Happy Thanksgiving from the Smoky Mountains...

We're spending a few days in a cabin in the mountains near Gatlinburg with John and Deanna. Here's how its going...

1. Temperatures are In the 60's so we have a fire in the fireplace with the AC on.

2. It's 3pm and we haven't eaten because the stove is temperamental and food is still cooking.

3. The family is playing dominoes, I'm not a fan, so I passed, it's too hot to play anyway.

4. We brought the dogs, they're panting and snoozing the afternoon away.

5. Even though I never venture out, tomorrow we will join the masses to shop until we drop.

6. Did I mention that it's hot in here?

7. Deanna and I slept in while John and LC made pumpkin and pecan pies.

8. It took years of training to get them to this point *wicked grin*

9. Remind me to tell you all later about the FoodSaver and KarmelKorn. It was amazing!

10. Did I mention that it's hot in here,

Okay, I've goofed off enough, time to slave over that darned stove. Nah, not really, we're all doing it. Whew, it's hot in here, but we're having such a good time and temperatures are cooling down tomorrow, hope the firewood holds out!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!!

A we begin this Thanksgiving Week...

We've been posting what we're thankful for this Thanksgiving on Facebook.  This was my post yesterday, several people commented on it and I thought some of you that read the Daily Dish might enjoy it as well.

I'm thankful for the important things, family, friends, health, as all of us are, but if I strip that away, what else am I thankful for? 

The wind on my face when I step outside, blowing leaves that bring back long forgotten memories of Novembers past, memories of loved ones now gone, the smell of candles, the warmth of a fireplace, soup simmering on the stove, sunsets that light up the sky, a simple hug and a child's laughter.

I'm thankful that I can hear, see, taste, touch, and smell, the five senses that allow me to enjoy all of the simple things in life, for they are the best gifts of all. Live in the moment wherever you are this Thanksgiving and be grateful, we are all truly blessed.

~ Jan

Fried Egg Salad

I’ve been reading online about fried egg salads. I’ve been having computer “issues” and dinnertime came last night, I was drawing a blank, and since LC will eat anything I put in front of him I pulled out bacon and eggs from the fridge to make breakfast for dinner.

As I was scrambling the eggs, I remembered the fried egg salad recipe and decided to try the salad with scrambled eggs, resulting in one of the best salads I’ve ever made. I topped my greens with Catalina, topped it with crumbled bacon and the scrambled egg, and it was love at first bite.

Crisp, cold salad, warm egg, sweet dressing, salty bacon, rings of red onion, Law-dee ladies, is this a winner!

Tweaking Salad in a Jar…

I’m on round two of vacuum sealing my salads, and I’m totally hooked.  It’s so easy to grab one of these out of the fridge, pour the dressing right in the jar, shake and serve. 

I’ve learned a few things I’ll share with you and then I’ll shut up about this, well maybe I will. 

• Make sure your greens are damp, not wet, or you will have soggy salad
• Don’t add onion, the flavor is too strong
• Don’t cut lettuce into too small of pieces, it works better if lettuce is a bit chunkier
• Some people add folded paper towel to the top of the jar before sealing to absorb moisture, I haven’t tried that yet.
• It is faster putting these salads together when you know what you’re doing.  My total time start to finish this morning was twenty minutes.

This time I used a head of iceberg lettuce and six small heads of artisan lettuce, which is really tender, we’ll see how that works out.  I added celery, carrots and radishes, and had a total of seven quarts.

I’ve been adding nuts, Craisins, and fruit, long with protein, to this mix.  Today I’m going to try toasting oatmeal and sprinkling it on my salad, I don’t know how that will work, but it’s healthy so I’m going to test it.  I need to buy some flax seed, too, that would be a good addition. I’m reading that people are adding Fiber One Cereal to salads for crunch, can’t quite wrap my head around doing that, though…

Yes, I’m still obsessing, I know.  Be patient with me, it will pass, it always does

They've screwed up Levi sizing!!!!

