dish. I usually make mashed potatoes or baked potatoes like his Mom.

Oh, Stuff it!

2011-01-07T19:29:00.003-06:00

Dude loves stuffed peppers.

I, on the other hand, do not.

I love the flavor of green peppers when I cook, but I can't eat them-just say it is not pretty.

I am now fumbling around, trying to figure out how to feed us all now that we are working different shifts and are rarely in the same place at the same time. I had some easy things planned for my lunches at work as we were being fed at work 3 days in a row because of the mandatory overtime we all had to put in. Dude suffered a little because I was so exhausted when I came home from my ten hours of training each day, the last thing I wanted to do was lift a frying pan.

The grocery store had some decent looking peppers on sale 2/$1, so I picked up 2, got some fresh ground sirloin and mixed in some staples from the pantry and turned out some pretty rocking peppers!

Stuffed Green Peppers

2 peppers, tops cut off with membranes and seeds removed

1/2 pound ground sirloin (or beef of your choice)

half a small onion, minced

teaspoon minced garlic (I used my jarred stuff)

1/3 cup premium white rice

1/3 cup water

1-14.5 oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes

handful of shredded cheese of your choice

Bring a saucepan (I used 3 quart) of water to a boil. You need enough to have the peppers submerged. Carefully lower the peppers into the boiling water, cover, and let boil 4 minutes. Turn off heat and remove peppers. Place upside down on a paper-towel lined plate to drain. In a skillet, brown the ground beef, onions and garlic. Stir in rice and stir it around for a minute or two, then add water and the can of roasted tomatoes. Bring to a simmer and let bubble away for about 5 minutes, just so all the flavors can meld. Stir in the cheese and turn off heat.

Place drained peppers in a pan that will allow them to stand upright. I used a loaf pan. Spoon filling into each pepper. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

He was a very happy boy. Especially since he didn't have to eat from the "Wheel of Death" for a third night in a row.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-23T21:06:00.002-06:00

May you all have a truly blessed Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year.

News flash!

2010-12-13T23:45:00.001-06:00

Coming Wednesday!!

I'm sure it is low fat and almost calorie free

2010-12-10T18:01:00.003-06:00

Let's be honest. I have done pretty much nothing while I have been on short-term-worker's-comp-disability. Which is what I was suppose to be doing to give my arms time to rest. It hasn't worked out so well however since I have as much pain as I had on my last day of work. I had a lovely test today which basically felt like for the first half I was repeatedly touching my hand to the metal portion of a plug and then leaving it there while inserting it into the socket. The second half of the test had the doctor practicing human voodoo doll maneuvers on the arms. I told him that he really knew how to show a lady a good time-he laughed so hard he put the probe down.

So what have I been doing, really with all this time off? Facebook and Twitter and Stumble. I bring them all up in the morning and leave them up all day long. While perusing my friends on FB, one of my high school classmates who now lives out in Seattle Washington (and just had another baby-bless her heart) and had posted she had just picked up a Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate at Starbucks. A friend of hers replied with a blogpost about making it at home. While I didn't exactly have the ingredients for it, I made one up that worked pretty darn well with what I had in my pantry and fridge.

I started by warming up 3 TBSP of Stonewall Kitchen's Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramel sauce in the microwave. I then warmed up a cup of water and stirred in several teaspoons of International Foods Vanilla Bean Latte mix. I poured about 2 TBSP of the chocolate down the sides of my coffee mug, then poured the coffee in. I topped it with a BIG dollop of aerosol whipped cream then drizzled the last of the warmed chocolate sauce over the top.

Oh yeah. It was sublime while watching the snow fall and watching the cars go by.

Caramels, the new way

2010-12-06T15:35:00.006-06:00

My name is Tami and I'm addicted to caramel. It is true. I love it more than I can express in words. I buy one tart apple to go with the tub of Marzetti apple dip in the grocery store, but then eat most of it with a spoon. I will eat ice cream only when the ratio is 1 part ice cream and 5 parts hot caramel. I'm surprised that when they take blood, caramel doesn't come out.

I had posted here I think last winter the caramel recipe I always used. When they turned out, they were awesome. When they didn't it cost about $6 bucks and caused some curse words.

I attempted two batches for our annual Holiday Bazaar at church. Both attempts failed and I was in so much pain from all the stirring, I yelled rather loudly in my kitchen "I AM DONE WITH CARAMELS".

Then I got my December issue of Food Network Magazine, and on the cover was a little picture of Ina Garten and a caption that said "Ina's Salted Caramels". I mumbled under my breath as I turned to the page and read through it. Hey. This may work. No stirring, only swirling of the pan until it was time to add the vanilla. Hmmm, a two step process where the cream mixture is added later. Oooooh, look-the temp to cook it to is 2 degrees less than my old recipe. Shazam! I have all the ingredients in my fridge and pantry. I guess one more try won't kill me.....

Holy Mother of Caramel-they are fantastic! They are darker than my old recipe, but they are soft and chewy and buttery. And I can't have any until Tuesday night at 5. My daughter was my taste tester-still in the process of 'prepping for the procedure'. And then she bakes brownies today too. Good thing I love her or her head would be wearing the brownies. Any-whoooo...

Ina~I bow down to your greatness. I have never doubted you before, and I find no indication that I would in the future.

Ina's Salted Caramels (Food Network mag and her new cookbook)

vegetable oil

1-1/2 cups sugar

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1/4 cup water

1 cup heavy cream

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tsp fine fleur de sel, plus more for sprinkling

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Have all your ingredients measured out and waiting to go-mis en place is very important. Don't ask how I know...

Line an 8-inch square pan with parchment paper, allowing it to drape over 2 sides. Brush the paper lightly with the oil.

In a deep saucepan (her dimensions were 6 wide, 4-1/2 deep. Mine was 7-1/2 wide, and a bit deeper), combine the 1/4 cup water, the sugar and corn syrup and bring to boil over medium high heat until a warm golden color. Don't stir, just swirl pan occasionally. Meanwhile, in a small sauce pan, combine the cream, butter and salt. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Turn off heat and set aside. When the sugar mixture is a nice golden color, turn off heat and slowly add the cream mixture. Be careful as the it will bubble up violently. Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon then turn heat back on to medium low and place candy thermometer in pan and clip to side. Cook until it registers 248 degrees. In her instructions it says about 10 minutes. I, however, do not have a commercial grade range and I live in the country so propane gas stoves do not put out BTU's like natural gas stoves, so mine took about 22 minutes. When candy reaches 248 degrees, turn off heat and pour mixture into prepared pan carefully as mixture is HOT. Place the pan in the fridge to cool and firm up.

When the caramels are cooled and firm, remove from fridge and remove the caramel from the pan using the overhanging parchment paper as handles. Cut the square in half. Roll each half up jelly-roll style starting with the long edge. Sprinkle with more fleur del sel, trim edges and cut each roll into 8 equal pieces. Cut each log in half, then cut those two halves in half, and then repeat. You will have 16 pieces. Wrap each piece in waxed paper and store in fridge.

Tasting notes: I didn't sprinkle with the salt as not everyone here enjoys salt on their treats. I also cut each log into 16 pieces as they were L-A-R-G-E pieces.

They were divine-so I was told. This will be my go-to recipe from now on.

Say Ina, can you teach me some secrets for jelly-roll cakes........

French Toast and a snowy night

2010-12-04T19:47:00.004-06:00

Who blogs about French toast, right?

I guess I am. I have to follow a low fiber diet for three days so I can go have the big "C" next week. I know, you are all jealous. There wasn't a whole lot on the list to choose from that I like, other than pancakes, French toast, saltines, cooked potatoes, Jello, pudding and carrots. Really-I don't like yogurt, or wax beans or spinach (unless it is in dip form). I am limited.
I decided to jazz up the regular ingredients a little just because.

Jazzy French Toast (for lack of a better title)

4 slices Texas Toast

2 eggs

about 1/4 whipping cream (I eyeballed it)

1 TBSP real maple syrup

2 TBSP light brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Beat eggs lightly; stir in whipping cream and beat well. Add rest of ingredients and stir to combine. Soak each slice of bread for a good 30 seconds on each side so it can soak in. Fry up on your griddle. Top with you choice of toppings-I always pick butter and syrup.

Enjoy it while watching it snow, and snow, and snow some more.

This is what it looked like this morning when I got up. Between 10 to 12 inches in the yard.

And Tofu thought she would enjoy some French Toast too. I broke her little heart and didn't let her have any-she got spaghetti noodles on Thursday.

Guinness Stew

2010-12-02T14:14:00.002-06:00

Several years ago, I spent three days in downtown Minneapolis for a banking class. While it was work related, it was also a mini-vacation for Mom! I had a big bed all to myself. I could watch whatever I wanted on TV. I got to sample different restaurants for dinner.

On my last day, I stopped back at a restaurant that my co-worker and I had stopped at for cocktails after our first day of classes. It was an Irish pub that had a great roof-top terrace and lawn bowling square. We sipped cocktails while watching people in their business attire juggle pints of Guinness and the required lawn ball. I really have no idea what they are actually called-we just had fun watching.

On this last day, I sat outside in front of the restaurant on a small patio having a late lunch before heading home. I chose the Guinness Beef Stew. I am not a fan of Guinness for drinking, as I prefer lighter beers to drink, but that stew was out of this world! Chunks of beef, bright orange carrot rounds, and small Irish potatoes swimming together in the most flavorful broth I had ever tasted.

The menu didn't give away much on what was in it, other than the main ingredients you could see. I saw a recipe several years ago that was for a different type of stew, but used the process for the beef and it really made it terrific.

Guinness Beef Stew

4 strips of bacon
1 TBSP oil
2 pounds beef stew meat (I sometimes use a nice sirloin cut up)
1/2 of a large onion, diced
1-2 TBSP flour
1 bottle of Guinness beer **
1 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup red wine
2 cups beef stock
2 TBSP brown sugar
2 tsp Balsamic vinegar
2 tsp Old World seasoning (Penzeys-it has bay leaf, rosemary, dill, thyme, savory, etc)
salt and pepper, to taste
10 small Irish or red potatoes, cooked

In a Dutch oven heat the oil. Fry the bacon to lightly crisp and remove from pot. In the bacon renderings and oil, fry the stew meat that has been blotted dry to sear the outside. Do this in at least two batches so as not to crowd the beef. Remove beef to a plate or bowl. Saute onions in remaining dripping for about 4 to 5 minutes, being careful to not let them burn or get too much color. Stir flour into the onion mixture and stir for 2 minutes to get a nice roux. Pour a small amount of beer into pan to deglaze and help the roux not to burn. Return the stew meat to the pan and use a scissors to snip the bacon into bite size pieces right into the pot. Stir the rest of the ingredients in, except the potatoes. Simmer over low heat for 1-1/2 hours. Stir the cooked potatoes into the stew and simmer for another hour.

Serve with the Beer Bread from last post.

**Notes: I had bought a large single bottle of beer from the liquor store since I'm not a fan of drinking the Guinness. I cannot remember the exact size, but around 24 to 26 ounces. I poured 12 ounces of it into a glass measure and let sit to come to room temperature for the bread. The balance I used for the stew.

I also have been trying to use up my canned goods, so I used two cans of small Irish potatoes for the fresh cooked ones. The only thing I will do different if I use canned spuds again is to fry them in a little oil and beer to put a little color on them.

The bacon: I had cooked up a pound the night before and saved the renderings in a glass cup. I slowly melted that with just a small amount of oil since the recipe I found for the different meat stew only used the renderings from the four slices of bacon, and I had about double that from the pound of bacon.

Comfort

2010-11-29T23:45:00.005-06:00

What does the word comfort mean to you? It means something different to everyone. For some it is their favorite book. For some it may mean food. Yet for others it may be a hug from a loved one.

Dad, me, my sister and brother-they have ice cream

For me, it is several things.

It is pulling into my driveway after a long day and knowing Tofu will be waiting on the steps for me.

It is pulling on a pair of fleece pants and a sweatshirt and pouring a glass of wine.

It is remembering the good parts of my childhood.

My Mom and my brother

My family isn't conventional by any definition put forth by Webster. My family may seem to go against any family you saw on TV growing up. My family is what makes me, me.

My Dad and my brother

I have two sisters and one brother. None of us share the same father, but all share the same mother. My siblings all favor their fathers, and I favor my mother. At least the parts that everyone sees.

Me and my Dad circa 1977

From my Dad I have long, thin fingers, long legs and slightly bulged eyes. I do not have his voice, his wavy hair or his ability to answer Jeopardy questions.

My parents divorced when I was 14. It was all for the better. But there were times when it was all good. While it may be strange to you, for me all of those good times revolved around our annual summer vacation to Cross Lake Minnesota. We went every summer to the Corp of Engineers campground. We would leave at 4 AM and arrive around 8 AM to wait in line for a spot. Back in those days these types of campgrounds would not take reservations. We would park the camper and boat in line and wait until a spot opened up. And Dad was picky. There were only a handful of sites he wanted. Sites 19 through 22. These sites were right by the beach and the boat launch. We could watch the sunsets and the people parade by our site.

We lived like kings for that week we were there. We cooked huge breakfasts in a skillet that is about 24 inches across. I still have the skillet. We would eat pizza one night at the local joint. We would fish all day and they would eat crappies and sunnies and walleyes. I would eat peanut butter and jelly or Spaghettios. We would make Pouchie Pies and S'mores and sing old country songs by the campfire. We would play game after game of cribbage.

Beer Bread

1/4 cup sugar

2-2/3 cup self rising flour

1 12 ounce can room temperature beer (I used Guinness)

Stir sugar and flour together. Stir in beer. It will be foamy. Stir to incorporate dry ingredients into beer, but do not over beat. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake at 375 degrees F for 50 to 55 minutes.

Enjoy the comfort of some wonderful bread.

I will show you what I did with the rest of the large bottle of Guinness later this week!

And she makes chili for the first time

2010-11-24T13:38:00.007-06:00

Food can be a powerful memory. I think of my Grandma Oney every time I eat pot roast, and compare it to hers. Whenever I get to enjoy homemade lefse and really good Swedish Meatballs, I think of my Grandma Isabelle. And yellow cake with chocolate frosting bring me back to every birthday with Mom's cake on the pink cake plate. A certain smell will bring me to someplace in my youth.

December 1983

I was a Senior at Harding High School in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was in a class of 426, or thereabouts. We were all excited-we were coming into winter break. We were exchanging senior photos. We knew that when we came back, we had just over 5 months and our childhood would be giving way to college, the Armed Services, or working full time.

It started with a phone call. A friend called and asked if I had heard about an accident involving two of our classmates and a Junior. I hadn't heard anything, but made some phone calls to other friends. They had or hadn't heard. There were rumors, speculation. At 5:00 it was on the news. Our classmates had been in a head-on collision with a city bus. Jerry was dead and Eddie was brain dead, but was on a vent.

The next day at school there were so many stories swirling around. From reports from the police, friends and family, the story as we understand it was they had left to go grab some lunch. They were coming down a hill and hit ice. They were not speeding, just lost control. The city bus had no where to go to avoid the collision.

Eddie's parents took him off life support two days later. We were all in shock. People our age didn't die.

I was in choir with both of these boys. They were good boys. They played sports, sang, played instruments. They sang at retirement centers. They weren't bully's and they welcomed everyone.

I called my friend Denise who went to a different high school. When my parents got divorced, they agreed that it would be better for me to start over in a new school rather than facing friends who would point and whisper about the divorce. On my very first day at school, I met Denise, Leslie and Erica. They saw me walk into the lunch room all alone and frightened and called me over to sit with them. Denise and I became fast friends. Denise's Mom invited me over a lot because I lived with my Dad and he was gone quite often, either working or celebrating his Independence. We listened to John Cougar (now he is back to Mellencamp) on her stereo. We made homemade onion rings. We hopped on a bus and went to movies out at the mall. We used to drive down White Bear Avenue in her gold Nova and do the "Death Scream". It was like those screams you hear in scary movies before someone dies. We did indeed scare many people.

