Week in Review:

Big holiday week full of cooking and eating and shopping! The hunters returned. Brent and Lindsey came up on Wednesday night. We had Thanksgiving dinner here on Thursday, then, of course, the Black Friday shopping trip. On Saturday we went to Drew's shower at Gene Stratton Porter, (see pics from the shower on Lindsey's blog) and celebrated Brent's 26th birthday. Oh, and my friend, Cheryl, who also rode Joe's bus home from Funkhouser School, e-mailed me that I forgot to mention the great bus debates of Ford vs Chevy. How could I forget!!!!

Corey and Rob and what they killed

For Thanksgiving dinner, I decided to try dry-brining a fresh turkey. This worked okay and was fine and everything, but I don't think it was really worth the extra effort and in the future, I'll be sticking with the Butterball. I've also never been satisfied with my dressing. After some phone consultation with Maw-Maw, (who makes wonderful dressing) I decided to cook the turkey neck and wings (I made Bob cut them off) in the pressure cooker and use that meat and stock as the base. I've always been a little afraid of my pressure cooker. I guess I think the lid will blow off and hit me in the head. But, I got it out anyway, and proceeded. Later, I added chicken broth and then the celery and onion and, on Maw-Maw's advice, rubbed sage, instead of the powdered. Well, the dressing turned out great and I feel like a real victory was won on this great holiday. We also served sweet potatoes that knock your socks off, mashed potatoes and gravy, scalloped corn, apple & walnut spinach salad with honey mustard dressing, pecan and pumpkin pie and turkey cookies, as shown above. Nick and Stormy were also guests at our Thanksgiving Dinner, as their children were not coming until the weekend.

Black Friday!!!!!

It was great. Our first stop, after Starbucks, was Best Buy. I ran in and grabbed my purchase and got in line, and waited in that line that zig-zagged down many aisles for about 45 minutes. Stormy and Lindsey positioned themselves so that they could wave and cheer at me and take my picture as I came around each corner. Then it was on to Target where we scored one sweet parking place and were in and out in no time. We used a little strategy there. One person immediately got in line and the other two ran to get the stuff and bring it back to the line. At one store, Lindsey demonstrated her assertiveness skills by telling the clerk how to ring up our sale so that the discount coupons could be used to our best advantage.

Us, at Starbuck's at 5:00 AM

Brent's birthday carrot cake

We had ribs and Stormy sent over extra jalapeno crab cakes that they were serving at their house.

Sunday - There was no supper. I was all cooked out, s0 we had leftovers. Bob spent the afternoon cutting down the neighbor's walnut tree, so he can put up a dish and watch I.U. basketball games on the Big Ten Network. Here's Bob carrying his Little Giant back to the garage. At this point, the deed is done and the tree is finally down. I just ran out to check. I had been inside the house, praying, and frantically searching online to see if there was maybe some Patron Saint of Woodcutters on whom to call. (like St. Paul of Bunyan maybe) Anyway, the neighbor is safe and so is his property and the lights and cable are still on, so whew!

The recipe of the week is for the turkey cookies featured above. I got this recipe for cream cheese sugar cookies from another kindergarten room mother at J.L. Buford School in Mt. Vernon, Illinois in 1988. You have to keep an eye on these cookies when they're in the oven, as they brown quickly because there's so much butter in them.

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup softened butter

3 ounces softened cream cheese

1 egg yolk

2 3/4 cups flour

Combine all ingredients except flour. Stir well. Add flour slowly until well-mixed. Chill a few hours. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness and cut with cookie cutters. Bake approximately 7-10 minutes. Watch closely. Frost or sugar them when cool.

Week in Review



Absolutely no subbing at all this week. I filled in for Sally at the park department while she was on vacation. Bob was on the west coast again until Thursday and then he and Rob and a friend of Rob's left for a weekend duck hunting trip in Stuttgart, Arkansas, the MECCA of duck hunting.


The weekend was again, kind of clunky. I was trying to load groceries in a rainy/snowy Wal-mart parking lot and my hood was pulled over my head and I couldn't see that the liftgate on the Jeep was not raising up as I thought it was and, anyway, I almost knocked myself out on the liftgate and I have a small lump above my left eye. And, when Bob applied online for Arkansas hunting licenses, he typed in Rob's birth date as 1889, making him 118 years old. They were 2 hours in some Arkansas Wal-Mart trying to get that straightened out, and Saturday morning they didn't even get a chance to fire their guns. Maybe some planet is in retrograde motion, wreaking havoc on our weekend.........or, maybe we just need to pay closer attention to what we're doing...and stay out of Wal-mart's.



