It is Lent on the church calendar. Mardi Gras was Tuesday (Fat Tuesday) and at my mother’s small Methodist church, to prepare their hearts for Easter, they meet for a meal and to listen to a speaker. Most speakers are pastors from area churches, but sometimes it will be someone in local government. I think that’s where she learned about the recycling program (see Bread Pudding:the Best Kind of Recycling). So, on Mom’s kitchen calendar each square for Wednesday has a short list of what her contribution will be for the week.
My mother is the “Tea Lady” and makes three gallons each week for the Lenten Lunches: two of sweet and one of unsweetened. Last week, Mom made old fashioned tea cakes, too. The kitchen table was covered with these simple, but delicious cookies Tuesday night. The next day she brought home very few tea cakes and only half a pitcher of unsweetened tea.
Later in the month, she’ll make red beans and rice one Wednesday and then on another jambalaya. There probably won’t be left overs on those days. And I will be sad about that. The last Wednesday of Lent all Mom has to take is the tea, of course, and Bacon Bits. I believe they will do a salad bar that day.
The Lenten Lunches foster a connection in the church and in our small Southern community. It’s tradition to do these luncheons and can be counted on like Spring following Winter.
This afternoon, my oldest son stopped by where I work. I hadn’t seen him in over a month. It was good to catch up. While we talked, we both got messages from my middle son; his wife is expecting and contractions had started. That was at 2:37. It’s now four hours later and we’re still waiting for Brentlee Gabriel to make his appearance.
To say I am excited just doesn’t do justice to how I feel right now. I cannot wait to hold him for the first time.
Of course, that wheezing pacaderm that followed us around the college campus last August will be showing up at the hospital, while we wait for Baby Brentlee to arrive. The night my middle son Lee was born I never thought that his father and I would be divorced 24 years later. But that is what has happened and as I am excited about my grandson, I am something else about seeing the grampa and his -ahem-
Fast paced. Rainbows of color. Noise everywhere. Bigger is better. Excess is the choice of the day. Too much to ooh and ahh over can become dizzying. Simple things and getting back to basics can offer up a refreshing pause.
I am not a fancy cook. My Aunt Lina was a beautiful cook, she could do it all in the kitchen. I have a friend that pairs or covers everything in a sauce or a glaze or infuses whatever she cooks. I just cook. Nothing fancy, although I do love to bake.
My first grandson is due in a few days, so for the family shower last weekend, I concentrated on the basics, nothing overboard.
The theme was an old tried-and-true: rubber duckies! Ernie would have approved, most definitely. Simple moist white cupcakes, covered in light blue butter cream icing, made little individual ponds for miniature ducklings to swim in.
An antique milk glass cake stand, simple and lovely, displayed the ducky cupcakes.
Easy homemade vegetable dip and an assortment of crackers were the savory compliment to the cupcakes. A trip to the dining room hutch for a pressed glass platter made the simple dip special. Here’s the recipe:
2- 12 ounce containers of sour cream
2 – packages of Linton instant vegetable soup mix
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon of white pepper
Mix all of the above the night before your shower or party. Keep the sour cream containers and refill with your just mixed dip. Overnight in the frig will reconstitute the dehydrated vegetables and meld the flavors and spices. It’s not too strong in flavors, just right. I served this simple dip with crackers for the baby shower, but for this weekend’s super bowl, it would be great with your favorite chips.
Serve Simple Vegetable Dip in a pretty Depression Glass bowl, nestled in the center of an pressed glass platter filled with crackers.
And of course there was punch. Blue, because we’re having a boy!
Served in the family punch bowl, Berry Blue Hawaiian Punch, Sprite and Blue Belle vanilla ice cream made a perfect baby blue punch. The mother-to-be said it tasted like cotton candy.
Nothing was over done. Just simple fare served with love and elegance.
Homemade baby quilts. Top from Aunt Linda who lives in Virginia and this one I made myself. Chasity seemed pleased with both.
(I wrote this recipe several years ago, after listening to the JT Show on Supertalk MS. J.T. Williamson was a radio host in the middle of the day and I listened to his show while at work. He often gave recipes out on Fridays. This casserole is one of his recipes and during the winter months, it has become a favorite in our house. Sadly, J.T. passed away this weekend. Prayers for his family. He will be so greatly missed.
