Thanksgiving Day 2008

As I haven't posted on this blog lately, one would think that I haven't spent any time in the kitchen. Not the case! Cooking and baking is a not-so-guilty pleasure several times a week.

This year I asked Dad what he wanted for Thanksgiving dinner and he said, "Ham." Because I usually get a free turkey in early December from the hospital I used to work at, I knew ham would work well for this Thanksgiving. We included yams, a toss salad, and pumpkin pie with CoolWhip, of course.

I used the slow cooker for a bone-in ham, added whole baby carrots and onions, for a delicious meal. I took the easy way out and heated the canned yams on the stove. Could have added raw yams to the rest of the meal in the cooker, but really didn't even think that far ahead. All in all, it was a delicious meal.

We used the left over ham and vegetables as a soup the next day. Still had some left, so we added noodles for a more filling ham and vegetable noodle soup.

I have also recently baked two loaves of banana bread (yum!) and a batch or two of peanut butter cookies. Now, it's time to check out the diet. Oh that's right! Didn't I say I was going to try vegetarian?

How was your Thanksgiving? What did you prepare or did you go out to dinner?

Vegetarian Baby Steps

Well, I am moving forward in the move towards becoming a vegetarian. Mostly staying away from meat, and also I have lost the taste for milk. Still eating eggs, but for now that's okay.

Where I really am doing well is eating more vegetables and fruit. I've noticed in the last week that I am losing weight without "dieting". Guess that is the best news right now in my journey. Later, I hope that better overall health will top the goals list.

If you have any tips for a meat-lover changing to vegetarianism, please leave suggestions in the comment section. I definitely need the help!

Photo by Joel Mabel

10 Food Safety Tips

Here are a few food safety tips from the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service.

1. Keep cold foods cold, at 40 degrees or below, and hot foods hot at 140 degrees or above.

2. Use an instant-read food thermometer so meats are cooked to safe temperatures.

3. Wash your hands and frequently clean cooking surfaces. Always wash your hands after handling raw meat or poultry.

4. Keep raw meat, poultry and egg products separate from already cooked items to avoid contamination.

5. Refrigerate items properly.

6. Store food as soon as you arrive home from the store.

7. Don't leave perishable foods out for more than two hours.

8. Don't thaw meats on the counter. Defrost them in the refrigerator.

9. Don't taste food to see whether it has gone bad. If there's a doubt, throw it out.

10. Don't allow juices from raw meats or other items to mix.

If you have other tips to add, please jot them down in the comment section.

Veggies To Go on Squidoo

Squidoo.com is a wonderful, fun website where anyone can create little mini-sites for free. All you have to do is decide on what topic you want to write about, click on Create a Lens, and follow the easy steps.

I currently have a growing number of lenses about all kinds of topics. My favorite, and most popular, is my Bucket List. I also have a couple of lenses that have to do with cooking - White Chicken Chili and Veggies To Go (which now has morphed into another title).

If you are interested in creating a Squidoo lens, you can follow this link and read all about how to create a lens. Then just jump in there. The more you create, the more income you can earn if you would like, and the better you get at developing a lens you will be proud of.

Please click on http://www.squidoo.com/veggiestogo
to see one of my food-related lenses.

Hope you join us on Squidoo.

Homemade Pancakes

Usually I make pancakes using Bisquick or some other brand of mix, but yesterday when I went to the cupboard - it was bare. Therefore, back to the basics.

I reached for my trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook and made pancakes from scratch. The only variation in the recipe below was due to lack of buttermilk. I used 2% instead.

The pancakes turned out much softer and fluffier than the mixes. They didn't take much longer to make and were well worth the time. I just may go back to homemade every time.

For the sake of space, I will put the alternate changes when using "sweet milk" in parenthesis.

1 egg
1 cup buttermilk (sweet milk)
2 tbsp. vegetable oil or melted shortening
1 cup flour
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder (add 2 tsp.)
1/2 tsp. soda (omit)
1/2 tsp salt

Blend egg, milk and oil. Blend dry ingredients together. Add to liquids; beat with rotary beater until all flour is moistened. Batter will be slightly lumpy.

Grease heated griddle until a sprinkle of water sizzles. Pour batter from pitcher or tip of large spoon in pools slightly apart. Turn pancakes as soon as they are puffed and full of bubbles, but before bubbles break. Turn and brown on other side. Serve immediately with butter and syrup, or your favorite topping.

For extra fluffy pancakes, beat egg yolk, add milk, etc. Fold in stiffly beaten egg white.

Baking Powder Biscuits - 2

The following recipe is on the side of a bag of flour. It is the one I use the most, and I must say, I am getting better with practice.

This recipe has more salt than the first and a little less baking powder.