There are no new pictures because thoughtless hunters took both cameras to the MECCA of duck hunting, so, for you Landon watchers, here he is in his formal nine month photograph with Stella. It could only be better if the dog was wearing a sweater with a boy on it.









It's Thanksgiving week and I've spent some time this afternoon making a shopping list. Brent and Lindsey will come and Nick and Stormy, and maybe, Lori and family. We'll have all the fixins and some Packer football and then we'll ready ourselves for BLACK FRIDAY!!!!!!!!


Here's how it will go. We'll get up at 3:00 am and we'll load all the store fliers in the back seat and drive to Fort Wayne. Initially there will be some mumbling about how stupid this is, but it will subside as the shoppers start to get into the spirit of the morning. At Starbuck's we'll get peppermint mocha's and then we'll plan our attack.

I think it's important to have a code of conduct or a set of rules to adhere to on this very special shopping day. So here's what I will and will not do:

On Black Friday I WILL NOT:

1. Push or shove

2. Scratch

3. Use profanity

4. Issue threats

However, I WILL:

1. Run

2. Bob and weave (if necessary)


3. Use shopping companions to create a diversion away from doorbuster items.

4. Act stupid and helpless to get what I want. (sometimes this is not acting) This works well with men at H.H. Gregg and Best Buy - you might even get them to lug some heavy stuff to your place in line, but don't even bother trying it at JC Penney, Macy's or Target because you'd be wasting your time. In fact, it's best not to show weakness at these locations, as any sign of vulnerability is like a drop of blood in shark-infested waters.




No Sunday night candlelight supper this week. I did have dinner at Nick and Stormy's on Saturday night. Shane and Krissy were also guests. We were served a delcious chicken Marsala, and we had a great time.

Illinois Corn Sausage Chowder is a family favorite. I still have the original recipe on a limp, grease-soaked, folded-up magazine page torn out of a 1988 issue of Midwest Living. I entered this chowder in a cooking contest that the Effingham Daily News sponsored many years ago and won second place in the soups and salads category. I think I got twenty-five bucks. Here it is. Enjoy


Prize-Winning Illinois Corn-Sausage Chowder
1 pound bulk pork sausage
1 cup coarsely chopped onion
4 cups 1/2-inch cubes peeled potato
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram, crushed
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 cups water
1 17-ounce can cream-style corn
1 17-ounce can whole kernel corn, drained
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk

In a Dutch oven or kettle, cook the sausage and onion until sausage is brown and onion is tender; drain on paper towels. Return sausage and onion to the kettle with potato, salt, marjoram, pepper, and water. Bring to boiling; reduce heat and simmer just till potato is tender, about 15 minutes. Add cream-corn and whole kernel-corn and milk. Heat through

Week in Review

I subbed all week - mornings in kindergarten and afternoons at the middle school with fifteen minutes to get from one school to the other. The kindergarten crowd was the same one mentioned in an earlier post - the one that doubts my competency. Those kids even questioned the way I put stickers up on a chart. Hmmmm - It just didn't look quite right to them.



Bob's dad is in the hospital in St. Louis, and he spent most of the week there. Stormy and Nick put their house on the market because they are moving to Philadelphia.

Elections

This past week local elections were held. This got me to thinking back, again, to my childhood and my days as a student at Funkhouser Grade School. If you went to Funkhouser, you either rode Nobe's bus or Joe's bus. I don't know what they did on Nobe's bus, but on Joe's bus we would engage in sparkling political debate - maybe not sparkling, exactly, more like republicans would sit on one side of the bus and democrats, the other. We didn't really debate issues, we mostly just shouted back and forth across the aisle that we were best, and our side was right. (kinda like real politics in Washington).


Our debates weren't always about politics. Sometimes they would be about which kind of tractor was superior. John Deere people were on one side, Farmall, International, and everybody else on the other - again, shouting about which tractor was best. I can still hear this one kid enthusiastically chiming in "Allis Chalmers" at periodic intervals. ( You know, when I think about it, I believe the republicans owned all the John Deere's).


Our bus route wound around in the country and went past a gravel road that led back into the woods to the Jackson Township Hall. I voted there for the first time in 1976. It was also a popular place to park.


One night, I was in bed and looking out my window, doing my nightly UFO check, and I saw a man walking up our driveway. I alerted the authorities who checked it out. It was my cousin. He had been parking at the town hall with his girlfriend and was out of gas. He had walked the three or four miles to our house and had been chased by somebody's dog and everything.


All I could think about was his poor girlfriend and how I wouldn't want some guy to go off and leave me alone in the car in those woods at night. I would rather be chased by the dog.

No Sunday Supper this Week

With Bob away again, there was no candlelight supper tonight. For those of you who knew that I was trying out the recipe for the 7 cheese macaroni and cheese, I have to report that it was a bit disappointing. The recipe called for about 12 cups of 7 different cheeses, a dozen eggs, and six cups of half and half. I made it, but I was not impressed.


I will share with you my recipe for meatballs. Like the carrot cake, this recipe came from my friend, Jana. I have shared it with many Hoosiers over the years, and I have to say that I think because of this meatball recipe, Indiana is a better place to live, (seriously) so here it is, along with some pics from Lindsey and Brent's wedding this summer.









The families

Rob and Candace before the wedding and the beautiful bride
















The Best Meatballs on the Face of the EARTH..earth...earth

3 lbs ground beef
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dried onion flakes
1 teaspoon pepper
2 cups oats
2 eggs
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon chili powder

Sauce:
3 cups brown sugar
2 cups ketchup
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chili powder

Mix ingredients for meatballs. Roll into balls and place in a baking dish. Prepare sauce and pour over the meatballs. Bake for about 1 hour at 350 degrees. Yummy!

If it weren't for Brett Favre, this would have been one clunky weekend.
Thanks Brett!

Week in Review

Fall Break and Halloween this week. Pictured here is the adorable Landon and his dog, Stella, as dinosaurs.






Boo at the School

On Tuesday night we hosted a 19th century Halloween party at the one room schoolhouse. Because of a public relations error, we ended up having more than the 25 kids we were planning for. It turned out okay, I think. This picture might make one think otherwise. Well, mostly because it looks like this ghost has something tied around its neck and, of course, the Danger Electric Fence sign. (I'm told that it's just a little buzz, truly, but I've never actually tried it out) And then there is that open bucket of lard on the ground beside the ghost. And there were many lighted candles and jack o' lanterns and lots of cars driving by at high rates of speed. Oh, and about thirty minutes after this picture was taken a Pit Bull and a Rottweiler from the next farm came over and stuck their heads through the fence and barked at us. But other than that it was perfectly fine, and safe. (nervous laughter)





Sunday Candlelight Supper

Finally, we got our neighbors, Rick and Cathy, here for dinner. We served them the chick buns, carrot souffle, asparagus, and rosemary garlic potatoes. (I know - enough with the chick buns already. Next week - something different) I baked two pies, a pumpkin and a pecan. We ate our pie during half-time of the Patriots/Colts game. Sheesh. Now we're going to have to keep hearing about how woooonnderfuuul those Patriots are. Cathy also brought over a cheesy salsa dip to enjoy during the game. We were stuffed.



Cathy is an accountant, but she's a fun accountant. Once, she and I and our children toilet papered her sister's family who used to live across the road. They never suspected us. Rick and Cathy have been to the David Letterman show three times and Rick always manages to get them on camera. The last time they were there, Rick stumped the band with a song called "Hoosier Boy's State." And because he used to be a state policeman, Dave asked him to pat him down. And he did. Rick was also a contestant on The Weakest Link. He got all his questions right, so when they got down toward the end, the other contestants gave him the boot so they wouldn't have to compete against him in the final round. He's also trying to get on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. I'm hoping he'll ask me to be a phone friend.

The recipe for the week is for the Rosemary Garlic Potatoes. They're great because, well they're tasty, and you can prepare them on top of the stove, so...more oven space.

Rosemary Garlic Potatoes
3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
10 small red potatoes, quartered
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary leaves
(or substitute 1 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh garlic

In a ten inch skillet, heat oil; stir in remaining ingredients. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until crisply-tender (30-35 minutes)

How about that Brett Favre?
I don't want to hear about those Patriots!