Grilled Cheese...With a twist

I don't have a picture of this particular sandwich, but you may find one by searching Paula Dean. I got this recipe watching her show, and it was every bit as delicious as she made it out to be. :)

Grilled Cheese w/ bacon and apples with a roasted onion mayonaise

bacon strips, fried up
thinly sliced granny smith apple (gala works, too)
cheddar cheese slices
some sort of fun bread (french, sourdough, Italian, etc.)
purple onion
mayo

Chop your onion and roasted in a lightly oiled pan for 1/2 hr (350 I think). Fry your bacon and slice your apples. Butter two pieces of bread. Ok. I'll stop here. I think you know how to put a sandwich together. ;) When your onions are done, throw a 1/2 c. mayo in a blender and toss some onions in (to taste). Spread that on both pieces of bread (not the side you buttered) and then add your fixings and grill it like normal. It is a little bit of upscale eating in your every day kitchen. Bon appetit!

Beautiful Brown Rolls

Like most of you, I love some good homemade rolls. My favorite hands down are my late Grandma Marchant's Parker House rolls. I have tried and tried to recreate them, but have never managed it. So, when I got the craving for homemade rolls and the itch to bake simultaneously, I had Jeff search some cookbooks for a new roll recipe.


Beautiful Brown Rolls:


2 c. boiling water
1 c. quick cooking oats
2 pkg (1/4 oz each) active dry yeast
1/4 c. warm water
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 c. molasses
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/3 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
5-3/4 to 6-1/4 c. flour
melted butter or margarine


In a large mixing bowl, combine boiling water and oats; cool to lukewarm. Meanwhile, dissolve yeast in warm water; stir into oat mixture. Add the eggs, molasses, oil, sugar, and salt. Add enough flour to form a soft dough. Turn onto a floured surface ; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour. Punch dough down. Divide into 36 pieces and shape into rolls. Place on greased baking sheets. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes. Brush with butter. Cool on wire racks. Yields: 3 dozen.


This recipe comes from "The Best of Country Cooking 2000" which is a Taste of Home cookbook.

Peach Pie

I was dying for some fresh peach pie last week, but not having any fresh peaches, I had to improvise. Fortunately, improvising is my specialty. :) What I did have were some jars of bottled peaches that needed to be used. (I know-big improvise) I pulled out some of my most trust-worthy cookbooks and found this in the ever-handy Betty Crocker cookbook:

Fresh Peach Pie (with canned peach variation)

9 in - 2 crust pie

2 cans (1 lb 13 oz) sliced peaches, drained

1 tsp. lemon juice

1/2 c. sugar

1/4 c. all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

2 TBSP butter or margarine

Heat oven to 425. Prepare pastry. Mix peaches and lemon juice. Stir together sugar, flour and cinnamon; mix with peaches. Turn into pastry-lined pan; dot with butter. Cover with top crust which has slits cut in it; seal and flute. Cover edge with 2-3 in strip of aluminum foil to prevent excess browning; remove foil last 15 minutes of baking. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust.

I sprinkled the crust with cinnamon and sugar on the top for a little extra sparkle. Not one piece of this pie was wasted.

A New Look

I loved the clean, boring look I used to have, but when I saw this template, I couldn't help myself. (Doesn't that lime look perfect with it??) There is one tiny problem. All the font colors remained the same-black. Black on black doesn't work when you're trying to read. :) As a solution, I've edited all of this pages post (and all future ones) in white. If you happen to scan the back pages and are interested in a post, leave a comment on the newest one and I'll go change it to white as well. Otherwise, it'll be like reading invisible ink..He he he.

A Twist on Lime

I had this absolutely refreshing drink for the first time about 4 years ago. I don't remember who made it first (probably one of the super cute girls in my old FHE group), but I loooove it. Very easy and with a surprise ingredient-cucumbers-it turns into a perfect summer picnic beverage.

Ingredients
2 small cans or 1 large can frozen limeade concentrate
Cucumbers, peeled and sliced thinly
2 liters lemon-lime soda (or ginger ale)

Directions
Thaw limeade. Marinate cucumbers in limeade for a few hours. Add to the punch bowl with the soda. Add ice to chill.

What to do with Leftover Spaghetti

That was my quandary the other night. It's not like I had just one portion left, I had a whole meals worth of noodles. So, like any other good dilemma, I posted the question of what to do with the stuff on a forum. After 2 pages of responses, I picked a recipe to try. (Shocking that people would have idea. My idea was to just throw it away and count my losses.) We ended up trying a variation of chicken spaghetti. 2 out of 3 kids loved it and Jeff was blown away by its deliciousness. I was pleasantly surprised. Warning-the color is not aesthetically pleasing while making the sauce-don't let it fool you about it's taste.

CHICKEN SPAGHETTI
4 Large chicken breasts or one full chicken
16 ounces of spaghetti1 stick butter
1 medium onion
1 can cream mushroom soup
1 (16 ounce) can stewed tomatoes OR Rotel tomatoes
1 tablespoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon chili powder
Velveeta cheese

To make:
1. Boil chicken breasts or chicken. Save the broth. Cool and cut chicken into bite size pieces.
2. Boil spaghetti in the chicken broth.
3. Spray 9x13 pan with no-stick cooking spray. Pour spaghetti and chicken into pan.
4. Sauté the chopped onion in butter. Add cream of mushroom soup, stewed tomatoes, garlic salt, and chili powder. Pour over spaghetti and chicken.
5. Top with Velveeta cheese and melt in oven.

Vitamins and Supplements

Gee...It's been awhile, huh? Sorry about that!

I was looking through an article my friend sent me about what to do when you start feeling the blues and/or overwhelmed. One of the suggestions the article made as to the cause was a deficiency in either magnesium or B vitamins. That got me excited. Someone was telling me exactly what the mineral or vitamin was for! So, then I wondered if I would need to go to a health food store for that or if I could pick it up at Wal-Mart. I went to Nature Made's website (only vitamin brand I could think of). To my happy surprise, they have a fabulous website. You can search by supplement or by what you're trying to treat or need (energy, memory, health, etc.). Thought I'd pass a good thing on. www.naturemade.com