On my mind: Family recipes, yard sales and homemade yogurt

Reading a book about stories of family recipes reminded me that I have a cookbook compiled by folks on my dad's side. Seemed the perfect time to recreate my beloved Aunt K's yummy eggplant casserole. Full of buttery goodness (recipe below), this casserole takes me back to the Thanksgiving spent at my aunt and uncle's...the one where someone passing the roll basket let the napkin under the rolls get a bit too close to the candle. My uncle doused the flames with his beer!

This Taste of Home recipe for Yeast Corn Bread Loaf makes a lovely textured loaf that tastes like cornbread but with a soft-bread bite.

This is my "Doing vs. Should Be Doing" pic. Here's me making a pie, instead of dealing with the tomatoes. But since I needed to bake bread, might as well get another use out of the stand mixer bowl before washing, eh? (Ended up making tomato juice to use up the tomatoes.) Incidentally, these tea towels were once a charity sale-bought tablecloth. The tablecloth had a stain but seemed the perfect weight for towels, so I bought it and the mumsy sewed it into four towels for me.

Gotta love it when a plan comes together.

Yesterday, Mom and I hit a yard sale at a senior citizens' housing tower. Mostly a bunch of junk but I found something I'd been putting off buying retail!

I've been wanting more canisters! By the time I took this pic, I'd already emptied the flour into the compost bin. As it's of unknown origins, can't bring myself to eat the sugar either, so I'll use it to make a sugar body scrub. Please let me know if you have a tried and true recipe that seems better than the one I just found!

By jove, I think I've got it...my own homemade yogurt! Love, love, LOVE my new yogurt maker! (Just 42 ounces of room temperature organic whole milk mixed thoroughly with 6 ounces of room temperature plain whole milk yogurt...no cooking involved for the thickness suitable for smoothies!)

Hubby teased that the yogurt probably just had a skim on top and was watery underneath, but this stuff is THICK! Perfect for my morning smoothies! (Made my smoothie in a jar using the immersion blender this morn.) I'd been paying $3.50 per 32 ounce container of Stonyfield Farms plain organic yogurt, and I use around 6 ounces every day. Though I did manage to get free magazine subscriptions to Organic Gardening and Martha Stewart Living with the Stonyfield reward points, seems more cost effective to make my own yogurt, buying the stuff only as needed to jumpstart my own.

Aunt K's Eggplant Casserole (my version)
1 medium to large eggplant, sliced and pan-roasted 'til cooked through
Combine:
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese--divided
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon Lawry's Seasoned Salt
1 sleeve of Ritz crackers, crushed--divided
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, melted--divided
Starting with the eggplant and ending with the mixture, layer cooked eggplant with the egg/milk/cheese/cracker mixture in the baking dish. Top with 1/2 cup of crumbs tossed with a couple of tablespoons of the melted butter. Then sprinkle top of casserole with 1/2 cup of the shredded cheese. Bake in a covered casserole at 350F for 30 minutes.

   I think I'll bake a cake today so something fresh will be on the table for tomorrow's cheat day! I'm thinking chocolate. ?? Maybe I'll head over to Foodgawker to get some ideas. What kind of cake sounds good to you today?

   Thanks, Rhonda at down-to-earth, for sharing this On My Mind concept. What's on your mind today? Share your link here or on down-to-earth. 

Kentucky State Fair award-winning handicrafts

Had great fun capturing this gal licking her lips over this sweet little Best of Show dollhouse!

Okay, here's another of my "finally got around to its"...almost forgot to share some of the handicrafts we saw at the Kentucky State Fair. These were just too brilliant to keep to myself!

Dunno if double clicking will enlarge this sufficiently for you to see, but this quilt was an AMAZING piece of work!

In his retirement, my dad has taken up woodcrafting. Who'd have thought a folk artist was living inside him all those years? These canes remind me of some of Dad's creations.

I am crazy over hooked rugs. Found this one every bit as impressive as the rug that won at the Ohio State Fair.