Please tell me that Levi's run smaller than they used to, PLEASE TELL ME!!!!!   I'm seriously considering cutting the size tags out of my old jeans and sewing them into my new jeans in a misguided attempt to make myself feel better.

They probably make these in China and these are sized for Asian woman.  Thats why they don't fit! Or it's some kind of awful trick they're playing on us, CONSUMERS BEWARE!!! Do you think I've finally gone round the bend????  It appears that I might have.

I honestly don't see anything wrong with wearing yoga pants for the rest of my life.  It won't be so bad, I just won't go anywhere until it's dark, and nobody can tell what kind of bottoms I have on, they will just look black.  It will work, right??? 

Oh, of course it won't work, but these are desperate times!  Maybe I should just buy Walmart's brand of jeans, I bet they aren't sized small!!!  Oh heaven help, I am going to have to order up those Pajama Jeans I joke about.

No, Jan, you are just going to have to eat human bites and then maybe after oh, three or four years, if you're very, very lucky, Levi's will fit properly.

I think this screwed up Levi sizing is political, it has to be, there is no other excuse!    And Levi is missing the boat, they should make all of their jeans HUGE,then we would happily keep going down in size until they fit.  Can you imagine the shrieks of joy that would come from the dressing room when fat women everywhere could slide into a size six?  They would make a bloody FORTUNE!  I think I should email them, don't you???

I really need to curb my enthusiasm…

I was talking to Nisha this morning, gushing about sealing food in jars, and she asked me if I had always been this way?  Super excited, well more like obsessive, about new things I’m trying.  V and I laugh about it, too, I get so caught up in the latest and greatest, and then the next thing comes along and my aging brain forgets all about the last latest and greatest and I’m off to something else.

BUT, trust me, this FoodSaver sealing in a jar thing is a keeper.  Mother always taught me to store foods in the fridge and freeze in glass, it doesn’t pick up odors, it doesn’t stain, it just works best.  And I have all of these glass containers that I use, however, they don’t seal, therefore the food doesn’t stay fresh as long.

So I’ve turned into a one woman sealing machine.  See this picture, it’s bacon, yep, bacon.  You know how you open a package of bacon and it turns brown and dries out, even though you have it in a Ziploc, well no more.  I just stuck my bacon in a quart jar and sealed it up.

Today I found large mouth pint jars, no easy task, as canning season is over and the stores aren’t stocking them, but my local Rural King had them, so I’m good to go.

I popped a quart of salad for lunch, took out some cannelini beans, put the rest in this jar and sealed them.  You’re probably thinking, why would she do this, she isn’t going to keep them long term?  Well, it’s fast, it’s quick, it keeps them fresher, and it’s glass people.  Love this – L-O-V-E this!  Now I need some wide mouth half pint jars and I’m good to go. I don’t bother putting the rings on the jars, that’s just another step, and you don’t need them, these lids are totally sealed.  I learned online to take a small screwdriver, put it at the top of the highest glass ring mark, jut under the lid, give it a half turn and the lid comes off without bending it, and you can reuse it again and again. Oh, the possibilities….

And my lunch today, well let me tell you, it was so good.  I opened a quart of salad, squirted a heaping tablespoon of yellow mustard on top, then I added  packet of Splenda, salt, and pepper, a splash of olive oil and a healthy glug of fat free half and half and squeezed half an orange over the top.  I put on the lid, shook the jar until it was combined, poured it in my salad bowl, added the beans, and a can of drained tuna and tossed.  Delicious, easy, fast, see I’m obsessing.  But this is the best thing I’ve come across in like forever!!!!  Now that I have my pint jars I’m going to attack my pantry and put all kinds of things in pints.  Yes, I know, obsessing…

Oh, I totally forgot to tell you how the salad is working.  It’s perfect, crispy, cold, not brown, the only thing I will do different next time is not add onion, because it’s such a strong flavor the lettuce takes on the taste.  Hubby wanted salad for dinner last night, it was ready for him to eat in 30 seconds.  It’s the damndest thing!!!

