Pictures from New Orleans will be featured next time on this blog.
A few days from now I look forward to a Christmas dinner that I don't have to cook. Beth's mother, Ann, and her sisters are hosting this event in New Orleans and those women can cook! I hope they serve that onion pie that we had one Thanksgiving down there. Also, Beth and I will be on the look out for the dark debris gravy recipe that a place called Mia's serves. I know the debris is from the roast but the gravy--ahhh, it's ambrosia. Without having to think about menus I am working on closing the house up tighter than Silas Marner's coin purse. The poor dogs will be at the Vet's and they will not be happy! I, on the other hand, plan to be. The guys have tickets to the Saints football game and I am hosting tea at our posh hotel for the ladies. There's a bit of shopping, lots of movies, plus the night activities of New Orleans. I love the night ride with the horse and carriage and the spiel from the driver while the music pours from the swinging doors of the jazz clubs.
A week later Andy, Joe, Glenda and I will be on our way to visit David and then on to Sanibel for two weeks on the beach. This time the dogs and Matt will be here to look after things. Mike and Beth will help out too. I do not want to spend the two weeks in the kitchen, so my mind does linger on dinners and ways to make them snappy. I don't care about breakfasts and lunches, it's every man for himself, but dinners need an anchor dish, but one that is easy to throw together yet with a delicious result. I also don't want to haul a bunch of stuff down there as we did to Hilton Head. (That was fun and necessary, but not this time.) It's like taking watermelon to Georgia (an inside joke)...they do have stores down there. Andy says he could eat sadwiches every day for the rest of his life and he'd be happy. Maybe we should just test that. Or we could have pork roast with sweet potatoes, pears and rosemary THEN have cold pork sandwiches for lunches. We could have a beef roasted with poatoes and then sandwiches for a few days. Both roasts take care of themselves while in the oven as does these potluck solutions found in the latest Food and Family magazine from Kraft Foods as seen above.
Unfortunately, Joe and Glenda are not seafood fans, but I am sure to get my fill one way or the other. I think about the lobster salads and the lobster rolls when we were in Boca last year. They were so delicious, so I'll be looking for that when we do eat out. When we stop at David's we will go to the tasty Mexican restaurant that we found a couple of years ago. But, when we are in the Sanibel condo we will be playing cards on the balcony overlooking the gulf. We are all looking forward to it. I have only four more Lee Child's books (I've read around 16 so far.) and so I am hoping he does not have writer's block and gets busy writing more. He is so good. He snags me on the first page and does not let go until the end. It is amazing. His book ONE SHOT is being made into a movie and Tom Cruise is playing the main man role. Amazon.com will have to fend for itself for a while. I seem to place an order every week, but now I am stocked up for the long haul. Paris Was Ours is another title I intend to take along for beach reading, with some James Patterson and Lisa Gardner--not heavy reading but most of their titles keep the mind alert while trying to out smart the author; it's part of the game for me.
Having written the word shopping, I am reminded of something I read this week. I read that a Birkin bag sold for over $200,000. One purse: not a condo, not a fleet of cars, nor a house, just a purse for one lady's arm. I'm just sayin... In contrast:
O the way home from Bucca (for my birthday) Andy was telling everyone about the cars he and his brother and parents had when he was growing up. The conversation stemmed from the fact that several grandchildren are saving money for cars, but finding the going slow. One family car that Andy and Joe drove had so many problems that Henry, their father, along with a neighbor, spent every week end fixing it, just to get it to go for the next work- week. Joe, Andy's brother, was in the college of pharmacy and worked in the Greenhills drug store. One night the transmission went out as he was leaving the store and he had to drive backwards all the way home. A friend of Andy's had an old car, but the floorboards were nearly gone and the fumes caused the riders to hang their heads out the windows where ever they were going no matter the weather. The driver, of course, was nearly asphyxiated each time, so they made short trips. Another friend's car had a driver's seat that wouldn't stay put. As he was driving along it would shoot him into the back seat at odd times which caused some problems. He finally secured the seat with a ball bat, but now and then it would slip out of place and he'd be unexpectedly catapulted to the rear.
Finally, when I married Andy in 1959 his father had this old but well maintained Buick with a back seat area about the size of a Hollywood closet. That's the car I selected for our wedding day because I could get my gown and the groom in the backseat at the same time.
Onion Pie recipe:
INGREDIENTS
1 1/4
cups finely crushed saltine crackers (36 squares) (I use Ritz crackers, they are more buttery.)
1/4
cup butter or margarine, melted
2
tablespoons butter or margarine
2
large onions, chopped (2 cups)
1 1/2
cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (6 oz)
1
cup milk
1/2
teaspoon salt
1/4
teaspoon pepper
3
eggs
Chopped chives and or seeded tomato and sliced green onion, if desired
DIRECTIONS
1 Heat oven to 325°F. Spray 9-inch glass pie plate with cooking spray. In small bowl, mix cracker crumbs and 1/4 cup melted butter; press evenly in bottom and up side of pie plate. 2 In 10-inch skillet, melt 2 tablespoons butter over medium-high heat. Cook onions in butter 5 to 6 minutes, stirring frequently, until light brown. Spread onions in crust. Sprinkle with cheese. 3 In medium bowl, beat milk, salt, pepper and eggs with fork or wire whisk until blended; pour over cheese. 4 Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Garnish with tomato and onion. Serve immediately.
Quickly and easily crush crackers into crumbs by sealing them in a plastic food-storage bag and pounding with your hand
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