4th of July..who is cooking?

I had already told Cathy my father in law called yesterday to let me know what I was cooking for the 4th of July cookout at his house lol.
He is so used to drafting me he doesnt beat around the bush anymore
I made southern potato salad, deviled eggs, hotdog sauce and cut up the coleslaw tonight. I put a rub on my chicken breasts to smoke later. I have to make chocolate chip brownies & cupcakes tomorrow along with baked beans. I have hotdogs in the freezer I had bought at SAMS and Jons Dad got the burger meat today and the buns. Im going to smoke the chicken tomorrow night in the stovetop smoker and they can reheat them. It is supposed to rain here Friday.

Who else is cooking and what yummy things are you making?

I'm going to a friend's place for a potluck Thursday Night and taking bacon-wrapped chicken sate-skewers, a tortellini/caesar salad & raspberry/blueberry shortbread bars.

Then doing the 4th at my sister's and taking a second pan of the same raspberry/blueberry shortbreads, pesto/sausage/mozzarella-stuffed mushrooms and baby backs...

If I want to eat - I better cook!

This year it's very small - salads, cheese salad, burgers, weeenies, baked beans, chicken and pork - all planned out starting with Friday and going till Sunday.

I'll put together some no-bake desserts, relish trays, stuffed eggs, etc.

mama- your selections sound yummy... what is your cheese salad?

My cheese salad is cubed cheeses, peppers, spices, celery, olives, cauliflower, homemade vinaigrette - just love it!

Myself? I will probably be stuck packing.. I have to clean my grill and get it ready to ship so no grillin for me.

but Jafo, the pay-off of having that wonderful rustic home in the woods is gonna far surpass the sacrifice of giving-up the holiday! What a fine, fine dwelling!

I hope all of you have a wonderful and safe holiday.
I was out today and this little town is so crowded with the holiday weeked.
Lots of peope pulling boats ..must have been headed to the lake.
Went to the grocery store to get the rest of what I needed and was that ever a mistake.
Everyone else had the same idea.
Stupid bag boy drops on the of two tomatoes I bought for pasta salad and didnt think I saw him. He tried to pick it up real quick and put it back in my bag. I said Im gonng have to have another one and he goes but it looks fine. A friend of mine who was the checker told him to get his tail in gear and get me another one lol. He put two packs of butter and a 1/2 gallon of ice cream in the same bag with my bread. Luckily I caught it and changed it myself.
I only got about three hours sleep last night. When Im tired it doesnt take much to get on my nerves lol.

Well, Lordy-be... Tomatoes and Ice-Cream are serious stuff, janie! Don't mess with the chubby-hubby or the chunky-monkey! (my two favorite Ben & Jerry's flavors)

That's one of the reasons I never let them pack my grocieries. I can do it better and faster.

I remember, back in the day, specifically requesting that the packer not put the canned goods on top of the eggs. He actually paid attention. But then he put a cantelope on top of them.

I sometimes think they intentionally don't train checkers so as to encourage us to use those silly do-it-yourself checkout counters. But it doesn't work, any more than cutting back on cashiers. Yesterday---one of the busiest days of the year---and Kroger had three lines open. Nevertheless, people backed up down the aisles while the do-it-yourself counters (my store has eight of the damn things) went unused.

You think they'd get the word.

Hey CAG - this one's for you -

Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey Ice Cream


¾ cup dark chocolate chunks
2 large eggs
¾ cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream, or whipping cream
1 cup milk
2 tspn vanilla extract
walnuts, optional
2 bananas, overripe
juice of 1 lemon

Place the chocolate chunks in a bowl, cover and refrigerate.

Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes.

Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more.

Pour in the cream and milk, and whisk to blend. Add the vanilla and whisk to blend again.

Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer's directions.

Mash the bananas in a bowl, add the lemon juice, and whisk until smooth.

After the ice cream stiffens (about 2 minutes before it is done), add the banana mixture, chocolate chunks, and walnuts, then continue freezing until done.

