Oatmeal Marmalade Cookies

Tomorrow Maggie is coming home! She's been gone for 33 days now. Mission trip and then visiting in Phoenix. My sister is driving her home tomorrow and will be here to visit for a few days.

I got some baking mojo last night, so that I'd have some treats for company,  and baked a new kind of cookie, so I thought I would share the recipe (because I am that nice). :)

 When we moved into this rental house, our landlord baked us cookies as a housewarming gift. (there were even homemade dog biscuits that were pumpkin flavor) She labeled each kind and one was Oatmeal Marmalade Cookies....chewy oatmeal cookies with a slight orange flavor. I've made 2 recipes and this is the one that turned out the best.





Oatmeal Marmalade Cookies
IMPORTANT: Do not mix the marmalade in with the wet ingredients. Follow the instructions and stir it in last, with the raisins, after everything is mixed. They will not turn out right if you mix it in. (been there, done that)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg


1/3 cup softened butter

1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar

1  egg

1 tsp. vanilla


1 cup golden raisins

1/3 cup orange marmalade

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg and set aside.

Beat together the butter, sugar and brown sugar. Beat in the egg and vanilla.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir by hand until almost combined. Add the raisins and marmalade, and stir until just blended.

Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough 2” apart on a cookie sheet. Parchment paper really helps them not to stick to the pan! Bake for 15–20 minutes, until deep golden all over, but not brown (see photo). Cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 2-3 dozen cookies.

The oatmeal diaries

I went to see my doctor for routine checkup stuff last week.

Now I eat oatmeal every morning. No cholesterol meds for me as they make me achy and weak feeling. The problem is that I don't really love oatmeal. So I've been experimenting with making it different ways.

I heard that soaking your oats overnight with a little yogurt or buttermilk helps them to be more....digestible. This is one of the reasons I don't love oatmeal in the first place...digestion issues. To my amazement (yes, I am not exaggerating...I WAS amazed) soaking them really did help my tummy!

The second thing I did was to look for a recipe for baked oatmeal. It sounded interesting and I had heard rumors of deliciousness. And it was! Love it! It is not soupy, but firm like bread pudding. You just scoop up a hunk of it into in a bowl with a little brown sugar and milk. Yum.

After a couple mornings of getting up an hour early to put the soaked pan of oats in the oven, I decided to try something else. I put them in a crock pot overnight. It was the same recipe, but did not have good results. It was too hard and overcooked on the edges and top. The next night I tried the crock pot idea again with steel cut oats. It was too soupy and also got too done around the edges.

I decided to go back to getting up and putting the pan in the oven an hour early. Last night though, I forgot to put the oats on to soak, so I had to eat something else. And my old breakfast routine is to make a peanut butter and honey toasted sandwich, so I reverted.

Whole wheat toast, generously peanut buttered while it is still warm from the toaster. Then drizzle honey on the other piece of toast, getting it to all the edges, then filling in the middle. And as I was putting the two pieces together, I heard Bethany in the hallway ready to head out the door for work. Just as I heard her coming, the thought went through my head....she is going to want this sandwich because it looks super yummy. Should I quickly throw a dish towel over it or should I give it to her? She has never asked me for my sandwich before, so it was a strange thought, but as I put the two pieces of toast together, she came up close beside me and looked right at my sandwich. "Can I have your sandwich?" she said.

I just knew it!!

I did give it to her. She was overcome with gratitude for such a gift and squeezed me hard. She was just as impressed with it as I had been....it being a really super yummy sandwich and all. So she went away to work happily with my sandwich and I just sighed and made another one while I giggled. Don't you think God is funny to put little things like that in our day? He has fun with us sometimes, I think. I made Bethany's morning and it blessed her, so I was pretty sure He was the instigator.

And now that you have my recipe for peanut butter and honey toasted sandwiches, here is my new-found baked oatmeal recipe from Quaker Oats.

