A dear friend of mine, Chrissie Dunham posted this recipe on her blog last week! When I saw it, I knew I had to make it for Memorial Day to go with our shredded pork sliders, baked beans, potato salad and Hawaiian Rolls. And my goodness it was delicious and well received. I’m not a huge slaw person but I loved this recipe. I ask Chrissie if she minded me sharing her recipe and of course, being the gracious Southern Belle that she is, said “of course you can”.

So here it is folks! So easy and so so yummy. Thanks Chrissie! Guess I owe you a chocolate pie!

First of all, I want to thank each man and woman who have served and are serving! As a Nation, we have become so separated emotionally (and that certainty includes me) from being thankful for the sacrifices that have been made for us today. Let’s teach and remind our families that Memorial Day is more than a day off….

Lord, rekindle our hearts to not only individually, but as a nation turn to You! Like the song we all began to sing in days following 911, “May We Never Forget” the sacrifices of so many! Today take a few minutes to tell our families why Memorial Day is celebrated and to just say a prayer of thanksgiving for the people who have given so much. And for God who has put us here in still the greatest country, “for such a time as this”

Alan W Jankowski   Poems  

Dec 2011

We Shall Never Forget (9-11 Tribute)

Let the world always remember,
That fateful day in September,
And the ones who answered duty’s call,
Should be remembered by us all.

Who left the comfort of their home,
To face perils as yet unknown,
An embodiment of goodness on a day,
When men’s hearts had gone astray.

Sons and daughters like me and you,
Who never questioned what they had to do,
Who by example, were a source of hope,
And strength to others who could not cope.

Heroes that would not turn their back,
With determination that would not crack,
Who bound together in their ranks,
And asking not a word of thanks.

Men who bravely gave their lives,
Whose orphaned kids and widowed wives,
Can proudly look back on their dad,
Who gave this country all they had.

Actions taken without regret,
Heroisms we shall never forget,
The ones who paid the ultimate price,
Let’s never forget their sacrifice.

And never forget the ones no longer here,
Who fought for the freedoms we all hold dear,
And may their memory never wane,
Lest their sacrifices be in vain.

This morning I felt so guilty leaving Randy alone last night to go have dinner with Jason (my oldest) that I knew I needed to make a better than normal peanut butter toast breakfast for him! Years ago while living in CA we learned about this great egg breakfast. And Loved it! So today before going to watch our grandson play ball, we dined on Chilaquiles. Such a simple yet so flavorful and filling breakfast.

This recipe serves 2

4 slices of bacon or Canadian bacon friend and chopped

3 eggs

2-3 corn tortillas diced or cut in small strips fried until crisp in a little oil

1/2 cup mild green enchilada sauce

1/2 sharp cheddar cheese

Spray small baking dish with Pam

Dish the fried and crisp tortilla strips into baking dish

Fry and scramble the eggs with the cooked and crumbled bacon or Canadian bacon. Spoon this mixture over the tortilla strips. Pour the enchilada sauce over mixture and top with cheese. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven. Serve with salsa if desired and warm tortillas! ole’

Yesterday was a packing day! As I prepared to pack some of the pantry, I thought about what kind of pie would taste good in the evening after dinner and we sit down for a couple hours before going to bed. Lemon meringue!!! That sounded like the perfect dessert for the night! When we lived in CA, a dear friend, Kathy, use to make the best lemon meringue pie. Asking her for the recipe, she took me into the kitchen and showed me the box of cook & serve lemon pudding and said “follow the instructions on the side of the box”. I was so surprised to learn that it was that simple and so delicious. So ever since then, that is what I have done. Except in today’s world, cook & serve lemon pudding is not easy to find. I had to order it from Walmart to be delivered. It is never in their stores. AND it costs $13.99 for 4 small boxes. But when you take that first bite of pie, you won’t mind that the little box of pudding mix cost you $3.50 a box.

I ended up making a chocolate pie for Sevy, our grandson who came over to bring us more boxes and requested I make him a chocolate pie with whipped cream. This one is not from a box. But the recipe is on the blog.

Lemon pie

1 small box of lemon cook & serve pudding

2 1/4 cups water (divided)

2 egg yolks (keep the whites for the meringue)

1/2 cup sugar

In saucepan, combine the sugar, pudding mix, egg yolks and 1/4 cup water. Using a whisk, stir mixture until smooth then add the remaining 2 cups of water. Continue stirring over medium heat until pudding is thickened! Pour into baked and cooked pie shell.

Meringue

Beat room temp egg whites (I added a 3rd egg white to the mixture to be sure it would be enough to over the pie well)

After whites have begun to get stiff, add 1/3 cup of granulated sugar, slowly, as you continue to beat until whites form stiff peaks. Spread meringue over entire top making sure the meringue goes all the way to the edge touching the crust on the side. Bake in preheated 350 oven for about 10-12 min or until golden brown on top. Allow to cool (if you can before you “have” to have a small piece, just to “try” it!

As Randy and I sat waiting for worship to begin this morning, I began to just listen to some of the things I heard going on around me. As I listened to these conversations I began to get tears in my eyes realizing that everything going on around me is indeed the church. Church is singing and giving all glory to our Creator! Church is hearing Gods Word taught to us each week! Church is a Quiet time of reflection that hopefully points us in the direction to see and know God for Who He is!

Today we celebrated our Victory in Jesus while partaking of the Lords Supper. As I grow in years, this sacrament becomes more special and meaningful to me! It is such a reminder of His great love and sacrifice that was made on Calvary for all of us! But as I said at the beginning of this post, today I began to reflect on what the church means to me and the blessing it is to me! I came away more thankful today than I have felt in a long time. Maybe it is because we had so many months of not being able to attend in Person or maybe I just simply have taken for granted for a long time what God has given to us in regards to The Church. Before church began this morning, it was so great to visit with friends who visited with us and as we talked we planned our next get together.

Today the Church was riding on the elevator with sweet new friends who shared that the wife will need another surgery for removal of cancer and she ask for prayer!

The Church was a lady standing right in Front of me introducing a young man to one of our ministers and assuring this young man that questions he had could be answered! The Church was watching people go over and hug a lady whose husband had died and just loving on her! The Church was seeing 20 people baptized this morning! The Church was visiting with a lady I had not talked to in a while and finding out her neighbor needed prayer regarding a possible move to Tennessee! The Church was having several on our single lady friends come sit over by us and ask how we were doing and how my birthday went. The Church today was old friends who used to live by us stand and visit with us and assure us we need to have dinner soon! The Church was gathering with our small group and hearing Gods Word taught and met a couple who were new to our group! Yes the Church is instituted by God for iour praise and worship and to grow spiritually in our walk with God. But it is so so much more!

Us. God gave us the Church because of His great love for us! As I walked out of the building that was built for us to gather together in His Name this morning, I realized just how blessed we truly are! That the Church being the church would allow us to have “The Church” every day no matter where we are, whether we are in the building or in our own part of our world! The Church is just that. it is people bonded together by the Holy Spirit that gives us so much more than just being able to sit and listen to a sermon and sing a few songs in a building, (Those are just the frosting on the cake). But It is first and foremost, Christ Himself! Living for us and through us that we are so blessed to be The Church! Yes all these are the Church and it is so much more, but these are the things that spoke to me today’

Silver Sneakers VS Blingy Sandals

As most of you oldies, but goodies, out there know, there is an exercise program made just for us senior citizens. A few years back I wrote a blog about the ONE day I actually attended one of the Silver Sneaker classes. Besides me being the youngest one there (there was only 3 or us there as the others had called saying their hips were not healed enough to be exercising yet from hip surgery, shoulder or knee replacement surgery or they had turned their ankle while getting up to get a new tube of Ben Gay, etc), there was truly not much exercising going on. We really never got out of the chairs. The only exercise going on was from a sitting position of raising a leg or seeing if we could make circles with our arms. So today, as I continued to get an alert on my phone regarding the Silver Sneakers classes going on in our area, I begin to think about starting my own class. I think I would call it Blingy Sandals for Seniors. Besides us looking so much cuter than the ladies in their silver tennis shoes, we would at least look like we had more fun than attend a class where all they talked about was post surgeries, future surgeries and surgeries that they needed but just wasn’t quite ready to commit to. We would be in the next classroom discussing where the best sales were for cute shoes, what restaurant we would be going to to celebrate that we really did some exercises, and what new hairdo we would be brave enough to try. When I thought about the exercise we would be doing, they would be based on the exercises I do at home. These are just some of the ones I do daily:

1. not holding on to a cabinet or chair or wall, try to put on a pair of undies, balancing on one foot while putting the other foot in the pant leg, and not fall.
2. getting your arms behind you to hook your bra without getting your shoulder out of socket.
3. tiptoeing across the just mopped floor without doing a spread eagle.
4. lifting up your arms high enough to put your contacts in the first time you try. (which reminds me of the last appt at the optometrist. When I ask if there was an age I needed to quit wearing contacts, he told me as long as i could raise my arms that high to put them in my eye there was no reason to quit)
5. lifting up a king mattress to put the clean sheets on the bed without using your knee to support the mattress.
6. bending down to clean the lowest drawer in the fridge or deweeding the flower beds without getting stuck and not being able to get back up.
7. running around the house trying to kill a fly before company arrives and sees the fly landing on the food they are about to eat.
8. bringing in 10 bags of groceries to save trips back out to the car.
9. Curling my hair every morning with the curling iron without dropping it on my neck and getting 2nd degree burns.
10. arranging furniture when I get in the mood without throwing out my back, quitting halfway through and end up putting it back where it was.

As I think about it, I think the above schedule gives me enough exercise that I will skip any class and just go celebrate with a hot fudge sundae that I did most of the above and it’s not even noon yet. AND…all the while, I wore some pretty cute blingy sandals.

Am making some soup today to take to a friend who is not feeling well! What better food to take than chicken soup? But since her husband will be having some of this for dinner so she doesn’t have to cook I wanted it to have a little more substance to it than just chicken broth! Looking in my pantry I found a can of Cream of Chicken With Herbs. This will work perfectly adding just a little more flavor plus texture than just chicken broth. Delivering this with a small coconut pound cake and corn bread might just do the trick of helping her feel better! After all, we all know Chicken Soup for the Soul and the tummy works so well!

2 cups cut up rotisserie chicken (I use the Costco chicken)

1/2 diced white or yellow onion

1 cup diced celery (when making any sauce or soup that calls for celery try to use the inside ones with the green leafy stalks, adds so much flavor)

1 cup or 2 large carrots, cut into small diced pieces

1 14 oz can of chicken broth

2 cups water

1 (10 1/2 oz) can of cream of chicken soup with Herbs

1 package wide noodles, cooked and drained (12 oz package)

2 tables butter (salted or unsalted)

Garlic Powder, Pepper to taste

Cook and drain the noodles according to package directions. Drain and add 2 tables butter and 2 tables of the chicken soup with herbs. Stir until all noodles are coated. You might not need all the noodles but this will keep them from sticking together and give them flavor before adding to the soup. Set aside

Brown the chopped onion, celery and carrot in about 1 tables oil until veggies begin to soften! Add the chicken broth, the water and the rest of the can of cream of chicken soup with herbs. Stir until well combined. Add the chopped chicken and cover the pan and place in preheated 350 degree oven. Bake until veggies are thoroughly cooked (about an hr). Remove from oven and add enough noodles to get it to the right proportion of noodles to broth. If you like a more broth than noodle/veggie combo, add less noodles, if you like less broth than veggies, add more noodles. You can’t go wrong. Just adjust to your liking. You notice I didn’t add salt. Be sure to taste the soup before serving because with the cans of soup in it, it will require less salt.

Last Friday night we had friends over for dinner. About 4 AM I woke up and decided to change the menu for that evening. As Randy and I were discussing about 8 AM about me waking up at 4 and deciding to change what I had planned for dinner, he suggested that I make fried chicken. That sounded good, but I didn’t want to be frying as they arrived and I don’t like cold fried chicken so I came up with this idea. AND I have to tell you that it really turned out great and we all ate until it was gone. Well, not me, you know me, I had one little piece to keep me in my fighting weight of under 200. But as the dinner was coming to a close for us to move from the table to the couch and visit over Key Lime Pie, I began to think of really how simple the dinner was to make and decided that it needed to be shared via Chocolate Castles. So here it is folks. A simply but oh so yummy comfort dinner for those evenings when you don’t want to serve another pot roast or meatloaf to company.

Serves 4

3 large chicken breasts, cut up into large chunks

1 cup of buttermilk

Pepper and Garlic powder to taste

One envelop of Pioneer Country Gravy Mix

1 (10 1/2 oz) can Cream of Mushroom soup

1/2 cup milk or cream

1 1/2 cups of either all purpose flour or self-rising flour

1 egg, beaten

Oil to fry in skillet

(If you have ever purchased Paula Deen Fried Chicken Coating Mix, I used this in the flour mixture) but if not, just use a little (about 1/2 cup) bread crumbs with the flour for dipping the chicken in )

Soak your cut up chicken breasts chunks in the buttermilk for at least 1 hour. Combine the flour and either the bread crumbs or Paula Deens Fried Chicken Coating in a bowl. Dip each piece of chicken in the flour mixture and set on a plate or paper towel while you heat the oil in a skillet. (I actually use a zip lock bag to coat the chicken with the flour mixture. Makes clean up a lot easier and you can then just throw the bag away after you have coated all the chicken in it.

Turn heat onto medium and heat the oil, when oil is starting to sizzle, place chicken chunks in hot oil and fry each piece until both sides are brown. Try not to turn the chicken pieces over but once to brown, allowing them to cook until done. When done, place the chicken pieces into a pyrex baking dish that has been sprayed with Pam. After you have finished cooking all the chicken and they have been placed in the baking dish, set them aside. At this point, you can always set them in fridge (covered) until about an hour before you wish to serve them. But if you are going to be serving them in the next hour after frying them, just leave out of the fridge. Meanwhile, in a sauce pan, combine 1 and 1/2 cups of water and bring this to a boil. Mix the contents of the gravy mix with 1/2 cup of cold water and stir until dissolved. Stir this gravy mixture into the 1 1/2 cups of water in the saucepan. Then stir in the can of mushroom soup and the 1/2 cup milk/cream. Heat this thoroughly and add some pepper to the gravy. Pour about 2 cups (use your discretion as to how much chicken is in the baking dish. You want to cover the chicken but not drown it)

Place gravy covered chicken in a preheated 350 oven and bake for about 20-30 minutes or until gravy is bubbling. Sprinkle some parsley flakes over it and serve the chicken with either mashed potatoes or rice pilaf. We had rice pilaf and baked asparagus to complete the meal. And Of course, you can’t forget to serve Sister Schubert rolls along with this to complete this southern comfort meal. It really turned out delicious and it is not one of our new favorite dinners to serve.

It is summer and fried green tomatoes are on the menu. After searching in 4 stores for green tomatoes, I finally found 3 beautiful ones at a local produce/nursery on Thursday! Also I watched Brenda Gant on her show frying them in chunks instead of slices. It turns out she knows out she knows best. They came out so much better frying them in chunks than slices. Very easy and so good!

I dipped the chunks in a little buttermilk and then coated them in Progresso Italian seasoned breadcrumbs that I had added a little flour to. Fried them in a mixture of olive and veggie oil until crisp on all sides. Sprinkled salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese when done. Laid them on a bowl of cut up butter lettuce and drizzled Olive Garden dressing over that. That made for a most delicious salad!