Too much food...

Ah, the holidays.  The time of year when everybody over eats, but they don't really seem to care about how much weight they gain until after the new year.  I'm pretty sure I ate more food over the course of the past 5 days than I have all year--Thank you Herring Family! Not only did I eat lunch, I had round 2 for dinner and lots of food on Black Friday and a stack of pancakes for lunch on Saturday.  Picture Dawn French in the Vicar of Dibley when she ate Christmas lunch 4 or 5 times except over the course of a few days.   This was also my first holiday away from my family, I went to the Mississippi and ate with the Herrings.  I also threatened Arielle upon pain of death that she would provide me with pictures of her Thanksgiving down by her momma and such for this post.  It worked!  She gave me picks of her yummy food and even a recipe, which I shall graciously share with you dear reader.

Arielle's family feasted upon:

Turkey

Baked ham with pineapples and bourbon soaked cherries

baked mac and cheese

dirty rice

cranberry relish

buttered peas and corn

sweet potato crunch

corn bread

DESSERT:

pecan pie

red velvet cake(SHE NEGLECTED TO GIVE ME PICTURES OF THE DESSERTS!)

Turkey Recipe:

4 sticks of celery

1 apple

1 large red onion

bunch of fresh parsley

1 orange

1 bottle of injectable Tony's Garlic and Herb Marinade

"Stuff all the ingredients above inside the turkey after properly washing; then inject marinate. We're lazy at my house and put the turkey in a giant electric roaster and cook it all night on 250 degrees. You could always bake it the traditional way, but who wants all that hassle."

At Cotton Branch, I had quite a different meal than usual.  There was no cayenne in anything, no oyster dressing, no mirlitons, no dirty rice, and no cheese cake, but that's ok because Mrs. Barbara's cooking is still awesome!  There was:

Smoked Turkey

Traditional Turkey

Dressing

 

Corn and Butter beans

Wild rice and regular rice

Sweet potatoes

Louisiana Yams(I made these, recipe below!)

 (Dirty Coast sticker on my computer...got to be a NOLA girl everywhere...)

 

Frozen salad

cranberry sauce

 (my plate)

(the spread)

DESSERT:

Strawberry Cake, White Chocolate Bread Pudding,  and Chocolate Pie

 

YUM!:)

Sweet Potato Casserole:

3 cup mashed sweet potatoes
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup milk (I used half and half)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butte (melted)
1 tsp. vanilla
mix ingredients for casserole and place in large buttered shallow pan or baking dish.  Spread with topping;

topping:
1 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup softened butter
1 cup chopped pecans
mix sugar and flour, add softened butter, mix well.  Add chopped pecans and mix well.  Place on top of sweet potato mixture.  Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for a bout 25 minutes.

**Somebody's Grandma asked for this recipe, I was so proud of myself! Enjoy!

Something Real...

I could enumerate my various food adventures for you this week, tell you how I went to Hattiesburg, Ms with my mom and ate good Arabic food at a place called Petra and had some amazing custard at Bop's.  And how, true to form, I only managed to get a picture of the custard.  However, I feel it necessary to discuss our current state of affairs.

While on my way to the jewelry show (one of the most materialistic events on the planet) in NOLA with my mother and two grandmother's in tow, we started a conversation on the trendy topic: "Ain't dere no more."  This discussion evolved somehow into the slowing/stagnant economy and how we've lost faith in people, and the me, me, me...I WANT IT NOW, self-absorbed attitudes most American's have fueled our talk. 

I envy my grandmothers.  One of them, Honey, was born in October of 1929, so obviously, as the date intimates she was a child of the Great Depression.  Her parents were fortunate enough to know some wonderful people.  Her father was out of work for a year and they had absolutely no money at one point, yet their landlord let them stay, their grocer continued to supply them with food, and the nuns let my grandmother go to school.  The mentality was, you pay when you CAN pay.  Things got better and they paid all their debts, and quiet frankly my grandmother has led a rather privileged life ever since.  But, today that would never happen.  The corner grocer "ain't dere no more" you have to go to Walmart-the great culture killer-if you don't want to spend your entire paycheck on groceries.  And you can guarantee your landlord will evict you if you are late with the rent check more than once.  Moral of the story here...BUY LOCAL!  BUY NOLA!  BUY LOUISIANA!  BUY USA! Invest in your community for posterity, if nothing else.

Something has to give in this economy.  We need to take pride in what's around us.  I see more abuse of the system in my new place of work than I care to admit, and it disgusts me.  What do we do about it?  I'm thinking in terms of baby steps here with the buying local and investing in your community.  Clean up the streets, remember there are farmers and fishermen in this state and the next one over who need our patronage, stop buying crap from China, help your neighbor, and take pride in your surroundings.  I think when people have something to be proud of, things will improve.  Its the current set up where the government foots the bill for food and medical care for people who drive BMW's and Mercedes Benz that don't work and abuse the system, thus they take no pride in anything they have because it was neither earned nor deserved, that needs to end--this sentence was almost long and incoherent enough to be in an Edward Said book. 

I did feel the pangs of guilt though.  I bought some very nice pieces that I should not have, but I figure while I can be slightly irresponsible with my income I may as well get it out of my system to avoid F*&^ing up big time when I finally get my big girl job.  I also decided this is my time to live a little.  I moved back home because I could not afford to live on my own.  I didn't run to the government and demand financial support because "IT'S MY RIGHT."  Well no, it isn't my right to live off the honest people.  I'm scraping all my pennies together to have one last hurrah before my real life begins...yet I still feel guilty because I feel like I should be saving this money.  So while I'm still and educated derelict, I've decided to enjoy myself--but not so much I can't pay my student loan bill every month.  Maybe I know deep down that my spending can be justified because my responsibilities are not that demanding yet and I'm not going around attempting to complicate my life financially by having more children than I can afford or any children for that matter.

God does have a sense of humor though-we were shown that there still are good people in the world.  When we entered the jewelry show, we were told we could only bring one guest (my mom still had her pass so only my grandmothers needed passes).  The lady next to us, whom we shall call Mrs. Mary Kay consultant because that was her business name, was kind enough to let us use her guest pass for the day.  Just when we thought people didn't look out for other people.  Insert foot in mouth...thanks!  After that we received a reality check when some girl almost knocked Honey over, so rude.  But the salesman who lives in Alaska/California contributed another point to the redemption of the Human Race. :), He was great!

Hopping down from the soap box now...hope you enjoyed the rant...

Fall Fun

Since Arielle and I are both semi employed and our schedules don't mesh well anymore and we lost Joy to the great BR and her big girl job, we have lost a bit of momentum.  However, we still cook, we still eat, and we still adventure...just less often.  The past two weekends, I made the Southern Living fall pumpkin cakes they had in the fall 2009 issue.  I've found that people who like pumpkin are far few and in between, so not many people eat my pumpkins.  But, those who actually like pumpkin LOVE these cakes.  I'm not going to type the recipe for a number of reasons.  1. It's not mine, my family's, or Arielle's.  2. I don't feel like typing it.  and 3. you can probably find it in Southern Living's archives.

I have decided that if I am ever to make these stupid pumpkins (that are only loved by a small portion of the population) again I need to invest in another pan.  The pumpkins are cute and yummy, but time consuming to make.  I was in Mississippi visiting my boyfriend and to go to his family's annual Herring Gas Company bike party.  I enlisted his help cutting caramel leaves to no avail.  He kept eating the caramel.  It's ok though, we finally finished and went to McComb to have Mexican for dinner. 

I finished the cakes the next morning and we went to the party.  Mr. Ed made these really, really, really good pheasant and bacon kabob things.  Oh man!  They rolled the pheasant around some pepper jack cheese, wrapped it in bacon, then skewered them surrounded by bell peppers, onions and tomatoes.  WAS SO GOOD!  I just kept eating them.  Josh and I must have split at least 4 between us.  I went to the grill and ate the remaining tomatoes and bacon stuck to it.  YUM!   Mr. Ed and I joked about having a whole pig on his huge grill next time.  Pork is good!

Josh and I had to go on a beer and water run during the soiree.  We went to a small convenience store where they gave us a bag that encouraged BUYING LOCAL!  Love it when people understand that concept.  Don't forget to BUY LOCAL!