Unity Like Soup \o/

This morning the air was different in my house. The windows had been open all night and the cool front that came through last night has cooled the temperatures down by about 15 degrees. I love fresh air in the house. It feels and smells different.

I wanted to make soup tonight not just because of the fall weather but also because my oldest daughter now has mono. She can barely tolerate swallowing things that are solid. Leftover broccoli and grated cheese in the fridge got my attention. I haven't made broccoli cheddar soup in years! But we love it, so I carefully followed a recipe from the internet and got a very nice soup. Maybe the reason I don't make it often is because I've had several bad experiences just winging it with broccoli soup. It seems so easy, yet if you don't do it right, it turns out lumpy with separated cheese and thin broth.

The recipe I used is supposed to mimic Panera Broccoli Cheese Soup. The only difference I made in the process was to stir the grated cheese in after I added the milk to the roue, before adding the broth and vegetables. I think it blends better if you add it then, instead of trying to add it to the broth full of broccoli.

After one bowl I had to go change from long sleeves into short. It really warmed me up. Oh, and everyone agreed on the warming affect...it's not just because of my hormones this time!

As I was enjoying my soup, I thought of this weekend. I love it when God shows me something in a word picture. I'll be joining some ladies from church for a women's ministry leadership retreat. I am hoping the blending and process of our retreat produces a really comforting and unified blend of leadership for our church. Even though we have great ladies on the team, I think it's still something to pray towards. 

If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Philippians 2:1-2 (The Message)

Big Soft Ginger Cookies....and dumplings

I signed up to make dinner last night for a church member who had her ankle reconstructed. Chicken and dumplings and soft ginger cookies.

I got there and she was so glad someone brought a dinner. She said "Oh that is so nice. I'm so glad I don't have to eat chicken and dumplings another day." I guess someone else made them for her on Saturday and she's been eating the leftovers.

Uh...well....

After I told her I brought chicken and dumplings, we laughed. She was embarrassed and I was laughing.

I thought that was such a nonstandard dish to bring someone, but she said I had brought chicken and dumplings to someone else once (I must block these things from my mind...I have no recollection) and she tasted it and really liked it. At that time she had told me that chicken and dumplings were her favorite meal and she just never made them for herself so she hadn't had them in years.

Well, how do you explain that?? We decided that it was in my subconscious somewhere and that caused me to make them for her.

So funny though, how your subconscious can boss you around like that. Things like that always happen to me!

The ginger cookies were so good, they are all gone! Here is the recipe. It makes a neat 3 dozen 2 inch cookies.

Big soft ginger cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup margarine, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 tablespoons white sugar

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly.

3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Scotch Cake

I spent all day trying to bake what some people call a Texas sheet cake. In my family I grew up calling it a Scotch Cake...not sure if it's because the great-grandma who called it that was Scottish or because it had scotch in it. (the recipe doesn't call for it but someone may have changed it)

Anyway, I needed to make a cake for a funeral dinner and wanted to make something nice that fed a lot of people. I started making it before lunch and realized I had no cocoa powder. A couple hours later (after picking up Maggie from school, taking a boy home and then picking up and waiting on the Emma to finish cleaning my sister's house..oh, and going to the grocery store) I continue making it. But before adding the wet to the dry ingredients I decided I'd better double it. It is a labor intensive recipe, boiling the butter and cocoa, etc...an hour later I am just putting it in the pan.

A mountain of dishes and making the frosting and putting that on...it ended up taking HOURS to make it. It's yummy though. With the double recipe it made half a sheet cake and a small pan for us at home. I took the half sheet pan to the church for the funeral meal. The cm whose dad died ended up raving about the cake and wanted to take every scrap of it home.

So it was worth it in the end.

The end.

Here is the exact recipe I used (although I made it without nuts today)....Pioneer Woman has gotten a hold of it somehow. Texas Sheet Scotch Cake

Kettle corn

 A friend posted this on facebook and I tried it tonight. It is so easy and yummy!