Had fun capturing this gal too. We shared our awe of the HOURS that must have gone into the making of all the quilts at the Kentucky State Fair!!

   Working on a "something new" today...hope to make my first ever batch of yogurt. The 42 ounces of whole milk and 6 ounces of plain yogurt (the starter) are sitting out on the counter now, as they must be at room temp before I can get on with the yogurt making. Wish me luck!
   Anything new happenin' over at your place today? If you have any pics of handicrafts you'd like to share, please feel free to leave a link in your comment. 
   P.S.: Here in western Kentucky, we've gone from temps just a couple of days ago that hovered around a sweltering 100F to cool, breezy 70 degree temps for the daily highs. What is with that?!!

Meatless Monday: Bittman on good reasons to eat LESS meat

Hubby's gone to the farm for the day, so guess what I'm doing? Watching TED Talks and cooking, that's what. Something really hopeful about watching bright people from across the globe share BIG IDEAS. See for yourself, maybe your favorite subject is covered on TED Talks' tag page.
   Just finished watching a talk titled "Dan Buettner: How to live to be 100+," in which he relates what National Geographic and the National Institute on Aging discovered when they studied the longest-lived peoples. Guess what those 100+ folks had in common? A largely plant-based diet--a diet that slanted more towards veggies and fruits than meats.
   Not sure I want to live to be 100, but I'll eat a plant-based diet today for sure. After all, it is Meatless Monday. I'll be eating leftover cannelini/garbanzo/tomato salad for lunch and some leftover veggie soup for supper. With some air-popped popcorn and dates along the way!
   What's on the table for you today? Do you want to live to be 100?

Planting, cooking, not putting things off because I want to be like Sue!

Finally got around to buying plants for my front step planters. Tired of mums, I bought asters, which will go into the yard after they finish blooming. Read one time that "yellow" is the first color to draw the eye, so I often shoot for some type of yellow blooms.

Though I hate, hate, HATE to waste food, I am guilty of letting produce hang out in the fridge until it screams, "COOK ME!" When I asked how everyone else deals with their garden produce, Sue, of Sue's Garden Journal, somewhat apologetically commented "I hate to admit it.....I'm one of THOSE people. I pick every day at sunrise and usually have everything processed/frozen within the hour. I've just gotten into such a routine, I don't even have to think about it." Sheer genius! I want to be like that!
   Sue's comment reminded me of publishing queen Helen Gurley Brown's motto: "Get up and do it if it needs to be done...even if you hate it." I'd read this some time back and wanted to incorporate it into my thinking--into my life--but it's oh, so hard for this lazy leopard to change her spots!
   So, this finally got around to it post is dedicated to Sue and all of you who continue to inspire me. Thank you!!

Finally got around to adding some cuttings to this houseplant and topping it off with some more potting mix.

Hubby was kind enough to trim the pork loin for me...grosses me out!

"If you succeed in everything you're doing, you're attempting things that are too easy"

~ Warren Buffett

"If you persuade yourself that you can do a certain thing, provided this thing is possible, you will do it, however difficult it may be. If, on the contrary, you imagine that you cannot do the simplest thing in the world, it is impossible for you to do it, and molehills become for you unscalable." 

~ Emile Coue'

Finally got around to making Slow Cooker Mexican Pork and Sweet Potato Stew from Once a Month Mom, modified slightly by using a can of Ro-tel in place of the roasted tomatoes and I did brown the pork first. (Sorry no "after" pic!) I haven't tried this yet, but Hubby liked it!

Finally got around to making Yummy Little Cooks' Marmite Pork. Even though I didn't thicken the sauce as much as I'd have liked ('cause folks were waiting on me!), we all really liked the taste of this dish. DD was over for lunch; this is her plate. 

   Sure feels GOOD to have a fridge full of leftovers, as opposed to a fridge full of foods screaming to be cooked. Anything over at your place that needs doing or cooking? If you have a "finally got around to it" post to share, hope you'll leave a link.

A good day: Spent it cooking while admiring my new dishwasher!