August 2, 2021)
I heard about this recipe on the radio this week, but my hands were busy and I couldn’t write it down. So, I looked on line and decided to doctor the recipes I found on the internet. If you’re a meat and potato kinda person, this casserole is for you.
Ingredients:
1 pound lean ground meat
Seasoning- salt, pepper, Cajun if you would like
2 tablespoons Worcester shire sauce
Couple tablespoons of minced onion
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 cup light sour cream
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Enough tator tots to arrange on top
What to do:
Preheat oven to 375°
Brown the ground meat, drain fat and mix in Worcester shire sauce, onion and seasoning. Placed cooked meat into the bottom of a medium sized casserole dish.
In a small bowl mix together the cream of mushroom soup and sour cream. Spread this mixture over the top of the meat. On top of this, evenly sprinkle with the shredded cheese.
The last layer is the tator tots. You could dump them all over the top haphazardly, but why not make it pretty? Lay them side by side in concentric circles.
Now, isn’t that pretty? Bake at 375° for thirty minutes or until the potatoes are golden brown.
Are you wondering how I tweaked the recipe? Well, I added the sour cream to the soup layer. Try it. It adds a great tangy kick to this classic casserole.
Enjoy. Blessings from the Exile’s Kitchen.
Super Tot Casserole: perfect on a cold winter night.
In our little community, in our little part of the southwest corner of Mississippi, there is voluntary recycling. Which really means sorting the trash is a pain. There is a collection spot in town and you’re expected to catorgorize your refuse and then take it for deposit. I must admit that I am a bit passive aggressive and conviently do not remember to peel off the lable from the orange juice container, rinse it and dry it, blah, blahblah, blah, blah.
My mother heard a lady in local government give a talk to her church group about the importance of recycling and saving the planet, and the salamanders on the Natchez Trace, and the baby seals in Alaska, and keeping tar balls out of the Gulf of Mexico and on and on and on. Mom has become an advocate of recycling. Somehow, if Mom seperates her trash while living in a tiny little town with a population of less than 4000, trees in the Amazon will be saved.
“Oh, did I throw that cereal box away? Nope, I can’t fish it out of the abyss of the trash can. There it will stay until the guys with the big truck circle the neighborhood on Wednesday morning.”
I told you- I am a bit passive aggressive. I refuse to gift wrap the refuse. Sorry, Mom. Sorry to any tree huggers reading this, too. Take your peecan to the woods and count the pecan trees. Come on, smile. You take things too seriously.
It really hasn’t been that long ago out in the country (where I lived for 29 years) that weekly trash pickup became the norm. You seperated your tin cans from all other garbage and dumped them into a big hole dug on the back of your property.(I do believe I heard all you environmentalists gasping with your appalled sensibilities.) Read on about rural life. Paper, plastic and cardboard all went into a 50 gallon drum to be burned. Dirty disposable diapers were burned too. Eweee! (Now, you know if I won’t rinse a used orange juice container I was not going to rinse out a used cloth diaper!) If the weather was wet or windy, the trash stacked up in a storage room till it became more trash burning friendly. Ah, life in the country.
More than once trash fires caused raging forest fires. Our neighbors burned up acres of pine trees on my ex-husband’s parents’ land, and they didn’t learn their lesson till my now dearly departed father-in-law went and had a set to with them. I believe he gifted them with a trash barrell of their very own. A few years after that incident, I was called for jury duty and one of the lawyers asked if anyone had ever had property damage due to another’s negligence. I raised my hand and explained what had happened with The Trash Fire That Had Gotten Away and potential juror #12 (I) was excused.
Segway-
The only way or thing I don’t mind recycling is stale bread into a family fave: Bread pudding. My grandmother made this with her week old bread and the smell of butter, egg, sugar and cinnamon filled the whole house. For this mornings breakfast, I used stale hamburger buns to make my grandmother’s recipe. It is the best kind of recycling.
Ingredients:
8 hamburger buns, but any week old bread ( free of mold) can be used
1 1/2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 stick butter
Cinnamon
What to do:
Preheat oven to 375°.
