This is John, my firstborn…. He’s home for the weekend from Nashville. We’ve been out and about all day with the top down. The weather is just perfect.
Oh, there is nothing like driving down the road in a convertible with the wind blowing in your face. I’m so much more laid back in my old age. A few years ago, I would be fretting about my hair getting messed up, at this age, I could care less…
We’re having such a great time, life is good, this gawjus Saturday in Heavensville…
The debate hasn’t yet started tonight, this picture isn’t meant to be political, but Sarah Palin, walking off the plane, holding her baby, tugs at my heartstrings.
I suspect I’m not alone…
Even with the best personal trainers, the finest plastic surgery and all the botox that money can buy, this is living proof that it doesn’t always work to mess with Mother Nature.
Even Madonna can’t stop the clock.
For gawds sake, woman, eat a few good meals and cut way back on the weight training…
Now look at Jaclyn Smith, pictured here with her daughter, Spencer.
Soft, feminine, lovely for her age…. Madonna is 50 – Jackie Smith was born October 26, 1947 – omg, she is going to be 61 years old. What an amazing woman she is…. And yes, this is a recent picture, it’s from April ‘08.
Instead of trying to recapture her youth, she is moving gracefully forward into her golden years… Has she had a little work done? Probably, but it’s subtly well done….
She’s absolutely beautiful, still….
We were talking about food, as usual, and were laughing about how this generation thinks they’ve invented the crockpot.
I used to think that you had to cook something all day in the thing, and back in the 80’s, I had a lot of dried out meals. I’ve since discovered that you don’t necessarily have to cook food all day, you can put things like frozen chicken breasts in it, sprinkle them with a little Tony Chichiare’s Creole Seasoning, turn the crock on high and in two hours, voila, your chicken is moist, tender, perfect.
Then we were talking about soup. I was telling her that last night I baked a chicken for dinner, hubby and I ate the breast, that’s all we like, we don’t care for dark meat, then I took the chicken carcass, skin, bones, leftover chicken, the broth that was in the pan after baking the chicken, added a quart of water, put it all in the crockpot, with a whole unpeeled onion and 3-4 unpeeled carrots, and a sprinkling of coarse salt, some fresh ground pepper, and let it cook on low all night.
When I peeked in this morning, I had the most wonderful stock, I just strained it, threw the chicken remains in the trash, put the stock in the fridge for the fat to congeal, I’ll skim the fat off, divide and freeze the stock in my trusty Glad containers for soup this winter. You can’t buy anything in the store that even resembles this, if you don’t do this yourself, it’s a no brainer, girlfriends, and it’s AWESOME, rich, golden, just delicious…
Anyhoo, as we were talking about this, V said “wouldn’t it be great if you had a recipe section with crockpot recipes in it?” And I said, “oh, and another one with soup!”
It’s fall, women adore soup, sooooooo, back to the audience participation thingie… In order for me to do this, you have to send me recipes.
Send me soup recipes and crockpot recipes, and Ill get these worked up and publish them. Great idea, huh?
So I will be badgering all of you, like I’ve done before – but I really think this is a winner. I’ll be looking in my inbox.
Thanks for the help, gang, you always come thru for me.
~ jan
V emailed me earlier and was talking about her local Michigan potato chips when she was a child, Be-Mo’s. I’ve never heard of Be-Mo’s, and told her that when I was a little girl that we had Chesty Potato Chips. They came in big tins, you would open the lid and that greasy smell would just attack your senses! Oh that pungent smell, I remember it to this day. They were always layered in the tins in perfection, too, huge big chips, some of them dark brown around the edges, oh my….
Oh, they were wonderful. Coupled with that little green bottle of Coca-Cola, or even better, a Pepsi-Cola, taken out of the vending machine, and you had a snack that was AWESOME.
Now Hooterville would say, and I have to agree, that to take it to the next level, you would dip those greasy chips in Prairie Farms Bacon Horseradish Chip Dip.
OMG, nectar of the gods. Hoot and I still buy bacon horseradish dip, not Prairie Farms anymore, the brand is Helluva.
Helluva?? Yep, that’s the brand. Helluva name, huh?
And you can teach an old dog new tricks, Jean told me that she loves this dip mixed into her scrambled eggs. I had never tried it, but oh my, it’s vunderbar…
Yeah, yeah, I know I’m always talking about WS, but they do have such fantastic things. I love this idea, originally sent this to V, it looks like something she would like, I thought Dilly might like it for her sideboard, as well, but then thought the rest of you might enjoy seeing it, also. They sell this glass hurricane, and now they sell this glass sleeve that goes inside, so that you can safely surround the candle with leaves and burn it without catching the table on fire.
Great, idea don’t you think? Actually, all I need is the sleeve, I have the hurricane already. It’s in Jan’s vast warehouse of things I just had to have but are now in the attic. Sound familiar, I’m sure it does, the rest of you have your own warehouses, too…
Here’s the link to the hurricane and the sleeve…
I got a Williams Sonoma catalog in the mail, and they showed this recipe for Smoky Bacon Biscuit Dressing made with sweet cream biscuits. It looks awesome. I posted it over on Jan Can Cook – check it out. But who wants to make biscuits, I’m sure they would be wonderful, but Pillsbury makes wonderful frozen ones. They work for me…
Here’s the quick CLICK for the recipe…
Oh wow, did she ever send me a site today. It’s called FoodTube – yep, you guessed it, it’s like YouTube, but all the videos are FOOD!!!!
Carlene, you are just gonna love this one -
Here’s the CLICK – you are going to want to bookmark this, girlfriends….
Here’s a great example – pumpkin cheesecake!
If you’ve accessed the Thanksgiving recipes, you might be thinking, “oh, I have one that she would love to have”…. Well, bring it on…
We may end up with an additional page of Thanksgiving recipes, as I’m getting feedback from some of you about recipes you would like to include. There is plenty of time, ladies, it’s only the end of September, so if any of you have holiday recipes you would like to share, please do so.
I’ll be working on the Christmas recipes next, so include those as well. I’ll look forward to getting your emails.
Audience participation is always appreciated.
~ jan
Just when you thought I would never get the Thanksgiving recipes back on the site, SURPRISE!!!! I’ve been working really hard this weekend, all your faves are back. If you’re new to the site, you’re in for a treat, if you’re an oldie, you know how good this collection is. Click on the turkey in the right sidebar – it’s Jan and Friends finest. All tried and true, all simply wonderful holiday recipes.
Enjoy…
~ jan
I’ve been watching a lot of coverage of his life on television the last twenty-four hours, the more I hear about him, the more I respect him.
My favorite movie? Nope, not Hud or Cool Hand Luke, or Long Hot Summer, not even everybody’s favorite, Butch Cassidy, even though I thought it was great. My favorite movie, hands down was, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof…. Oh, that was a classic…
And my favorite line…
Elizabeth Taylor, saying with great passion, “MAGGIE THE CAT IS ALIVE!!!!”
Still gives me goosebumps.
What chemistry they had. They were really something, weren’t they???
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