~ jan here, doin’ the happy dance

Oprah’s Favorite Things for 2011

I’ve been over Oprah for years now, but my friends and I always enjoy her favorite things, and even though she no longer has a show, she still has a list.

Here’s the link if you’re interested, I found not one thing that I would buy, it’s sure not like the good old days, but then what is….

You can check it out here, see if you have better luck than me, the only thing that floated my boat was the chicken pot pie, and Marie Callender makes a great one for a better  price, so forget that, too…

Corn on the cob without silking it.

Okay, so the poor ole feller has a bit of trouble with one of his ears turning loose, but this is so cool!

Barb’s Amazing Creole Burgers

I made my friend Barb’s Creole Burgers yesterday and they were awesome.

Read all about them and get the recipe on Jan CAN Cook.

Another great Sloppy Joe recipe, I’m a happy girl…

~ jan

Salad in a Jar–this is absolutely FANTASTIC!!!!!

Last week I told you about my FoodSaver not working and my eBay purchase of another one.  It arrived yesterday, brand new with tape and cardboard still intact, so of course I fired it up immediately and it worked perfectly.

So this morning I got up, assembled my ingredients and I was off to the races. 

I used two heads of iceberg lettuce that I washed, chopped and spun dry in the salad spinner.  They don’t recommend you use baby bibb or spring greens, they’re too tender and don’t last as well,  romaine and iceberg work best.  Then I used the slicing blade of the salad shooter to quickly shred all of the other veggies.

Then I gave it all a quick toss to combine all the ingredients in the mixing bowl, which by the way is the greatest, cheapest thing ever.  This huge stainless bowl came from a local restaurant supply house, cost less than $10 and I use it so much, it’s awesome!

I started using a funnel to fill the jars, quickly realized that it was a pain, it was easier to just position the jar over the salad bowl and scoop the greens with a measuring cup.  Hubby doesn’t like green peppers, so I only added them to some of the jars and I didn’t add soft ingredients like cucumbers, tomatoes, or mushrooms as I’ve read that they don’t hold well.  I also used a regular stainless knife to chop my lettuce, even though I have a plastic lettuce knife, there is “supposedly” no need to use it as the lettuce doesn’t turn brown and I’m not a fan of tearing it because I like a finer texture and it’s hard to achieve when tearing it.

Then I wiped off the tops of the jars to make sure they were dry so that the seal would hold and I was ready to vacuum seal them.  It was really fast, really easy, it only took twenty seconds per jar to seal.  And no, there is nothing running down the front of the FoodSaver, it’s just shadows from the jars ;o)

And how long did this take?  From the time I started assembling my ingredients until I put them in the fridge, thirty-five minutes start to finish and I have enough salad to last me for seven days.  And this was the first try, I’m thinking next time it won’t take as long as today because I’ll know what I’m doing.  One mess per week and enough salad to last for days, works for me…

Red Silicone Whisk, this is a REALLY good thing…

I just bought this silicone whisk at either Marshall’s or T. J. Maxx a few weeks ago, both of our stores had a big display of them.

Oh my, what a difference a flexible whisk makes, it gets into all the nooks and crannies of your bowl, it’s just amazing.

You can find them online, too – HERE IS ONE SITE if you don’t want to trudge through the stores looking for them.  They’re a little more spendy online, I only paid like $5.99 for mine.  But check around, they are all over the place.  Super little gadget!!!

What I’m using for Moisturizer…

In my twenties I was a Merle Norman girl.  I bought all of their products,  and  they looked amazing on my young skin.  Then came Clinique and I jumped on that bandwagon.  For years I used their moisturizer, toner, makeup base, shadow, blush, even their cologne.  All the way through my thirties and forties I was a Clinique girl.  Then came my fifties, and I’m realizing that moisture is moisture, so I started using drugstore moisturizer instead of the pricey department store stuff.  Now I still have brand loyalty to certain products, I’m a huge MAC fan, but that’s a whole other blog.

Anyway, the drugstore stuff worked great for me, I can’t even remember which brands I bought, but they were inexpensive.  Then I turned sixty and discovered the little pots of Aldi’s moisturizer, which was awesome and only cost a few dollars and ranked right up there with department store brands in consumer tests.

