fish fry

Last night Gordon and his friend Bob( who is his fishing buddy) went fishing on Shell Lake. Bob and his wife live on Shell Lake and Bob know the hot spots. So, we got fish to eat and I fried them! I have been using Shore Lunch Cajun. It's very good, hot and wonderful! Try it and I hope you like it! We have enough fish for tomorrow night! YUM!!!!!!!!!!! Blessings!

Last Week

Last week Gordon and I had a great time with our granddaughter Olivia. She is one of the twins who are 10, she came home with us after celebrating Kurt's birthday on the 10th. We had so much fun with her, we went mini golfing, fishing with Grandpa only, playing games, watching movies, going to Rice Lake shopping for clothes, going to the Barron Farmer's Market with Auntie, eating lunch with me almost everyday and just hanging out!! We rode bikes and ATV's with helmets on, safety first!!! I hope the other girls will sometime come by themselves and stay a week with us, getting to know them is so important to them and us!! Blessings!! Olivia is the twin with long hair!

are you missing me???

Well, it's been a few weeks since I wrote anything. I'm not sure who is reading this anymore, maybe no one and I'm just blowing smoke!! Anyway, last week for demo I made Kool-aid cheesecake. It was 4 ingredients and good. Recipe: 1 8oz. package of cream cheese softened, 1 8 oz of cool whip thawed, 1 can of sweetened condensed milk(not evaporated), 1 packet of Kool aid flavor of your choice( i used Blastin' Berry Cherry). Beat the softened cream cheese until smooth add sweetened milk, Kool-aid and then the cool whip. I used the hand mixer for all of it! Pour into graham cracker crust and chill for 2 hours or longer. It was good for a no bake item to have. We served with graham crackers in a little portion cup. Much easier that cutting skinny, skinny pieces of cheesecake for the public! Blessings!!

what a week!

Last weekend started off well. On Sunday, we went to the twin cities to see our twins that turned 10 on the 17th of July and celebrate! We had a wonderful day and the weather cooperated for the day!! We brought the twins home with us for the week!! We ate chicken, BLT's, pancakes, corn dogs( not me), spaghetti and a few smoothies!! We met Kurt on Thursday night so they could go home!! We had fun, I took a day off from work and we went shopping! Another day we painted ceramics at The Potter's Shed!

cookbook

Last night I went to a cookbook dinner. The author is a very nice lady and she has written about 5 cookbooks. Teresa Marrone is her name. She is grew up in Aurora, Il. and now resides in Minneapolis area. She was very entertaining and visited every table to discuss her books.

She has written mostly books on eating what you find in a  forest, more like scavenger eating. I sat with people I didn't know and had fun meeting new people. I also bought 2 of her cookbooks. Last night was about food that is seasoned with maple syrup. WE had a 10 course meal, really small portions so you didn't feel so full!! It was really fun and I hope they offer something like it again! So, I bought the maple syrup book and one on slow cookers!

BBQ sauce

I have a new favorite website that I check daily called "onehundreddollarsamonth.com." The author is a gal named Mavis and she tries to feed her family for one hundred dollars a month. She has a huge garden and lots of tips for gardening, lives in the northwest and is a smart shopper! Her grocer gives her produce he would throw out, ours won't as it was abused when he did! But anyway, to get to the BBQ sauce recipe. Mavis made strawberry/chiptole jam. I thought, YUM!!! So, I bought a pail of berries and had the chiptole in the freezer. So, I made it, found it to be way too spicy for me. I realized quickly( smart of me) that no one would eat this stuff, so I can't throw it out, thinking about the cost I had into so far. What to do with this stuff??? God, what to do?? Help me figure out something. He did, I love BBQ sauce and thought why not, so I added some apple cider vinegar, more sugar,some salt, and water. I cooked this for 2 days so it would get very syrupy. It's still a little hot, but when added to chicken, it was mild. So, I got 4 pint jars and so, starts the canning season for me!! Blessings! So recipe for this is: 6 cups of strawberries, cut up and washed, 5 cups of sugar, 3 Chiptole peppers diced, 1 cup of brown sugar, 2 cups of apple cider vinegar and 1 cup of water. Of course, mine had 2 packets of pectin in it to make the jam, so I am not sure if that helped it get more syrupy quicker or not.

This and that

I have not been cooking very much with the heat, but I have been making soup! Go figure, as hot as it has been, I'm hungry for soup. Saturday I went to the Farmer's market (local in Spooner), and bought 3 pounds of peas. So, I made soup with leftover hamburger patty, carrots, peas, and orzo. It was good, weird eating it on a hot day, but so good. That lasted for 2 meals, last night I made soup again. It is a prepackage mix by Giada ( from the food network). It's an Italian soup and very good. Called Pasta Fagioli. I found it at Target, last time I was there. Giada has a line of food there, plus cookware. Well, that's all from here today. Blessings!