Adri has been baking bread for the neighbors…
Something about this reminds us of an elephant.
Don’t ask.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas Y’all Wednesday, Dec 24 2008
Thanksgiving 2008 Saturday, Nov 29 2008
We had a verrrry fun Thanksgiving this year!
Our good friends, the Navarros, came over for the day.
We thought we’d post some of our favorite pics from yesterday…
First we set the breakfast room table where the boys were going to eat.
Next we set the dining room table for the rest of us.
Notice that we are in need of two more matching dining room chairs!
The table is covered with some of our favorite family china.
Dogs don’t know it’s not bacon!
Actually, it really is bacon.
Mom cooked this up outside (so that our house wouldn’t smell like bacon for 2 days) for the broccoli salad.
We also served cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes, green been casserole, sour cream muffins, and the Navarros brought reallllly yummy mashed sweet & white potato swirl and a beautiful fruit salsa.
Of course….we had dessert!
We made chocolate pecan fudge pie, pumpkin butter gooey’s (thanks Aunt Judy for the recipe!), oatmeal raisin cookies, and molasses cookies.
While all us women were in the house talking and cooking….
The menfolk were outside frying turkey!
Every year Dad sets up his “turkey prep station” outside (so all the ickiness is outside too!).
Here Dad and Mr. Navarro made for a very good turkey injecting team.
Goodbye turkey.
We actually fried 4 turkeys this year (3 for us and 1 for the neighbors).
Daddy couldn’t have done all this without Mr. Navarro’s excellent time keeping skills!
Notice Dixie checking out the turkey!
Don’t worry – she didn’t get any.
After lunch, the Navarros treated us to a concert of Christmas carols!
They did such a good job, that now we’re ready to bring out the Christmas cd’s!
Grandma seemed to enjoy every minute of the day!
Here we all are (minus Owen who took the picture) after some exhausting (at least for us “old girls”) rounds of hide and seek tag!
We thought we’d leave ya’ll with this “vintage” shot of Dad and Owen frying a turkey back when we lived in Collierville. Look how little Owen was! Awwwww!
Hope ya’ll had as good a Thanksgiving as we did!
Potato Chip Cookies Friday, Oct 17 2008
Here is one of our favorite cookie recipes:
Potato Chip Cookies
1 lb. butter -softened
1 c sugar
3 1/4 c flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c crushed potato chips (regular)
Cream sugar, and butter; add vanilla and flour gradually.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Crush potato chips into small bits and fold into batter.
Drop by tsp. onto ungreased cookie sheets and flatten slightly.
15-20 minutes.
Dust with powdered sugar.
However many it makes, it’s not enough!
Fauxtatoes & Pork Rind Pizza Wednesday, Sep 3 2008
Lately our family (minus Owen & Grandma), have been going low carb; Dr Atkins style.
Oh how we love carbs! This is a terrible time in our family’s food history!
Although, we can’t complain since it really does work.
We realllllly miss potatoes and so we were very excited to find a recipe for “fauxtatoes” (Adri loves saying that word over and over). This is a VERY good recipe whether you are on a diet or not.
Fauxtatoes
1 large head of cauliflower
1/3 c. cream
4 oz cream cheese
2 tbsp butter
S & P to taste
1. Simmer the cauliflower in water with the cream added to it.
This keeps the cauliflower sweet and prevents it from turning a nasty color.
When the cauliflower is soft; drain thoroughly.
2. Put the still warm cauliflower in a food processor with the remaining ingredients.
Optional: We have added things like sauteed onions, cheeses, garlic, etc and give it a quick bake.
Yields: 6 generous servings.
The thought and smell of pork rinds makes us sick! We read something online that people use pork rinds in all kinds of low carb cooking. One suggestion was to eat them like you would cereal covered in cream (can’t have milk). We don’t live that dangerously. That is foul sounding!
We know that ya’ll probably won’t trust us and try this next recipe for pork rind pizza crust, but it really is good (even Ariel couldn’t believe she liked it!).
Pork Rind Pizza Crust
8 oz cream cheese, softened
3 eggs
1 c. pork rinds, finely crushed (food processor is great for this)
1/4 c. parmesan cheese
8 oz mozzerella cheese, shredded
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp garlic powder
Pizza toppings of choice
Preheat over to 425 degrees.
Cut a circle of parchment paper to fit a 14″ pizza pan (make it go slightly up the sides of the pan).
Spray the pizza pan with cooking spray to help the parchment stay put.
Whisk the cream cheese and egg until smooth.
Add remaining ingredients, except the mozzerella. Mix thoroughly. Add the mozzerella.
Drop the dough by large spoonfuls all over the pizza pan.
Press it into the shape of the pan with your fingers. Make sure the dough goes up the sides of the pan a little.
Bake for 20 minutes at 425 degrees.
Let stand 10 minutes.
Add the toppings you like and bake at 375 degrees for 15 – 20 minutes longer (or until toppings are bubbly and lightly browned).