And now that I’m almost sixty two, what am I using?  Well, I must confess, I ran out of my Aldi’s brand a few months ago, and I had a bottle of Johnson’s Baby Lotion sitting on my makeup table, because I adore the scent and I like slathering it on at bedtime because it smells so good.  So I put it on my face, and guess what, it worked as well as a makeup primer as any of the other stuff I’ve ever used. It’s gentle, non-irritating, what more do I want.  And it’s $5.00 for a gigantic pump bottle.

So now I’m using baby lotion as a moisturizer.  Do you think I’ve come full circle?  Hey, it works, it’s cheap, and at my age, regardless of what I slather on, it’s not going to turn back time.  Just push down on the pump and you’re good to go.  Nothing to unscrew or squeeze, it’s fast, no mess, and at this stage of my life I appreciate anything that’s easy to use.

I wonder what I’ll be using in my seventies? I have no idea, I may be using Udder Cream or Bag Balm, but if I have enough brain cells left to still blog, I’m sure I’ll be telling you about it.

Hope you’re all having a great Monday!

~ jan

Note:  After I posted this I started thinking, and I imagine a lot of you are saying, well this won’t work for me because I use moisturizers that have built in wrinkle-reducing ingredients.  I’ve had prescriptions for .025 strength Retin A since I was in my 30’s, and been diligent about using it all these years, so I don’t need additional ingredients in a moisturizer.

Random thoughts on a Sunday afternoon

I was going through my blog archives, and it’s really shocking how many years I’ve been doing this, and all the really stupid things I’ve said.  My poor family…

This week I heard from a nice lady named Holly who has been reading me for quite some time now, it was so nice to get her email, because blogging is such a solitary thing, I just type out whats on my mind and hit send, having no idea of who is going to read what I say.

My friend, Diane, told me this past week that she enjoys the blogs about my childhood.  She can relate to those posts, because her early years were similar to mine.  Feedback is good, it’s nice when people let me know their thoughts, heaven knows I give all of you way to many of mine. ;o)

I suppose that my blogs will remain in cyberspace for years to come, and I wonder what Abby will think about her grammie when she’s grown and reads some of these entries.  I seldom filter anything, I just start typing and whatever thought pops in my head ends up on here.  Maybe I should be a bit more selective, but nah, by the time Abby is old enough to read all of this, she will have long figured out that I’m her wackadoo grandmother.

So I’ll just keep on keepin’ on, spinning my wheels, going nowhere.  But perhaps occasionally I will give you a smile, or some good information.   That’s my purpose, that’s what keeps me doing this…

Look who’s sharing a birthday…

No, no, not Trigger, it’s Jean and Roy Rogers.  Roy was a hundred today, Jean was a few years behind him.  Okay, quite a few, but she is older than me.  Happy Birthday, old friend, I hope you have many, many more…

Sharing the good stuff..

These little plastic tulip sundae dishes are a great find.  They are usually in stock at Walgreens, and at holiday time they have them in red and green.

You’re probably wondering why I’m showing you these, what’s so special about plastic bowls?  Well, first of all they are like $.49 apiece, and they are the best thing ever when I’m in the kitchen baking.  I guess I’ve watched too much FoodTV, but I always measure my different ingredients into little containers before stirring whatever I’m baking together. 

Okay, I confess, it’s not entirely FoodTV, it’s mainly so that I don’t forget to add something. I have glass ramekins, and FiestaWare ramekins, but they’re bulky and heavy, these are lightweight, stack easily, grab one and you’re good to go.  I have a ton of them, and I use them for all kinds of things.  They’re the perfect size for little hands when you are fixing a snack for little people, I use them for coleslaw, potato salad and baked beans, and they’re perfect for a scoop of ice cream, or a serving of pudding or Jello. They’re unbreakable, dishwasher safe, you’ll find a boatload of uses for them.  You won’t want to trot them out when Aunt Martha comes to visit, save the cut glass for when she comes, but for everyday use, you can’t beat these!