Posting this just because I get such a kick out of seeing what others are eating! My lunch today centered around foods that needed to be eaten: roasted yellow squash, cabbage and onions with crumb topping; baked beans that let me use up some leftover black beans and leftover cane syrup, plus a tomato and yellow pepper; and finally, tomato and cottage cheese sprinkled with seasoned salt.

Soo proud of myself because I managed to cook up all the yellow squash that was in the fridge. Hubby picked loads of it a few days ago...sure didn't want to waste it! Several squashes went into the oven roasted veggies; cooked four lightly for freezing; and I cut one up into a veggie soup for tonight's dinner.
   On the one hand: YEA, I used up the last of the squash! On the other: BOO, the garden with all its fresh gifts is petering out!

New dishwasher finally arrived. We bought a better brand this time. (Translation: more $$$.) SURELY (Shirley!) a dishwasher should last more than five years! Hubby took the old one out last night. If he's not too tired when he gets home from working on my folks' replacement windows, maybe he'll install the new dishwasher tonight. Drying beside the food processor are my new pie shields I bought the other day. Still kicking myself for spending money the other day on NEEDS not WANTS, but these pie shields will save me from having to use aluminum foil on the longer baking pies.

The new dishwasher. Just having this gorgeous creature waiting in my kitchen (instead of on back order) is enough to make me swoon!

Hubby went dishwasher shopping without me. Sure HOPE he compared yearly operating costs before deciding which to purchase! That's his Cherries and Cream Parfait thawing...I froze what was left from our family gathering, so I wouldn't eat them!

And because I'd rather end a post with food than an energy tag, here's my lightly cooked yellow squash. Once they cooled on the counter and released as much water as I thought they might, I drained them. They'll cool completely in fridge, then head to the freezer for future use.

Managed to sneak a pepper and a tomato into my baked beans this time.

   Yeah, Wan, baked beans again!! ;)
   What's waiting in your fridge that needs to be used up? Or is everyone more efficient than I am...do you manage to use most of your produce as soon as it's picked or brought home? Wish I did!!

What kinda title ties together sushi with breakfast foods?

Sushi sampler (very fresh tasting--yum!) from Zuki Japanese Hibachi Grill and Sushi Lounge, Evansville, Indiana. I was neither thrifty nor green yesterday. Drove an hour, spent way too much money shopping and got lunch in a takeway container. I did bring the container home to wash and recycle, but STILL. Sad reminder to me to make sure to always have a glass container in the car, just in case I get a wild hair and decide to eat takeout.

Yeah, I forgot Meatless Monday yesterday--AGAIN! Well, at lunch anyway; I went meatless at supper. And of course, breakfast was my usual smoothie--banana this time. 
   While a smoothie does it for me at breakfast time, Hubby usually wants something more substantial. 
   This morn I made him a quiche. Made it too late for him to eat this morn but DD managed to enjoy a slice when it was hot out of the oven.
    Made Hubby a breakfast casserole last week. The only time we buy canned biscuits or rolls is when we want to make this casserole. Soo quick and easy, perfect for company!

   Spent a good part of today in town, and now that I'm home I don't feel like doing a durned thing! I'm pretty much a morning person, and I wasted most of my morning energy in town. Excuses, excuses, eh? What's your secret for staying motivated in the afternoons??

Local food joints, local flavor: Lynn's Paradise Cafe and Roy's Bar-B-Cue

Lynn's Paradise Café, Louisville, Kentucky. Gotta love the atmosphere at Lynn's. This was our second visit (stopped here on our way home from the State Fair on Monday), and my food was sketchy this time around. If we return, I'll stick with a Kentucky Hot Brown and a milkshake. Lynn's does a fine job with those!

FIL ordered Lynn's "Highlander" sandwich...meat overload! FIL pronounced it delicious. My cup of Tomato Onion Soup arrived pretty tepid, as were my sweet potato fries. Lynn's does make a decent Kentucky Hot Brown though, which I had last time and can recommend.

Lynn's sponsors the "Ugly Lamp Contest" each year at the Kentucky State Fair. The café is already jam-packed with ugly lamps, but these winners may yet find a place there.

