OK, I just got really busted by Son In Law, Eric, for not talking about how awesome his pork tenderloin was Christmas night dinner. Actually it was fantastic, and I have continually told him, since that day, that that was the best tenderloin ever. So today, he asked me why I had not written about it on the blog. Since I’m old, I was able to use the excuse, “I thought I did”. So Mr. SIL, here it is. I have to truly say that it was just the best ever. It was wrapped in bacon, marinated in mustard, brown sugar and apple juice, I think and then put on the grill outside to cook. Scrumpcious! It was also nice just walking in to their house and only bringing a couple of items. What a wonderful Christmas day we had. Thank you Eric and Jodi for hosting all of us this year. It is just so much fun to be friends with our adult children and to share meals, laughter and watch as you begin new traditions with your children. This growing “older” is not half bad. We are able to sit and relax sometimes “just because we want to” and not apologize for doing so. We enjoy sitting by the fire, reading, talking on the phone or simply just watching television. It’s nice this time of year, to just settle in some nights and enjoy the moments. So, thank you Eric and Jodi for hosting a most wonderful memory. Eric, please send me your recipe so we can share it with our friends! They are waiting!
Taco Tuesday
What a beautiful day. The sun is shining and I am cooking tacos for my daughter and her husband to come to lunch. Their office has moved over close to us and she loves to come to lunch when I offer. She loves homemade tacos, so we will sit by the window, enjoy the sunshine and chomp down on tacos and chocolate cream pie for dessert. While in the kitchen, had the tv on watching “Tool Time”. It is the segment about Tim not ever wanting to talk to his mom and, of course, at the close of the 30 min show, he comes to realize that if he does not talk and share his heart with her, and her with him, there will come a time when he would be unable to do so. This understanding comes after hearing from a friend that he would never really get to know his mom as a person. It started me thinking about our adult children and what they think they know about Randy or myself. I remember during my young adult years that I was pretty self centered and pretty much everything was about me. (Yes, I am an only child). As we mature, we realize that our parents, like us now, were not just parents, but “people” as well. They had friends, feelings and thoughts that I probably will never know. Now, is the time, that when I talk to my mom and dad, I try to ask them about not just what they are doing, but what they are thinking. It feels good to hear them talk about why they made some of the choices they made, why they moved to certain places, why they worked at certain jobs, what they felt when I made some of the choices I made. It will feel good to know, one day, when they cannot share their hearts with me, that maybe, just maybe, I gave them the chance to share who they really were, not just telling them what I was doing, not what I was feeling, or telling them my plans. It’s sad that we have to waste so many years sometimes, before we allow the people we love truly love to share “who they are” . These parents of ours shaped the people we are today. It is interesting to hear the stories of their trials and their accomplishments and their failures, their goals they met and their goals they never attained. Life happens so quickly. It is amazing, this gift God has given us…..life, with so many family members and friends, coming and going through different seasons of our lives. I want to live the rest of my days sharing, when asked, what is on my heart, not being afraid to speak words of love and encouragement to those I love. I hope our children will one day ask us these questions, desiring to understand our hearts.
Strawberry Bread
3 cups flour
1 teas baking soda
1 teas salt
1 teas cinnamon
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
2 cups frozen sliced strawberries, thawed
1 cup chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter 2 9-in loaf pans. In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and add the oil, strawberries and pecans. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add liquid mixture, stirring thoroughly but not overmixing. Pour into pans and bake 45 min to 1 hr. Place pans on wife rack and let cool 10 to 15 min. Remove bread and let cool on wire racks. Do not slice until thoroughly cooled. Makes 2 laves, about 16 slices per loaf.
* I make a frosting from a box of powdered sugar, 1 stick of butter, some of the juice drainned off the strawberries (about 1/4 cup) and enough half & half to make it spreading consistency. Add 1 teas vanilla and beat well. Pour over each loaf when cool.
Mexican Posole Soup
My son, Jamin emailed me this recipe which he had made over the weekend and says that it is delicious. With all the frigid weather we will be having this week, I plan to make it Friday for dinner. Thought you might want to try it. What better time to make it than a night of having the fireplace lit, watching a “bowl game” and nachos on the table………let me know what you think about it.
2 lbs of boneless pork ribs cubed into 1″ squares.
