Darienne

Ed and I recently had Kraft Dinner for the heck of it...the very first thing I ever cooked in my life many decades ago...and we wondered if the product had changed??? It was awful. Simply awful.

I've never done it that way either. I needed apple butter for the dish I came up with for the latest installment of TGRWT from khymos.org and that seemed like the best solution for getting it done during the work-week so I could be in before the deadline. It worked great. Never a day without learning. Looked up Khymos.org and TGRWT. Not my thing, but interesting. I'm still learning how to boil water I fear.

Thank you honda. The recipe looks useful. We don't eat shellfish, but I guess they could be made with some other tasty filling.

Those Crispy Cyclone Rolls look amazing. I googled for a recipe and found nothing. Any ideas?

Never thought of making apple butter in a crock-pot. Great idea, Tri2Cook. Alas, we had no apples this year after last year's bumper crop. We did have wild grapes up the wazoo. I could pick some more...

Hello Rajoress and welcome to the wonderful world of eG posting. I've never had a whoopie pie...must be my wartime Canadian upbringing...but those do look pretty darned yummy. Just might try to make some.

Ditto for me. I have yet to find a 'low calorie, low fat, no fat, etc, etc,' goodie which truly tastes good.

I have no idea why your muffins are sticking. I always use papers because I hate cleaning muffin pans. There's never any sticking. And there's never any muffin stuck to the papers. I have no idea why. I make several kinds of muffins. In fact, in the last year, I have made hundreds of muffins. We've had a lot of workmen here over the year: new furnace, new septic tank, foundation dug up, re-pointed, re-parged, etc, etc, and etc, and endless renovations (Man. I HATE renovations. My DH lives to renovate.). A gazillion workmen. Twenty gazillion muffins. Feeding workmen won't save you any money, but it can mean that they will want to please you. All best...

This party was a 60th and not part of a club. I think the birthday girl was probably embarrassed by the fuss and pile of gifts. I had no idea the group invited was so large. Your post put me in mind of a group I belonged to some years ago...the Laughing Ladies who Love to Lunch. The once a month luncheon...a Pot Luck...was always somebody's birthday and gifts were the order of the day: small, funny and inexpensive. Great laughter and ribbing. The not quite so funny part for me was that I was known as a chocoholic (which I am not) and so I received endless amounts of really dreadful chocolate dreck. And smiled sweetly. Lots of good memories.

I really like this idea. Especially the no presents part. We could use a no presents concept at birthday parties also. Or at least a maximum $ layout for said present. Just went to a birthday party for a friend, for which the hostess would not even discuss the presents problem, and there must have been about 30 people present. The pile of gifts was what? embarrassing? horrendous? would have gifted a small country? I have no idea of the value spread of the gifts...the dinner went on so long that unfortunately we had to leave before the gifts were opened.

Well, they look lovely and I'd be glad to come to your house and eat them anytime!

Great story, Jaymes. Great tradition! .

For me, the way to start a tradition is simply to begin 'doing it'. Both sets of our parents married across ethnic/religious backgrounds which meant, more or less, a breakaway from their growing-up family traditions. My in-laws had Sunday dinner, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter. My parents, nothing.DH and I are again a breakaway from our already mixed backgrounds. No traditions to be upheld whatsoever. Rejected pretty much by all ethnic/religious backgrounds. Our own family is very scattered and we have no grand-kids, just dogs. Perhaps more than you wanted to know. Since moving to the farm 17 years ago, and taking on cooking as an avocation about 5 years ago, I have instituted some traditions. We still do Thanksgiving, Christmas and birthdays which we have since Day 1. We have started Solstice Meals with as suitable a menu as possible at the time. For years we held a local GourdFest at the farm with a...oh, no...Potluck meal. I wrote on the bottom of the newsletter: This is not a cooking contest...just buy something and bring it." Then there is the Annual Dog Weekend at the farm. Saturday is always Mexican for lunch and hamburgers and corn for supper. Not to mention the home-made ice cream bonanza. It's all expected yearly now. In Utah we put on a Chinese Feast at a friend's house. This year it will be at our condo. Four folks cook for this. We'll bring Chinese dishes for the meal. Plus ingredients. Our town of choice is not a culinary mecca. The main traditions concern the making and giving away of ice cream, baking, chocolate and confections. Pretty early in my newly-found 'career', I began making stuff we couldn't begin to eat. So I feed the men and women who have worked on the house and land, in one manner or other. They don't charge you any less, but they sure are happy. :smile:I make things for fund raising for the local and also Utah libraries, dog rescue groups, turtle trauma centers, etc. And gifts for friends, neighbors, veterinarians, butcher, dentists...you name it...they receive my output. Christmas edibles to all, of course. If you need or want positive feedback in your life, just try doing this. Last year in Utah, I made all the Christmas gifts that the local lodging center and the Humane Society gave to its volunteers, employees, etc. This year so far, I am making lollipops for the Humane Society to sell at the Annual Pumpkin Chuckin' Event and Saturday adoption days. There can be no end to this if you invite/allow it. Good luck with your own traditions!

