The Thanksgiving Pie

A Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie, you say! Sure, I’ll make one; I knew we had a can of pumpkin in the pantry. And, having waited patiently for months, there it was. Likewise I knew there was a pie crust in the frig. My, oh, my, there it was, but hopelessly out of date and unusable. This was no problem, for an experience cook, I’ll just make one. I hadn’t made a pie crust in years, but I gave it the old college try. With fluted edge around the pie plate, it looked good.

The next chore was the pumpkin mixture. No worries until I discovered we had no ground cloves. Not to worry, I had regular cloves so I put some in a plastic bag and beat them into submission.

Next, add 12 ounces of condensed milk. Since I don’t keep any on the pantry shelf, I went to the internet to see what could be used as a substitute. One tip was to substitute buttermilk. Another said to condense your own milk by evaporation. So into a wide saucepan I poured 2½ cups of 2% milk and let this slowly (I do mean slowly) simmer until all but one cup of milk had evaporated. This I placed in the refrigerator and once cool enough to work with I added another 4 ounces of buttermilk to meet MY requirement.

About this time Dwain comes in, and after hearing my tale of woe suggests that it would be easier all around if he went to the store and just bought a pumpkin pie. Since I had all the ingredients ready to pour into the pie crust, that suggestion fell on deaf ears. Dwain’s plan B was for me to make a few tarts, so he could taste it before anybody else was exposed to the pie. He was hoping there would be too much filling for the pie crust and I could make a few tarts. No such luck, all the mixture fit right into the shell.

After a delicious dinner of turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, etc., at Jacqui and Beau's house, Dwain went right to the pumpkin pie. He had two nice big pieces and declared the pie, without the crust, was some of the best he had ever eaten. I laughed and said, “you just like custard.” He nor anyone else got sick so I claim success. The moral to this story is: Check to make sure you have all needed ingredients prior to starting the project.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.

Maggie

MEATLOAF: I Hate Meatloaf

I enjoy eating different foods. A favorite has always been country cooking, but I have never been a fan of meatloaf. My “better half” loves meatloaf so I make meatloaf for him every couple of months (Dwain says every few years). He always says it tastes great. (Dwain says that hasn't improved the service frequency) Really!!!!

The following is my standard recipe:

1 lb. ground sirloin
½ lb. ground pork
1 small onion, diced (approximately ½ cup)
½ green pepper, diced
¼ red pepper, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup Panko bread crumbs
1 egg
½ cup milk
salt
pepper

Mix all the above ingredients together. If too thick, add another egg or some more milk. Pour into a 4x9 loaf pan. Bake at 375 degrees about 45 minutes. Remove from oven, spread the topping listed below over top of meatloaf. Continue baking an additional 20-30 minutes. 

Topping:

3/4 cup ketchup
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
2-3 tablespoons honey
1-2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce

Meatloaf

Meatloaf goes well with mashed potatoes, green peas and rolls.

If you have a meatloaf recipe you would like to share, send it to me and I might try it sometime.

Maggie 

WANTED: A 12-inch glow-in-the-dark flexible rubber skeleton

Many years ago we had a little skeleton as a Halloween decoration. Then we obtained a black kitty.

A little fluffy black kitten fell in love. His name is Inky.

When Halloween rolled around, the decorations were put out and low and behold, Inky, the black kitty fell in love with the glow-in-the-dark skeleton. Inky decided that the skeleton was his and it became his favorite toy. He lugs it around, up and down the stairs, tosses it in the air, slaps it around and is very jealous when someone picks it up. Today Inky the kitten is a 24 pound cat and still loves the glow-in-the-dark skeleton.
 
One day the skull was barely hanging onto the body so I decided to remove the skull, being afraid that he would swallow it. Some time later the arms came off and eventually the torso fell off. As you can see the skeleton now only has lower body, legs and feet. But can you imagine, it still glows in the dark!

The remainder of the glow-in-the-dark skeleton.

Inky, the 24-pound black cat still plays with whats left of the skeleton.

Inky loves his skeleton toy.

Inky, who is eight years old now, says that he needs a new glow-in-the-dark flexible rubber skeleton!
I have checked out the Halloween toys at Target, Party City and on the internet but haven't come up with a replacement glow-in-the-dark flexible skeleton. If you know where to find one of these please, let me know. Inky is counting on a new skeleton for Halloween!


Maggie

Rocky Top and the National Senior Olympics

The National Senior Olympics were held in Cleveland, Ohio this year. (National Senior Olympics are held in a different location each two years.)