You might want to check the seasonal aisle next time you are in Walgreens, I think I’ve seem them at Wally World, too.  I know, they’re plastic, but they’re goodies, pinky swear they are…

~ jan

Why do things never go as planned, EVER!!!!!!

I’ve been wanting to make that salad in a jar all week, but I didn’t have lids, couldn’t find my wide mouth jars, didn’t have enough lettuce, you know the story.  So yesterday, this little squirrel gathered up all her nuts, found some jars, bought some lids, got the salad ingredients and I was good to go this morning.  WRONG!!!!!

I got out all the ingredients, lettuce, peppers, radishes, celery, red onion, carrots, and I’m slicing and dicing like a madman, thinking that I’m really liking this and I should dust off the trusty old salad shooter the next time to shred the veggies.  I got everything in the jars, it looked great, it was so much easier to prepare salads this way,  I was beyond excited! Yeah, I know I need a life, but anyway, I get out the FoodSaver, attach the vacuum hose, fire it up, and nothing!  El zippo, nada, no can do, the blasted thing wouldn’t vacuum.  Hubby to the rescue, and even he, who can fix anything, couldn’t make it work.  I was frustrated beyond words!

So I go online to Foodsaver.com, get the customer service number, talk to this nice lady named Ruth who gives me all the info on FoodSavers, the latest and the greatest, and of course she has a deal for me.  I say “thank you very much, but I’m not ready to order” after she is pressuring me to buy one, but I’ll check around because you can always find things cheaper elsewhere than the original manufacturer.

Sooooo, the one I liked was Model V3840, $299.00, which was crazy expensive, but I liked it because it was stainless and I can leave it set out, so I go to eBay, find the same one, Buy It Now, no shipping charges, no tax, for $76.49.  It’s a retail store returned item, the seller is a power seller with great feedback and 100% return policy, so I felt comfortable buying it.  Yeah, I know, it sounds to good to be true, but in the past I’ve had good luck with this type of thing, let’s just hope it holds out for me this time.

And of course I read the reviews, and it’s the same as it is for all FoodSavers, some people love them, some hate them.  I think it’s because people can’t figure out how to seal the bags, it’s really tricky getting that bag in that little channel, but  once you get past the learning curve, it’s a walk in the park.  We’ve had ours for several years, and it’s the type that you seal by pushing down on the unit with both hands, this one is hands free, you just push a button, a big improvement, since it gets constant use.  We buy whole pork loins, have the butcher cut them into 3/4” chops and freeze them.  They’re so good, and so inexpensive when you do it this way.  We’ve had great luck freezing all kind of meat, no freezer burn, ever, with a FoodSaver.

So, with a little luck, in a few days, I’ll be showing you pictures of my Ball jars filled with salad.  Oh, about the salad, I put them in the fridge anyway, because I already had them in the jars, I pulled out a quart jar at lunch, it’s the perfect amount of salad for two people, or a chef salad for one – this is gonna be awesome once I get it working. I’m also going to vacuum seal nuts, coconut, chocolate chips, raisins, my pantry is going to be lined with Ball jars, which will make me smile, because these are the jars of my childhood.

So, let’s hope I’m not gonna be on here in a few day p*ssing and moaning about how the thing doesn’t work and I have to send it back. 

I’m usually pretty positive about this type of thing, but it’s been a really bad month, so Little Miss Merry Sunshine is just a bit skeptical.  But we shall see…

Peanut Butter, Jif vs. Skippy…

When I was a kid, I did not like peanut butter, I didn’t like the smell, the texture, the taste, it just wasn’t for me.  Then I grew older, and my opinion changed, and now that I’m really older, I adore peanut butter.  By the time I decided I liked it, largely in part to commericals like this with Annette Funicello, who I thought was absolutely drop dead gorgeous, I jumped on the Skippy bandwagon.

Skippy became a staple in our pantry, and then the boys grew up and started watching commercials like this.