Makes 1 quart

I think I posted a bunch of B & J recipes on a thread somewhere around here........

try the search

DUH!!!! Check the DESSERTS forum for the Ice Cream thread!

Mama is sufferin' from brain farts!

My fav place to shop locally is the Kroger's where the majority of the baggers are wonderful folks with challenged aptitudes. I'm nearly always pleased with their performance, and always pleased with their intent of quick helpful friendliness.

I hate those self check things.
It never fails on their most busy day they only have a few lanes open and everyone in my lane is writing a check and taking the time to balance their account before moving their rear. I know women do most of the shopping but they are THE worst to do that! It is so freakin rude in my book.
I have taken an entire bag of groceries back to the store before and made them refund my money. One time a bagboy did such a horrible job everything in the bag was ruined and it was that grocery store here in town.
I was buying Edy's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream Kevin. It is my weakness and one of the only kinds of icecream I can eat without getting sick.
Speaking of chubby I was at the bank and the teller asked Jon if I was a good cook. He pats his 6 months pregnant belly and says exhibit A lol.

HILARIOUS, janie! A walloping belly never lies... Where there's a big belly there's a good cook not far away! Speaking of big bellies- a fav quote:

"My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinner-parties for 4... unless at least 2 others were invited!" -Orson Welles

lol Ill have to remember to tell Jon that one.
He tells people all of the time that he has the body of a God...Buddha.
His other one is to tell them he has a perfect figure..perfectly round.
His biggest weakness is sweets. Him and his Dad both have big sweet tooths.

You know I just had a thought..
Everytime Jons Dad plans one of these little get togethers he and I are always doing the same thing before hand. Its 2:45 am..he is asleep I assume and I am cooking away in my tiny kitchen. What other dummy is smoking chicken breasts this time of the morning with the window up and a fan in it. Its so hot through the day at night is the only time its cool enough to turn off the ac and turn on the oven. Our intake for our ac is right across from the stove and if you have it and the oven on at the same time the ac freezes up and you have to turn it to heat and crank it to thaw it out. Its better to be safe and just turn it off.

Don't you just hate that, Janie?

We had a motorhome, once, that was designed by an idiot on a Monday morning.

The AC unit was mounted right above the cooktop, and if you ran the AC it would blow out the flames. No kidding. So the only way to cook, inside, on a blistering day, was without the AC running.

The one way I beat the bagboy crushing the delicate stuff is I always put eggs, bread, etc in the little child seat of the shopping cart, and those are the last things I take out. It usually keeps them from putting em under anything.

It's so friggin' WEIRD to me that this is something we as a species are STILL dealing with in our history on the planet. I see it often at various markets in my area too. One would have thought that putting delicates like bread, eggs, flower-bouquets, etc. safely on top of heavier items, or assiging them their own bags, for Khris-sakes, would be one of those things (like putting our hands into the roaring flames of a fire, or changing our direction when walking to avoid traipsing right off a the side of a cliff) that we would have quickly evolved from over time. Didn't some goofy-azzed cave-man grocer in the year 9 or 10 see the need for this, correct it, train others against it, and then consult with genentic-scientists and baby-doctors everywhere to make it a part of our offsprings' gene-pool default characteristics, at some point?

And while I'm in a really (insert letter of your choice here)itchy mood... One of the many reasons I decided to start my personal ANTI WAL-MART campaign with a New Year's resolution in January was, my condo is near both a McDonald's AND a Wal-Mart. The thousands of plastic bags and styro-sandiwich-boxes littering not only yards, parking-lots and vast empty fields, but also my patio, my flower-pots, my landscaping, etc. is inconceiivable. I even went so far as to take photos, march into the manager's offices of both guilty outlets and and sit down and ask them just what days of the week and what time of day I should expect a staffer from their store to drop by my place to gather the litter. You can imagine the dumb-azz blank look this request (okay- DEMAND) got me! AGGGHHH! (okay, time for my first diet-pepsi of the morning... I'll be fine in a few! Hee-Hee! I guess we can't all be sweet & gracious ALL the time, can we?)