Anythingbutplainchocolate, you have my sympathy also. Two years ago, my DH decided to rearrange my canned goods for me in a way that made 'much more' sense. To him. Not to me. Not at all. I did not shed a tear...but it took forever to put them back where they belonged. And without letting him know. Could not hurt his feelings.

No apples for us this year, after last year's amazing bounty. However, a bumper crop of wild grapes...more than I can use. Grape jelly is the result. Out on our perimeter walk this morning, we saw several puffballs, still small, and we'll watch them for picking this coming week. Ed loves puffball fried in butter. I freeze the extra for a variety of mushroom uses during the year.

I've never been to a 'culinary purposed' type Pot Luck, only the 'we're getting together for some non-food purpose and let's have fun and eat' type. Every group I've every belonged to has featured at least one yearly Pot Luck. Never thought of them of sources of gustatory delights. And I've come away with some pretty delicious recipes...and given out recipes also. In fact, the dish I bring for the entrance table to the Annual GourdFest and Pot Luck in Utah is always accompanied by many slips of the printed recipe. And all the slips are taken. Tostitos Kakimochi. Not high class, but I dare you to eat only one. I find Pot Lucks great fun. Always have; always will. You never know what you'll find.

Thinking about rose hips. At our Utah lodging, there is an amazing crop of rose hips every year and so far I have just looked at them in awe. Huge crop, gigantic rose hips. No one uses them at all. Although we are not great jam/jelly consumers, I thought this year I might try to make rose hip jelly, freezer quality. I don't have the equipment there to do anything else. Then I'll give it away to friends no doubt...if it tastes reasonably good. As for straining it, would glass sheers...which I use for straining, keeping fruit flies off, etc...work well enough? I've never opened a rose hip and don't know how large the seeds are. From reading the post in this topic, it seems that they would work. I used the sheers last week to strain wild grape jelly... I will report back in a few weeks if I try this. Thanks for any information. Just found this photo of one year's crop of rose hips in early October

Oh my! I am suffering from lollie-envy. Wonderful, Minas6907.

So yesterday friend Ruth, DH Ed and I picked wild grapes. Then I spent most of the afternoon washing, picking over, etc the grapes. (My hands and wrists complained last night.) First cooking. Drained all night. Purple/blue stains everywhere. Today I took half the grape pulp juice and made jelly. The other half I froze so that when Ruth comes back, we can make jelly together. And get more purple/blue stains everywhere. Delicious jelly. Very grapey.

Ditto Pierogi for me now. Except I would add Inter-library loan to the library list.

Followed Mjx's suggestion to the earlier topic and found Jaymes' Stacked Green Chile Enchiladas. Will actually try them next. Thanks, as always, Jaymes.

Pulled meat of any kind on small buns (that way you can have two) with sauces and roasted onions (less work than fried), cole slaw on the side. That's an easy meal. We tend to serve Tex/Cal/Mex. That's pretty casual. Salads that keep a few days are terrific for casual entertaining, things made with beans, sweet potatoes, quinoa, bulgur, chickpeas. Sometimes we do a Ploughman's Lunch for folks we are not sure of: cheeses, breads, fruits, cold meats (not for me), this and that. Ed makes a terrific macaroni and cheese dish which his Mother made. With a green salad, that's about as casual as you can get. I always have homemade ice cream in the freezer which makes a good dessert. I guess the list is endless. Best of luck to you.

All three desserts sound lovely...I'm going to make the Praline-Bourbon Custard Parfait...and I really enjoyed reading the entire article.

I have a lemon cream cheese pie from a very old cheese book which takes only one box of cheese and one egg and tastes wonderful. Of course, I would put a chocolate ganache on top. You could make the Margarita pie on graham crackers, although it's better on crushed pretzels. Any kind of pie which has cream cheese or whipped cream or both as the bulk ingredient. Yumm. How can you miss with cream cheese, whipped cream, lemon, booze....????

Did some ungrateful, picky guest complain? I'm not going to eat this blown turnover? I think not. I would have eaten one and been happy. Those who complained do not get invited back.