Daily Thoughts

Thursday Night Company

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It’s been a nice day. Had lunch with a dear friend, then grocery shopping and cooked in the afternoon for company which was in from California, that Randy had invited from work. Thought, “hum, if I was in the south and I was invted to dinner, what would I think they would cook?” So I made roast, with mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans cooked with bacon and hot rolls, chocolate pie with REAL (no Cool Whip in this house,ha for dessert.

They loved it!. Thought they were really in the south when I asked them if sweet tea was ok with them to drink. I love this time of year, I decorated my fall trees in the entry way with pumpkins, fall leave garland, white lights and fall flowers. It makes me feel so good just to walk in and see all the lights. I always pray that before any company walks in the door that they feel welcome and feel that a  love and sweet spirit while here. The lights from the trees just make a warm feel as they walk into the house.

It felt like a southern living evening. We had conversation for 2 hours, no television and enjoyed meeting new friends. My kind of night!

Desserts

Cupcakes

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I made cupcakes for Bible study today and thought I would pass on a little infor re: the cupcakes that everyone seem to enjoy.

Use Duncan Hines Cake Mixes. I use the pound cake recipe for them, as they stay so moist and seem to have a more intense flavor. For instance, for the yellow cupcakes:

Duncan Hines Yellow cake mix

1 small package of either the cheesecake or french vanilla instant pudding

1 cup water

1/3 cup oil

4 eggs

Pudding

Add ingredients and bake as directed.

For the chocolate cupcakes

Duncan Hines Chocolate Fudge Mix or Red Velvet

4 eggs

1 1/4 cup water

1/2 cup oil

small package of cheesecake, white chocolate or chocolate fudge instant pudding. Mix and bake as directed on box.

The frosting is

1 cup of cocoa

1 stick of butter

1 box of powdered sugar

1/2 cup whipping cream or half and half. (sometimes it doesn’t take all of the 1/2 cup, mix in gradually)

2 teas vanilla

1/3 cup white karo syrup

Mix until all is blended and smooth and frost cupcakes when cooled.

Try to just bake the cupcakes until they still have a little “wet” spot right in the middle of the cupcake. It will continue to cook for a few mintues after taking out of the oven. This also assures that they are not overcooked and are very moist.

Sometimes I make a ganache to put in the middle of the cupcake before frosting. Will put that recipe on the web site tomrrow, I am exhausted and going to call it a night…….

Daily Thoughts

Thoughts of the Day

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If you enjoy reading this blog, would you please pass it on to friends, co-workes, family, etc……..thanks for your encouragement and comments…

Starches

Tuesday Night Potato Soup

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Well, what a beautiful day today. The air was fallish and didn’t hit 90, so life is good. I have been craving Potato Soup, so that is what I fixed. I know we have Mexican food at El Fenix tomorrow night, so soup just sounded very good.

Soup for 2

1 large can of chicken broth

1/2 cup chopped onion

2 potatoes (I prefer red skinned)

1 carrot, sliced very thin

1/2 cup chopped celery

2 pieces of bacon, cooked until crisp

1 1/2  cups of milk

1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

Boil potatoes in chicken broth until tender. Do not drain. Add all ingredients except cheese and bacon and cook until all veggies are done. Add milk and when heated (do not boil), add the cheese and bacon. Serve with crackers or grilled french bread.

Meats

Fabulous Easy Meatloaf

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I just had to write and put this recipe on the page. I made meatloaf for Randy tonight, which is one of his favs, but I changed it up a little. I had a pound of ground round and added 1/2 lb of mild breakfast sausage (I used the Kroger brand, $1.99 instead of $4.00 for Owens or Jimmy Dean).

Add 1/4 cup catsup, 2/3 cup seasoning veggies (I buy the frozen mixture of onion, celery and bell pepper) 1 Tablespoon Worchester sauce,Lawry’s seasoning salt and pepper. I crushed 8 small crackers and added to this and finally 1 egg. Mix altogether and bake in a 8×8 casserole dish for about an hour at 350 degrees. It was GREAT. The sausage gave it such a great flavor and he said that it was the best ever……..just thought I would pass it on. Ate it with pinto beans, cornbread and fried new potatoes with onions…..YUM. He was so happy, he is actully in the attic bringing down all my pumpkins and fall trees for the entryway. I’m telling you, make the hubby his favorite and you can ask him anything…wonder what I will fix to get him to bring the Christmas decorations down…….whew, that will have to be a chicken fried dinner with chocolate cream pie, I’m afraid! But it will be worth it! Talk to you tomorrow!

Desserts

Cherry Crunch

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1 can of cherry pie filling (or apple, blueberry or peach)

1 stick of butter

1 cup of flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

Spray a small casserole dish with Pam. Pour can of fruit into dish.

Take the cold butter and cut it into pea size pieces into the flour. Add brown sugar. Sprinkle over fruit and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until crumb mixture is lightly browned. Serve with ice cream when still hot out of the oven.

If you use apples or peaches, add about 1 teas cinnamon to the flour mixture. Plus, before adding the crumb mixture over the apples or peaches, sprinkle cinnamon and 1/4 sugar over the fruit. Then top with the crumbs and bake.

Vegetables

Mixed veggies

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1 yellow squash

1 zuccinni

1/2 sliced onion

1 pound of fresh green beans

2 sliced carrots

Saute all sliced veggies in a little olive oil. Add dill, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper and cover and cook until tender.

Meats

Smothered Steak

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1 swiss or round steak cut into pieces

1 can of cream of mushroom soup

1 can of french onion soup

Brown steak which has been dredged in flour, in about 1/4 cup hot oil until brown on both sides. I sprinkle on garlic powder, salt and pepper when browning. When browned, add both soups, about 1 can of water. Cover and cook in 300 degree preheated oven for a couple of hours.

Daily Thoughts

Monday, Sept 28th

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Praise God for a wonderful Dr’s report today! What a wonderful day. Began the day with hubby and I having our prayer time before he left for work. I cannot explain what this means to me. Iknew that he was running a little bit late this morning and I was prepared to hand him his lunch for him to walk out the door and he paused and said, “no, we need to pray before I go”. Each day when we begin our day together before the Lord just blesses my heart. Jodi, my daughter came over and brought precious little Caleb and we had lunch together and just visited for a couple of hours. We moved some furniture and laughed and she and I read a devotion together. Monday laundry day turned out to be a very glorious day!.

Our brother and sister-in-law leave for Italy on Saturday, so they came over last night and ate supper and we had the chance to show off our Italy pictures. All 600 of them. They were troopers to sit through an hours worth of memories, which I’m sure were alot more fun for us to watch than Don and Janece. Thank ya’ll for being such good sports. We had smothered steak, mashed red potatoes, mixed veggies and cauliflower with cheese for dinner. Ate cherry crunch with ice cream during the slide presentation. I thought that if I fed them during the slides, they wouldn’t complain so much, ha…..yes, I am posting the recipes for last night’s dinner!

appetizers

Italian Bruschetta

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4 sliced plum tomatoes or 1 sack of cherry tomatoes

1/2 cup chopped purple onions

1 ball of fresh mozzarella

10 leaves of fresh basil

2 cloves of fresh garlic

Chop all ingredients together. Right before serving, add 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.

We serve this on “fried” french bread. Yes, you heard right. We slice french bread and cover both sides with butter (not margarine). We get a skillet hot and put each piece in the skillet and brown on both sides. You can also put a little garlic powder in the butter before spreading it on the bread, if you like. Personally, I don’t think you can ever have too much garlic!