A Southern Summer Breakfast

Kathy and the Texas grand kids are visiting and this was an easy meal for a crowd.  I debated about whether to title this post as I did or as "THE Summer Southern Breakfast."  Either way, it was delicious - frozen biscuits (always Pillsbury for us), from-our-garden maters, sliced cheese (one cheddar & one pepper jack), and Wrights bacon (our back-up to Benton’s), and a locally grown cantaloupe.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/31/14 meal date

You Alone Are Accountable

In a society that seems to be filled with individuals who don't want to accept personal accountability, I thought this is something everyone should consider.

Thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Saturday Humor - Three Seniors

Betsy Adams from Joyful Reflections posted this on Facebook and I thought it was too good to pass up.  Thanks for the good chuckle Betsy - Bev and I are this bad.

Thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Tuna Salad & Stuffed Mushrooms

It had been a lazy rainy day, we had the kitchen all cleaned up, and I was thinking nuked leftover grilled chicken for supper with maybe a Knorr’s Pasta side for a one pot and one plate meal.  Bev, however, had other plans – sometimes she can’t help herself when the food prep gene takes over.

First she decided she wanted a repeat of the stuffed mushrooms we’d had a few days ago (you may remember the leftovers went into the recent breakfast scramble) and I readily agreed with this choice.  This is the recipe and a couple of shots that turned out this time – the liquid in the pan is because we forgot that the shrooms were supposed to be cooked some prior to stuffing, step 3.


Ingredients:

4 large portobello mushroom caps, stems and gills removed

1 tablespoon reduced-fat Italian salad dressing

1 egg

1 clove garlic, minced

salt and ground black pepper to taste

1 (10 ounce) bag fresh spinach, chopped

1/4 cup chopped pepperoni

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided

3 tablespoons seasoned bread crumbs, divided

Directions:

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2.Brush both sides of each portobello mushroom cap with Italian dressing. Arrange mushroom on a baking sheet, gill sides up.

3.Bake mushrooms in the preheated oven until tender, about 12 minutes. Drain any juice that has formed in the mushrooms.

4.Beat egg, garlic, salt, and black pepper together in a large bowl.

5.Stir spinach, pepperoni, Parmesan cheese, 3 tablespoons mozzarella cheese, and 3 tablespoons bread crumbs into the eggs until evenly mixed.

6.Divide spinach mixture over mushroom caps; sprinkle mushrooms with remaining 1 tablespoon mozzarella cheese and 1 tablespoon bread crumbs. Return mushrooms to the oven.

7.Continue baking until topping is golden brown and cheese is melted, about 10 minutes more.

She next considered turning the leftover chicken into chicken salad but then said she’d been craving tuna salad and so it was.  This is her recipe for tuna salad:

2 12oz cans of tuna packed in water, flaked

3 hard boiled eggs, diced

SOME finely diced celery

SOME finely diced onion

SOME mustard, to taste

SOME mayo, to taste

A little hot sauce, to taste

S&P to taste

Mix everything together, sample and adjust to taste.

As I’ve always said, Bev is the chef in this family and I’m the recipe follower - the tuna salad was delicious, especially when served atop a fresh, from our garden tomato.

This was a fine summertime meal and the little kitchen mess was well worth it – so now I’ll be cleaning it up for the second time today.

On a different note, do you know what happens when the corner your blueberry bush bird netting is out in the grass and you catch it in your mower.

You borrow a set of ramps from your neighbor and rest them on the bed of a pick-up, you drive the mower up on them, and then spend about 30 minutes cutting out the netting and branches that came with it, to get this two foot wad.

The silver linings - it was only wrapped around one of the three blades, the netting was easy to cut and therefore much easier than removing a ski rope wrapped around a jet ski drive shaft - yep, that is the voice of experience speaking.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/18/14 event date

Breakfast From Leftovers

I haven’t done one of these posts in a while but this one was too good to pass up.  Our friends, Dave and Laurie, brought us part of a box of portabella mushrooms and we had some cremini’s in the fridge so mushroom dishes were in order.

The first was a sausage mushroom quiche for breakfast using a recipe from Allrecipes and the second was stuffed mushrooms for supper using another recipe from Allrecipes.  I failed to get a shot of the quiche and the stuffed mushroom ones weren’t good enough to post, but both dishes were very good and I would make either of them again.