2 cans of enchilada sauce (1 can hot 1 can mild or medium)
3 finely diced onions
8 cloves or garlic
2 chicken bouillan cubes
1 29 ounce can of mexican hominy (Drained)
4 – 5 cups of water
1 8oz can of chopped or diced green chiles
I chopped up the onions and garlic and put them and the cubed pork into a big pot with some vegetable oil and sauteed them until the meat was browned. Then add the water, hominy (Drained) chicken bouillan enchilada sauce and green chiles. Bring it to a boil and then bring it back down to medium for about 35 – 40 minutes.
It is a good mexican soup that is great on a cold day. You can heat up some tortillas with it as well. Alot of people garnish it with lime, onions and cabbage if you want. Like I said, there are alot of ways to make it with different ingrediants but this is what I used and everyone loved it and Ashlynn and Tina have already asked me to make another pot of it.
Italian Wedding Soup
Good evening and you will love this soup. We had it for dinner tonight. It is just amazing and oh so simple. We tasted it for the first time a few years ago up in Virginia and I came home immediately and found a recipe on line for it. I changed it up a little and it is just perfect with a slice of garlic toast on a cold night, like tonight.
1 lb of 93/7 ground beef
1/3 cup of parmesean cheese
1 teas ea: black pepper/and salt and garlic powder
1 tables dried parsley flakes
1 egg
Combine all ingredients and form in 1 inch meatballs. Set aside. Into a large pot, pour 3 (32 oz) containers of chicken broth into the pot. Bring to a boil and drop the tiny meatballs into the broth. Do not stir, as they cook, they will pop up to the top. (These seasonings are in addition to what you put into the meatballs) Add 1 teas each of the following, garlic powder, seasoning salt and pepper. 1 tables parsley flakes. 1 bag of fresh spinach, 2 cups of orzo pasta and 2 carrots which you have peeled and sliced. Cook this until the pasta and carrots are tender. I make this the day before and then heat and serve the next night. It gives the flavors a chance to blend well. Serve with garlic bread.
Great Idea
Right now, as a peach cobbler is in the over baking for tonight, I wanted to share with you an idea. We had several people over on New Years Eve and had a great time. One of the guests commented to Randy and I that he wondered just how many times he had been to our house for a dinner or fellowship. He said, “wouldn’t you love to have kept tabs on how many people you have had in your home?” I began to think about that. I wish I could go back in time with a journal and look to see how many parties, get-togethers we have had over the years. It made me wish I had done so. I think it would be fun to look back over the years and see just how many people had come through our many front doors. So one of my new years resolutions is this. Beginning on this past New Years Eve (3 days ago) I will begin to journal our parties, who attended, the food served and the general theme. As we have usually 2 to 3 functions at our house every month, this should fill up a journal pretty fast. Can I encourage you to do the same. It should be such an adventure to see how many lives are continually passing through yours. Let’s share some of the ideas and results. Will look forward to hearing fromyou.
Tomorrow, will be posting a new pasta dish.
Happy New Year
Welcome to 2010. This year has begun with a new sense of cleaning out and reorganizing like never before. We have been over to Randy’s parents home cleaning out the entire apartment. Yesterday when we went to take his mom to live in the nursing home, because she has to have 24 hour care, reality set in about what is important and what is not. We both felt that truly for the first time, we were missing Howard, since his passing Dec 8th. It was just so odd being in their house without them there and seeing things from a different perspective. Randy found a little cookie jar that he remembered always getting cookies out of when he was little. He found a stack of all of his report cards that his parents had kept. Even the glass he wore when he was 10. We continue to uncover so many different articles that were important to both Hazel and Howard, but really, so much of it, will be taken to second hand shops or given to other relatives. While driving home, we both agreed that after we get through with this “empting out mission” we will make an attempt to get rid of things that are of no use to anyone or of no interest. Will our kids want any of the cookbooks which I have collected over the years? Will they want all of our old Christmas cards, the pictures from all of our “memory making trips”? Probably not. So come spring, we are going to truly put our noses to the grind and try to think ahead and get rid of things that we feel would just be thrown out one day anyway. It made me also stop and think about things that I continue to buy. Why am I continuing to buy more “stuff”? When we leave this life, we certainly cannot take anything with us. All we will take is the “heavenly treasures” that we have built. So this year will be one of examination. Am I being a good steward of the money God has blessed me with. Am I being a good steward of the time He allows me. What “heavenly treasures” am I building. What “stuff” that is so important to me now, will be important 20 years down the road. Probably not much. As we left Hazel in the nursing home yesterday, all she is allowed are a few pictures on the wall, several changes of clothes, but truly nothing more. That is what hit me in the face. All of the things that we consider important now, will one day be left behind. Do I treasure it more than relationships? Do I treasure it more than God? What will be left in the house should I have to be put in a nursing home. I pray that the treasures that I take with me are the memories of what people have meant to me. The memories of trying to do and be what others needed. Those are the things that I want my mind to be upon, not just “stuff” that remain in a house. I pray that God will allow me to be a treasure to others, as so many have been such a blessing to my life. Let’s make 2010 the “year of friendship and blessing others” Let’s build our “treasures” in relationships, not just with others, but with the Lord. May He be the treasure that we seek, but share as well, with others. Happy New Year to each of you.