I called her to make plans to get together after Christmas. She had heard about the death of the boys at my school at the restaurant where she works, as some of the people she worked with there went to my school and some to hers. She said she had her senior pic ready for me, and I told her the same. I told her we spent way too much time with our boyfriends and needed a girls day, just hanging out and maybe making onion rings.

My Dad decided it was easier to give me money for Christmas since all the stores had the huge day after sales. I hopped on a bus on December 26th and headed downtown St. Paul. I made a rash decision to get my hair cut-super short. It turned out cute, but in the 80's we all had big hair. I found a couple cute things on sale and took off for home. I remember thinking my Dad was going to freak out when he saw how short my hair was, so I walked past my house and went to the store my Mom managed. I walked in and she said "What did you do?" and I almost cried. I told her that I wanted to try something new and I knew it was short, but I didn't think it was that ugly. She looked confused. She said that my Dad had called her, asking if she had seen me and that if I called her I needed to call or come home right away. He sounded angry. At this point I got really scared, thinking I had screwed something up. A side note-we were not getting along very good as my future step-mom had moved in and well, it was a mess. All good now, not so much then.

I waited until I knew he had left for work and had walked home. I don't know if I saw the letter on the table when I first came in the door or not. I put my stuff in my room, checked out the super short hair again, and picked up the note from the table. I read it and it didn't make sense. He said that there were a list of people next to the phone I needed to call. He said he was sorry and that he really liked her. (My father has HORRIBLE writing). Then I figured out the word.

Asphyxiated. Denise and her boyfriend Ron were dead.

They had been at Denise's house and wanted to be alone. Her sister Diane was a year older than us and was home on break and her boyfriend had come over and they were in the living room. Denise's parents were in the family room watching TV. Denise and Ron left in his car and went to the parking lot of the restaurant they worked at and parked. He had backed into a spot and left the car running. He had backed into a snowbank. There was no pain. There was no blood or broken glass like with Jerry and Eddie. They simply fell asleep.

I stumbled through the rest of Winter break and went back to school. Life as I knew it had changed forever. I lost 4 friends in the span of two weeks. I had lost that youthful innocence in a split second.

Now, you are probably asking yourself-what in good gravy does this have to do with chili? Honestly? Nothing. However, at the beginning of this post, I mentioned how food can stir powerful memories in us. So can music.

I hear "Up Where we Belong" from Officer and a Gentleman and I'm back in Mike's bedroom making out like crazy, knowing that we will be together forever.

I hear "Wake Me up before You Go-Go" by Wham! and I'm 18 years old at Dibbos bar in Hudson WI dancing with my friends and drinking Sloe Screws. I was 18-I had no taste back then.

I hear "I'm Alright" from Caddyshack and I think of Denise.

When we pulled up to the church for Denise's funeral, the song "Think of Laura" by Christopher Cross was on. The character on General Hospital had died and they used that song. I cried and cried before we went into the church.

We were leaving the church and I hounded my boyfriend (no, not Mike. Seems we didn't last forever) to make sure the headlights were on for the trip to the cemetery. He started the car and "I'm Alright" started playing. I started to cry and then laugh. Damn her-she knew I needed a sign that it would be okay, and here she was coming to me through the radio.

Monday while I was making chili, that song came on the radio. I stopped what I was doing and leaned against the counter and smiled.

Thanks Denise-I still miss you 27 years later but I feel you smiling down on me every time I hear that song.

Chili

1 pound ground beef

1 pound ground pork

1/2 pound ground Italian sausage

1 medium onion, diced small

1-28 ounce can whole peeled tomatoes, undrained

2 cans hot chili beans, undrained

1-14 ounce can tomato sauce

1-6 ounce can tomato paste

1 tsp. hot chili powder
1/2 tsp. cumin

2 tsp. red pepper flakes

Brown all the ground meats, in batches. As it finishes browning, put in big pot and start on next meat. When all the meat has been browned, saute the onions for a few minutes in fat remaining from the meat. Scoop the onions into the pot. Pour all the canned tomato products in, and then the seasonings. Stir together and put heat on medium-low. Give a stir occasionally and press the stirring utensil down over the tomatoes to break them up. Simmer at least an hour or longer. I simmered the pot about 3-1/2 hours to let it thicken. Dude likes it thick and clinging to a cracker.

Next stop, Crazy Town

2010-11-21T14:01:00.006-06:00

CRAZY!

There are 87 cans on my island counter top. 87. This is not including the 18 we threw away because they were past their expiration date.

In my last post, I stated that I have some sort of neurosis about buying food, storing food, starving.

Drama Queen stayed home all weekend-I know, major milestone. She came into the kitchen as I was pulling cans out of the cupboard by our patio door. Dude had put the cupboard up to help tame my appliance addiction. Food soon invaded it and counter top appliances migrated to the basement closet.

I told her there was no organization of our canned goods. There were cans of green beans in the cupboard by the stove and also in the pantry. There were cans of tomato paste in the cupboard by the stove and by the patio door. This would not do any longer. She rolled up her sleeves, took all the cans down, washed off all the shelves, and had me hand them back in the order I wanted. They are now all grouped together by

Soup

Vegetables

Fruit

Tomatoes (since we had so many)

I have 14 cans of Cream of XXXX soup. I can make many hotdishes now. When DQ spotted the Cream of Chicken soup and the enchilada sauce, she set them aside and asked me to make enchiladas. I thought I had posted them here, but cannot find them in my archives. Hmmmm.

These are about as easy as you can get. It isn't even a recipe, really.

I had three cooked chicken breasts I had made yesterday afternoon. I chopped those up, poured in one can of Cream of Chicken soup, 1/2 can of water, and warmed up in a sauce pan. I took 6 tortillas out, warmed them up in the microwave. I brushed enchilada sauce on the bottom of the 8x8 dish, brushed the warmed tortillas with the sauce, spooned about 2 tablespoons of chicken mixture on the tortillas, rolled them up and put in the pan. Brushed more enchilada sauce

on each bundle, topped with a cup of

cheese, and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Oh yummy. Hot, cheesy, filling.

Made this icy, windy day a little more tolerable.

Note to self-no more canned goods for 3 months...

No, I don't think she got asked to the Prom...

2010-11-16T20:45:00.005-06:00

She was kind of a Plain Jane. Every one's friend, no one's girlfriend. You know, like 'always a bridesmaid, never a bride" type of deal.

I failed miserably at my attempt to clean out my pantry. I had made a 'resolution' to use up what was in my pantry and freezer, only buying fresh ingredients and those staples that I needed on a regular basis-flour, sugar, tuna. I failed. I have this odd neurosis-I am afraid we are going to starve. I really don't know if this is somehow attributed to the stories of my youth about how there wasn't enough food to go around when I was really young. How my Mom would sit out on the porch with a cup of coffee, while my Dad and sister ate, and I picked through the few things I liked.

I don't really remember those times. I remember bits and pieces of life before, say, 7 years old, but not very many things. I remember bugging the crap out of my Mom to let me open a birthday present before my Dad got home from work. I must have driven her crazy, because I remember her letting me open a pair of musical spoons. Do you remember those? They were two spoons with the rounded sides facing each other, and the handles were cemented into a piece of plastic. You would hold them in one hand, slap them against your knee while holding your other hand above them. They would slap between your hand and your leg and make magical noise.

I remember waiting for my Dad to come home from work. He worked at Ford Motor Company in St. Paul. At this time we were living in Baldwin Wisconsin. It was probably 50 miles away. He would come home and strip down to his skivvies and undershirt and I would strip down to my undershirt and panties and on special days he would bring home a little smoked salmon. We would sit on the couch and I wanted to be just like him in my t-shirt and underpants and watch TV. We had an old Black and White console, that had a record player and radio on the other side of the television.

I remember the television repair man who was crippled. I don't know if he had arthritis, or some other illness, but I remember him being nice.

I remember Susie and Sally, the twins that lived across the street, across the open field. They were blond and so pretty.

I remember being at their house and seeing the moving van in our front yard. No one had told me we were moving-the van was just there, and people were moving our few belongings into it and soon we were on our way to St. Paul-to a house that was finally ours. No more renting. We had a yard and my Dad built a sandbox and bought us a Jungle Jym. And I never moved again until I was almost 18 years old and moved in with my Mom.

I never remember us being poor.

In my adult life, we haven't been poor. We haven't had to use an emergency shelter, or use a food bank. We have been broke and couldn't afford things, but we could always make our house payment and all the regular bills we had. We had setbacks. Dude lost his job of 18 years and all of a sudden, I was the primary breadwinner, making a whopping $14 an hour. We had two teenagers, orthodontist bills, clothes, sports equipment, insurance, cell phone bills. We made it through.

I lost my job. Dude was a temporary employee at the cereal plant. We had no health insurance, I willed that my kids wouldn't get sick and we did without presents at Christmas with the exception of a few for the girls.

I am now sitting here wondering if I will lose my job due to my elbow. I know that sounds like I am paranoid, but there has been weird conversations and innuendos and, well, just stuff.

I am now successfully making due with the pantry. I have had to buy some meat, but only on sale.

I have never made pasta sauce before. For two bucks, I could buy a jar of pasta sauce. Work is done, and sometimes it is cheaper than making from scratch. I looked in the cupboard and found many cans of whole, peeled tomatoes, diced tomatoes, tomato paste.... and on and on.

I stood looking at the cupboards at 3 PM. Dude was on his last week of day shift as his wrist had healed and he was headed back to nights. Drama Queen was working at the dry cleaners and would be home in a couple hours. Think, Tami, think.

I saw tomatoes, paste, some pasta. I had some cooked ground beef in the fridge. I dumped some stuff together and prayed for the best.

She was a little plain, but she filled our bellies with warm food.

Baked Pasta

1-28oz can of San Marzano tomatoes

1-15 oz can of tomato sauce

1-12 oz can of tomato paste

1/2 cup water

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 TBSP sugar

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp red pepper flakes

pinch of salt and pepper

1 pound ground beef, browned and drained

1/2 pound cooked mostacciola (I think that was what it was)

1 cup shredded cheese-your choice

In saucepan, combine tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, water, garlic, sugar, basil, oregano, onion powder and red pepper flakes. Crush the tomatoes down with potato masher. Simmer over low heat for 1-1/2 hours. Stir in ground beef and simmer for half an hour. Pour cooked pasta into an 8x8 or 9x9 square glass pan. Top with tomato sauce mixture and shredded cheese. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 20 to 25 minutes or until cheese is golden brown.

Serve with a green salad and bread.

It wasn't perfect. To me the sauce was too tomato-ey. Dude said I was crazy as that was what it should be like. Maybe all those years of jarred sauce makes me crave a little smoother, sweeter sauce.

I shall play with this recipe. But we went to bed with full bellies and that is what it is all about.

Gotta get some Gumbo

2010-11-12T17:17:00.004-06:00

While I'm on leave from work, I have been trying to do some more cooking, within limits of what I can lift and gripping knives for more than a minute really hurts. That being said, I'm trying to go outside the box more and try things I haven't before since I have a little more time to work in the kitchen.

Dude has helped a bit with getting dishes and stuff out for me and last week he said "hey, why don't you try gumbo?" Umm, I have never seen him EAT gumbo before.

I researched it a bit on the Internet then sent him a text message saying that if he picked up some bell peppers and celery, I would give it a go the next day. I had everything else in the freezer or the pantry, so it was cheap as chips to make.

I got this off the Internet either on Allrecipes.com or Cooks.com-I looked at both.

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

1/2 pound sausage, sliced in 1/2 inch slices (I used spicy Italian)

Vegetable oil to make 3 TBSP with the drippings left from sausage

5 TBSP flour

1 cup coarsely chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery

2 cloves garlic, smashed, not cut

1 medium green pepper, chopped

1 medium red pepper, chopped

1 tsp chipotle pepper

2 cups chicken broth

1-28 oz can tomatoes (I used diced)

4 cups cooked chicken, in bite sized pieces

hot rice, cooked

Cook sausage over high heat in a Dutch oven, stirring often. Remove sausage with slotted spoon to a paper towel on a plate, to reserve drippings. Add enough veggie oil to make 3 tablespoons. Whisk in flour, cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly for 5 minutes. Add onion, celery, garlic and peppers. Cook 5 minutes. Stir in broth and tomatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer 5 minutes. Add sausage and chicken, simmer covered for 5 minutes.

Serve over hot rice.

Now, I let mine simmer for about an hour. I just thought it would taste better if the flavors had a chance to meld. The only thing I will change next time is to use jalapeno peppers as Dude burped up the green peppers all night and the jalapenos don't bother him. He really liked it and Drama Queen even scooped some chicken up and ate it with the rice. Score!

I only have a 3-quart Dutch oven. After making this, it just reinforced my need for a new Dutch oven. I had been looking on-line and they ranged from $99 to $waytoomuch.

However, on a trip to HomeGoods with my Mom and sister, I spotted this 7 quart for $70!! I love the color, but it doesn't represent very good on here.

I'm in love...

Thank you for all your kind words and emails on my last post. I have been feeling like I'm standing on a ledge, peering over the edge and hoping I won't fall. I really appreciate all of you-people I don't even know, but were right there with insight and hope. Thank you.

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars

2010-11-05T17:19:00.003-05:00

My Aunt Lola makes the best Special K bars in the world. No, I am serious. I have eaten many in my life time, and hers are by far the best.

I attempted them twice. And failed miserably.

I don't know if it was because I was new(er) to baking and the corn syrup gave me trouble, but they were hard as bricks both times. Nothing like the soft, chewy bars I remember having out on the farm. With fresh milk out of the bulk tank. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Unfortunately, I do not live very close to Lola, so I had to figure out a way to get my fix. This is my fix. It has most of the same taste notes as her Special K bars and they turn out each and every time.

I adapted this recipe from one I got from a doctor I used to go to. His wife was (probably still is) a nutritionist. I had to laugh, because I don't think these fall anywhere under the "nutritious" category on any health provider's guidelines. But I'm not a doctor-nor do I play one on TV-so I will delight in eating these delicious bars all my live-long days.

Chocolate Covered Rice Krispie Bars

1 cup of butter (use butter, not margarine please)

2 (10 oz) bags miniature marshmallows

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1 TBSP vanilla extract

9 to 12 cups of crispy rice cereal

Topping:

1 cup chocolate chips (I use semi-sweet)

1/2 cup butterscotch chips

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

Use a heavy-bottomed large pan. Melt the butter over low heat. Add the marshmallows and continue over low heat to melt the marshmallows. Stir frequently to help them melt. When the marshmallows are completely melted, remove pan from heat. Stir in peanut butter and vanilla extract. Add the cereal a few cups at a time. Add until the desired chewiness is achieved. I add about 10 cups because I like mine chewy, not crispy.

Pour cereal mixture immediately out onto a buttered jellyroll sheet. Pat down with buttered hands so the top is level and the cereal has been squished into the corners.

In a microwave-safe bowl, pour in the butterscotch chips, followed by the chocolate chips. Microwave on HIGH for 1 minute. Let sit for 1-2 minutes, then stir. If not completely melted, stick in microwave for another 30 seconds, let sit another 1-2 minutes, and stir again. The butterscotch chips do not melt down as easy as the chocolate chips, that is why I put them on the bottom and let sit before stirring. When chips are melted, stir in the peanut butter. Pour over bars and spread frosting out to cover.

Eat one, or several, with a large glass of cold milk.

You'll thank me later.

The Hungry Housewife: GIVEAWAY-Junior League of Tampa Cookbook

2010-11-05T13:57:00.000-05:00

The Hungry Housewife: GIVEAWAY-Junior League of Tampa Cookbook

Go check it out for a chance to win. I always love new cookbooks :)

A tip for the Day

2010-11-03T17:24:00.006-05:00

Sunrise

Dude is back on his regular job now that his wrist has healed. It was fun being a 'normal' family for a few weeks. We ate meals and watched TV with Drama Queen. You know, normal people stuff.

Now he is back to sleeping at odd times. And waking me up with his snoring. So much so that I got out of bed at 5:03 in the morning. Grabbed some coffee, checked in on Facebook and tried to figure out Twitter (jury is still out on that one)

So, for my tip. Does anyone else have this problem? You open a bottle or a jar of some type of foodstuff, put in on a shelf or in the door of your fridge-and forget about it? And you stand there, looking for that jelly or that fancy mustard, or the last cup of stock in a box and think "how long has that been in here?"

I do-all the time. So it hit me: mark the package and there will be no question. Works great for others in the house too when I'm not around to ask.

I bought a package of Sharpies and keep them in a drawer in my kitchen (covered by other stuff so my kids won't find them and steal them). I simply write the date that I opened it. I also write on it if I know it needs to be used within a specific time period, like the box of stock above. Helps keep waste to a minimum and also helps me plan to buy a different size package if I have a lot left over after a certain amount of time. If the label doesn't have a space to write on it or the container, or it is a dark label, I will write on some masking tape and stick that on the product itself.

Banana Bread Muffins

2010-11-01T15:38:00.004-05:00

My Hermit Crab has come and gone. She was only home for about a day and a half, but she crammed a lot into her short stay.

We had lasagna on Friday night, she went out with her High School BFF all afternoon Saturday to celebrate the BFF's birthday. When she got home, she ran to the local taco shack she used to work at in high school and we feasted on tacos and burritos and the awesome crispy potatoes. After dinner we cleared out the dining room and set up our pumpkin carving stations. HC took almost three hours to carve her pumpkin. The rest of us finished in about 40 minutes.

I knew she was jonesing for some homemade treats so I fixed her up with some banana bread and some Chocolate covered Peanut butter Crispy treats (recipe coming soon). I always struggle with making loaves of banana bread-you know, they get all nice and golden brown but the center sinks and it is a hot, gooey mess inside. I now make them in muffin or small loaf pans and they come out perfect.

It also allows me to customize the loaves and muffins since Drama Queen doesn't really like nuts, so I usually need to make 2 pans of bars, or take some of the cookie dough out before adding nuts so she can have nut-free treats. Seriously, my family is way too spoiled.

I have combined two of my recipes to make this one. I received passing marks from the entire family, so this one will need to go into rotation.

Banana Bread Muffins

2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg (about 3 or 4 swipes on rasp)

3 very ripe bananas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In medium bowl, combine the flour, soda and salt. In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar. (I did this in my stand mixer because of my wrist issues) Stir in beaten eggs, the spices and the bananas. When combined, stir flour mixture into wet mixture. Only stir until combined so you don't overwork the batter. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake 60-65 minutes. Or, use muffin tins that have been greased and bake about 28 minutes. Test with toothpick or cake tester. Cool in pan and then turn out onto rack to finish cooling. Wrap and store in fridge.

I store my banana bread in fridge because the peeps in this house like it a little more firm, plus I think the flavor is a little better this way.

Hermit Crab took a small loaf back to school to share with her roommate. I hope it made it to school and didn't get eaten in the car on the road trip back, or Debbie will be mad at me-I promised her some fresh banana bread.

Ina's Easy Sticky Buns

2010-10-28T14:48:00.004-05:00

While I have been off work, I have been reading many books and watching a lot of Food Network and Cooking Channel. Many I have seen before, but some I have not. I love Ina. I want her house in the worst way. Especially that kitchen with two cook tops and two ovens, that big fridge and the walk-in pantry. Sigh. It is the stuff dreams are made of.

Last week she made Easy Sticky Buns and my mouth fell open at how delish they looked. I had all the ingredients on hand, so I made them the next morning.

I will write the recipe as she wrote; however, I didn't use raisins as I hate them, and the butter amount for the 'sticky' is too much-in my opinion. I did check out the recipe on Food Network since I was too busy vegging while watching to write it down. People who commented said it was too much butter, but I made it as written-too much butter. Next time I make them I will cut it down to maybe 8 tablespoons.

Easy Sticky Buns (by Ina Garten)

12 tablespoons (1-1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp

1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

1/2 pecans, chopped (I toasted mine)

1 package (2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, defrosted

Filling:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

3 teaspoons cinnamon

1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place a standard 12-cup muffin tin on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper (very important). In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the 12 tablespoons of butter and the 1/3 cup of brown sugar. Place one rounded tablespoon of butter mixture in each of the 12 muffin cups. Distribute the pecans evenly among the 12 cups. Lightly flour a wooden board or stone surface. Unfold one sheet of puff pastry with the folds going left to right. Brush the whole sheet with half of the melted butter. Leaving a 1-inch border on the puff pastry, sprinkle each sheet with 1/3 cup of brown sugar, 1-1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon and 1/2 cup of the raisins. Starting with the end nearest you, roll up the dough snugly in a jelly roll fashion around the filling, ending with the seam side down. Trim the ends of the dough about 1/2 inch on each end to give it a clean edge. Cut dough in 6 equal pieces, about 1-1/2 inches wide each. Place rolls cut side down in prepared muffin tin. Repeat with second piece of puff pastry. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown and firm to the touch. Remove from oven and let cool 5 minutes only. Invert the rolls onto the parchment paper. Ease filling left in the pan onto the buns with a spoon and press slightly into roll.

I cannot even aptly describe how wonderful these, especially hot out of the oven. They lasted 2 days here and warmed up nicely in the microwave.

I might have to bake a batch on Saturday because my college baby will be home for the weekend-I'm only a little excited!

Chicken and Stuffing Hotdish

2010-10-25T18:06:00.004-05:00

The days here in Minnesota are turning fall-like. Slightly cooler temps. The skies are flipping back and forth from brilliant blue and cloudless to grey and ominous looking. Most of the trees in the yard are bare. Piles of orange, yellow and red leaves are scattered across the lawn. That smell-the smell of turning leaves and crisp air hang all around me. Taking deep breaths, I fill my lungs with that wonderful smell of autumn. It is absolutely my favorite time of the year. We are very fortunate to live someplace that experiences all four seasons of Mother Nature's calendar. But I love fall most of all. The clean air, the changing color of the sky, the crunching leaves underfoot.

Hotdishes.

My parent's families are very different. My Mom had a larger family-all girls. She had four sisters. There are 21 grandchildren, 50 something great-grandchildren and numerous great-great grandchildren (although now all four of my grandparents have passed away). My Dad has two brothers. It is hard to explain, but I have two sisters and a brother, but I am my Dad's only biological child. Because of this, there are 5 grandchildren to my paternal side. I am the only girl. I have several girl cousins on my Mom's side, but I wasn't close to them as most of them were 4 to 18 years older than I. I am pretty close to my cousins on my Dad's side, but I longed for girl cousins there. My prayers were answered over the course of 10 years when each of my cousins married wonderful women. 1990 had a busy summer as three of us got married. I cherish all four of the beautiful women my cousins brought to my life. I waited a long time for them to get here!

All of us know our way around a kitchen. Maybe not fancy-schmancy food, but we can all put a satisfying, hot meal in the bellies of our men and children.

My cousin (in-law) Geri brought this hotdish (in Minnesota it is a hotdish, not a casserole!) to one of our Cousin Christmas parties and holy moly, it is good. I do not like stuffing at all (please don't eyeball me like that). I prefer straight up turkey, mashed potatoes with butter, corn, rolls, jellied cranberries (again with the eyeballing me?) and my aunt's lime Jell-o with applesauce and 7 Up. However, when you bake stuffing on top of this hotdish, and it gets all crunchy? Oh my word, it is heavenly.

Diane's Chicken Hotdish (Geri's co-worker)

3 to 4 pounds chicken

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can cream of mushroom soup (left this out, I hate mushrooms)

1 cup milk

1 cup chicken broth

1/4 cup butter

2 stalks celery, a fine dice

1 small onion, a fine dice

8 ounce bag of chicken stuffing mix

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Boil chicken and cut up into small pieces. Put chicken pieces into a greased 9x13 inch pan. Mix soups and milk and pour over chicken. Melt butter in saucepan. Saute veggies for a few minutes then add chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Stir in stuffing mix and turn off heat. Stir to moisten all the stuffing. Let sit for a couple of minutes so all liquid is absorbed. Pour over the top of the soup layer. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes.

I picked all the crispy bits off the side of the pan before putting it into the sink to wash. It was heaven.

Quick Dinner for Dude

2010-10-23T22:49:00.004-05:00

Sometimes you just need to fill the belly of your hubby fast. I had met my BFF for a matinee movie and an early dinner one afternoon this week. Drama Queen said she was going to a friend's house after work to eat and Dude said he would pick up a burger in town since I wouldn't be home to cook (do you see how spoiled they have become in just 10 days of me being home!?). I got home around 8:30 as Dude was coming in from the shop and asked what I could make him fast since he was starving. Ummm, didn't you tell me you were stopping for a burger? Guess that didn't happen. While perusing the fridge he found some spuds and some smoked sausage and eggs.

"Here" he goes and puts all the stuff on the cutting board. The spuds had seen better days, so I found my mandolin and thinly sliced up a new potato, browned them in some oil and butter, tossed in the sausage all sliced up in small rounds to get all nice and crusty. He took a shower then came and scrambled up the eggs for me and poured them in. I stirred until barely set and then he threw in a handful of cheese, slid it out of the pan and onto his plate.

I walk back into my scrapbook room to see what I had missed on Facebook and he walks in with my camera. I raise the eyebrow at him and he said "well, you might want to blog this" and walks out.

And all that time in the past he gave me crap for taking photos-he secretly likes it. He doesn't fool me.

You make my heart flutter...

2010-10-22T14:17:00.002-05:00

Thank you! Everyone, thank you for your kind comments. I feel like it has been bad news after bad news here lately. I do have a couple posts in the works-some things I was able to do within my restraints. Please know I appreciate each and every one of you that take time in your busy day to stop by and say hi. Makes me all gooey inside :)

Oooey, Gooey, Hot and Chewy

2010-10-13T23:27:00.005-05:00

As a child, I was a very picky eater. Years later, well, little has changed. All those foods my friends ate? Not happening on my plate. Mac and cheese? Oh Puh-leeze. Pizza? I think not (I do however really like pizza now). Grilled cheese with a bowl of soup? Send me to my room hungry Mommy. My Mother likes to a story about my eating habits-well, she loves to tell many, but this one she tells often. I was a tall, gangly child with super long legs and big buck teeth (Thank you Dr. Bacalars!!) and she was constantly fretting at the doctor about my eating habits and how skinny I was and she was sure I was malnourished. He patted her arm and told her I would eat when I was hungry. She couldn't leave well enough alone and tried many tricks to try to get me to eat. One of her least effective tricks was to blend my dinner up and try to have me drink it, since I have some issues with textures. It did not go as well as she hoped. Not more than 2 seconds after it landed in my stomach, it took a detour and headed North again, all over her. She pretty much gave up hope after that and just let me eat the parts of dinner I liked. I survived.

To this day I still don't do mac and cheese-odd, since I love pasta and I love cheese, but apparently not together. And I don't like grilled cheese. I do however fancy a grilled ham and cheese. Oh, so melty. So warm. So good.

I blogged a few weeks ago about the Frappe Vino. The frozen wine slush? I had it at a baby shower for a girl I worked with at the bank. It was like a reunion. 20 women who had spent a great deal of time together over the years. We had seen marriages, divorces, babies and death. And we waited many years to celebrate with our dear friend R. Her son is gorgeous and probably the most wanted and waited for baby ever.

I loved these sandwiches so much, I think I had three that night. The girls hosting the party made a smaller version of these but I was feeding several men at our party two weeks ago, so I used bigger rolls. Feast your eyes on these beauties......

Sweet and Savory Baked Ham Sandwiches

2 pounds good deli ham (no water added junk-go for the good stuff)
1 pound baby Swiss, very thinly sliced (from the deli too)
36 buns-I used a sandwich bun from the bakery
3 sticks of unsalted butter
6 TBSP brown sugar
4 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
4 TBSP Dijon mustard
2 tsp onion powder

In a 2 quart saucepan, bring to a gentle boil the butter, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, Dijon and onion powder. Stir until it is all melted and combined. Remove from heat and let cool.
Make the sandwiches. I used two pieces of ham and two slices of cheese-but I had it sliced about half the thickness that they normally slice it; you could see through it, and not just because of the holes. Place the made sandwiches in 9x13 cake pans. You need the cake pans or another tall sided pan since you will covering with foil. I used 3 pans because of the size of the buns. When the butter mixture has cooled, pour it evenly over the three pans. Cover the pans with tinfoil and place in the refrigerator overnight. Remove them from fridge a half an hour before baking. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 25 minutes covered. After the 25 minutes, remove the foil and bake an additional 5 to 8 minutes.

Good gravy, you need to make these. These were DEVOURED and I was told by several of the guys that they were sending their wives over to learn how to cook. While that touched the cockles of my heart, I just sent the recipe home with them. Next time I make them, I'm not sharing. Well, okay, I did share with Dude and Drama Queen when I made them a few days later.

Souper Duper

2010-10-11T18:59:00.002-05:00

I'll admit it. I love Olive Garden. I love the salad. I love the bread sticks. I love the Limoncello Lemonade. We all know by now that I'm a fussy eater. Not very adventurous. I like what I like and that's all that I like (am I channeling Popeye?). Before Hermit Crab went back to college, we spent a day together making some purchases for school and just hanging before she left me again. Going to Olive Garden was an easy decision as it is right next to the mall.

She had taken her sister there earlier in the summer (and they didn't kill each other!) HC isn't a big fan of the salad, so she tried the Chicken Gnocchi soup and loved it. She ordered it again this time and I tried a bite....and then another. It was so good. I wish I had ordered it instead of the salad.

I had an idea of how to put it together at home. Then I Googled it. Turns out I was wrong on most parts. Well, some parts. I'm going to try it the way I originally thought, but this is probably closer to how they make it at the restaurant.

Olive Garden's Chicken Gnocchi Soup

1/3 cup butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound chicken, cubed
1/3 cup flour
1/2 a carrot, shredded
1 stalk celery, shredded
1/4 cup onion, shredded
1/2 cup spinach leaves, torn (I totally forgot to buy!)
2 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
3 chicken bouillon cubes
Gnocchi

Melt butter over medium heat in a soup pot. Add garlic and onion and saute. Add chicken and cook through. Add flour and stir in well to cook out raw flour taste. Add milk and cream and stir well. Add carrots and celery and the bouillon cubes. Cook and simmer for 10 to 12 minutes; add gnocchi the last 5 minutes. Serve with bread of your choice (I made a no-knead loaf-yum!)

I'll admit that I'm not a HUGE soup fan-a small bowl every now and then is fine with me. However, if we ever move to Iceland, soup will be in our future-it is like the national dish there!

Tart and Tangy Meatballs

2010-10-03T19:17:00.004-05:00

It was a beautiful fall weekend here in Minnesota the past couple of days. We had planned a party at our house with some of our work friends. I made a few dishes, salads and a dessert and asked everyone to bring something to pass. The crowd enjoyed all the food and it tasted even better sitting outside next to a fire.
I was introduced to these meatballs by my Mother-in-law. I was pretty skeptical as I'm not a fan of sauerkraut. The first time I made sauerkraut and sausage for Dude, I had to leave the room and let him eat alone. Because I trust her, and truthfully still think I need to impress her after 22 years, I tried them. They are the bomb. A little sweet, a little tangy and a little tart.

Mom Lee's Meatballs

2 pounds ground chuck

1/2 package onion soup mix

1 cup cracker crumbs

3 eggs

1 can whole cranberries

1 small can sauerkraut, drained

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup barbeque sauce, your favorite

Mix the ground chuck, onion soup mis, cracker crumbs and eggs gently with hands until incorporated. Form into small balls and lay them in a 9x13 baking dish. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Mix together rest of ingredients to form sauce. Pour over meatballs, making sure to get sauce on all of them. Bake at 325 for 1 hour.

I cheated and used some store bought meatballs only because I was making 2 salads, deviled eggs, a hot sandwich (which will be on here soon) and some bars. I needed a shortcut and I like a certain brand which were a BOGO sale item about 2 weeks ago. Tasted good but the homemade ones taste even better.

Fall is here. I'm loving it. I didn't love getting out of bed at 2:00 AM because I was so cold from being out by the fire until midnight. I went and soaked in the tub for about half an hour, until my feet and hands were no longer ice cubes. 8 hours later I woke up.....with freezing feet again! I think I caught poor blood circulation from my honey....he blames me for his allergies he never had before we met, so I think it is only fair that he be blamed for my foot-pops. Just sayin'

Another sad note, great to leave you with I know. Our friends who are going through the divorce-I wrote about that a couple months ago. Her nephew died in his sleep on Thursday night. He was only 32 and the autopsy showed nothing conclusive so it may take up to a month to find out what happened. I just don't know how much more this poor woman can take. And since we all know the "death happens in 3's" I'm seriously willing the phone not to ring. I'm sure it works, right?

Each Breath taken is a Turn of the Page

2010-09-27T15:41:00.005-05:00

This past week my family experienced the ultimate high and the lowest of lows.

My beautiful niece K married the love of her life N in February of this year. They were surrounded by only my sister, her boyfriend, N's parents and the Judge that married them. They were married on a loading dock where they had met at college 7 years earlier. It was the perfect setting for them. They had a reception last weekend in Madison and we had a blast-as evidenced by the above photo. The reception was last Saturday.

This Saturday we said goodbye to our Uncle Paul. The rain that has flooded the area in which I live finally gave way to a nice, cool fall day with a blue and puffy clouded sky, and peaks of sun were shining through-I believe it was Unc smiling down on us as we gathered at his home and shared stories, took pictures, saw relatives we hadn't seen in years.....and ate. We joked that we weren't sure that any group of people could out-eat a houseful of Scandanavian Lutherans! Of course, my Uncle was born and raised in Germany, but his wife Aunt Jean, our side are the Scandahovians! We eat when we are happy, we eat when we are sad. We just eat. And those counters were groaning under the weight of smoked salmon, Swedish meatballs, hotdishes of every imaginable kind, cheese, cookies, bars and of course, gallons of coffee. While I know that he will be missed by everyone he touched, we are all grateful that his pain and suffering have ended. He can dance and sing and play in Heaven. All while watching us celebrate his life and light, and watching us eat at his table.

I just wanna be a sheep, baa baa baa baa

2010-09-22T20:10:00.003-05:00

Okay, it is a totally corny lead in, but the only thing I could think of with Shepard's was either Christmas, or my favorite song the little kids sing in church each year. Just the little voices singing "I just wanna be a sheep, baa baa baa baa" makes me smile every time I hear it.

It was my first day off after my three day weekend, and it is usually a wash out as I'm so tired I just sleep and sleep....and then feel like I have accomplished nothing and then stress out about getting everything done the next day so I can go back to work. I am not trying to complain about working, it is just after a 12 hour overnight, your body just can't bounce back to a normal schedule. I woke up at 11 and decided it was waaaaay too early to get up (since I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to look at the clock) and slept another 2 hours. And then laid back down to take a quick nap. And then I needed a plan for dinner. Since Dude is on light duty, he is working in the office during the day while he recoups. I found a recipe on my desk for Shepard's Pie and saw I had most of the ingredients, so made it up as I went along.

Shepard's Pie (Based on Kraft's recipe)

1 pound ground beef

2 pounds potatoes, cut up to cook and mash

2 cloves garlic, peeled, but whole

3 ounces Philly cream cheese, room temp

1/4 cup heavy cream, warmed

1 cup shredded Cheddar Jack cheese, divided

1 cup beef gravy

1 small can corn

1 small shallot, chopped

1 small carrot, diced

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Brown ground beef with shallot. Stir in carrot and simmer a few minutes. While ground beef is browning, put spuds in pan of cold water; add the garlic cloves. Boil for 15 to 20 minutes until fork tender. Add brown gravy and corn to beef and simmer over low heat while mashing the potatoes. I took the cloves of garlic out then mashed since DQ isn't a big fan of garlic. The potatoes had a nice, light garlic flavor. Mash the potatoes with the warmed cream, then beat in the cream cheese and a 1/4 cup of shredded cheese. The spuds will be a little stiff. Pour the hamburger mixture into a 9x9 glass pan. Spoon spuds onto the top of the beef mixture, and spread out to cover the beef, edge to edge. Sprinkle on remaining cheese and place in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Turn broiler on low (if you have a broiler function in the oven rather than a separate drawer) and brown the cheese. If not, just leave in the oven a few extra minutes so it is browned and bubbly.

I think I could be a sheep if my Shepard made this for me......

Grown Up Slushies

2010-09-13T19:45:00.005-05:00

When I did my post on cleaning up my cupboards, there was a picture including a little green bag that I said was something fun and I would be posting about down the road. The day has come, as I made it yesterday before leaving for work.....and had about a third of a cup when I got home this morning!

I had gone to a baby shower this spring (during my awesome purple cast days) and the hostess served some frozen wine slush. I had never seen it and she had found it out at a huge craft show that is held at Canterbury Downs here in Minnesota. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and even managed to figure out a way to hold it and use the spoon!

A couple weeks ago, Dude and I went to a local county fair and walked around the buildings that hold all those businesses hawking their wares. You know the ones: waterless cookware, ginsu knives, vacuums, jewelry, Avon, Tastefully Simple, etc. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of those slushie machines you see at gas stations and some bars. Vino Frappe. I so had to sample that! Tasty, tasty is all I can say. They had a special going on so I got two bags and giddily skipped out of the building in search of junk food-found that too.

It is as simple as can be: mix the contents of the bag in a large plastic bag or freezer safe large plastic container. Stir in a bottle of wine and then fill the bottle with water and add that. Stir to combine and freeze for 3 to 6 hours.

I scraped it up like you would with granita and spooned it into my glass. The tastebuds are doing a happy dance.

Here is the site of the company who I bought it from. You won't be disappointed!

http://dmarieinc.com

Booger Turns 17

2010-09-07T23:56:00.002-05:00

17 years ago this afternoon, we brought this little one into the world. Who are we kidding-I did all the work. My water broke and we hurried into town with Hermit Crab and our dog and dropped them off with our friends. Went to the hospital.....and waited....and waited....and waited some more. Seems like she was being a little stubborn (should have been a sign of things to come) and they gave me meds to sleep and gave me the evil pitosin in the morning. 4 hours later she came screaming into the world.

She still screams, but now with bad words and hand gestures. Makes a momma proud.

We took her to one of our favorite restaurants, Rudy's Redeye Grill. The food is always wonderful and service has always been great.

My marinated sirloin-no fat, every little morsel was edible.

Boog got the pulled turkey with smashed spuds. It is a little washed out due to the flash in the dark interior, but holy moly rocky, there was a good two pounds of pulled turkey on her plate. A pound and a half came home with us. I didn't get a picture of her cake, but they brought her out a little warm chocolate cake with real whipped cream and a strawberry sauce. It was good, but really sweet. I love the look on her face, like "oh my gosh, how am I going to eat all this?"

Booger and Dude.

Speaking of Dude, we ended up in the emergency room this morning at 3:00 AM. He was out working on our 'new' old boat and it is sitting on it's trailer so it is a good 3 feet off the ground from the back deck of the boat. He had his step stool set up at the back of the boat so he could go in and out of it while he is working on it. He stepped up to get his scissors from the inside of the boat and the stool tipped sideways, sending him to the floor. He fell to his right and put his hand down to break his fall. And ended up breaking his wrist. He comes into the bedroom where I am watching Cold Case and waiting for my sleeping pill to kick in. Asks "whatcha doing" to which I glance over at him and give him the eyebrow. Then he sits on the bed and I realize he is shaking and breathing oddly and he says "I think I just broke my arm" just like "I think the milk has gone bad". I jump out of bed and start putting clothes on telling him let's go and he wanted to take a shower since he was sweaty and full of epoxy and grease. Got him into some jammy pants and a t-shirt and took off. I think he was in a bit of shock since he never shut up....all the way to the hospital. Dude doesn't talk much-I talk too much. 15 miles to the hospital-never shut up. He broke it in two places but it was a clean break. They put a splint on him and told us to call the orthopedic clinic when it opened to make an appointment to go in and have them review his X-ray and cast it. And all he could think of was it was going to mess with his overtime days he had scheduled. He can't work in the plant with a cast-just like when I was on light duty when I had mine. If they can't find something for him to do-with him being right handed, it may be difficult-he may have to do short term disability. Which really sucks for a paycheck, especially since HC just went back to school and we wrote a big check for expenses and property taxes are due in 4 weeks. But, then I think-it could have been so much worse. He could have hit his head, and I wouldn't have found him until morning since he often works through the night out there due to our work schedule. So we eat ramen and live on the pasta and hamburger in the freezer-it most certainly won't kill us. But considering the jokes he made about my arm, he may have to be teased a little, just because I luv him so much. And I will make up good stories to tell at work about what he did, while he isn't there to defend himself.......

It is the little things, really, that make life so grand.

this should have been posted on Sept 7, but while taking care of the gimp (hee hee) and other stuff, I didn't finish until 12:30 on the 8th. Not a big deal, but in case Drama Queen finds this, I need all details to be in order :)

C U in a couple

2010-09-01T13:59:00.002-05:00

I'll be back in a couple weeks. Taking Hermit Crab back to school this weekend and Drama Queen starts her senior year (and it is a mess right now...) and we have a wedding and a few other things going on, so as soon as all the mayhem has cleared, or at least has been reduced to a manageable pile, I'll be back. Why did Arnold just roll through my head?

Happy Fall everyone!

Cleaning up my Act

2010-08-26T22:08:00.003-05:00

I hate to clean. I'll admit it. There are so many things I would rather do: be outside in the garden, sitting on the deck reading a magazine, shopping, napping, surfing Facebook. It was one of the genes from my Mom that I didn't inherit. Our house was always clean, neat and tidy growing up. It was really small so I guess it had to be so four of us could fit in it, but she would spend weekend with the stereo up loud and an E & J brandy and water in her glass, washing floors, doorframes, dusting, wiping out the hutch with her 'good' dishes. I got her ironing gene-I hate anything that isn't pressed, but I could care a less if there are dishes in the sink or a stack of mail on the counter.....until the sink is heaping full and no one will help or I can't find that bill that needs to be paid. I couldn't take it anymore tonight. I cleaned out cupboards, threw out old food, washed containers, re-arranged shelves and cupboards. And all the dishes are done....until tomorrow. Sigh. Here is a new gadget I bought today while out shopping with Hermit crab, and the fruits of my labor of cleaning:

It is a garlic chopper. I had seen Brian Boitano use one on his Food Network show and thought about how much I like my big chopper so when I found it at Macy's today, I had to pick it up. Let's hope I like it as much as my big one. I was looking for some 1 quart casserole dishes to make individual servings of our favorite stuff so I can put some make ahead meals in the freezer but couldn't find any in the mall, so I'm off to Crate and Barrel online to make a purchase.

This is my cupboard next to the stove. It holds all my spices and my canned goods. Truth be told, I didn't really clean this one up too much, as I had just gone through and donated a bunch to our local food shelf, but then unfortunately, went and bought more stuff to fill it up. I think I need a 12 step program for reckless abandon at the grocery store!

We have a four shelf pull out pantry next to our fridge. I didn't take pics of the baking shelves only because all the stuff is white and in plastic containers, so they looked a little, well, white. In my top shelf I have dressings, peanut butter, tuna, some cooking oils, spare ketchup's and mayo. In the little green bags with the ribbons is something fun I picked up at a county fair and will be making soon to show on here.

This shelf has our soup mixes, noodle mixes, macaroni and cheese, organic gravies, rice and pasta side dishes. I'll be the first to admit I am no gourmet chef-I like the occasional flavored pasta or Betty Crocker loaded baked potato dried potato for a side dish :)

This is our pasta/oatmeal/popcorn cupboard. This one was the worst with partial packages of noodles open and crammed in here. Booger said "Wow! I've never seen that cupboard clean before!" Gee thanks.

Now it is almost 11 PM and I have a meatloaf and chicken to go cook so we can have some meals this weekend at work. Dude loves BLT's but I think he is hoping for a hot meal soon.....

Bistro Chicken Casserole

2010-08-25T17:44:00.004-05:00

I found this while trolling blogs for food. I have scribbled "You've got it Made" in the margin, so that must be the website I lifted it from.

I didn't quite make it as written since I had a hard time with the toast and cheese on top. It reminds me of Coq Au Vin, which I had tried to make before and it turned out purple. Had a hard time choking down purple chicken.

Here is what I did with it:

1/4 cup olive oil

8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

salt and pepper

4 shallots, quartered

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, quartered

1 cup Burgundy wine (mine was just a red)

2 cups chicken broth

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/4 cup flour

Heat oil in large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper and add to pot. Saute on both sides until chicken is golden brown, about 12 to 15 minutes. Remove chicken to a plate. Add shallots, garlic and thyme. Saute until garlic is fragrant and shallots are softened, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook 5 minutes until they begin to color. Return chicken to pan, pour in wine and broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. In a small bowl, combine butter and flour to make a paste. Stir into bubbling casserole and stir until thickened. Original recipe then has you toast 8 pieces of French bread, lay on top of casserole then sprinkle with 1 cup Gruyere cheese and bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees F. I just wasn't sure that toasty bread and cheese on top would work for Dude.

I made a batch of mashed potatoes and send it to work with him. I hate mushrooms and I am not a fan of dark meat, but this was AMAZING! I didn't eat any shrooms, but the sauce was crazy good and it didn't turn purple!

Dude turns 45

2010-08-23T01:00:00.002-05:00

Dude just turned 45 this weekend. He, myself and Drama Queen went camping while Hermit Crab saw some high school friends in town for the annual Fireman's Chicken BBQ. We had a good time camping; however were rather disappointed in the fact that the campground never enforced the 10 PM quiet time rule. Our neighbors were out partying (next to our 'bedroom' in our camper) until 3AM both nights...or was it days? Not very restful. I think we must be getting old since we like to have a nice fire and not listen to drunk people swearing at one another and saying "Oh yeah? Well watch this!" and hope our camper wasn't going up in flames or would have a cannon ball size hole through it's side. I think we will be sticking to the quiet campgrounds closer to home that we know.

Hermit Crab made Dude a giraffe quilt for his birthday. He has a thing for giraffes. Enough said

Having some margaritas with our dinner at the local watering hole. No, I didn't cook much

Dude had the fish special with deep fried cod, buttered reds and a salad

I had the sirloin special with the buttered reds and a salad

Drama Queen had a prime rib sandwich with fries. Dad took other half to work tonight.

While DQ snuggled into her air matteress, we went back to the bar and had more margaritas-that they forgot to charge us for. When we tried to pay, they said no-it was their mistake. It was like 3 for 1!

Coming to a close

2010-08-16T21:38:00.002-05:00

It has been so darn hot here in Minnesota. Like Africa hot. Okay, that was totally a line from a movie, but it has been a scorcher. Over 90 degrees for at least a week and over 70 percent humidity. Makes a gal cranky.

Today I awoke (after working 6 twelve hours days in a row) to......cool. 75 degrees. About 50 percent humidity. Blue skies and puffy white clouds. I spent the early afternoon hours picking cukes and zucchini. Weeded, watered and mowed. Sat in my favorite yellow chair and watched some clouds go by. Threw some steaks and spuds on the grill while I sipped some Riesling. It was a good day. And I just sat in my scrapbook room surfing Facebook and Blogger and watched the sun set in a beautiful array of orange, pink and purple. I looked at the clock and it was 8:32. The days are getting shorter. And soon my favorite time of year will be upon us-fall.

We leave in two and a half weeks to bring Hermit Crab back to school. She is so excited to be back at school with all of her friends and, of course, the boyfriend. But she is also looking forward to being her own person again. Making her own decisions and plans. Not having to clear anything with Mom or Dad. Not arguing every day with Drama Queen. I will miss her like always, but am looking forward to the quieter days with only the three of us at home. And soon just the two of us.

I had posted about the bars and salad I had made for my nephew's grad party. Here are the second set of bars I made. Probably even easier than the Chocolate Chip cookie Dough brownies.
Only 6 ingredients, a pan and the oven.

Peanut Butter Cup Bars
1 package Betty Crocker Peanut butter cookie mix
ingredients on package-water, oil and egg
1 tsp. vanilla
8 individual Reese's Peanut butter cups, chopped
Mix the cookie mix with the water, oil and egg as directed on package. Add vanilla and stir to mix. Pour into a prepared pan. Use either a 9x13 pan or a bar pan-I think mine is 8x12. Prepared by spraying with a cooking spray. Chop up the peanut butter cups; sprinkle over the dough and press slightly into batter. Bake at 325 degrees F. for 25 to 30 minutes. You want them to be golden brown and just pulling away from sides of pan. The first time I made them in the 9x13 pan and they cooked faster than in the bar pan.

The summer days are coming to a close. Sad, yes, but I say-bring on autumn!

Oh, and I'm not ashamed to say I ate 4 of these!

Summer

2010-08-09T00:20:00.003-05:00

My Dad is home for his 50th HS reunion-came and had dinner
us on Sunday night

He's so good, he doesn't have to pedal

Forgot the pancake mix, had to make do with eggs

Yep, there are no words......

Anyone remember "The Partridge Family"?

It is so hot. Like 150 degrees with 300 percent humidity. I sweat just thinking about sweat. We spent the weekend camping at a state park only 40 miles from us, but was so beautiful with all the different species of trees, flowers and the water. I even spotted a doe in the woods as we took a bike ride at dusk, but didn't have my camera. Then I started to freak out a little that the vampires were hiding behind the trees luring me in with the cute deer just waiting to come drain all my blood. I'm sure they aren't related to Edward.

My Dad was home for a week to attend his 50th high school reunion. My step mom doesn't fly so he came home alone. However, she made him a list of people he was seeing, at what times he was seeing them and what restaurants they would be visiting. With the boatload of people he saw while he was home, he certainly needed these reminders.

Hermit Crab got up for work on Friday and saw this Mama turkey in our backyard with her babies. This shot reminds me of the Partridge Family into where the baby partridges are following the mama. Please let someone else remember this show.....

Hopefully the hot spell ends soon so I can get back in the kitchen. It has been a lot of salad and sandwiches at our house these days!

My baby Gurl

2010-08-02T17:28:00.003-05:00

I'm a little verclempt. Is that how you spell it? My baby is a senior. I can barely say the word.

I love you Boog!

Pitchells

2010-07-31T13:27:00.005-05:00

I made a bad pregnant person. I don't like pickles and I don't like ice cream. Of course, I was sick every day of both my pregnancies, so I wasn't too concerned that I was breaking the Pregnant Food Commandments. Grape Mr. Misty's were my friend.

Do your families have words they make up or phrases you say that make no sense to an outsider? We have a lot in our household. We quote movies, song lyrics, TV shows and our own words and phrases all the time here in the Butter household. One of them being 'pitchells'. I have called pickles this since before I was married. And I have no idea why. It stuck.

I have never canned in my life. I'm afraid I will kill those that I love with botulism or some other scary sounding condition. I did attempt refrigerator pickles knowing that it would maybe be a little more safe for those lazy mongrels that live in my house; my family.

I scanned the Internet and asked people on FB about pickles and I did a mish mash of all the recipes. I made three different 'flavors' for those two in my household that eat pickles. Here is what I made.

Spicy Dills

4 cucumbers, thinly sliced

1/2 of a medium onion, thinly sliced (I used a mandolin)

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

3 jalapenos, seeded and sliced

2 TBSP sugar

1 TBPS fine sea salt

1-1/2 cups apple cider vinegar

1 TBSP coriander seeds

2 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

3 sprigs of fresh dill

Put sliced cukes, onions, jalapenos and dill into a clean 2 quart jar. Crush the coriander and mustard seeds with the red pepper flakes slightly and place in a jar with a tight fitting lid. Add the sugar, vinegar and salt. Tightly close the jar and shake vigorously until sugar and salt dissolve. Pour over the cukes in the jar. Seal the jar and place in fridge for up to a month. I added a few whole coriander seeds also.

Sweet Pickles

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 cup vinegar (I used half white distilled and half apple cider)

1/8 cup salt

3 cucumbers, thinly sliced

1/2 a medium onion, thinly sliced (mandolin again)

In medium sauce pan, combine the sugar, water, vinegar and salt. Bring to a boil and boil for one minute. Let cool while placing cukes and onions in clean 2 quart jar. Pour liquid over cukes and seal with lid. Store in fridge up to a month.

Sorta Sweet Pickles

1 small onion, thinly sliced (yep, mandolin again)

3 cucumbers, thinly sliced

3 sprigs dill

1 TBSP mustard seeds

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp celery seeds (I used salt because all the grocery stores here were sold out)

1-1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

2 TBSP salt

Divide cukes and onions between 2 2-quart jars. Top with dill. Crush the mustard, coriander and celery seeds slightly. Place spices in saucepan and add the rest of the ingredients. Boil and stir until sugar dissolves. Cool and pour over cukes. Seal jars and store in fridge up to a month.

Enjoy!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

2010-07-28T21:55:00.006-05:00

Oh, the simple recipes. The ones that look just too easy that they cannot possibly taste good. Let me tell you-this delivers on all accounts.

I needed to bring some bars and salad to my brother's house for his youngest child's graduation and going away party (he joined the Marines-I'm still dealing with that). Leading up to the weekend of the party, I had a lot going on. I went to the grocery store after work Friday morning with intentions of making my Double Decker Caramel Crispy Rice bars, but the store didn't have any of the caramel dot-balls-morsels that I use and didn't want to spend all the time unwrapping the caramels, plus the added time to melt the large squares versus the pebbles, so I was trying to come up with something else. I'm not an inspired cook. I cannot look in my pantry and say "Oh look-rice, beans, stock, some chicken in the fridge-I can make X". I believe I have spoken of my innate fear of this. It was also mentioned on someone else's blog (ehem, Grace) that she suffered the same fate, but she speaks and writes much better than I. So, I'm digressing. I stood in the baking aisle at 3:52 AM trying to figure out what to do. I decided to make a pan of peanut butter bars with cut up peanut butter cups in them and then I was going to do a pan of chocolate chip cookie bars. The graduate had specified to one of my sisters (the one that cooks, um not S) that he likes cookies-in-bar form. I looked on the back of a package of Betty Crocker Chocolate chip cookie pouch (don't hate me foodies, I had a time pinch plus I had to make the salad too!) and saw this recipe.

It was heaven in a bar. The aforementioned sister S, who I rarely see eat dessert, had like 5 and proclaimed to everyone around her how good they were. Have I mentioned that both of my sisters are thin and I'm......well, let's just say you can tell I haven't been late to the dinner table much. It was high praise indeed. I made another pan on Monday to bring to work. One guy said he ate three-I think he ate three rows as when I went to next break, half of the pan was gone.

These really are winner, you just need to trust me. And only make them when you have enough people around to help you eat them-or you will eat bar after bar.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies (from Betty Crocker)

1 box Betty Crocker Supreme brownies (with the Hershey syrup package)

ingredients called for on box: oil, water, egg

1 pouch Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookie mix

ingredients called for on pouch: butter and egg

Mix brownie mix according to directions on box. Pour into a greased 9x13 pan. Prepare cookies dough as directed on pouch. Drop spoonfuls all over brownie batter; press the dough into batter. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 35 to 40 minutes, checking after 33 minutes. Cool on rack and cut into bars.

Lose yourself in chocolatey goodness.

Dude can Cook

2010-07-25T16:47:00.003-05:00

Well, okay he didn't make this. Thanks to Donna at My Tasty Treasures who got it from Shelby at Grumpy's Honeybunch, I decided to make one of my favorite cocktails from a local restaurant. It came pretty darn close. I had to cut down on the peach schnapps amount since I'm not a huge fan of peach, but enough to taste. Very refreshing...when I'm not spilling it on my laptop. My keys are now sticking a bit, but it didn't short out, so that was a relief!

Dude is on vacation for nine days, so he had to do some cooking while I was slaving away at the cereal plant. He grilled up a whole bunch ....I mean a whole BUNCH of dark meat and he and Hermit Crab feasted on legs and thighs while he made a breast for Drama Queen. He had leftover thighs, so on Friday night he decided to create something with his leftovers.

Garlic toast

So he took my square glass casserole dish, layered in spaghetti sauce, some fresh peppers and onions from the garden, cooked mini shells, the cut up grilled chicken, a little more sauce and some fresh grated sharp white Cheddar and Co-Jack cheese. Heated it up in the little toaster oven and it was dinner!

See? He CAN do it if he wants! No more buying his story of "I can only grill".....

Brown Sugar Cake

2010-07-24T00:12:00.004-05:00

This is all that was left of my cake. One last lonely piece. It sure made a good breakfast.
This is a super easy, dense, moist cake. It reminds me of a coffee cake, but I brought it in for a dessert to work.

Brown Sugar Cake

1 package yellow cake mix

1 3.4 oz package vanilla instant pudding

4 eggs

2/3 sour cream

2/3 cup water

1/2 cup oil

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 cup chopped nuts-I used walnuts

Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Beat cake mix, pudding, eggs, sour cream, water and the oil until well blended, about 3 minutes. Add the brown sugar, vanilla and nutmeg and mix just until combine. Stir in nuts. Pour mixture into a greased Bundt/tube pan. Bake one hour or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Loosen with a narrow spatula and invert onto a cake plate. When cake is completely cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Even better the next morning with a cup of joe.

Thanks everyone

2010-07-23T05:32:00.003-05:00

Thanks for the kind comments from my last (quick) post. We have had some trying times at our house these last few weeks. A friend of my youngest daughter had an accident on the 4th of July and sustained a serious brain injury. He is in a coma and on a vent, but is making progress. Having lost 4 friends when I was 17, I know this is hard on her. We also just found out this past weekend that our best friends for the last 17 years are getting a divorce because he has been cheating on her for the last 16-almost the entire time we have known them. This was a surprise, a shock and a huge loss. We had plans for our future which included travel, retirement plans (more travel), spoiling our own and each other's grand kids. Wiped out with the word "he left me and has been unfaithful". Really, really sucks. But we are standing by her with love, food, maybe a little alcohol, but mainly love. Makes me really thankful for all the blessings I have and pray for those who are not as fortunate.

We just got our internet problem resolved. Three weeks without internet is waaaaaay too long, but boy, this modem thing is great-all of us can be on the internet at the same time!! I know for you city dwellers you are probably scratching your head, but we had an air card and only one of us could use it at a time and coverage was spotty at best. I'm totally digging this!

I have some photos I need to load onto the computer so I can get a few posts up. Thanks for hanging there for and with me-I really do appreciate all you who come on by for a look-see. Even if you just keep checking in to look at the weenie roasters......

Due to technical difficulties....

2010-07-17T19:17:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone~
I'm without internet at home and only my laptop is working. I can't do picture uploads at work and haven't had time to get to the library to hook up some free wi-fi to do any blogging. Hope to have new internet installed next week. Hope to be back in a couple weeks; need to help out a friend who is going through a very difficult time right now. She is more like family so my focus will be on how she is doing for the time being. Hope everyone's summer is going good-I am hoping the heat breaks sometime soon-the electric company will be getting my entire paycheck pretty soon!

Happy Independence Day!

2010-07-05T02:23:00.004-05:00

A little late, but we didn't get home until after midnight!

We went into town to spend the afternoon with our friends, eat a LOT of food, light some fireworks off in the driveway and then watch the fireworks show the town puts on. We lucked out and the rain early in the day ended by afternoon and the skies cleared up so we could enjoy our day.

We did a potluck at our friends house, so I brought my ring salad and deviled eggs, and also tried my hand at a blackberry cobbler. Hermit Crab and I went grocery shopping (yes on a holiday weekend and it was scary!) and they had blackberries on sale 2 for a buck, so I knew I had to make something! According to Dude it was 'my best dessert ever' but he was lying-just trying to get me to stop taking photos of him eating! It was pretty well received considering half the people there don't like berries. It sure smelled fantastic and looked pretty.

I found a recipe on Allrecipes.com and added a couple of things based on some reviews. Here is how I prepared it.

Blackberry Cobbler

1 cup flour

1-1/2 cups sugar, divided

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

6 TBSP cold butter

1/4 cup boiling water

2 TBSP cornstarch

1/4 cup cold water

1 TBSP fresh squeezed lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. orange zest

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Wrap a rimmed cookie sheet with foil. Place cast iron skillet on cookie sheet. In a large bowl, mix flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until it is crumbly. Stir in boiling water and stir until it is evenly moistened. Put blackberries in a bowl and sprinkle with a little sugar, the vanilla and the orange zest. In a separate bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in the cold water. Stir in remaining 1 cup sugar and the lemon juice. Stir well to combine and then pour over blackberries; stir to coat all the berries. Pour into the cast iron skillet. Top berries with small spoonfuls of cobbler dough, and spread out dough a little with the back of the spoon. Place in oven and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Me and Dude-he really hates getting his photo taken.

My plate of food-hot dog, beans, chips, deviled eggs and pasta salad. Oh goodness I was full!

I hope everyone had a wonderful day. Thank you to all the service men and women who fight for our freedoms that we enjoy and take for granted. I salute you all.

It was Pretty much a Bust

2010-06-27T23:38:00.003-05:00

**Disclaimer**

The following is meant to be funny, so I don't want to offend anyone. The pictures kind of simulate the male form. Consider yourself warned.

Back in April, I had posted that I had gone to a silent auction for a benefit for a friend who lost everything in a fire. I had bid on and won the wiener roasting sticks.

We went camping this weekend and it was terrible. Well, not completely. We did have some sun on Saturday and went and looked at some boats for sale (just for fun). In a grand scheme, it was bad. It started raining Friday night right when we were having dinner at the bar that is next to the campground. Pouring. We walked there and had to run back to our camper in the rain, lightening and thunder. We had watched the weather at the bar and it was thunderstorms with hail and a lot of wind. We turned on the local radio station and they were saying that there were tornado clouds spotted all around us. Then the sirens started-first in the town that the campground was in, and then the across the river in Red Wing their sirens started going off. The storms passed and we were able to get to sleep. Saturday during the day, the weather was pretty nice, but we started a fire around 8 and the storms started again so we headed back into the camper. The sirens went off again and it rained even more the second night, but again we were spared something serious. And on the way home we drove through a monsoon. Ugh.

We built a campfire at home tonight and were finally able to use our new wiener sticks!

Roasting over the fire

Yum! That was one good dog!

Too hot to cook

2010-06-22T20:34:00.002-05:00

It has been a little hot and humid, which is normal for this time of year in Minnesota. I hate heating up the kitchen in the summer, since our kitchen and dining room faces South we get a lot of sun in the windows. It just makes it miserable in here and then the poor air conditioner has to work overtime and then the bill goes up and then we can't afford food. Whew! I have used my NuWave oven a lot lately-round steak, chicken, pork loin. Nothing fancy or new to blog about. I hope to have a dessert up soon. Dude wants me to make the 'cobbler' portion of the peach cobbler and macerate the raspberries I just got.

For now, here are some flowers from the deck-they are getting hot and burned out now, even after moving them to some shade for a day or two. Sigh. Love it when summer comes, but spring is so much nicer to the plants.

Taking the camper out this weekend for the first time this year. Camping by the Mississippi River down by Red Wing. Gonna chill with a beer while watching the rich people boating on the river!