As it turned out, all of the egg mixture would not fit into the crust for the quiche and we didn’t have enough portabellas to use all of the stuffing mixture so a breakfast meal was born.  Bev added a couple more beaten eggs and combined the two leftover mixtures for a scramble.

While the photo may not show it, the scramble was delicious – how could it not be with mushrooms, spinach, pepperoni, sausage, and cheese.  While we are unlikely to have this very same mixture available again, we know they go together very well.  Next time we may make an omelet using the quiche ingredients for the egg part and the mushroom stuffing as such.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/12/14 event date

A Gourmet Southern Meal Ala Beverly

Late June is a great time for veggies in our area as the summer crops are coming in and some late potatoes are still available.  Bev decided to whip us up a meatless (hard for her) meal of corn, beans, potatoes, and tomatoes (the only part from our garden).  The gourmet part is obviously in the eye of the beholder mouth of the eater.

The local pole beans were cooked with smoked bacon, onion, garlic, and spices; the new potatoes were just boiled in water then mashed on the plate with butter; and the cherry tomatoes were halved.  Now for the corn – growing up, sweet corn was boiled in water and slathered with butter, salted and peppered and eaten from the cob, but since I married Bev I’ve discovered fried corn.

The fresh local corn was cut from the cob, then cooked in a skillet with butter and S&P, sometimes until just barely cooked, like this, and sometimes cooked until a little caramelized.  This method preserves all of the flavor that is removed by the boiling process and can be cooked to the same level of doneness as boiled or more if you prefer.

If you’ve seen Bev, you know she is a pretty small person but this is her plate which was all eaten.  My plate looked similar but without the tomatoes and I had seconds on the corn.

The meal was absolutely delicious and if you’ve never cooked corn this way, you are missing a real treat.  Bev used a half stick of butter for five ears of corn but this can be adjusted to your taste and dietary desires – I’m a disciple of Paula Deen so more is better – notice the word margarine was never mentioned in the above.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/9/14 meal date

Our Independence Day Weekend - Blueberries, Burgers, And Fish

We had two July 4^th weekend parties at the dock, one on the third and one on the fifth.  Our blueberry crop is coming in and the bushes are covered with bird netting, the berries are getting blue and plump, and this is Bev’s picking for the day – around a quart.

Thus far, we’d been just eating them but since the haul has increased, Bev decided to turn them into a dessert for our July 3^rd get-together to go with the home-made ice cream the neighbors brought.  She used a recipe from Taste Of Home for Crumb Topped Blueberry Coffee Cake and it made for a delicious ending to a meal of burgers, dawgs, tater salad, and corn on the cob.

For our actual Independence Day, we took the day off to rest and clean up between parties and just grilled some burgers with the meat left from the previous day.  I shaped mine to fit the slice of French bread I used to soak up the meat juices, seasoned with Weber Chicago Steak Seasoning, grilled, and topped it with pepper jack cheese and sautéed onion/mushrooms/green peppers.

It made for an absolutely delicious burger - maybe as good as I've eaten.

On July 5^th our friends David (Big Daddy Dave) and Laurie came over to the dock with family visiting from St. Louis and they had requested fried crappie for supper.  In an effort to reduce the effort that goes into entertaining, which is more fun for us, we decided on a simple menu thereby enhancing the stomach room for the main event - the fish.

We had a appetizer of sweet hush puppies with honey, and sides of green beans from the neighbors garden, slaw using the bagged veggies and Bev's dressing, and hushpuppies from our favorite recipe (unsweetened).   The beans and slaw were made well ahead of time requiring only fish and hush puppies be cooked on the dock.

While on our Charleston area RV trip, we ate at Seawee's Seafood Restaurant and asked them about their breading recipe receiving the surprise answer of House Autry, which is available from most stores.  I used the Hushpuppy Mix for the appetizer and the Medium Hot Seafood Breader for the fish.  This is the recipe for the hushpuppies served with the main course:

Hushpuppies

2 cups Self-rising corn meal mix (see note)

1 beaten egg

1 medium onion – not real sweet, fine dice

Sweet milk to make a stiff batter

Mix and deep fry in 365* oil, flipping once

Note: Can also use 2 cups of self-rising corn meal plus 2 Tbsp. of flour.