Fruit Compote
My sister-in-law gave me this recipe after I went crazy over the one she served at Christmas brunch a few years ago. It is just delicious and everyone always wants the recipe.
6 coconut macaroons crumbled into a 9×13 pyrex which you have sprayed with Pam.
Layer each of the following: drain each can before layering: peaches, pears, apricots, pineapple chunks, bing cherries.
Crumble 6 more coconut macaroons and add 1/4 cup melted butter and 1/4 cup brown sugar. Mix and pour over top of fruit. Top with 1/2 cup sliced almonds. Bake at 350 for about 35 to 40 minutes.
Black Forest Cookies
1 11.5 oz package milk chocolate morsels
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup softened butter
2 eggs
1 teas vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1/4 teas baking powder
1 6 oz package of dried cherries or Ocean Spray cherry flavored cranberries
Preheat oven to 350. Delicately melt 3/4 cup of the chocolate over low heat until smooth. Stir in brown sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla. Add flour and baking powder, mixing until completely combined. Carefully stir in the dried cherries and the remaining morsels.
Drop by spoonful onto a greased and floured cookie sheet. Bake 12-17 minutes, until firm to the touch. Cool on cookie sheet for two minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
This recipe is adapted from Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc.*
Am making this and putting two of the cookies together with a cherry flavored frosting inbetween making it a sandwich cookie.
I just make my favorite buttercream frosting (which is under desserts) and add pink coloring and cherry extract.
Whoopie Pies
Before you even read this recipe, I want to warn you……..it has something in it that will make all you “uh…..how do I say this nicely?………Health conscious fans out there…actually weep!” That ingredient is………Crisco…yep that right, a pure cup of pure Crisco. Now you can quit reading any further, or you can read on and actually make the whoopie pies and digest some of the best little cookies this side of the Mississippi. Your choice. But if you go to the grave a year earlier by eatting these, you will go down a much happier person having had a whoopie pie. There, I’ve said it. Actually I received this recipe from a friend back in the 70’s and my neice Kerri wrote it down in my little spiral cookbook which I have had since I married in 73. It is the cookbook I cherish, as it has fingerprints in it from all three children, spilled cokes on pages, cocoa on certain pages, markings from little darlings that thumbed through it while sitting on the counter watching me cook. I wouldn’t take anything for it..It has so many memories of my childrens’ growing up years. These whoopie pies are perfect for boxing up in a shoebox and mailing to kids away at school or military. Trust me, the Crisco just makes them easier to digest.
2 cups sugar
1 cup crisco
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 teas vanilla
4 cups flour
1 cup cocoa
2 teas salt
2 teas baking soda dissolved in 1 cup hot water
Mix crisco, sugar and eggs together. Add rest of ingredients and blend well. Drop by table onto cookie sheet unto greased cookie sheet and bake for about 13 min at 400 degrees.
Put 2 cookies together with the filling:
Beat 2 egg whites until stiff; add 4 tables flour, 2 teas vanilla and then add 2 cups powdered sugar. Add 4 tables milk, 1 cup crisco and then 2 more cups powdered sugar. Beat all ingredients very well. Put 2 tables filling over bottom of one cooke and top with another cookie making a sandwich out two cookies.
Chocolate Castles 