2010-06-16T21:54:00.003-05:00

I think summer is already half gone and I feel like I have accomplished nothing. I did however bake a peach cobbler for work. It was mainly well received, but one person thought it was too dry. Dude thought it was really good-reminded him of his Mom's shortcake.

Peach Cobbler

Cobbler dough:
1 cup flour
2 TBSP sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

Fruit filling:
1/2 cup sugar
1 TBSP cornstarch
1/3 cup water
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Dash nutmeg
4 cups peeled, sliced peaches

Preheat oven to 400 degree F. Cook filling: Combine sugar, cornstarch, water, cinnamon and nutmeg in saucepan. Stir to combine; stir in fruit. Cook and stir over medium heat until it comes to a boil and thickens. Simmer, stirring constantly for 1 more minute. Pour fruit into an 8 inch square pan. Place in oven while preparing dough. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, combine oil, egg, milk and vanilla. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir until just moistened. Remove baking dish from oven and spoon dough in 8 scoops over the top of the fruit mixture. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown.

It would have been great with ice cream, but we don't have a freezer at work.

Enjoy!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

2010-06-02T23:12:00.005-05:00

Ahhh, the last of the rhubarb. Or is it? I found a few new shoots out there today. I had a little rhubarb left and two containers of strawberries I had bought on sale that needed to be used. I was bringing treats to work, so they lucked out and got both Lemon Cheese bars and a pie.
Pretty red fruit

Grandma's pie pan

Dude enjoying left over strawberries

I even had a few strawberries left to macerate for some angel food cake for Dude.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

Crust for two crust pie

4 cups rhubarb, cut into half inch slices

4 cups strawberries, cut into similar sized pieces

6 TBSP instant tapioca

1 TBSP Triple Sec

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1-1/2 cup sugar

more sugar for top

more Triple Sec for top

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place one pie crust in pie tin. Combine the rhubarb, strawberries, sugar and instant tapioca. Stir to combine and let sit for 5 minutes. Stir in liquor and nutmeg. Pour into pie crust; top with second crust. Brush Triple Sec on top crust; sprinkle with sugar. Cover rim of pie to protect crust edges. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Lower temp to 350 and bake for another 35 minutes.

This was formed out of necessity. I had a recipe written down but must have set in butter as there was a grease spot on it that erased some of the measurements and it originally called for orange juice which I had none of on hand. I was concerned about the tapioca at first as it doesn't absorb into filling when sitting on counter, but does magically thicken and disappear when baked. The liquor worked fine and gave it a very slight orange taste that everyone at work enjoyed. It smelled amazing in here while it bake!

Easy Chicken Dinner

2010-06-01T00:37:00.003-05:00

Ever have those days when you have about 28 seconds to come up with a plan for dinner? I do, just about every day. We had sandwiches for dinner at work and I knew Dude wasn't too excited about a second night of them, so I saw a can of sliced potatoes and a can of Cream of Chicken soup in the cupboard. I knew I had a couple breasts left in a bag of IQF *individually quick frozen* in the freezer. I grabbed the chicken, nuked it for a few minutes on defrost, poured the potatoes in a colander and rinsed all the liquid away and shook them to get the water off of them. Poured the spuds into a greased 9x13 pan, seasoned the chicken with some paprika and poultry seasoning, poured the soup over it, covered it with foiled and baked in the oven at 350 degrees F. for about 40 minutes and then took the foil off and put back in for about 10 minutes for it to get some color. It turned out pretty good-Dude ate his whole container full and said he'd like that again.
It doesn't look too pretty in the picture, but it was tender and juicy. It could have used a little more spice, but time was short and work was only 2 hours away!

Iceland III

2010-05-24T18:06:00.003-05:00

Over Greenland

Randy was drooling over a boat-did I mention he wants to live on one?

One of my favorite house I saw up there.

Holy heatstroke! It is almost 100 degrees here today-we have set a record in MN for the hottest May 24 on record. I will cool off by remembering Iceland......

Gullfoss GeyserThare she Blows!

Amazing waterfalls!

Me and Randy on the tetonic plates

On bus tour

Still can't get over our amazing trip. I can't wait to go back again. Dude has been checking on house prices. Thinks we should relocate....

Iceland, Part II

2010-05-19T13:57:00.003-05:00

Ahhh, beverages. We enjoyed vast quantities of these delightful drinks while in Iceland!

Gull Beer is a local beer in Iceland. A light lager, easy drinking. Didn't enjoy it out of the can though. Had a tinny flavor.

Cosmos-not as good as in the states, but had to mix it up a bit.

Teeny, tiny bottle of Pepsi. Had this the third day-when it finally hit me that the headache I had was caffeine withdrawal! We didn't see any on-tap pop anywhere. I took this bottle home with me to go with my 16 ounce returnables I have from 1984!

Our bottle of anniversary wine. So disappointed I didn't take a pic of the label. It was a very nice Riesling.

Viking-another local beer in Iceland. Beer only became legal in 1989 in Iceland. Bars would serve non-alcoholic beer and put a shot of Vodka in it. Lawmakers finally gave in and they started their own brewery.

Iceland

2010-05-17T11:51:00.007-05:00

Hi everyone! We are back from our trip to Iceland. It was touch and go both on the way there and on the way back. We were leaving Tuesday night at 6:30 PM, but the airport in Iceland closed on Sunday and didn't open until Tuesday morning. We were delayed until almost 9:00 PM and we arrived in Iceland at about 8:50 Wednesday morning. It was a 6 hour flight and they are 6 hours ahead of us here in Minnesota. We were also delayed coming home, as the airport closed Friday and we flew home Saturday. They had to get all the flights out at once, so we left close to 3 hours late, but were able to get home. We were in our hotel room by 10:30 and we took about a 4 hour nap and got up to go exploring. I will do a couple posts about Iceland, since there is so much to share, but today I'm just posting pictures of the food we ate. Well, most of it. We did grab a burger one day that was good, but it was a burger.

All the menu's were in Icelandic and English. Some translations were a little off, but good enough that we could figure it out. This is one example of the menu-unfortunately the pics just didn't turn out the good in the restaurants. They were mainly lit with dim lights and lots of candles, so without the flash was dark/blurry but with the flash on, they were washed out.

The above was my sandwich the day we arrived. It made me a little nervous considering the size of the roll and the amount of meat on the sandwich-about 3 TBSP. I wasn't sure what we would be in for on portion sizes versus cost. It was good, but the ciabatta roll filled me, not the filling in the sandwich. It was a BBZ pulled pork served on a layer of coleslaw-which isn't sweet like ours in the states.

Randy had a Lamb burger, but it wasn't ground meat but rather like a small lamb steak like a steak sandwich here. I tried a bite and it was good. Tender and flavorful.

We arrived in Iceland on our actual anniversary, but since we were tired and just trying to find our way around, we had our nice dinner on the 13th instead. We went to the Hereford Grillhusid. Randy had the special: Lobster soup with a cognac broth, a whale steak with potato and roasted carrots, onions and parsnips, then had a custard type dessert that had a really sweet yogurt-consistency base with raspberry sorbet and fruit sauce. Above is the lobster soup. Neither one of us like lobster, but it was so good! It was tender, not rubbery, the broth was loaded with flavor and we sopped it up with the basket of garlic and rosemary bread cubes they gave us.

This was my steak. It was tender, cooked perfectly and delicious. It came with a potato and roasted veggies like Randy's.

This is Randy's whale steak. The photo I took of it cut open didn't turn out unfortunately. It looked like a beef steak on the plate, but was a dark, dark red when cut open. It was very tasty, but different from beef. I liked the bite I had, but probably wouldn't eat a whole one by myself.

This is my dessert from this night. It was a small, hot chocolate cake with ice cream and whipped cream which tasted home made. It was delightful and I don't like ice cream. The cake was so hot it melted the ice cream-ahhhh!

Randy's was a very sweet base of a yogurt-consistency base, with raspberry sorbet and a fruit glaze. He liked the sorbet but the base was way too sweet.

After horseback riding, we had to wait almost an hour for the tour bus to pick us up to finish our package we bought. The owner of the stable had made soup and bread and was $700 Kronur-about $5 US. It was vegetable soup-but not many veggies in it. Food is so expensive up there. Soups are everywhere-pubs, bistros, bars, grocery stores. They eat a lot of soup. She also made a loaf of whole grain and nut bread. She told Randy it isn't made with yeast, so it was dense and chewy. I don't know if that is just the style they prefer or if yeast is too expensive.

The bread was good and chewy and sopped up all the broth.

Here is my dessert from out last night. The photos posted out of order, but that is okay. It was a layered dense chocolate cake, but it was not really sweet or rich. It was delicious with home made vanilla ice cream and vanilla whipped cream.

Randy's banana split. The ice cream was good he said, but the pineapple wasn't ripe. Thought they should have used canned, so it was edible and actually yellow.

I ordered a glass of white wine and it came in a small carafe. It was awful. I tried to dilute it with the one ice cube in my water. They don't give you much ice when you ask for it-it should be cheap to make up there! It was nothing like the delightful bottle of Riesling we had for our anniversary dinner.

I was going to try lamb before we left, so I had it the last night. We looked at many menus and it was pretty spendy, so we thought we would try this restaurant as it was a little cheaper. I figured in case I hated it, I wasn't out a bunch of money, but on the other hand, since it was cheap it may not be good. I got the lamb chops. I got four good sized chops that were pink, tender and flavorful! And it converted out to about $18 US for my dinner-I couldn't believe I got that much food for that amount of money.

I didn't take pics of the breakfast buffet at our hotel, but they had traditional American stuff like scrambled eggs and bacon, cereal and fruit, but also fried hot dogs and pork and beans. They had a small table that catered to the European guests also with sliced veggies, breads, lunch meat and sliced cheeses and salmon. They also have caviar in a tube! What is that?

I'll be back with some more posts later on. I'm starting back on nights today with a new Phase, so I am a little nervous. Crossing fingers it all goes smooth!

Banana Bars with Chocolate Chips and Walnuts

2010-05-09T18:59:00.003-05:00

Happy Mother's Day everyone! While in theory, it should be a day of rest for Moms, we know that is never the case. I made a dinner and some treats for Dude to take in to work, then made some treats for me to take in for my last day on light duty. We had a freeze on Saturday night and even though I covered my plants and took some into the garage, I'm waiting to see if they survive.

We are suppose to be leaving on our trip to Iceland soon, but that stupid volcano keeps erupting and shutting down the airport. I have been trying to reach the airline, but keep getting a busy signal. There is no information on our airport's website and the airline only has information about European flights. I have no luck if it ain't bad luck.

I had two bananas on the counter on the verge of demise, so while looking for a different recipe, I stumbled across this one. I like the community cookbooks as I have stated before, and I found one about 6 years ago called Hudson Memorial Cookbook from 1979. My great-grandmother was a resident there at the nursing home section at this time. I was even able to find one recipe from her-it really made my day. This isn't her recipe, but rather from Ann Rebholz. I only made one addition and that was walnuts as Dude loves nuts in his banana bread-and almost any other treats.

Banana Bars

2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2/3 cup shortening

2/3 cup sugar

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 egg

1 cup mashed bananas

6 ounces chocolate chips

1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. Cream shortening, sugar and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg and then blend in vanilla and bananas. Slowly add the flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Spread batter into a 9x13 pan. Bake for 26 to 34 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar after bars have cooled if you wish.

The kitchen smelled so good when these were baking. I'll get the scoop after Dude gets off work.

Catch Up

2010-05-07T23:04:00.008-05:00

I guess it has been a while since I have posted. Life has been rather busy. I had Hermit Crab and her boyfriend and BFF home for a week from school. They were rather tired from finals, so they mostly just chilled around the house and spent 3 days at the lake with Dude's parents. They did some hiking on the trails and spent some time in the hot tub. I spent an entire day bringing them home and then driving back here. That was one long day!

Here is Hermit Crab and her boyfriend Noel

I spent an evening with my girlfriends Casey and Megan. We checked out Psycho Suzi's Motor Lounge in Minneapolis. Guy visited here on one of his Triple D shows. It was rather kitschy, but we had fun out on the patio.

Myself, Megan and Casey

Some decor on the patio

Megan and Casey shared a BBQ Chicken pizza

I had a pulled pork sandwich and 'tots'

Dude has been busy working on the downstairs bathroom. The shower is now complete and he is starting on the walls and floor for the rest of the bathroom. He has the sink and mirror and light fixture put in.

We are getting ready for our trip. I have lists, and lists of lists. I'm panicking and he's like "well, they have stores in Iceland in case we forget anything". This is why I'm in charge.

Oreo Stuffed Brownies

2010-04-28T20:35:00.002-05:00

I admit it. I was trying to show off. Or not really show off but show that I have at least a little skill in the kitchen. Hermit Crab came home for the week with her boyfriend Noel and her college BFF. They stayed here for a few days, went to the lake to visit Dude's parents for a few days, and will be back tomorrow for 2 more days. I had some food planned for dinners and snacks, but I hadn't baked anything. Looking through a cookbook, I thought brownies would be good; everyone likes brownies, don't they?

None of the brownies I had ALL ingredients for just were not clicking for me. I pulled out my Baker's chocolate thinking I would just use the recipe on the box. Nopers, some cheesecake recipe. I went to their website and found the recipe for stuffed brownies. There were all sorts of suggestions, and I happened to have a brand new package of Oreos sitting on the counter; well, hidden in a bag so they didn't get eaten, but I digress.

Oreo Stuffed Brownies

4 squares unsweetened chocolate

3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup flour

3 cups broken Oreos, divided

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9x13 pan with foil and grease the foil-grease it well. Melt chocolate and butter in a microwave safe large bowl. Stir until the chocolate is all melted and combined with butter. Stir in sugar; stir in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour until well blended. Stir in 1-1/2 cup of broken cookies. Spread into the prepared pan. Sprinkle remaining cookies on top of brownie batter. Bake for 3o to 35 minutes, but don't overbake. Start testing at 30 minutes. Cool in pan for 45 minutes, then remove and cut, slide off the foil into a storage container-but not until after eating at least one. Or six. Oh baby these were good!

A ......Minneuban?

2010-04-20T22:05:00.003-05:00

Not quite a Cuban, a little Midwest influence? I took 5 ribs out of the slow cooker before adding the BBQ to the country style ribs and made some shredded pork. I poured a little of the cooking liquid in and a little bit of beef broth and stored in the fridge for the next day. We heated up the pork, split open a small French bread loaf, placed a slice of Havarti on the top and bottom, piled on some warm pork, some pancetta, some slices of roast beef and some Dijon mustard and panini-ed that sucker. Oh, so good. We scarfed these bad boys down right quick.

Dude is teaching himself to tile and here is the progress as of last week. I need to go down and click the update. We (he) gutted our downstairs bathroom and is rebuilding from scratch. Whoever built this house should be shot as their simple math skills were lacking as they apparently couldn't figure in the size of a 2x4 when measuring out for plumbing. The plumbing is too close to the wall and the furnace and well pump sit right on the other side of the wall. The first time we built the bathroom, he built a niche into the wall for the toilet tank to sit. He was able to cut out a little bit of the stud to get it to work this time. We are tiling the whole thing in black and white and it is starting to really take shape. I will snap some new photos soon, but here is the shower floor. It is finally large enough to really take a good shower-the last one was the size of camper shower!

Country Style Ribs

2010-04-17T21:34:00.003-05:00

The supermarket had country style ribs on sale for $1.48 a pound in the value trays so I picked up a large pack for about $3.50. There were enough ribs in there for two meals, so I grabbed the slow cooker, seasoned up the ribs with salt, pepper, chipolte pepper, paprika, cumin and a little onion and garlic powder. Dropped them in the crock, poured in a couple tablespoons of water, set them on low and went to lunch with my neighbor Pat. When I got home, I pulled half of them out, poured on some BBQ sauce and let them simmer on low for another hour. We had them with some bread sticks and baked beans. Nothing fancy, but I think he was just glad I cooked.