This is my plate but of course I had more fish after I deep fried round two.

I mixed the appetizer hushpuppies per the directions on the bag and added a little more water, but after cooking and seeing how dense they were I realized even more liquid was in order - I still have plenty in the bag to practice with.  The fish turned out crispy with a light breading coat and it was a big hit - I may never mix my own breading again.  Our favorite tartar sauce was made using Cathy's recipe from Wives With Knives.

We finished off the meal with blueberry peach cobbler ala mode, provided by the guests and it was delicious way to wrap up.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/3/ & 7/5/14 event dates

The RV Is Finally Back Home

What’s different about this shot – the RV is sitting in the driveway for the first time since May 1.  

Those of you have been readers for a while know we have been RVers for a few years and have had our fair share of coach issues, a few of our own doing but most not.

On May 1, we left Almost Heaven South for the Charleston, SC area where we took in the local area and hosted the Tennessee Travelers rally.  We had a great time and on the way home, we were about 10 miles from our campground in Flat Rock, NC at 4pm when an alarm sounded and the trouble light said no oil pressure, stop engine.  We were once again dead on the side of the road (4^th time) but found someone to tow us off the road to their shop, spent the night in a motel, and explored our options.  With all of the stuff in the fridge/freezer, our clothes, and other needed items, we decided we’d rather have the coach in Knoxville (45 minutes from home) than go in the other direction to the nearest Cummins engine shop in Spartanburg, SC (about a four hour drive from home).  Since the tow truck charges $300/hr both ways, we paid a substantial fee for the extra towing distance, even after Good Sam's helped out.

The coach had been at the Knoxville Cummins dealer since May 23 and we finally picked it up on Jul 2 – money making semi tractors seem to have priority over RV’s.  The issue was a failure of the oil pump in a way that they had never before seen and as always it would happen to us – the third fluky issue between our two coaches.  If I were to make a list of the issues I expected to have with the RV, the Cummins engine would have been the last item.  To repair, they had to lift the coach, drop out the engine and transmission, replace the engine block with a new one, reassemble, and reinstall.  The silver linings are that is has been garaged for over a month and it is 100% under warranty – the bill was $21,000.

We had to cancel our two planned June trips and will now just take a couple of short, local ones this summer while we decide if we are destined to be RVers or are we snake bit and it’s too much aggravation.  The supervisor at the Cummins shop advised that RV stands for Ruined Vacation and I’m about to become a believer.  Okay, enough whining, I have a trip or two to plan.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

5/23 – 7/2/14 event dates

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA

I like to run this every once in a while.

Just think how important it is for us that 238 years ago, a group of very brave people said we’re not willing to put up with this anymore and we are declaring our independence from Great Britain. They were willing to fight and die for their beliefs and their freedom.  While I often get frustrated with our government and our politics (and wonder if we should declare our independence from Washington), I merely have to look around Almost Heaven South or reflect a few minutes about the Middle East, North Korea, and many other places where people suffer under dictatorships or anarchy, or live in abject poverty, to make me very thankful to those brave souls of 1776.

So let's all enjoy our Independence Day and more importantly our independence and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Humor

I usually avoid, politics, religion and controversial issues on here, but regardless of your political affiliation or views on immigration, it’s hard to read this and not get a chuckle out of it.

“Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vs. the Phoenix Suns owner,

The owner of the Phoenix Suns basketball team, Robert Sarver, came out strongly opposing AZ's new immigration laws.  Arizona's Governor, Jan Brewer, released the following statement in response to Sarver's criticism of the new law:

What if the owners of the Suns discovered that hordes of people were sneaking into games without paying? What if they had a good idea who the gate-crashers are, but the ushers and security personnel were not allowed to ask these folks to produce their ticket stubs, thus non-paying attendees couldn't be ejected. Furthermore, what if Suns' ownership was expected to provide those who sneaked in with complimentary eats and drink? And what if, on those days when a gate-crasher became ill or injured, the Suns had to provide free medical care and shelter?"

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer”

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry