Is this the best comfort sounding food or what? We did not get to cook these last night, as we had to leave the house early for a Bible study, so am making them later on in the week. Will be sure to post the recipe when I do…

Last night, watching Diner, Dives and Drivein’s we watched a restaurant owner cook stuffed pork chops. They looked amazing. So am going to try to make them. If they turn out, I will post the recipe I use. They didn’t of course give out the exact recipe, but told us the ingredients, so am headed to the store to buy the necessary items to make them.
Also, on this same show, they showed a lady who fried her chicken in a mixture of oil and butter, after marinating the chicken for 24 hours, so I have to try that also. Will post this tomorrow after cooking it tonight.

The middle of a new week and once again, God is showing me how faithful He is. When moving here, I didn’t know anyone and yet, God in His infinite love and wisdom knew exactly what to give me; friends. Last week, a lady who I had never met, only through Face Book, being told to contact her through another friend, and I had lunch. What a precious Christian lady who I knew immediately, she was God’s gift to me. The conversation just flowed. We had so much in common, even our husbands share the same name, Randy. We laughed and talked for 3 hours. We talked about our kids and grandkids, our husbands, our faith, our friends and both of us felt like we had known each other for years. It really touched my heart to know that God was looking down and had blessed my life with such a sweet lady who I can laugh with, pray with and explore this new area. She assured me that even though she doesn’t cook a lot, she loves to eat, so I told her that would be perfect. I can bake and she and her husband can be the recipients of what I bake. So now I’m off to another new adventure with Shirley, who we met in Sunday School. She is from Louisiana and has been here a year. We keep being amazed at the gifts that God is bestowing on us, and yet, why do we continue to be surprised. He tells us that He is faithful to give us what we need, if we will only trust Him. Sometimes, isn’t it easier to trust Him in big things, but a little harder to give him the everyday “needs”? This should be a reminder to myself that He cares for me and for you, no matter the need, big or small. He is a most wonderful and awesome God!

Since we have moved and am having to “scale down” (two of my most unfavorite words in the whole world), Randy has “suggested” that maybe I might want to go through the Southern Living magazines, my Tea Time magazines, plus the Taste of Home magazines and just tear out my favorites so he could possibly sit down to watch TV at night instead of trying to sit atop of my stacks of magazines, that I just always said I would never throw out. Since I keep my magizines by seasons, I tend to pull out old ones to match the seasons, that way, it makes me continue to go through the old ones while standing and watching tv. But as we have gotten older (him, not me) we are missing having a place to sit, so hence, scaling down on the magazines. While going through a few of them each night, I have seen different recipes that I have made that became a sweet memory to us. It brought back the memory of all our adult kids and granchildren sitting around the table, after calling to request having chicken fried steak, all the while watching the grandkids sit and eat their McDonalds, while we, the adults, chomped away on chicken fried steak. Hopefully as the grandkids mature, they will realize that the CFS is so much better for you, (who are we kidding here) than the hamburger and fries from Micky D’s.
So after finding a few favorites last night, I couldn’t decide which of my two favorites to post, so am posting both of the ones I found last night. Hope they become a favorite at your house, like they have ours. First one will be Brownie Tiramisu and Country-Fried Steak with Creamy Salsa Gravy

I know….most of you think that we are just out here, laying around on the beach, learning to eat sushi and making appointments to go to the tanning booths for that California spray on tan, but let me just give you a quick little update on my day. It began just like all the rest, got Randy off to work, got my first call of the day from Jodi, got some things to take back to the store (which is about 18 miles away. Thought, well it is beautiful out today, maybe I will just take a book to read and stop somewhere to have a quick lunch before heading back home. As I was headed out the door, I thought to myself, “self, maybe you should just eat a quick Lean Cuisine so you won’t spend any more money, or use up my calorie count on fast food. So I got out the meal of choice and popped it in the microwave only to discover that it wouldn’t turn on, in fact, as I looked around, all the little cute lights that I leave on, weren’t on, so I quickly discovered that the electricity was off. I thought to myself, “oh, I bet it is just off because someone is working on something in the neighborhood,” so I decided to just go ahead and leave and run errands, thinking that by the time I got home in a few hours, it would surely be on. Well, I get home and still no electricity. Checking with the neighbors only
to find out that they had electricity, I started to panic. Was I suppose to be paying for the electricity? Since we have never rented before,I didn’t know if I was suppose to have it switched over into our name, or what, so I called Randy and he told me to check the fuse box in the hall. Checked it and it was fine. Then I called the man who is like the “repairman” for these condo’s and he told me to go out and look at the main fuse to see if maybe it had blown a fuse for our place. I had to go find a neighbor who knew where it was, and we discovered that indeed, there was a tag on it from the City of Pasadena saying that they had turned it off because they were owed $138.08. It is now 3:00 and I begin to think that we might not have lights tonight and get excited about the possibility of getting to go out for dinner, since we have all electric kitchen. After a few phone calls to the landlord, it seems that they thought that the HOA fees included the electric and gas and water and that in our contract, it states that they will pay for everything. So they make a call and assure us that it will be turned on by 6:00 tonight. In the meantime, because I have been on the phone trying to call so many people, my phone has no charge so I go to the garage, plug in my phone and sit in my car to read to let my phone charge for about 30 mins. One of the neighbors see me sitting in the car and ask me if everything is ok? I tell him what is going on and he tells me to let him bring my phone into his house and they will charge it for me so I don’t have to sit in my car. We get our electricity around 5:00 so I didn’t get dinner out, we had sandwiches. It was just so nice to know that people are still in the habit of helping and the neighbors who we have here are so sweet. The landlord even sent us over a gift certificate to
apologize for our inconvenience. The sweet neighbors who live under us invited us to come over tonight to watch TV if we still didn’t have the lights on. These California people are very hospitable, almost made me feel like I was back in the South again, except they didn’t offer us a glass of sweet tea or pie. Maybe they were in a hurry to hit the tanning parlor or go out for sushi.

Many of you have expressed to me that it would be so nice to have these recipes from the blog in book form to where you wouldn’t have to scroll through page after page to find what you are looking for. Several years ago, I felt that God was asking me to do just that, and began to work on one. It has become so heavy on my heart to complete the cookbook, so am going to be working on it until it is finished. The name of the book has already been on my heart for a couple of years, so please pray for me that I will have the dedication and determination to complete that which I truly feel God calling me to do. As most of you know, it is so hard for me to sit over 20 minutes, so this will take so much discipline. It will be filled with not only recipes, but stories of family and friends, hopefully bringing a smile to your face. There will be “God Stories” of how and when He has truly shown Himself to us in our different seasons of life. Thank you in advance for your prayers as I complete this. It is exciting to think about having so much of my experiences with learning how to cook, teaching children different recipes and mistakes that have been made, both in cooking and serving. Will keep you posted on the progress!

We have decided that the ten most dreaded words to hear is “oh no, here is another box that hasn’t been opened”
We sit down and see a box in the corner, or open a closet door and see a box and discover that we have not opened it to unpack it, so here we go again. Just when we think that we are done making trips to Goodwill or storage, we find another box. To let you know how much “stuff” we don’t have room for, well…..let’s put it this way, our storage unit is bigger than our condo. So….our new motto, we WILL NOT BUY anything, ever again…..ever……if I do, Randy says that if something comes in, 3 things have to go out.
Randy (or as he calls himself this week, “a pack mule”) is making a couple more trips downstairs with the last few items that are going to storage and Goodwill. The people at Goodwill know us by name now. In fact, I started thinking this morning and got so tickled about what the neighbors must think as they see us hauling down more bags. I think they see all the “stuff” and must wonder how much more is coming out of this place. It’s kind of like seeing how many people can get in a phone booth. I think they are looking out their windows and have probably taken bets as to seeing just how many more bags come down with us every time we walk out the door. FYI…if you ever send me any gift ever again, just be prepared to come out here and carry it downstairs when we move. Unless the gifts are diamond related, and I don’t mind carrying those myself at all.

You know me, I have missed cooking so much that I am now just cooking all day long. Last night I made a chocolate chocolate chip pound cake with ganache and sent it off with Randy to his office. Today I am making Eggplant Parmesan, one of Randh’s favorites. Will be needing to go to the store to stock up on cream cheese and sour cream, after all, a little southern girl cannot exist without those two items being in her fridge. A neighbor has already asked me for the recipe for the apple cobbler I made the other night, so am feeling a little more like I am home. When I get permission from a friend who made an amazing dessert ball, will post that today. Am rocking and rolling and ready to get back to writing on a more regular routine. Thanks for staying with me and keep those comments coming. The eggplant parmesan is a new one I am trying,
so if it is as good as it sounds, will post it tomorrow because it is so easy.

The furniture has arrived! We have made too many trips to Goodwill to count because we simply do not have room for so many of our things. In fact, Randy, (or Cal, which is his new California name) has actually designed an escape route should we need one in case of having to evacuate the premises. It goes something like this. “upon entering the hallway, turn left at the bookcase and squeeze between two storage bins, walk 5 steps to jump over the couch, take 3 steps, with your arms as close to your body as possible to inch through the two tables before exiting the front door.” the plan to evacuate through the back door is simply to complicated to write as we now have (I am serious about this) serving bowls stored under the table, hidden by the floor length cloth. We have two huge platters stored under a bed and our “out of
season” clothes, now in plastic tubs stored in the garage, where at this moment our
washer and dryer are located because they were too big for our utility closet. So…we
are searching for a ventless dryer that we have to buy and a smaller car to fit in our
garage because so much of our belongings are now in the garage. Ah, this California
living is just the best……I will start cooking again if I can remember where we had to
store my pots and pans, if I do, new recipes will be coming your way…..miss all you Butter Belt friends