Mix together 1/2 cup popcorn kernels and 3 Tablespoons of white sugar*.

Put 3 Tablespoons oil in a large saucepan, heat oil until it smokes (I used medium heat on my electric stove, my regular temperature for popping corn).

Add popcorn and stir until it is all coated with oil. Put the lid on the pan and pop, keep shaking the pot. I thought the sugar would scorch, but it didn't. Just keep the corns moving as it pops.

*Another recipe on the internet said that if you use brown sugar, it tastes like carmel corn. Bethany suggested we should add some cinnamon next time.

When it stops popping turn the popcorn into a bowl and salt as desired.

The sugar coats the popcorn and makes it super crunchy. It's really good! Great snack for a movie night.

Thank you Angie!

Surprise jello

A friend called me tonight and said she wanted to bring something over. I gave her the directions to my house and there in her hands was a glass dish of stripedy jello! We have been messaging about this recipe for a few weeks now....and I procrastinate, but Angie doesn't! She is a little powerhouse and a giver and because I would not get it together and make the recipe, she did it herself and brought it to me.

Angie's been reading my blog and saw the Jello Chronicles section. She has this beautiful recipe for striped jello that her mother used to make and now she makes it for her son. And it makes her really excited! She brought it to us and stood there bursting, so we all sat down to have some.

It is delicious.

Thank you Angie. I know this really was a labor of love for us. Let's see....6 hours making a jello dish then driving across town to deliver it.....when you already work full time and have some huge challenges in your life right now. Thank you so much. We love you and love that you are the kind of person who gets excited to bring us your jello recipe. How fun and caring.  For lots of reasons, it's a treasure from you.

Here is the recipe as Angie wrote it for me:


Warning: need to plan for about 10 minutes each hour for approx 6 hours in order turn out perfect. Will save little bit of time if put the dish in freezer before start so it can harden first layer quicker, it is always the layer taking longest.


1- (3oz)pkg. each of the following jello flavors: 
Black Cherry, Cherry, Lime, Lemon, Orange, Orange Pineapple, Strawberry

1- can sweetend condensed milk

Mix black cherry jello with 3/4 cup boiling water & 3/4 cup cold water. Stir well. Place in 9x13 inch glass pan & refrigerate untill well set. 


Mix cherry jello with 1/2 cup boiling water & 1/2 cup cold water & 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk. 
Stir well & cool, place on top of first layer & chill untill well set.

Continue layering jello, making sure previous layer is well set & mixture you are adding is cool. Even number layers are creamy.

When done you will have a beautiful 7 layer giggley jello everyone I have make if for has loooved. You end up with the cherry, lemon & orange-pineapple layers being creamy. Serve scoop of cool whip and yummy. 

I have experimented with changing the flavors of jello and found that the grape is good in replace of strawberry and if you can find it the berry blue is a good layer when creamy.

Get Real

Okay this is interesting. Maybe...my entertainment value perceptiveness may be a little off lately due to blandness.  ;)

Cool Whip is a brand of imitation whipped cream named a whipped topping by its manufacturer. It is used in North America as a dessert topping and in some no-bake pie recipes. It is generally described as "non-dairy" as it contains no cream or milk and no lactose; however, it does contain the milk derivative casein. -Wikipedia

If you believe Wikipedia....people write all kinds of explanations on there and you never know if it's fact or not.  I know....cynical. I'm becoming more and more disestablishmentarianist in my midlife. ha!

Here is an article on everything you really didn't want to know about Cool Whip in Wired Magazine. Scary.

It says that one of the lesser ingredients in Cool Whip is:

Sorbitan Monostearate

Chemists call this stuff synthetic wax, and it's sometimes used as a hemorrhoid cream. It's one of the magical substances that keep Cool Whip from turning to liquid over time in the fridge.

Disgusting. But it's so perky and light that we just keep topping everything with it.

I think I'm going to go real people. Real whipped cream! (after I use the 2 containers of Cool Whip in my freezer)

 

Yeah...jello

I am running out of interesting jello combinations.

Raspberry jello with very cherry fruit cottontail  was kind of a hit. My little nephew ate it up! When Hannah was very little, I told her we had fruit cocktail for dinner. When she saw it, with it's fluffy white mini marshmallows standing out to her little kid eyes, she called it fruit cottontail. It's been called that in our family ever since. My 4 year old nephew was watching me put in the fruit cocktail and I called it cottontail. He looked up at me with a smile and I said, oh yeah, here are the cottontails. And I poured in some mini marshmallows. He laughed...I love it when little kids get my jokes.

Also very popular from the week, was a poke cake I made for the youth girls who are having their small group here during the summer. I made a strawberry cake from a mix, then poked little holes all over it, poured over a small box of raspberry jello, made according to directions, let it chill in the refrigerator, then topped it with Cool Whip.

Did you know there is watermelon jello? I was leery of it at first but when I poured in the hot water, the aroma was exactly like watermelon Jolly Ranchers! I made 2 layers, which was a mistake. The bottom layer was regular jello. For the top layer I mixed in a little bit of Cool Whip to make a foamy layer. (I am really debating lately whether Cool Whip is a food product at all. It's nondairy. hmmm, then what IS it? Discuss amongst yourselves if you wish.) Watermelon with dairy does not go over well. (even though it is not dairy at all) It's like drinking a glass of milk (or non milk?) while sucking on a watermelon Jolly Rancher. Makes me shudder.

I just made another poke cake for tomorrow's small group. It is a yellow cake with lots of peach chunks mixed in, then I poked it and poured over peach jello. I will top it with something completely out of the range of real food, but light and creamy so we eat it, tomorrow.

....how boring is this anyway? There are things going on in my life. The most meaningful and/or hilarious are not mentionable in public however. Not that they are off color, just not things to share publicly. So....that's boring too really. *mouthing the word "Wow" dramatically*

Lazy days of summer

Well everyone went to the ball game, but Charles and I stayed home. The weather has been HOT lately (108 today) and we've been busy almost every evening. When we were trying to decide how many cars we needed to take the girls and all their friends to the ballpark downtown, Charles looked at me and said, "I wish we didn't have to go, I'm so tired. I'm just going because you want to go." 


I said, "I don't want to go! I thought you did."


So we didn't go. And it was a good decision.


We floated in the pool for a long time and talked. The water got a little too chilly after the sun went behind the wall, and we came in to eat some dinner. Feeling too relaxed to cook, we ate lunchmeat sandwiches and some jello I made today. I am so into jello lately....craving it. It's gotten hot here so maybe that is why. It's so refreshing and perky. ;) 


The jello of the day today was orange jello with pineapple, mandarin oranges and bananas. I topped mine with a little squirt of canned whipped cream and it tasted like a dreamsicle. Yesterday we came home from a church concert and devoured the grape jello with pears I had made the night before.


Today when one of my daughters opened up the fridge, she shouted, "Jell O!" It has really been a hit. I think you'll be hearing more jello ideas as the hot summer days march by. And if you have any jello ideas, send them my way!

A tale of two packages

A few weeks ago, before the world started spinning at a tornado-ish pace, we received two things in the mail.

*One was for my daughter Emma and one was for me.
*Both were from dear friends across the miles on separate sides of the Unites States.
*Both were very silly, yet very meaningful little packages.
*Both arrived totally unexpected.

The first was a package from another pastor's wife friend of mine. There was quite a discussion on cornbread recipes on a message board we go to and so she posted hers. Here it is:

This recipe is on the Martha White Self Rising Cornmeal Mix bag.

1 egg, beaten

1 and 1/3 cups milk or 1 and 3/4 cups buttermilk (I usually use milk)

1/4 c. vegetable oil

2 cups Cornmeal mix

THis is my secret ingredient--I add about 1/3 c. sour cream instead of buttermilk ( I do add milk)

1. head oven to 450F. Grease 9-inch cast iron skillet. I put enough oil in the skillet to coat the bottom and put it in the hot oven for about 10 minutes.

2. In large bowl, combine all ingredients well. Pour batter into hot greased pan.

3. Bake at 450 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes

And so I,  I who used the 49cent Jiffy cornbread mix regularly, decided to tease poor Donna. I asked her what cornmeal 'mix' was and accused all women in the South of having secret products from which they produce lovely southern dishes which the rest of us cannot replicate, even if we follow their recipes. This escalated until I received this in the mail from Donna. I had NO idea what was inside.



It was the secret product!!!  Which, after reading the bag, decided it is just a half and half mixture of cornmeal and self rising flour. ;) (the egg was just for decoration, not for making the recipe)

I made the recipe:



To which there were very favorable reviews by the people who live here. It was yummy and very southern tasting....kind of like the cornbread from Cracker Barrel, but better. It held my honey with love and corniness.

Thank you Donna!

The next package was from a friend of Emma's (and mine). She has moved off to college in the northwest and is having great adventures there. It was an odd package, as one might expect from Sara. She never does anything normally and this is a good thing, not a weird thing. ;) It may have been an envelope at some point, but it was totally covered in duct tape of all different colors and patterns. And I had to wait very impatiently for Emma to get home to open it. Cutting off one end with scissors, Emma dumped out a whole cache of little green army men and one little note. It said something to the effect of: "Portland moves to attack Phoenix, will one die or two?" And yes, on closer inspection there was a decapitated army man and several missing limbs.

Such violence....lying on my dining room table.

How dare they declare war on us, we said! Immediately we set up the battlefield. We humiliated the enemy by making them dress like cartoons.




They looked goofy, but I think it sent the right message:





They were devastated!



So there Sara! Are you devastated? Are you shocked?

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

These are yummy little darlins. I doubled the recipe (to take to the kids at AWANA) and rolled the dough into 1 inch balls, so they were small and cute and there were bazillions of them! Thank you to Brandy and Ariel for helping roll, bake and ice!

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

(Yield 3 dozen)

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
 
2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and white sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to butter mixture, and beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients. Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly.
3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool cookies, then drizzle glaze with fork.
4. To Make Glaze: Combine confectioners' sugar, milk, 1 tablespoon melted butter, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add milk as needed, to achieve drizzling consistency.

Mailman Bob and the rosemary

I just put a roast on for dinner. And I used the postman Bob recipe for roast beef.

When we lived in New Jersey, I had small children and quite often we would be out in the yard playing when the postman came by. In our 10 years there, we never had any other postman except Bob. He was this older Tony Danza type of guy, talked like him too. He was very animated and just loved people. I would see him stop and talk to a lot of people over the mailboxes in those 10 years. My children loved him. One day he rang the doorbell.

"Hi, listen, I hate to bother ya, but I can't help but notice every day when I deliver your mail what a nice rosemary plant you got here. I promised the wife I would make a nice roast tonight and I was wondering. Would you mind if I just cut a little tiny bit of your rosemary to put on my roast?"

He was so apologetic that I was giggling by the time he was done. People in Philly and New Jersey can be very dramatic when they are talking. Drama and postmen just seem comical to me.

"Of course, take as much as you want and help yourself anytime, ok?"

"Wow! Gee, I was so nervous to ask, but I have that nice roast and the wife loves when I roast it with rosemary."

So I had to ask for his recipe, it was intriguing to me. This was about 1993 and I hadn't heard of using rosemary in cooking much. I don't think there was a Food network then, or at least I hadn't heard of it. We didn't have cable and I don't even think there was much satellite television yet. We had it because it was a gift and it smelled so good. So here is his method. I tried it soon after our little front porch talk and we loved it!

You can use any cut of roast, but he always used a top round roast and roasted it in the oven, uncovered and dry like a prime rib. I usually use a pot in the oven or in a crockpot and cover it. The main thing is peel and slice garlic cloves into slivers and pull little sprigs off your rosemary. Then in the top of the roast, cut deep slits, into which you insert the sprigs and slivers. Then generously salt and pepper it. Roast as you like. His method to roast was to put the meat into a baking dish and set the oven on hot, 450º. Put the roast in, uncovered for 1 hour, then turn the oven down to 350º until it is the way you like it rare, medium or well done. DELISH! Serve with mashed potatoes and gravy made from the pan drippings and you have a meal that tastes gourmet.

I always viewed Bob as a friend after that and we would stop and chat a little more often. And sometimes when I stepped out to get my mail, there would be a distinct fragrance of freshly snipped rosemary in the air. It made me smile.

Croutons

I am enjoying my Spring Break from work. I took the kids to my sister's cabin for a couple of days and am now home and doing whatever I please for a few days. I am feeling really good now, but my projects for Spring Break still are on hold. This morning I took the baguettes I had neglected and made croutons out of them. So I thought I'd share.

Cut your bread into bite sized pieces. Save all the crumbs....they are good to sprinkle on salads too! My bread was thoroughly dried out, but it still made great croutons. I usually bake croutons on very low heat in the oven until they are toasted, but today I did them in a skillet. One reason was that they needed freshening up since they were rock hard. The other reason is that it will be in the 90's this afternoon and I didn't want to heat up the oven. First spread a tiny bit of olive oil in the skillet, add the cubes and crumbs, stir them to get the oil around and then add some spices. I usually sprinkle garlic salt on croutons as I make them, but I am trying to avoid a lot of salt, so today I used this salt free seasoning:


It is full of dried garlic and onions, along with lots of sesame seeds, a little pepper and parsley. The process toasts the sesame seeds and gives great flavor to the croutons.


Stir croutons every few minutes for about 7 minutes on medium heat. Then transfer to a paper towel until cooled off. Keep in an airtight container or ziplok bag.

Enjoy.

....stuff I did or thought or bought or cooked today

Well the ladies and their token hubby are well on their way across the Atlantic. I know this because Shirley's husband, Pete, coached my husband in how to find a live satellite feed of their airplane!!!! It is like a drawing, not a real picture, but still! I told him they were stalking those missionaries. Freaky. The mission team should arrive in Johannesburg tonight. Then they will make their way tomorrow to Quelimane, Mozambique to run some women's conferences for the women there.

I went to Walmart today....all by myself. No kids with me to beg me to buy things. So I bought stuff for me....heh heh. I had birthday money left and bought a nice new exercise outfit for myself....black capri exercise pants and a lime green v-neck t-shirt. It's awfully cute and was only $12 for the whole shebang. I will be cute at Curves now. The ladies there will be shocked. And they will wonder what happened to that woman in the dumping '80's style brown sweat pants and huge baggy shirt that in a very faded way says, "To my H llfl g r" across it.

As far as I can figure, I was in Walmart for almost 2 hours, by myself even. I wanted to make little greasy tacos for dinner....they kind you make with soft corn tortillas, chicken filling and lots of grease. I don't know why I go to Curves and then fix little greasy tacos for my family, but that is not the point right now....try to stay focused ok? Anyway.....

My friend Joann posted about chicken taco secrets a couple weeks ago, so I was going to follow her advice. She got her advice from her mother in law, who she lovingly calls the Tamale General. She thinks the secret to very crunchy, yummy tacos is using LARD instead of oil to fry them in. I have never bought lard.....ever. I have always seen it there on the shelf by the shortening and loathed it from afar. I have seen it on recipes I've made, but I always substitute canola oil or shortening.