Well, of course I had to be a choosy Mother, and they just had to have Jif instead of Skippy, I abandoned Annette and my brand loyalty and started buying Jif.  And I liked it, I really liked it, it was sweet, it was yummy and it had a great looking jar. ;o)  My kids loved it and to this day it’s our families peanut butter of choice, even though blind studies show that Skippy always beats Jif.  In fact, I had a lively discussion about this very thing just a couple of weeks ago with my friend Trish and her brother Mike, who are die hard Skippy fans.

So, maybe I’ll buy a jar of Skippy for old times sake, but I just don’t think I’ll like it as well.  It just doesn’t get any better than Extra Crunchy Jif in my opinion.  And now that they’ve had the worst peanut harvest in decades, those jars are going to get pricey.  But sometimes it’s just worth it, sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.  So I bought a hug jar today, peanut butter and celery, mother always fixed this for the kids, and it’s still our favorite way to eat it…

Thanksgiving Favorites

It’s that time again.  Every year I post my friends Thanksgiving recipes, a list we all collaborated on back in 2008.  There are some amazing recipes here.

Some of the most requested are Nisha’s Chicken Velvet Soup from L. S. Ayres Tea Room, Jan and Kaysi’s wine infused Cranberry Jello Salad (Lindsay’s Aunt Jan’s recipe, not mine) and everybody’s favorite, Barb’s Melt-in-your-Mouth Pumpkin Bread.  All of these recipes are special, as are the ladies that gave them to me.  I’ll post them in my sidebar until after Christmas.

Happy Cooking! 

~ jan

Here’s the quick link for you…

About that food storage YouTube link yesterday…

I hadn’t watched it before I posted it, but it was a Morman lady taking food storage to the extreme with solar ovens and 1-3 years worth of food stockpiled.  I admit, I was fascinated, and sat and watched all 8 or 9 videos.

I was intrigued by her pressure cooking meat, that took me back to my childhood as mother, grandma and the aunts always canned meat, quart jars filled with chicken, jars of sausage and my favorite, pork tenderloin in gravy. 

Mother canned so many vegetables, fruit, pickles and relishes, and an email this morning from my friend, Carlene about sauerkraut made me think of the fall when she always shredded cabbage, let it ferment in big crocks in the kitchen and canned it for the winter.  I loved it, cold from the fridge, it tasted nothing like the kraut you buy in the bag at the grocery store today. 

I still have her old recipes, her sweet pickles that took fourteen days to make, her wonderful garlicky dill pickles, zucchini relish, Aunt Mae’s Pear Honey that I need to post on Jan CAN Cook, to name a few, and it makes me sad that I never make any of her wonderful food. Maybe I should pick just one thing and make it, just to see if it tastes as good as I remember.

I’ve already given John and Deanna the heads up about my birthday dinner this year, as we will be with them in a cabin at Gatlinburg.  I want something I haven’t had since I was a child, and I’m sure nobody will like it but me.  It’s a strange combo, but oh how I loved it.

Mother always made it in an electric skillet, she would brown hamburger, onion and green peppers, drain off the grease, then stir in a quart of her canned tomatoes, breaking up the tomatoes with a fork, then she would add dried spaghetti and simmer it until the spaghetti was tender.  The starch from the spaghetti would thicken the sauce and it was just yummy!  Then, and this is the best part, she would make mashed potatoes, put them in the middle of the plate and puddle that spaghetti over the top.  Oh my, it was soooo good, no wonder I wasn’t a skinny little kid!  It was totally unlike the spaghetti we have today, no italian seasoning, not even garlic, just onion and green peppers. 

Will it taste as good as I remember? I can just see all of you thinking, ewwwwwww, I don’t know about this.  Hubby is already going “yuck” but he’s just gonna have to deal with it along with the rest of the family, while I take my walk down memory lane. In our family you get anything you want for your birthday with no questions asked!  I’m still working on dessert, haven’t quite figured that out yet.

Heaven knows I’ve had many years of strange combination of birthday foods from the boys growing up so I doubt they will give me a hard time about this…

Besides, what goes around comes around.  Works for me!