I morphed the leftover ribs into dinner for tonight. I will post that later in the week.

Here are some new photos of Tofu:

Hey Tofu, look up here

Now look this way......

Ummm, hey, the room is starting to spin.......

Lemon Cheese Bars

2010-04-16T21:31:00.003-05:00

Dah dah dat dah.....! (trumpet sound) I AM CAST FREE!!

Oh sweet Jesus, I am free. Those were the longest 4 weeks of my life. I was shedding like a snake when it came off, and I don't have much range of motion in my wrist and my arm is not able to straighten all the way yet, but glory be, I can move it.

The last few days were the worst, since I knew it was coming off soon. To take my mind off of it for a little while, I looked for a recipe that was easy enough to make pretty much with one hand. I had a couple Meyer lemons that looks close to end of their life, so I found this recipe in my church's cookbook we put out about 5 years ago. I have to say that I love the local cookbooks that churches, community centers, school and service organizations put together. They have the tried and true recipes that people always love. These bars fit this to a tee. I was told by several people at work that I could bring these in every week if I wanted.

Lemon Cheese Bars
from Norma and Marge at St. Marks Lutheran Church

1 box yellow cake mix
1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp lemon juice (I used the juice of two Meyer lemons)
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix dry cake mix, 1 egg and 1/3 cup oil until crumbly. Reserve one cup. Pat remaining mixture into bottom of an ungreased 9x13 pan. Bake 15 minutes. Meanwhile, beat cream cheese, sugar, 1 egg and lemon juice until light and smooth. Spread over baked crust. Sprinkle reserved crumbs on top of lemon layer. Bake 15 minutes longer. When cool, cut into bars.

Easy and delicious. Give 'em a try soon!

Pom-a-long-a-ding-dong

2010-04-11T11:44:00.002-05:00

I don't have a good name for this, but I made a cocktail out of the remaining bottle of POMwonderful I had.

1 bottle POMwonderful Pomegranate juice
1 TBSP simple syrup
1 TBSP triple sec or orange liqueur
1 ounce vodka

Stir all ingredients together and pour over ice.

Since I find the juice a little tart (and I like sweet cocktails), I added the simple syrup. It was a little tart, a little sweet and a good finish to a nice sunny day.

It's a Salad.....and I actually like it!

2010-04-09T23:04:00.002-05:00

I am not a salad fan. I like lettuce in a bowl with some croutons, cheese, bacon bits, nuts and some dressing-that is a salad in my eyes. I don't like potato salad, fruit salad (unless it is naked fruit in a bowl and I can pick out the pieces I like) or most other salads, other than my popcorn salad. This however has won me over. I first had it at one of our 'girls nights' with my friends Casey and Megan. I recently had it two weeks ago at a baby shower and emailed Machelle when I got home asking for the recipe. I have made it twice in the last two weeks-and ate about 75 percent of it myself. The recipe makes A LOT. I cut it in half the first time, then as I read the recipe, the vinegar to sugar/mayo ratio was easy to divide out, so I made a smaller batch the second time so the cukes didn't get mushy after 3 days.

Summer Salad (from Machelle-and Megan too)

2-7 ounce boxes of ring pasta, cooked and rinsed in cool water
2 cups diced cucumbers
2 cups diced carrots
1 cup diced celery
1 bunch green top onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup vinegar
1-1/2 cup sugar
1-1/2 cup mayo (not Miracle Whip)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp nutmeg (I didn't use since Machelle didn't use)

Mix all together and refrigerate over night.

Or dig in after 2 hours with a huge fork, which is what I did!

I also cheated and used those shredded carrots-just chopped them all up-works great.

I feel the need for some more wine: Drama Queen is going to prom and Hermit Crab now has a boyfriend and wants to bring him home at semester break to meet us. I have already stated that statistically she will meet her future hubby in college, and I forbid her to move to his hometown. Since he lives in the Northwest Territories, like 5 million miles from Minnesota. She made circling motions next to her head while talking to me. At least I'm sure she did-we were texting-but I know she did.

Where is that corkscrew?

Hmmmm, butter....I mean Steak...

2010-04-06T21:23:00.004-05:00

ahhhh, butter and onions. Is there any better smell? In the world? I think not.

I will say that this took me quite a while to slice the onion for this. With the awkward position that my left arm/hand is in, it would cramp right up. But I persevered and got it sliced. 5 tablespoons of butter, saute the onions, take out of the pan and reserve, throw steak in, brown about 5 minutes on each side, throw 'er in the oven at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. Take out and throw onions back in the pan. Yum!

And the house smelled freakin' fantastic.

A Cheater Easter Dinner

2010-04-05T11:09:00.003-05:00

Since my cooking abilities are now extremely limited, I used convenience items: ham steaks that we grilled, some refrigerated mashed potatoes, and my 2 corn casserole. We also had a pasta salad, but I'm going to post that recipe this week yet. Since it was only the three of us and someones teenage daughter snacked too much before dinner, we had plenty of food for dinner and a snack later.

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

2010-04-03T18:11:00.000-05:00

I hope you all have a blessed holiday weekend. Peace.

Enchiladas for my Chica

2010-03-27T18:37:00.002-05:00

One of Drama Queen's good friends is Latino, and every time Boog goes to her house, her Mom makes Chicken Enchilada's. Now, DQ is a picky eater (I have NO idea where she gets that from) but she likes to frequent their house and devour these. She orders them whenever we go out, sans the beans. I had a casserole about 7 years ago at a scrapbooking retreat that were very good. DQ said that M's mom makes hers in a casserole also. I put this together based on her observations and what I remember from the retreat.

Boog's Chicken Enchilada Casserole

2 poached chicken breasts, shredded

1 can Cream of Chicken soup

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup Monterrey Jack cheese

1 can mild enchilada sauce

2 cups Mexican blend cheese

garlic salt

onion salt

Goya seasoning blend

seasoned salt

flour tortillas

After poaching breasts in chicken stock, remove and cool. Shred with two forks. Pour can of soup into saucepan. Stir in sour cream and chicken, a good sprinkle of garlic salt, onion salt, a small packet of Goya seasoning and a good sprinkle of seasoned salt. Heat through and stir in Monterrey Jack cheese to melt. Remove from heat. Spray a 9x13 glass dish with Pam. Put two heaping tablespoons of chicken mixture in middle of each tortilla. Fold two edges over, then roll up so all filling is covered by the tortilla. Put each tortilla in pan seam side down. Spoon any remaining chicken filling over tops of tortillas. Pour enchilada sauce over all the enchiladas, making sure to cover sides so they don't get too crispy. Cover with the Mexican blend cheese and bake in a 350 degree oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until cheese is melted. Let sit for about 10 minutes to set up before serving.

It was very good. I ate one and a half and saved some for Dude for his work lunch for tomorrow.

Off to read a book. Hope you all have a great weekend!

A quick update

2010-03-26T09:55:00.006-05:00

Hi everyone, just a quick update. Still not digging my cast-can you believe it? More pity parties for myself than I care to count. I think it is the whole "I can't get comfortable in any position" that is making me so cranky. I did get out all last weekend, which I enjoyed, but by the end of the nights, my arm was throbbing and I just wanted some morphine.

Friday night I met a bunch of my "Alum Chums"-people I went to high school with that didn't hang out together really back then, but we all kind of reconnected on Facebook. Three of them had birthdays in the beginning of March, so we had a party at a bar in our old stomping ground-7 houses down from where I grew up. Let's just say the neighborhood has changed...and not for the better. Guys were escorting us to the cars.

At the Cherry Pit

Saturday night, Dude and I went to dinner with friends we haven't seen since Hermit Crab's grad party. They had found a restaurant that they really liked in Red Wing called Smoking Oak. It has a giant rotisserie right when you walk in the door. Chicken, ribs, pork roasts, beef roasts.
It was fabulous! I forgot my camera, but I had a pulled pork sandwich that was incredible, Dude had a Prime rib dip and our friends both had the beef brisket sandwich. If any of you find yourselves in Red Wing, try this place-you won't regret it!

Sunday was really busy. A high school friend lost everything in a fire at the beginning of March. Unfortunately, her neighbor lost her life. One of the Alum Chums organized a benefit fundraiser at another local bar in our old neighborhood (safer!). The bar owner donated space and appys and a meat raffle and the friends donated goods for a silent auction. I won a pair of cute weinie roasting sticks....that look like men.....guess where you put the hotdog...yup! I had seen something like them on line and one of the guys from school makes them.

At Obb's. Krissy (with drink) organized the benefit-she rocks

After I left the benefit, I headed to Woodbury to meet some of my oldest (read: friends I have had the longest, not age related-in case they read this!)

We haven't been together, all 4 of us, in about 6 years. We are hoping that now that our kids are teenagers, we will have more time to meet. The girl sitting next to me is Lori. We have known each other since Kindergarten. Kim is across from her and we met in 7th grade. In peach is my BFF Liz. We met in 10th grade and have been best buds since. Well, actually we were not "buds" at first-we were both close to a third girl and 'competed' for time with Coleen. When Coleen moved away, we both felt really sad and commiserated with each other. Besties since then!

I've been on light duty at work. I can't go in the plant with my cast so I am in the office doing small projects for different people. It is nice that I can work four 10 hour days during the day. Makes it easier to sleep when Dude isn't there-keep running unto him with my arm.

I've been visiting every one's blogs but haven't left many comments as it is hard to type a lot with the one hand. I have had to take 3 breaks while typing this since it makes my right arm hurt because of the weird position, but I am staying caught up with you, I promise!

I have a baby shower tonight for someone I used to work with at the bank. It will be nice to see everyone again.

A Slow Cooker recipe and an arm

2010-03-17T11:24:00.003-05:00

I was looking for a nice, warm, comforting meal that all three of us would like. Drama Queen would love enchiladas every day I think. She won't eat pork unless it is ham or bacon, or pulled pork sandwiches, doesn't like meatloaf or fish. She is hard to feed. She does like chicken and spuds, so I threw it all in the Crock Pot and let her rip.

Creamy Crock Chicken

4 chicken breasts-I had boneless, skinless on hand
8 yellow skinned potatoes
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 can Cream of Chicken soup
1/4 can of water
poultry seasoning
paprika
salt and pepper

Rinse off chicken and pat dry. Sprinkle each breast with poultry seasoning and paprika, salt and pepper. Cube up spuds and slice onion and scatter on bottom of slow cooker. Mix the can of soup with the water (to thin out a little) and pour over spuds, retaining about 1/3 cup. Place chicken on top of spuds, spoon reserved soup mix on top of each breast. Cook on HIGH 3-4 hours or on LOW 6-7.

It creates a gravy that infuses the potatoes and keeps the chicken from drying out too much, which can happen if you leave it in too long,

Drama Queen was quite happy with it and we had no leftovers.

For the arm part, I had posted about having an MRI last week. I saw the doctor yesterday and I have an inflamed tendon with several small tears under the inflammation. He thought we can fix it with Cortisone and a cast.

Isn't it delightful? I have to have it on for 4 weeks. I can't cook, I can't clean, I can hardly put on undergarments (bras one handed?) and I can barely sleep since I sleep on my left side and I can't find a comfy position. Dude had to cut my food last night. It hurts to type with one hand because of the cramped position and he is concerned with a spot in my right wrist that has a cyst-like bump and is inflamed, which he attributes to over-compensating with that hand. I need to call the plant and see if they can put me in a different place for a month or if they really want me to sit on the packing floor for 12 hours a night and just sit. To say I am depressed is an understatement. I'm trying to look on the bright side that after nearly a year of pain, this may just fix it. Tell that to my poor hubby who had to listen to me cry at 3 this morning because I was exhausted but couldn't sleep because the cast is heavy and I couldn't find the right spot to sleep in. Unfortunately we don't have a recliner so I couldn't even sleep sitting in that.

Might have to take a trip to the furniture store...

Cuban Pork Roast `a la POM

2010-03-12T01:26:00.003-06:00

The gracious and generous folks over at POMWonderful sent me a box of 8 bottles of POM juice. I have made a punch with it, used it here-but have yet to drink it straight from the bottle. I should remedy that with one of the bottles left.

I first had a Cuban sandwich in 2001 when I took my daughters to Florida for a mini vacation at my Dad and step-mom's rental house. They were in the process of building their house and rented a home so Dad could oversee the construction. Since we went in June it was super hot outside. We literally went from air conditioned house to air conditioned car to air conditioned restaurant/store/other people's homes. They took us to a small restaurant and we had Cuban sandwiches. I of course don't like pickles so I had them hold those. That was one terrific sandwich. I have had a couple here in Minnesota, and while they were good, they didn't quite get the taste spot on.

I found a recipe for Cuban Pork Roast from Hamilton Beach while doing a search on-line. I didn't follow it exactly, but rather used it for a guide for some seasonings. It didn't taste like the pork in the sandwich either, but it was so good.

Cuban Pork Roast `a la POM

5 pound pork roast-used a bone in
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. southwestern season blend
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. fresh ground pepper
3 TBSP fresh lemon juice, zest the lemon first
3 TBSP fresh lime juice, zest the lime first
2 TBSP vegetable oil
1/3 cup POM juice
the lemon and lime zest

In a small bowl, combine all ingredients except roast and zest. Store zest in zipper bag in fridge.
Place roast in gallon size zipper bag and place the baggie in a bowl. Pour the marinade over the pork, squish around to cover meat and place in fridge overnight. In the morning, remove roast from the marinade and place in a slow cooker. Sprinkle with the citrus zest. Cover and cook on low for 4 to 5 hours.

We had this for dinner the first night, and I shredded the rest of the pork up, stirred in some barbecue sauce and served it as shredded pork sandwiches the second night. It was honestly delicious. It was flavorful and tender, not really sweet but had a small hint of the juice. The original recipe calls for red wine, but we are not huge red drinkers and I also made it on the work weekend, so I didn't want to open a bottle and have it sit in the fridge for 3 days until we could drink it.

Still looking at our options for the mini remodel of the kitchen along with the lower level bath remodel. I may have to lower my standards on the counter top and the dual fuel stove as our dishwasher broke and we needed to gut the downstairs bathroom because of a leaky shower and potential mold issue. I want to check with our remodel guy about the choices of the granite-look laminates and I found a stainless steel 5 burner, all gas model stove that is really nice-and about half the price of the dual fuel. While I would really like the electric oven for baking, I need to be realistic about what I want and what I need.

Had my MRI this week and just about tossed my cookies on the poor radiographer's shoes. I am so claustrophobic it isn't even funny. Everyone laughs when I tell them that I can't even watch people scuba dive on TV because I can't breathe. It is a pain and I feel like a big baby. I have a really high threshold for pain, but apparently narrow, white tubes that make loud clicky noises turn me into a sniveling mess. The only saving grace was that it was elbow they were looking at, so I had to put it up over my head in a kind of 'arm cuff' and they only pushed me in to about my chest. I was able to see out of the end so I didn't panic as much as I did last time. All that was running through my mind was how I could wiggle out of the cuff and escape if the power went out and they weren't able to get the slide to come out of the tube. I know, I need professional help! Hopefully we will know next week what we are dealing with and how long I will be out of commission. I need to get some more food made and pictures taken so I have some in reserves.

Off to catch up with every one's posts.

An Attempt at Brining

2010-03-06T00:16:00.004-06:00

It seems to be the 'thing' to do; brining. I have read on many blogs about everyone's success and wonderful-ness of brining, so I decided to take it on, albeit in a small package. Pork chops are my least favorite pork product. My husband loves them, but they are always dried out and blah.

When we got home from work on Thursday morning, I set myself to brining. Being lazy, I didn't turn on the computer to research the brining 'recipe' as I knew I would be sucked into two hours on the 'puter and wouldn't get any sleep. I remember that people were putting in equal amounts of salt and sugar, and some water, wine, etc. Since I was only fixing 2 pork chops (Drama Queen won't eat them) I started small.

