Popovers

This is one of our favorite breakfasts! They are so yummy, you eat them slathered in butter and topped with honey!!! It is sinful it is so good!

That one end got a bit too brown for my taste and they do fall once they are out of the oven for a few minutes, because the insides are hollow! they create the perfect spot to stuff all the butter and honey into :)

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk3 eggs

2 T sugar

½ tsp vanilla

In a blender, beat all ingredients until smooth. Pour into WELL-greased and floured muffin tins, filling cups 3/4 full.Bake at 425* for 10-12 minutes until puffed and golden brown. Serve with butter and honey (When you turn the popover upside down, there will be a small hole --most of the time-- I stuff the butter and honey through this hole so it gets all warm and melted inside). These are so light and fluffy, you can literally eat half a dozen of them in one sitting!

No Bake Peanut Butter Balls

This is sooo yummy and such a nice change from rice krispy treats

in a sauce pan, mix together:

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light Karo syrup

Bring to a boil until sugar dissolves and then boil for one minute longer.

Add to mixture:

1 cup peanut butter
2 cups rice krispies

Mix well and drop by spoonfuls on to wax paper.

You can add 1 cup of butterscotch chips or you can dribble chocolate or almond bark (melted, of course) on the tops.

Cream Cheese Icing

8 ounces of cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter
1 box powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
pecans

Cream this all together and add the pecans last. Yummy!!!

White Icing

I don't use white icing much, as i prefer cream cheese icing, but that doesn't go with all cakes. Here is my white icing recipe:

2 2/3 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup butter (can use Crisco, but i hate that BLECK feeling on my tongue!)
2-3 Tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla

cream together to desired consistency.

Wacky Cake

This is my all time favorite chocolate cake. it is moist, it is yummy, it stays moist forever! Also, it is easy on the pocketbook as it calls for no eggs and no milk, which when it is those last few days until pay day and you may or may not have run out of both of those things, you can still make this yummy dessert.

Sift together:

3 cups flour
6 Tbs cocoa
1 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
2 tsp soda

Add in:

2 cups cold water
3/4 cup oil
2 Tbs vinegar
2 tsp vanilla

Stir well, it will be on the "runny" side, but that is what you want. You will see bubbles forming from the vinegar mixing with the soda. ( i love that part!)

Pour into a well greased and floured 9 x 13 cake pan (or you can do a layer cake with this)

Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. If you use a glass pan or a dark, nonstick pan, lower the temperature by 25 degrees.

Frost with this frosting.

Chocolate Cake Icing

This is my favorite Chocolate Cake icing recipe. I use it the most on my Wacky Cake recipe.

2 2/3 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1/3 cup butter, softened
2-3 Tbl milk (more or less)

Cream this all together until smooth, adding more milk or powdered sugar to get the desired consistency.

First Day of Summer Break - Homemade Ice Cream

We had a blast!! Dh and i got the grill and smoker ready for a weekend of cooking out. We spent the day filling up the pool (started last night), grocery shopping and cleaning the house. Tonight, we cooked some bbq pork steak, baked beans, sour cream potatoes and onions and green beans out on the grill. it was sooooo yummy!

We also made our first batch of homemade ice cream of the summer. We all decided we wanted Banana Nut ice cream so that is what it was. I have the makings for some strawberry after we eat all the Banana Nut all gone. Oh My, it was heavenly!

Here is my basic recipe for homemade ice cream. After you get this mixed up, you just add whatever you want to it:

6 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 pint of heavy whipping cream ( can use half and half, but i prefer the heavy whipping cream)
2 tsp vanilla
enough milk to add to the fill line.

Beat the eggs and add in the sugar. add in the sweetened condensed milk, heavy whipping cream and vanilla and mix well.

This is your basic ice cream mix. You pour it into the ice cream container and add enough milk to just come below the fill line.

for other flavors, you just add what you want BEFORE you add in the milk. Tonight, i added in 4 large super ripe bananas sliced up small and about 2 cups of chopped pecans and walnuts. Delicious ice cream!!! unbeatable!!!

This weekend is going to be laid back and relaxed. No traveling, no errands, no nuthin' but hanging out at the house, cooking out in the pool and if the water warms up for us old folk, hanging out in the pool!

We have some ribs with their rub on them waiting to be smoked tomorrow along with a chicken. This will be our first time smoking. i will try to get some pics. i picked up some batteries for my camera today, so i am back in the picture taking mode.

We also got some really good cajun sausage to cook out along with some hamburgers and such. we plan on cooking all suppers this holiday weekend out on the grill and/or the smoker.