Tear the buns into bite sized pieces and scatter evenly into a casserole dish. Melt butter and pour evenly over the torn pieces of buns. Sprinkle with cinnamon, little or a lot, it’s your choice. In a one quart pot, pour in milk and bring to just about boiling, turn fire off, add sugar, vanilla and stir till sugar disolves.
Crack eggs in a small bowl and whisk till light yellow. Temper the eggs by pouring a little the hot milk mixture into the eggs and whisking together. Pouring the eggs directly into the milk would cook the eggs. You don’t want that. So temper the eggs first, before pouring them all into the hot milk. Then pour combined mixture over the buttery cinnamon bread pieces.
Place in the middle of your preheated oven and bake for about 30 minutes. The pudding will puff up while baking and the top gets crusty, thanks to the butter and sugar. Test to see if the pudding is through baking by inserting a clean knife in the center. If the knife comes out clean, remove from the oven. If it doesn’t come out clean, bake a few more minutes.
Serve warm right out of the oven with coffee. A sprinkling of powdered sugar is nice. Go ahead; gild that lily.
The butter and sugar make the top of the bread pudding divinely crusty. Ooh yum!
Eggs, bacon, toast or an English muffin, salt and pepper make Easy Dorm Fare Omlettes. As most dorms allow microwaves and mini fridges, this recipe is a winner for your college student.
What to do:
Crack an egg into a saucer that’s been spritzed with vegetable spray. Season with salt and pepper and lightly whisk with a fork. Lay one piece of bacon on top of the egg. Place in microwave, cover and nuke for 2 1/2 minutes. Serve either on toast or an English muffin. A little jelly adds a touch of sweetness and is great with the savory flavors of egg and bacon.
Blessings to your college student from the Exile’s Kitchen.
Vegetable spray will make the microwave omlette slide from saucer to toast so easy.Yum! Easy Dorm Fare Omlettes
Happy New Year! Are you stirring yet from your late night, or should I say, early moring? I slept to nearly 10 o’clock this morning, something I haven’t done since I was a kid.
I immediately started in the kitchen; New Year’s lunch needed cooking, after all. In our part of the world of Southerness, the first day of the year is greeted with a full plate of black-eyed peas and cabbage. Why? They bring good luck, health and wealth for the new year.
It’s tradition in our family to eat the above mentioned on New Year’s day. And, considering how many heads of cabbage I saw in grocery buggies yesterday at the store, it’s everyone else’s too. I looked up a few explanations for this cooking phenomenon and came up with these: During the Civil War, invading Northern armies thought black-eyed peas were cattle feed and left them alone, thus also leaving the much needed food source for the Confederate forces. Which was good fortune for our gray clad boys. Good luck and health. Greens are served, because they are, well, green, the same color of folding money in our country. Why we do not deviate from serving black-eyed peas and cabbage, instead of other greens or other legumes? Because that’s what my mother did and her mother before her and her mother before her and way, way back.
Mama made her stuffed bell peppers. I added a pot of white rice and slightly sweet cornbread to the meal. Our plates were full, and now, so are we.
Here’s the cornbread recipe:
1 egg, beaten
1 1/3 cups milk
1/4 cup cooking oil, plus a little more for the cast iron skillet
2 1/4 cup self rising white cornmeal
1 tablespoon pickled sweet peppers
1/2 teaspoon Tony’s seasoning
The oil bubbles up, as the batter is poured into the skillet. Be careful, it’s hot!
What to do:
Preheat oven to 400°. Pour a little cooking oil in your iron skillet and swirl it around to coat. Place in the oven to get hot, while you mix the ingredients.
In a bowl mix the beaten egg, milk and oil. Add the cornmeal, pickled peppers and seasoning. Stir till well combined. Pour into hot cast iron skillet ( I just open the door, pull out the rack the skillet is on and pour the batter straight into the skillet, then close the oven and bake it). Be careful, of course. It’s hot!!!
Bake for about twenty minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. The top will be golden brown and the edges will pull away from the sides of the skillet. Let cool for a few minutes, before cutting. Serve with butter.
Enjoy and New Year blessings from the Exile’s Kitchen.
Vegetable spray will make the microwave omlette slide from saucer to toast so easy.
Yum! Easy Dorm Fare Omlettes