Brined Pork Chops

2 bone in pork chops
1 TBSP salt
1 TBSP sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup cran apple juice
4 shakes Worcestershire sauce
rosemary
basil
oregano

Dissolve the salt and sugar in the water in a gallon plastic food storage bag. Add the juice and sauce. Break up the herbs and put in mixture. Place chops in baggie and remove air. Squish the pork chops around in the mixture and then lay out flat so marinade is covering them. Place on a high sided dish so they lay flat and will catch marinade if bag has a hole in it. Refrigerate for up to 8 hours. Rinse off chops; pat dry. Sprinkle each side with pork seasoning and some paprika. Put into a scorching hot pan to sear. Turn heat to med-high and sear about 4 minutes. Flip and sear another 4-5 minutes. Check with instant read thermometer to make sure the temp is 165 degrees. Remove to a platter and tent to keep warm. Temp will come up the 5 degrees while resting. I actually removed mine at 155 because I had to reheat them at work. I made some fried, diced potatoes to go with the chops.

Delicious! Oh my goodness, they were so tender and flavorful! I'm a believer, I am.

I am trying to get some stuff made this weekend as I am waiting for a call back from the Orthopedic surgeon. I have been dealing with Lateral Epicondellitis (Tennis Elbow) for about 11 months. I have done two stints of Occupational Therapy with no relief. I have been on Light duty for 10 weeks and my co-workers pretty much hate me. We are waiting on confirmation from Worker's comp that I can have an MRI to check it out. He said it is one of three things:
1) No tear, but inflamed
2) Small tear
3) Large tear

For #1 and 2 they will pretty much give me cortisone shots and put my arm in a sling and I can't use it at all for 3 weeks. For number 3, I would have to have surgery, be casted for 3 weeks and then slinged for another 3, again not using it at all.

Needless to say, I won't be cooking (or scrapping, and little else) for awhile. I figure if I have a few things in the computer, I will be able to hunt and peck with my right hand to do a couple quick posts.

Who wants to run away? Anyone? Apparently my hubby. He said the other day that he wants to sell everything we own, buy a 50 foot sailboat and just cruise the oceans, go from port to port and find the bars, and sail nekked. I just keep smiling and nodding at him. I even played along while we looked up sailboats for sale on the Internet, all the while interjecting that even with selling all the cars, the house, the toys-I don't know that we could live for 20 years until we can get Social Security and our 401(k)'s. His answer? We will do fishing tours, snorkeling tours, booze cruises out of southern ports. Oh, did I tell you? Neither one of us know how to sail-at all. He said we could get "Sailing for Dummies" and read up on it. Plus the big sailboats have power winches so I won't have to unroll the sails and rigger them. I totally made that up, but I know I have heard 'rigger' about sailing.

Smile and nod, just smile and nod.....

A trip to Mickey's

2010-03-02T00:20:00.007-06:00

This is Mickey's Diner in downtown St. Paul. It is a landmark-both literally and figuratively. It is on the National Landmark Registry. It has been in this location for 70 years and is still owned and operated by one of the founding families.

I have lived in Minnesota my entire life (except for those 2 plus years as a toddler) and have just eaten here for the first time today.

The conversation started on Wednesday night/Thursday morning around 4 A.M. I was jonesing for a burger and no place in our town is open 24 hours a day. We would have had to go to Faribault for that. Dude said we could drive up to Mickey's and grab a burger. It was tempting, but I had on jammie pants, a wool hat and a bathrobe-not the time to be taking a trip. I made waffles and he made bacon and we survived.

Tonight was Drama Queen's spring concert (she had a solo and was totally fabulous-just so you know ;-}) and after we called Grandpa so she could interview him for a speech she has to do, Dude said "Let's go to Mickey's and get those burgers". It was 9-and we hopped in the car and left. 35 minutes later we were there.

Dude's Sputnik burger with hashbrowns-they shred them on site

My Bacon Cheeseburger

Dude eating his big burger

Drama Queen spooning up the malt

It is a small place-4 booths and 10 stools. 30 minute time limit. Breakfast all day. Totally old school. It rocked.

Where's the Beef?

2010-02-26T01:47:00.002-06:00

No, it's not an ad of old from Wendy's. I'm not posting food today. I have been a lazy bum on my days off the last two weeks. The Olympics have been on my television a lot; we also just got DVR, so the nights I'm working I am "taping" the sports I would have missed otherwise. Next to penicillin, DVR has to be the best invention ever. I'm just saying...

I had mentioned in the last post (I think it was the last one) that I have also been working on my new scrap room. When Hermit Crab left for school Drama Queen claimed her room since there is another bathroom downstairs (that is in dire need of a rehab). I moved my scrap room from a small bedroom downstairs into Drama Queen's old room. Besides cooking and baking, scrapbooking is my favorite hobby. One of my favorite places is on the beach. I have always wanted to live on the beach-the fresh air, the waves crashing, the cool nights, the boats, the waiters bringing me Mai Tai's. Yum. Oh, wait-I'm back. So I love the beach. I wanted my new room to reflect that. I found a paint that I liked-or so I thought. Looks way too bright and not what I wanted, but it is toned down with the new sand colored carpet and all of my furniture in the room. I had a small counter top installed in my old room. I didn't want anything attached to the wall again, so we went to Ikea and I found a desk that I absolutely love. It has a glass top that sits on top of rails so it is raised from the desk portion. It has about 2 inches of storage space between the glass and the wood table it sits on. Great for pages I have in the works. I also bought a new chair and a new Shabby Chic white bookcase to go in the room. We changed out all the trim in the room for white, so it did the trick of reminding me of the beach. I'm going to start searching for some white framed art work of beaches, waves, umbrellas-something beachy!
The bookcase holds all the completed scrapbooks, page protectors, small embellishments, 12x12 paper and pictures waiting to be scraped.

The folding table holds my paper cutter, my Cricut, misc tools and underneath are all of my sticker binders, page elements I'm holding to scrap certain events, 8x11.5 paper and more misc items. The black mesh thing that looks like it is sitting on the blue three drawer file cabinet is my drink holder :)

This is my new desk. You can see how I have pages between the glass top and the wooden desk. I keep my pens in the wooden bourbon crate, a tool caddy for my rulers, scissors, regular ink pens (for jotting notes), a true colors light and framed photos of my loved ones.

This small cube holds the Cricut cartridges, my old Sizzix machine and dies, my rubber stamps and inks and some smaller albums I have in the works for gifts.

Oh, I forgot! POM sent me another 8 pack of POMWonderful juice. I'm excited as last time I didn't get to use all the bottles as it was hot when I received them and two of them smelled funky from sitting out on the stoop in the heat. There was no issue with them spoiling in this weather, so I have them loaded into the fridge and have two ideas rolling in my head.

Also, I want to give my daughter a shout out. My Hermit Crab is 19 years old today. I can't even believe it. The time went so fast and I'm feeling a little sorry for myself since this is the first birthday that we won't be together. I know her friends will make sure she has a good day.

And lastly, we went out and priced new stoves today. I have wanted a dual fuel stove for a long time and we just got our variable checks at work, so we are going to halvsies (is that a real word?) on one. However, we need to put in new counter tops as almost all of the dual fuels are a slide in option. Our old gas range is a freestanding model with the back panel that holds the clock and the oven control panel. In these, everything is on the front of the stove, so we would have a gap about 2 to 3 inches from the wall to the stove. We have been contemplating new counters for a year now, so this may the nudge we need. There is nothing 'wrong' with them, they still look pretty good for 14 years old; however, I'm way tired of the blue. I would love granite but not sure we can afford that, so we will see what happens.

Off to do more scrapping-working on Drama Queen's album. I would love to have hers done-not like I did with HC. I worked on hers up until 2 days before her party. Way too stressful. With my new room, I'm sure it will be a pleasure!

Are you ready for some chocolate?

2010-02-21T18:21:00.003-06:00

Life has been rather busy around here the last two weeks. I saw that my last post was almost two weeks ago. We had our good friends over for food and games this afternoon. Nothing fancy-sloppy joes, cheesy fries, corn hotdish, deviled eggs, pickle roll-ups and chocolate cream pie. Now, I will probably have a ton of typos in this post as I haven't slept in over 24 hours. I'm nodding off while typing and don't wake up until it nods down to my chest.

I made this pie early this morning and then whipped the cream fresh while our guests were here. It was quite fudgy and good, and not too overly sweet. Even Dude liked it and he is not a chocolate fan.

Chocolate Cream Pie-from Diner Desserts, Tish Boyle

Graham cracker crust

Pudding layer

3 TBSP cornstarch

1 TBSP unsweetened non-alkalized cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup half and half -I used whipping cream

1-1/4 cup whole milk

1 cup sugar

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2 TBSP unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla

Whipped Cream Topping

2 cups heavy cream

2 TBSP sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Bake off your graham cracker crust. I would normally make my own, but the ready-made ones were on sale and I had a lot going on this weekend. I popped the pre-made shell in a 350 degree F. oven for about 7 minutes to made sure it was all toasty and good.

For pudding layer, in a medium bowl, sift together the corn starch, cocoa powder and salt.

Whisk in 2 TBSP half and half until it is a smooth paste. Whisk in remaining half and half; set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine the milk, sugar and chocolate. Place over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly with a whisk, until the chocolate is completely melted. Remove from heat. Whisk about 1/2 cup hot chocolate mixture into the half and half mixture. Whisk this mixture into the remaining chocolate mixture in the saucepan. Return pan to heat and cook over medium-high and cook, whisking constantly. When mixture begins to bubble, continue to cook, whisking constantly for 1 minute. Remove pan from heat and whisk in butter and vanilla.

Scrape pudding into cooled pie shell. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

For whipped cream, in an electric mixer, using the whisk attachment or beaters, beat the cream on medium-low for 30 seconds. Increase the speed to medium-high and add sugar and vanilla. Beat until soft peaks form. Spread on pie before serving.

We have been busy working on my scrapbook room these last two weeks also. Drama Queen moved downstairs so I moved my scrap room up. We (not me) painted walls and got new baseboards. We went to Ikea and go a table for me, along with some chairs for computer desk/scrapping room. I spent about 8 hours hitting it yesterday and I'm still not done. I will post photos once everything is put away-looks like a bomb went off.

Well, my head keeps bobbing so I'm crawling into bed. I will probably wake up in the middle of the night-maybe I can find something else to bake?

Banana Cream....It's a Dream

2010-02-10T23:01:00.004-06:00

Last week when I made the chicken stock, I also baked a pie. I had told Dude I could make him a Lemon Meringue since I had everything on hand, but he shook his head. Maybe you could make a banana cream? I haven't had that in forever. I searched through cookbooks and found one that was not based on Jello. I figured I might as well go all out.

This comes from Diner Desserts, the same book my Lemon Meringue pie comes from. It wasn't hard, but there were a few steps involved, but I had nothing going on at 2 in the morning.

Banana Cream Pie

1 pie crust

Filling
4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
3 TBSP cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
2-1/2 cups whole milk (I used 1%)
2 TBSP unsalted butter, cut in TBSP's
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas, medium sized
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Garnish
1-3/4 cups whipping cream
3 TBSP powdered sugar
1/2 vanilla extract
3 TBSP English toffee bits

Line your pie plate with pie crust and blind bake your crust for about 10-15 minutes until it is golden brown. Let cool on wire rack. For banana filling, in a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and salt until well combined; set aside. In a medium saucepan, bring milk to a gentle boil over medium-low heat. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk about 1/2 cup of hot milk into the egg mixture, then return the yolk mixture to saucepan with milk in it. Do this to temper the eggs so they won't scramble. Place pan over medium-high heat and bring to a gentle boil, whisking constantly. Continue to cook, whisking constantly, for 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in butter pats until melted. Whisk in the vanilla extract. Quickly strain the custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a medium bowl. This will catch all the little pieces that didn't blend in completely and makes a smooth custard. Half-fill a large bowl with ice cubes and add cold water to cover ice cubes. Place the smaller bowl of custard in the ice 'bath' and allow to cool, stirring occasionally, for several minutes. Peel the bananas and slice them 1/4 inch thick into a bowl. Add the lemon juice and toss gently to cover all the slices. Arrange the banana slices in an even layer over the bottom of the pie crust, pressing them into the crust slightly. Scrape the custard filling over the banana pieces and smooth the top with an off-set spatula or the back of a large spoon. Refrigerate the pie for at least 3 hours before garnishing.

For topping, in an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the cream on medium-low speed for 30 seconds. Increase the speed to medium-high and add the sugar and vanilla. Beat until the cream forms soft peaks. Scrape the cream into a pastry bag fitted with the star tip. Pipe cream over the custard in large rosettes, covering it completely. Sprinkle with the toffee bits.

As you can see in my photo, I didn't do the whipped cream garnish as I was taking it to work that night. I brought a can of the spray stuff so those that wanted cream could have it and those who didn't could pass. Plus I knew the topping would be weepy by the time they ate it 16 hours later. Dude said it was fantastic and wants it to be marked a keeper. The next time I do it, I will make it for dessert for a get together with friends and use the topping.

Unfortunately my brother's Dad did pass away this weekend. His wake was tonight and his funeral is tomorrow. I didn't do the wake, but will be driving up to the Cities tomorrow morning for the funeral. I realized yesterday that I had finished cleaning out my work closet and didn't have any dress pants left that were not capri's and didn't think a dress was an option. I decided to visit Marshall's as I have never shopped there before. Let me tell you, I had a blast! I have lost about 22 pounds since I started working in a factory so was able to shop in the misses department for the first time in a long time. You girls know how happy that makes us! I went for pants. Came home with black dress pants, yoga pants for our trip to be comfy on the plane, a darling pair of black almost-patent leather peep-toe pumps, a blouse, a cow-inspired print spring dress coat, a new exercise outfit, sunglasses, some fun elbow length rubber gloves, a microplane for cheese/chocolate, some candles, a body scrub and some good smelling kitchen soap. Dude looked at me and said "Um, I thought pants were on the list. This looks like more than pants". Then I whipped out the reusable shopping bag I bought for him-in a giraffe print! I redeemed myself!

Have a good weekend and Happy Valentines Day! We work, but we are getting our winter dinner catered in on Friday night. It is a pasta bar with meatballs, chicken and another type of protein that I can't remember. Guess I can sleep in Friday since I don't have to get up and make us lunch to pack up!

Chicken soup

2010-02-07T13:46:00.003-06:00

I have never made homemade chicken soup before-Campbell's has always done the work for me! I had poached the six chicken breasts and then made the stock. I pulled apart the meat and put into two freezer packages for two different meals. I grabbed one of the packages of chicken, one of the containers of chicken stock, and my orange Rachael Ray cast iron Dutch oven and went to work.

Chicken Soup
1-2 cups cup up chicken
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
6 'new' Yukon gold potatoes, halved and/or quartered
2 carrots, peeled and slice in coins
1 stalk celery, sliced in small half moons
pasta of your choice, I used bowties

Place all ingredients, except pasta, in Dutch oven. Season with salt, pepper, and a bay leaf. Simmer for about half an hour. Pour pasta in and cook to desired doneness. I left mine about another 20 minutes.

Dude wanted more noodles, but I didn't have as much room in my pot as I would have liked, so I only used about a half cup of noodles and it wasn't enough. I made some fresh bakery dinner rolls to go with and packed it up for dinner at work. It was so good! I can't believe how easy it was and how much better it tasted not out of can.

Does everyone have big plans for Superbowl Sunday? Not us. Dude doesn't like football, but I bought some snack food and am making some guac so we can watch. I'm hoping the Saints can pull it off. It would be nice to see a first time winner (still waiting Vikings...).

Off to paint some more trim work in my new scrap room and I have a pot simmering on the stove with the ham bone and ham pieces from last nights' dinner. Trying ham stock so I'm not wasteful and also Dude wants me to try making a ham and potato soup. Hmmmmm.