So today I was really going to buy a small bright blue container of lard.....just to see if it really is so different and wonderful. But a very nicely dressed Asian couple were beside me. They had a handbasket (not cart) full of healthy little one or two serving items. I had a cart full of gallons of shampoo, dog clippers, hair dye and some produce for the tacos. I suddenly felt like the elephant in the room, everyone's eyes on me, trying to take in what i would choose from the oil section! I could NOT bring myself to pick up or even glance at the LARD. I found myself quickly grabbing the Crisco vegetable oil and darting away.....away from the thing that might have given me a name like The Taco Queen or something. (okay on second thought, I don't think I could handle being a Taco Queen)

The tacos were half crunchy and half kind of soggy. I got better at timing them toward the middle of the process.

And now I need a shower. I'm a greasy little taco queen. ehn

More ideas on enchilada making

I got a comment from my friend KQ and have to share it because it sounds great! Here are her words:

"Hi. Just making my mark here to say I'm reading you... but now I can't resist commenting about your tortilla trick and enchilada shortcuts - because I have some too! Wanna hear them? (Well, too bad....)

My fastest enchilada shortcut is to take frozen taquitos, put them in a baking dish, cover them with (we could totally be the same person) Las Palmas green, sprinkle with cheese, and bake in the oven. My tortilla shortcut is not only effective for softening them for rolling, but also adds zero calories: I get out my no-stick skillet and heat it up. One at a time, I place a tortilla in the pan, heat it just until soft and pliable, and then slide it out onto the work surface for stuffing/rolling while the next tortilla heats up. It only takes a couple of seconds to heat each one, doesn't get too hot, and - yeah - zero extra calories. (More cheese, please!)"

Thanks KQ.
I love the idea of using taquitos!! I am going to try it soon! Las Palmas is the best green sauce, isn't it? =)

A quilt and green enchiladas

It's feast or famine around here, I know. I get in the mood to write and post a bunch of things, then it's a week before I write again. Either life is quiet and uneventful or I am flying by the seat of my pants with busyness and don't have a minute to think for myself.

I'll just let you imagine which one it is now.

This afternoon I headed to Curves and then dropped by Bed, Bath and Beyond to see if their quilts were on sale. I have a gift card for that store and have been bedspread shopping around. I ended up finding one that was so cute, just right for Bethany's room (click to see it). So I got it and with my $25 gift card, I ended up only paying $18 for it after a significant discounted price! Yay bargain!

And Bethany loves it!

Green chili enchiladas

I only had a few minutes to whip up some green enchiladas, so I made up a short cut that worked fabuously!

The turkey meat was all ready in the fridge, so I caramelized some onions, added green chilies, the turkey and some Las Palmas green enchilada sauce and warmed it up.

*shortcut The thing I really despise about making enchiladas is putting the corn tortillas in hot oil, then having to fill it and roll it up while burning the skin off my fingertips! So I put my dozen corn tortillas in a bowl, slathered them with canola oil on both sides, then drained off excess oil. I warmed them up in the microwave for less than a minute. They were just the right temperature....not scalding, but warm and soft. (It sure beat dipping them one at a time into a pan of oil)

So keeping them in the bowl, I put a little cheese on the top tortilla then turkey mixture, then rolled them up (easily and not burning!) and put them in a baking dish. It went quickly!

Top them with more green sauce, then cheese and popped them in the microwave until they were bubbling and the cheese melted. They were quite delicious too.

....of sandwiches and men

We came home from church today with no kids. None. The teens stayed at church for pizza and game day. Maggie went to her cousin's house for the day. So after Charles and I took my mom home, we came home to an almost empty house....although here was a small, smiling dog waiting for us.