For the rest of the week, we will be eating :

italian sausage rolls with marinara dipping sauce
spaghetti and meatballs, bread and salad
skillet chicken breasts, veggie, something else
chicken casserole, salad
ham steaks, veggie and potatoes.

Hope ya'll have a great holiday weekend!!!

Menu for the week of May 5 - 10

we had quite a busy schedule last week and there were a few times we didn't eat at home (wedding rehersal dinner, wedding night, g'pa's b-day celebration) so i have quite a few rollover meals. here they are in no particular order, i thaw out whatever sounds good that morning and i try to plan meals with leftovers also.

Poppy seed chicken (with baggie found with two chicken breasts shredded up in freezer)
broccoli

hawaiian meatballs
baked beans
homemade hot rollscorn

steak
baked potato
cauliflower

chicken quesadillas (from leftover chicken from the Roasted Sticky Chicken)
rice
beans

beans
mexican cornbread
fried potatoes

Italian pinto beans
crusty french bread

Also, while looking in my fridge in the garage, i came upon a frozen turkey breast, so i will incorporate that into next week's menu.

Potatoes in a Tire

Whodathunkit? Check out My Cup Runneth Over for the idea and how-to's. i think i will show this to dh when he gets home.


I think this might be on the agenda for next year's garden.


I do remember playing in the backyard of my Great-Granny's house when i was a kid and she had a huge tractor tire back there. I wonder if that is what she used it for, back when her health was better?

i started a garden

This is a big feat for me! we did a garden about 7 years ago, but we didn't do the right way, we did it the lazy, unplanned, spur of the moment way and needless to say, it didn't turn out :) we tilled it but we didn't take off the sod first, just tilled the grass back into the dirt......so yeah, we grew a great crop of grass!


This year, we are in our new house and we don't have the finances yet to landscape the yard and i have this small patch of dirt in the front, between the front walkway up to the porch and the driveway, it is like a curved triangle. Let me see if i have a picture. Aha, here we go:

It is actually bigger than it looks here, weird camera angle or something. Dh and i both love homegrown tomatoes and i love bell peppers and they have gotten outageous expensive lately. So, we planted both of those here in this garden area along with some basil (good for tomatoes) and italian parsley (love to use this!!) and of course marigold's!

I was just out weeding the "garden", and i noticed that one tomato plant has a bud on it, and one of my pepper plants has a bud that has bloomed with about four more almost ready!!! See, this is why i am not the greatest of the gardener...1), i hate to weed when it gets out of control. 2) i don't like to sweat and here in Oklahoma it gets HOT in the summer and 3) i am IMPATIENT! i planted this garden on April 21 and i want my tomatoes and peppers NOW :)

I will take pictures of my "garden" as soon as i get my camera back from my dad...oh wait. it is HIS camera, not mine :)

Also, i got so much great advise from my dh's grandparent's, who live about 2 miles from us. They have had gardens all their lives and are a fountain of knowledge when it comes to this. But, their health is not what it used to be and even though grandpa loves to be outdoors there isn't much he can do. he tries to mow the yard and makes himself very sick. I guess my asking all my questions and wanting advise from them both gave them a hankerin' for a garden of their own again but said the only thing stopping them was the stooping over and bending down; they can't do that any more. So, my hubby got to planning and thinking on this a while.

He went out and looked over the lumbar we have left over from the house. he built them a raised bed, up on cement blocks that hits grandpa at his waist. it has drainage and we lined the bottom with a bunch of rocks and the we used our dirt pile (top soil) to fill in the bed along with 10 backs of store bought top soil an 8 bags of manure. this raised bed is 16 inches deep and is 10 x 4. We didn't tell granpa or grandma what we were doing, we just took it over to them one night and oh my, it was the greatest! dh went and set it up after grandpa picked where he wanted it and then we went to work filling it. it took two pickup loads of our dirt and then we all got in there and mixed in the bags of stuff. I tell you what, it was like watching a little boy in a sand box; grandpa was just like that. his eyes were just gleaming and he was so amazed. words just can't express how wonderful it was for him. he was planning on what he was gonna plant right then and there, while working his hands through the soil.....tomatoes, peppers, okra for sure they decided.

We have decided that we will make some for ourselves next year. I am thinking this will be great for us as it the weeds won't be near as bad as in a garden on the ground where grass and such can get blown into it easier.

we took some pictures with grandma's camera but they aren't developed yet. as soon as they are, i will post some on here.