Dwain and I, along with a number of his table tennis buddies went to Cleveland and spent a week watching, practicing and playing in the tournaments. The following are a few of the photos taken during the tournament.

Winner's of the Men's Single Event: Left to right:  

Dwain Kitchel, Silver; Paul Hua, Gold; Neil Meyers, Bronze.  

Fourth place went to Bill Neely.

There were 28 state champions or top two runner ups from all across America who participated in this age event. Some one said looks like Rocky Top took this event. Three of the top four were from Tennessee--Dwain and Bill from Knoxville, TN and Paul from Chattanooga, TN, Neil Meyers was from Ohio. Having my trusty ipad in hand, I  played the song Rocky Top and there was a lot of clapping and hooting going on!

Left to right: Bill Neely, Paul Hua and Dwain Kitchel.

Left to right: Tony Caposi, Ruth Hua, Paul Hua and Louie Caposi.

Dwain and Bill playing in the Men's Doubles

Dwain and Bill, Men's Doubles Gold winners

Dwain came home with a gold in Men's Doubles, a silver in Men's Singles and a 4th place ribbon in Mixed Doubles. Needless to say, I was very proud of him.

One of the highlights of our trip was when our friends Tony and Louie Caposi took us to Little Italy  to Mia Bella Restaurant for an evening of very fine Italian food and fun.

The next National Senior Olympics will be held in Minneapolis, MN in 2015. Hopefully we will be in good health and will be there.

Maggie

BIG SKY COUNTRY....WYOMING AND SOUTH DAKOTA

Leaving Yellowstone National Park, we were almost immediately in the Bighorn National Forest filled with mountains, canyons, valleys, and picturesque rivers. Here we encountered our first tunnel of the trip, which was unusual considering all the mountains we had traveled around or over.

We visited the Crazy Horse Memorial and were astounded at the magnitude of this memorial both in sheer size and the scope of the dream. The following plaque explains the project, which is funded solely by private funds and donations. This is a fitting memorial that demonstrates the importance of America's Indian heritage. The sculpture pictured below is what the mountain will look like when completed. It is noted that this memorial will dwarf in size Mount Rushmore.

The following photos were taken at the Mount Rushmore Memorial. There a walkway exhibiting a flag of each state. We snapped a photo of the Tennessee flag.

After viewing the Black Hills and the Rapid City area, we headed East skirting the Badlands and stopped at Wall Drug Store in Wall, South Dakota. 

We also stopped at the Corn Palace (used as a convention center) in Mitchell, S.D. The building is decorated by using colored corn kernels that are replaced with new designs each year.

Jessie, this is for you! We ended our day by spending the night in Omaha, Nebraska. On to Fayetteville, Arkansas.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK...WOW, WOW, WOW!

We thought the Grand Canyon would be the highlight of our trip but for all three of us, it comes in second behind Yellowstone. The Grand Canyon itself is perhaps the single greatest WOW but the diversity and overall splendor of Yellowstone is out-of-sight awesome. The waterfalls, the canyons, the mountains, the sparkling and pristine rivers, the buffalo, elk and deer, the Yellowstone Lake, the myriad of geysers and the vastness of the park where all of this could be experienced in a couple of days just staggers one's imagination. The following photos provides a small taste.

       

       

       

      

      

      

          You really can hear this geyser roar.

      

     

     

         This is for you Grace. All over the big sky portion of America, horses play a major role. We saw towns named Crazy Horse, Wild Horse, and others. Of course these are Western horses and we saw thousands in ranches that were adjacent to the highways.

     

     

In 1988 there were numerous fires started by dry lightening. These fires decimated huge tracts of Yellowstone's forest. Trees were reseeded but the evidence of the magnitude of the destruction is still present. This evidence is shown above.

     

     

     

     

This is a fly fisherman's paradise. We saw hundreds of them casting away in the sparkling and fast running streams.

     

     

We went to the Old Faithful Inn for lunch and did see the Old Faithful geyser erupt. It was quite a show. After a delicious lunch, Nancy had a brownie which was served on a dinner plate along with ice cream and whipped cream.  Obviously Dwain and I had to help her eat it.   

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

   

     

     

     

     

     

     

While passing the Yellowstone Lake, traffic was stopped for about a half hour due to road work and Dwain worked on his still masterpiece shown above.  

     

     

Next we are headed to the Wild West Country and towns of Cody and Sheridan, Wyoming.