Apple Bread

Today was snowday #3 this week. The natives are getting restless so I had to bake them some Apple Bread.

Here's the recipe:

Apple Bread
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups finely shredded apples

Sift first 4 ingredients into medium mixing bowl. Cream butter and sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add flour mixture and apples 1/2 at a time, mixing well after each addition. Spoon into well-greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove to wire rack to cool completely.

The Best Guacamole EVER!

So one night, Joseph and Vicki cooked dinner for us. Somehow our love of Mexican food was expressed, and Joseph decided he would cook us an authentic Mexican meal. Joseph did most of the cooking while Vicki chopped away. An hour or so later, we were served Chicken Enchiladas with the BEST Guacamole EVER! I've had a lot of guacamole over the years, and I must admit this was the best I've ever had.

Exact measurements are a little sketchy, but here's the breakdown:

5 avocados, soft but still somewhat firm-ish
2 whole tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 large onion, possibly even more
1 HUGE clove of elephant garlic (Papa Bear found this at Walmart)
1 whole jalapeno, seeds and all
2 T. cilantro, finely chopped
juice of 1 lime
salt and pepper

Have everything chopped and ready to go. Scoop out your avocado meat and place in a large bowl. Loosely chop with a fork. Add all other ingredients and loosely chop a little more with fork. Serve in your Grandmother's magic mixing bowl with tortilla chips.

Cucumber Sandwiches

Are there words worthy of describing how wonderful these are?  I think not.  Mamaw has been making these for years.  She has always made them for New Year's Eve or any bridal/baby shower that she had to contribute to.  Tonight she made them for Circle meeting at church.  Squirt and I love them -- so Mamaw made us our own stash of them.  They are so simple that I hesitate to even post a "recipe."  She takes "white" bread and trims the crust off and then cuts out circles.  She peels and slices her cucumbers.  Then she assembles these little darlings  with a thick layer of mayonnaise (it MUST be JFG), a little sprinkle of onion salt, and a healthy shake of cayenne pepper.  If you can resist them for about 30 minutes or so, they are even better.

Cucumber Sandwiches
white sandwich bread, crust trimmed and cut in circles
cucumbers
onion salt
cayenne pepper

Trust me -- these are SO GOOD! 

Magic Bowl(s)

Several years ago, I inherited Memaw Jennie's mixing bowls. There are 3 of them, and they have been in my cabinet all this time. I finally decided I needed to be using them. Gosh, I love them. She created magic with these mixing bowls. I can remember her mixing up her wonderful light rolls in the biggest bowl, and then letting the dough rise while lightly covered with a dish towel. I have tried to recreate those magical light rolls but haven't mastered it. I think I'm getting close, but no cigar yet.

Tonight, I mixed up chocolate chip cookies. They turned out fabulous! I'm sure that magical bowl had something to do with how wonderful they were. And for the record, I ate all my allotted cookies before they were baked. :D

Hidden Treasures

When I was growing up, I loved going to my Memaw and Pawpaw's house. Pawpaw would work in the garden in the mornings, then he would come in and watch Price is Right until Memaw had his lunch ready.

Pawpaw didn't do sandwiches -- he expected a full course meal for lunch every day. I loved going to visit them right around lunch time so I could cash in on one of these home-cooked meals. A typical meal would be some sort of meat - usually fried chicken, lima beans, okra and tomatoes, and homemade rolls. I LOVED Memaw's rolls. I always checked her bread basket the minute I would walk in the door. If there were a dozen rolls in that basket, or only one, she would insist that I have one -- even if it was the last one in the basket. It didn't matter if the roll was a day or two old, it was still fantastic. I watched her make them several times, but sadly, never asked her for the recipe. Out of 3 daughters and 7 grand-daughters, none of us ever got her recipe. I can picture how she made them, but I have no idea on exact measurements. This past weekend, I was at Mama's house and she gave me 2 cookbooks that she had received when Memaw died. Flipping through them, I could see that they had been well loved and used often. There were stained pages with handwritten recipes stuck in between pages here and there. I happened to find a recipe for Light Rolls and, as I read over it, thought how it sounded like it may be THE recipe. Memaw's rolls were not very sweet, and this recipe only has 3 teaspoons of sugar in the whole batch. Could I possibly have found THE recipe? I can hardly wait to give it a try.

Another little treasure we have stumbled upon is this seatbelt violation ticket that my Daddy received several years ago. It looks like the date on it was 5/4/93, which would have been 8 days after Squirt was born. Papa Bear found it tucked away in the glove department of the little Ranger. We all got a kick out of this. I can't wait to ask Mama if she ever knew anything about it.

Pintos and Collard Greens

I took Teeter's advice and fixed my pintos in the crock with a big ole' ham hock. They simmered all day long and I must admit, the ham hock did wonders for my pintos. My mama can fix pintos like nobody's business, though. I have asked her time and time again EXACTLY how she fixes them, and it's still very vague to me. I know it involves side meat and cooking them for hours and hours, but beyond that, it's still a mystery to me. Same with collard greens. I had some in the freezer that I cooked up tonight. Again, somewhat of a mystery to me on how to make them taste like my mama's. I'm pretty sure side meat (or maybe fatback?) is used when she makes collards, but I'm really not sure. Squirt and I ate them, but they weren't as good as Mammaw's. Meanwhile, darling hubby and Scooby elected to eat leftover spaghetti.