Baking Powder Biscuits Recipe - 2

2 cups enriched flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup shortening
2/3 cup milk

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add milk gradually, mixing until dough can be formed into a ball. (Add a little more milk if necessary to make a soft dough). Turn out on lightly floured board and knead gently a few seconds. Roll out to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with a floured biscuit cutter. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet in preheated oven (450 F) 12-15 minutes. Serve hot. Makes 12-15 biscuits.

Share your favorite biscuit recipe if you would like. Also, if you try these recipes, which one worked best?

Grandma Hallie's Baking Powder Biscuits

My Grandma Hallie made the best baking powder biscuits ever! Unfortunately, I am unable to find her exact recipe. Maybe it was never written down.

Grandma died in 1966 and I still miss her. In fact, I think about her almost every day. Lately I have been on a quest to at least come close to her biscuits - mouthwatering delicious.

I found two recipes that are very similar, but vary enough to include both. Maybe try them both the same day and see which one draws the most kudos. I will include one in this post and the other in the next post.

The first is from Kitchen Scrapbook, a book my mother had that was distributed by The Reilly & Lee Co. copyright 1937. It is approximately 4 1/2 by 7 1/4 inch hard cover spiral bound yellow book with a bright red spiral. It is indexed with recipes on the front of each tabbed page, then there are five blank pages before the next tab.

Mom signed her maiden name, so she must have received it prior to her marriage. She wrote a number of recipes down, then gave it to me when I was still in my early teens. There are also several recipes that I added, and according to my writing I must have been quite young. I started baking when I was nine or ten.

Baking Powder Biscuit Recipe - 1

2 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp shortening
2/3 c milk

Sift dry ingredients, cut in shortening, add flour. Pat down on floured board and cut out with biscuit cutter. Bake 12 to 15 minutes in hot oven, 450 F.

Do you have a favorite recipe from your grandmother? Have you every matched her cooking ability?

Kitchen Plastic and Easy Greening

On the Care2 Make a Difference website is a great article regarding kitchen plastic.

The author writes in great detail about the recycling codes and what types of plastic can be recycled. A very informative article for anyone interested in saving the earth from mounds of plastic.

Let me know what green sites you find and share them in the comments. Thank you.

Sassy's Conundrum

After Sassy's breakfast urge was satisfied, she remembered her commitment the previous evening. She had planned to eat lightly all day, start focusing on eating the right foods, and consider (yes, consider only) going on a (god forbid!) another diet.

Well, the biscuits and gravy feast nipped that plan in the bud! But then Sassy looked in the mirror later in the morning and decided to get back on the proverbial wagon.

So, does she share interesting and delicious recipes on this site, or does she turn it into a diet blog, or does she mix the two? Or should she maybe follow a meal plan, such as the Mediterranean diet she is considering and follow the progress here as well as share recipes and ideas? Must think about this. This is a new blog for Sassy, and she wants to consider the long run.

Healthy eating is important, as well as increasing a basically nonexistent exercise plan, to arrive at a weight her doctor would be proud of. So, by the next blog post, Sassy will have arrived at an important decision.

You, faithful reader, will be the first to know this momentous decision.

Monday Morning Urge Surge

After rising at the ungodly hour of 2:30 a.m., bright and chipper, and drinking two cups of coffee w/flavored cream, Sassy was hungry about 7:00 a.m. Now in a normal person's life, that would have been about lunch time. But since nothing is normal in Sassy's life, it was breakfast time with a big emphasis on breakfast.

A good ole' fashion southern (kinda) breakfast. Therefore, Sassy went to the kitchen and baked a pan of baking powder biscuits from scratch. While they were in the oven, she broke out a packet of country gravy and in just two minutes had a creamy topping for the hot biscuits, fresh from the oven.

I know what you are thinking - this is not the healthiest start to Sassy's day. Especially since a diet is certainly in order, and soon.

But, it was a delicious "lunch", so to speak, and well worth the clean-up. Yes, Sassy always cleans up her mess.

What culinary urge have you accrued lately? Did you give in, as Sassy usually does, or did you do the healthy kind of breakfast?

Back to the Basics - And More

Every morning I start out with a hot cup of coffee, usually with flavored cream. With the lights turned low, my computer at the ready, cup of java at hand, I am ready to slide into the day scanning news articles, dwelling on those that interest me, enjoying a quiet time I know will not return until the next morning.

For the past six months or so, my morning has started somewhere around 3:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m.. The quiet broken only by the occasional train on the nearby tracks, or the rumble due to the missing muffler on our newspaper delivery vehicle.

Mornings can't get much better than that.

How do you spend your mornings? What would drive you to get up early, even on the weekends?