I had nothing ready to cook, so Charles suggested grilled cheese on the new bread we got yesterday at the Farm. There was a man selling fresh artisan breads on the walk into the restaurant area. He had such a soothing, gentle, eloquent way about him while selling the bread (he had actually made some of the loaves in we were admiring) that we talked about him and tried to describe him on the way home for a while. His appearance was that of a bread baker, but when he spoke, you could tell there was much more to him than baking bread. He was not necessarily highly educated (although that is quite possible nor was he putting on an act). He was very sincere....you could tell it was just his personality. It was more an attitude of relishing life and language. He said several phrases that I found unique at the time, but now I can't remember the words. He had a truly artistic way of thinking and speaking that showed his enjoyment in the people around him and the simple act of creating rustic, artisan loaves and selling them. I could have watched him interact with people for a long time.

We bought two rustic, wonderful looking loaves. One was cranberry/walnut, with huge chunks of fresh cranberries, not dried, and crunchy walnuts. The other loaf was a 9-grain rustic bread. We split the loaves with our friends who took us when we got to our house and sampled it a bit. Then I should have HID it! Some of the teens who were here yesterday ate some of it. I am not very generous or forgiving when I have certain things I think are special and being saved for a special time. Grrrrrr.

Oh yes, back to lunch. I cut slices of the loaves. Charles is unadventurous and had the 9-grain with regular American cheese (someone had eaten his Pepper Jack cheese he was looking forward to but he is way more forgiving than I am) and I had the cranberry/walnut bread with shredded cheddar cheese and a thin slice of cream cheese. Then I put them in the George Foreman grill and let it do it's George Foremanish magic! The only thing missing on my grilled cheese was a slice of bacon. It was delicious, but that would have put it over the top. Or another idea was to put a little more cream cheese and a slathering of strawberry or raspberry jam on it, then grill it. Maybe I'll have that for breakfast if there's time.

And now it's shaping up into a lazy, restful Sunday afternoon.

Quiche baby

When I told my kids we were having quiche for dinner, they said, "What?" Then I said, "Eggie Pie" and they were like, "oooooooo, I love that!" So this even comes with a nickname.


Here's the quiche:

1.Whatever filling you want:

Bacon and swiss
Broccoli crab
Asparagus ham
sausage mushroom swiss
Bacon and spinach

or anything else.

2. put filling in a pie shell. (recipe says to spread butter on the bottom of the crust but I usually don't)

3. Pour this egg mixture over the filling.

Whisk very well:

2 cups cream, half n half or milk (depends on how authentic or rich you want it) I usually just use milk.
4-6 eggs
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp salt

4. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 325 and bake for 35 minutes. YUM

It's as plain as the turkey in front of your face!

So this afternoon, I pulled out some stew meat to make my locally (meaning my house) famous Irish beef stew. I put the hunka meat in the microwave to defrost it. I set it to 11 minutes on defrost, then took the dog outside. When I heard the 'ding' and came back, it had cooked for 11 minutes on high! It was almost cooked through. I put it in the pot with water, some broth and went to the fridge to get the worchestershire sauce and swigged some in. And while it was swigging, I noticed that it didn't smell like worchestershire sauce. That is because it was soy sauce. I ended up making an oriental stew and threw in onions, garlic, baby carrots, yellow bell pepper and sliced cabbage with the little chunks of beef. Then I added more soy sauce and served it over rice.

It was niiiiiiiiiiiiice.

Oh yeah, I forgot to add that I've had a turkey...huge 20 pounder....thawing since Friday. I was going to cook it today but totally forgot about it! I was even looking through the fridge to find something to cook and it was right there!!! (probably rolling it's little turkey eyes at me) A huge 20 pound bird....and I'm like, "Hmmmm, what should I make?" DUH

I hope I remember tomorrow. Maybe I should leave out a can of cranberry sauce as a reminder or

.....leave a trail of yams to the fridge
.....make pumpkin muffins for breakfast
.....dress like a pilgrim
*lightbulb goes on*
.....ask Charles to 'fix' it. Anyway, it is always his job to unwrap, wash, empty out the weird things inside and put it in the pan. (The big oval roasting pan in the garage honey! Thanks!)