So, with the mystery that surrounds pintos and collards like my mama's -- it's made me think that I would like to start a recipe blog. Wouldn't that be fun? I would post some treasured family recipes, and then have my mama and darling hubby's mama be "guest" bloggers and post some of their recipes. I could even have friends be guest bloggers and post some of their recipes. Wonder if I could keep it up? I've done pretty good at getting this blog back on track . . . I may just give it a try. We'll see. Alright - 20 till 11 - it's night-night time!

Happy Friday!

Whoooo hooooooo! We've made it to another Friday. It seems like it's been a busy week . . . maybe it really hasn't been, I only remember having to go somewhere 2 nights this week, but I really wanted to stay home tonight. Scooby didn't have cheer practice tonight (yippeee!) and Squirt wanted to stay in because he takes the SAT tomorrow. So, Mama here fixed homemade pizza and dang, was it ever good. I used 2 of my $1 frozen pizza doughs from Chef Smart (really, where else can you get a restaurant-quality pizza dough for a $1?), and lots of pizza toppings from Aldi (another awesome buy). On one, I had pepperoni, red onion, mushrooms, green peppers, and cheese (all from Aldi). On the other one, I had cheese, fresh pineapple (99 cents for a fresh pineapple from Aldi!), and ham. We have a truckload of ham that we are trying to eat our way through. It made an awesome pizza topping. I'm freezing the rest in individual packets to do something with it later. And Teeter had told me just the other day that I needed a hambone to season pintos -- I now have a hambone! I'm so excited! I bought a bag of pintos at Aldi the other day too just so I can do that one day next week. Anyway, back to the pizza. IT was fabulous and we put a hurtin' on it. It was delish!

In other news, we are so thankful Durango is recovering from his head injury at football practice the other night. Squirt said he was at school for a little while today which is certainly a good sign. Durango and Squirt go way back . . . all the way to Midway Daycare. I have a picture of them with the Wild Twins being rolled out to the playground in a baby bed. It's the funniest picture ever. My, how those boys have grown! And, of course, Squirt and Durango played football together at Midway where they won 3 county championships in a row. Good times! So glad he's feeling better!

Off to go watch a little bit of tv with Darling Husband. I don't even know what comes on on a Friday night. We'll probably be tuning in to Planet Green. ha! ha!

Roasted (Toasted?) Pumpkin Seeds

Mamaw has been carving and scooping pumpkins like crazy here lately. Well, not really carving them, but she has gotten several pumpkins from our neighbor down the road and has been cooking them and freezing the pulp. Is it pumpkin pulp? pumpkin guts? Whatever it is -- she is cooking it and freezing it for Thanksgiving pumpkin pies. So anyway, I decided it would be neat to roast (or is it toast?) pumpkin seeds. I had gotten a cookbook recently from my Aunt Barbara that had a recipe for pumpkin seeds. I mentioned it to Darling Husband and he got really excited. Apparently his mom used to roast (or toast - whatever it is?!) pumpkin seeds, and he said they were really really good. So here they are. Super easy to do . . . I think next time I want to try the spicy recipe I found. But for now, here's the simple, basic recipe:

Pumpkin seeds
2 tsp. butter, melted
pinch of salt

mix pumpkin seeds with butter and salt, spread in a single layer in a baking pan and bake for 45 minutes at 300.

That was easy enough!

Frozen Caramel Frappuccino

Oh. My. Gosh. This is so so SO good! Me and the kids LOVE Starbucks coffee drinks, but obviously can't afford to go and indulge very often. I found this recipe online about a year or so ago and decided to pull it out tonight and fix us all a treat. Every Sunday, DH fixes us a nice breakfast and we almost always have coffee. With it being summer and being so hot, we haven't drank much coffee, so we always have about half a pot left over. I've started freezing the coffee in an ice tray and making coffee cubes. Those came in really handy tonight for our coffee drinks. Here's the recipe if you are interested:

Frozen Frappuccino (makes 1 drink)

3 oz. coffee
2 T. sugar
1/2 c. milk
1 c. ice (I use my frozen coffee cubes)
3 T. caramel sundae topping (or chocolate syrup if you want a chocolate version)

Get out your Magic Bullet and . . . huh? You don't have a Magic Bullet? Well run out and get one NOW. I love my Magic Bullet. I make awesome salsa with that thing, but I'll save that for another post.

Back to the coffee drink -- mix all ingredients in your Magic Bullet (or whatever you have!). Top with whipped topping (Redi-Whip) and drizzle with caramel (or chocolate syrup for a chocolate drink). Honestly, this is as good or BETTER than that coffee chain place that charges like $5 for one of these. Try it, you'll love it!

Squirt and Scooby love the chocolate version -- even though it always gives Scooby a tummy ache. She thinks it's worth it. I personally have to have the caramel. It's to die for! And Squirt took a picture of them tonight, so look for them on his blog.