Choice Morsels

The Mama Kat blog prompt for today is" "Share one of your "did that really just happen to me" life moments..." To win something was a surprise. That people I knew and invited wanted to go with me made it amazing! It was 1977 and I happened to fill out a little form at some store for a local pizzeria to win a "free pizza party for you and 6 friends." To my huge surprise, I actually won. I very excited. I'd never won anything before! Plus it was December, my birthday month and I thought it would make a great birthday celebration! But the trick was how to get there and who could might actually want to go with me? I was in the Air Force then, stationed in Omaha, Nebraska at Offutt Air Force Base. I didn't have a car. It wasn't necessary to get around on base and to work back then, since base buses ran every 30 minutes and, at night, one could order a free base taxi ride to work from the motor pool. This pizzeria, however, was in a...

This morning, this is what my yard looked like:     This may look like snow, but it's not. It's ice crystals. (That's garlic)     Below, the cabbage in my garden:   It is, of course, unaffected.       My Hen & Chicks in their strawberry pot:     And icicles on the gutter, even tiny ones, is an rare occurrence I've never seen here in the 28 years I've lived on the Florida Panhandle!       I did have a little blue ceramic cat in my large front pot garden---well, he exploded overnight. His face is gone and his left ear blew off.   Now I have to find some other cute bit of yard art to replace  him. It was so cold outside my fingers would start hurting within minutes of going outside with my camera between 8:30 and 9 a.m. and I'd have to go in to warm up before going back out for more shots. Ice can insulate, though. Local farmers spray strawberry fie...

 Greetings! There's an system moving east from Texas promising to bring a cold blast to the Gulf Coast. Maybe ice and possibly---snow! We picked my car up from the shop yesterday, all fixed. Radiator needed replacing. This morning went to the fitness center for Zumba, then home for a nice lunch of smoked salmon on salad. (I love fish in a tin like herring, sardines or salmon, especially smoked. Such fish are full of Omega 3's and a great way to get that twice-a- week fish in!) Today's Good Eating recipe is ChocolatePudding Cake. It goes by names like hot fudge cake sometimes. Basically, it creates it's own "pudding" sauce during baking. This particular recipe is an old family recipe I believe my Mother found on a Hershey Cocoa can. Normally, it's baked, but I changed it up this past weekend and made it in the slow-cooker--it worked great! The difference is you can serve more people with a baked 9 x13 pan versus a large oval slow-cooker. The c...

With Valentine's Day coming up, today's finds are some sweet gift and card ideas: A gorgeous 3 heart mug Design can be put on any mug style, whether ceramic, travel or stein. An cute card themed on grade school love notes: You can customize your own message inside! Visit here , to see more Valentine options! Have a great day and come back for more Good Eating on Monday!

Mama Kat prompt topic for this week is: "Share a recipe that everyone in your family loves." I have a bunch of Air Force kids over for dinner and Bible study Sunday evenings, so I'm going to go with what they love:  I have to say it's my spaghetti. My friend, Megan, who usually comes on Sunday's, happened to be out of town this past week when I made it. Her email this morning was, "ooooooh, I missed the spaghetti!!!" What's my secret?  Well, it's the sauce. I use Glen Muir Organic. I used to use the cheaper canned Hunts or Del Monte, but they were giving my husband terrible gas, so I tried the Muir Glen Organic and no more gas. So, that's what I stick with, but let me tell you, this sauce is so deliciously seasoned already, it doesn't need any extra seasoning to spruce it up. (unlike the Hunts & Del Monte) If I make meatball subs, I just simmer the meatballs in a couple of jars of Glen Muir straight up. It costs a b...

This morning I spent 2 hours from 10 to 12 using the leaf blower set on the vacuum/mulch setting to clean up Bay & Maple leaves and turn them into mulch to spread around on the beds to provide a little protection from the 4 night freeze we're having this week. All my asparagus fern suffered freeze-burn from the last round and I trimmed all those branches off yesterday. It will come back, though. It's tough as a nut. I'm concerned my Amaryllis bulbs in my two front pots might not---we'll see. The previous freeze totally burnt their leaves off, but they're a bulb--it's possible they'll rise again. Other Amaryllis in the ground in another bed are fine. I Today's Garden Pic is my new "insect hotel" I was working on yesterday: It's still a work in progress as I decide how to fill the spaces. This is an out-of-the way location in my woodsy themed bed in the far corner of our back yard. It's resting on blocks, which will make it a g...

The Mama Kat prompt for today is: "Pinterest inspired! Share a pin you actually tried. How did it go?" The thing with Pinterest food recipes is they aren't always expert or tested. Sometimes they're a cooking experiment someone thought worked well enough to post on a blog that got pinned.  I found this photo-pin about Roast Cabbage I thought looked pretty good, so I tried it. Studying the picture now I realize that cabbage isn't cooked tender all the way through--it's just hot all the way through and that's exactly how mine came out. Which isn't right.  The cooking time just wasn't adequate. Perhaps the blogger who devised this recipe didn't know a "done" cabbage ought to be fork tender. Sometimes that happens with people trying out new veggies.  She also cooked it with the core left in---something I would never do. So here's the original recipe followed by things I'd do differently to fix it.  Roast Cabbage: ...