Roy's Bar-B-Cue, Russellville, Kentucky. The walls at Roy's are covered with hunting and fishing trophies, fishing lures, and sports memorabilia. This was the room over Hubby's shoulder.

Good smoky barbecue...served up with your choice of mild or hot bbq sauce, shown here with cornbread pancakes and onion straws. "Killer Onion Rings" on Hubby's plate.

This was the wall behind me, and a couple of deer mounts were above our heads too. Can't say as I've ever eaten a meal with teeth like these breathing down my neck...Roy's Bar-B-Cue was certainly a memorable joint!

Hope your weekend was filled with flavor!!

A mish mash of Preparedness; American Indian indigenous recipes; Homemade yard cart

This yard cart made from repurposed materials sure impressed the judges at the Kentucky State Fair!

A word of warning as we slide into another Saturday, Hurricane Irene offers a lesson to us all to play it safe in terms of disaster preparedness. Sadly, we're learning that disasters are becoming the NORM, not the exception, so the wisdom of the ages applies more than ever: better SAFE than sorry!

• Red Cross Preparedness Fast Facts to download
• Red Cross Power Outage Checklist to download
• University of Florida Disaster Cookbook to download
• Ready America: Prepare. Plan. Stay Informed. (with translations)
• FEMA: Are You Ready?
• University of Idaho: General Family Preparedness (quick lists!)

Whether it's all systems go or batten down the hatches, I'm forever nostalgic for times gone by and the can-do spirit of those who have gone before us, so I was tickled pink to probe into the authentic recipes at the American Indian Health and Diet Project website: Traditional Indigenous Recipes.
   I figure if I learn enough of the old ways, I'll be like a good scout, prepared for anything. Unlike a young scout though, I'm lacking in supervision and motivation--no badges offered when I accomplish something! But the threat of an impending disaster (anywhere in the world) is enough to jack up my preparedness efforts!

The creator was kind enough to tape these instructions to his award-winning repurposed cart.

   My heart goes out to everyone in Irene's path! Are any of you or yours living in the danger zone?? Anyone have any preparedness tips to offer?

P.S. An excellent article in Yes! Magazine entitled Small Steps for Growing a No-Impact Family led me to the blog Plant My Garden and a challenge to use these "seed words" in my writing today: learning, warning, supervision, safe, ages, systems, probe, play, slide. If you take up the challenge, please leave a link so we can see in which direction the seed words take you!

This moment: Kentucky State Fair foods finale

Looking through these Kentucky State Fair photos the other day reminded me to search once again for a new candy thermometer. Have yet to successfully make some of my favs. Here's hoping the new thermometer will turn the trick!
   Wishing you a sweeeeeeeeeet weekend!!

Didn't manage to get a good pic of the entire area, but this pic of part of the room gives some idea of the scope of the culinary display at the Kentucky State Fair.

Say CHEESE! Forgot to post this photo with the cakes yesterday...couldn't bring myself to just leave it out!

   Thanks to Soulemama for this photo sharing concept. One of these days I'm gonna post just ONE photo without any caption; won't you be surprised! Please feel free to share a link to your moment.

On my mind: Cakes, cakes everywhere but nary a bite to eat

Kentucky State Fair Brown Sugar Caramel Cake Recipe

By the time we got to the Kentucky State Fair, these cakes were even a few days old, but that didn't stop me from mooning over each and every one. All these pictures are incentive for me to spend some time baking blue ribbon cakes of my own.
   I had planned to include pics of some other goodies at the fair, but Blogger's acting finicky this morn, so I'll leave it at cakes for today.
   The Brown Sugar Caramel Cake recipe that made its way into the Louisville paper looks astonishingly decadent, and one thing's sure, that recipe does not look like a piece of cake to make! I'm thinking a chocolate cake with salt sprinkled on top is in my near future. Anything baking at your place today?

   Thanks, Rhonda, at down-to-earth, for this photo sharing concept. Please feel free to share a link and let us all in on what's on your mind.