Wednesday, June 29, 2011

homemade strawberry cheesecake ice cream





1 can sweatened condensed milk

3 oz cream cheese or marscapone (room temp)

1 cup chopped strawberries

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 tsp honey

1 tsp real vanilla (I make my own- 3/4 cup vodka, 2 vanilla beans split, put into seal containter, shake everyday & ready to use on the 3rd day)


Using beaters mix until smooth all except berries- pour into ice cream maker add berries slowly


freeze


makes 1 Quart

Thursday, June 9, 2011

BUCKEYES (MY VERSION)

There are a lot of versions of this recipe, but I think this works out the best. I’ve been making these for over 30 years and this is almost fail-proof.

Ingredients:
12 oz peanut butter
1 ¾ cup of real butter
1 pound powdered sugar
1 large bag chocolate chips

Hints: Try to buy thick peanut butter, not creamy, old fashioned works best. Creamy makes the batter too soft.

Mix peanut butter, butter and powdered sugar until fully mixed, you have to use your hands, so take your rings off.

Form mixture into small size balls and refrigerate, or freeze. The harder they are, the easier they are to work with.

Melt chocolate chips in double boiler, this way the melted chocolate stays soft long enough to coat the peanut butter balls.

Dip frozen peanut butter balls in melted chocolate with a toothpick until well coated and place on cookie sheet. Either spray cookie sheet with non-stick spray or use wax paper.

Don’t let melted chocolate chips cook too much, or it will be hard to work with.

You can either stick a round toothpick into each peanut butter ball, or use the same one, whichever is easiest for you to work with. Sometimes the toothpick is hard to get in, once they are frozen. I usually stick the toothpick in before I freeze them.

Keep refrigerated, these are very addicting.


Jackie Stephens

Friday, June 3, 2011

Snack Cake

You know those little snack cakes you can buy in the stores now for about a dollar. I thought I could perfect something like this a lot more economical. Here goes.

Use any kind of cake mix you want!
I used the plastic bowls because I bought some of the cakes.
I also tried it using my corningware cereal bowl(not the large ones).
I have used all different kinds of cake mixes.
The only thing I found different is when I made a pineapple-upsidedown cake, I had to use two bowls otherwise they can be mixed and baked in 1 bowl.

1/2 cup of cake mix
1 tablespoon of water
2 teaspoons of oil
2 teaspoons of egg-beaters
Mix together in the bowl
Cook for 46 seconds in microwave (power of microwave may effect the cooking time)

For the pinapple upsidedown cake you have to cook the butter and brownsugar in the final cooking bowl for 30 seconds, then you add the pineapple and the cake mix as per the instructions above, and cook for about 90 seconds.

I have added nuts, raisins, fruit and many more things to different varieties of cakes
I use the sugar-free or lower sugar items when I can

Lower sugar cheesecake

This is delicious! Also, lower in calories.

A full package of sugar free cookies crushed
1/4 stick of butter
1/4 cup of splenda

1 8oz. softened lowfat creamcheese
1 8oz. softened mascarpone
1/2 cup of splenda
1/4 cup of egg beaters
1 tablespoon flour
1/3 cup of non-fat milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla
optional lemon peel shredded

Crush the cookies, add the splenda, and the butter and put in 350 oven for about 15 mins.

While that's baking mix the 2 cheeses, the sugar, flour until smooth
Add the egg beaters, vanilla, milk, and lemon peel

When the crust is finished, take it out of the oven and pour in the filling
Put aluminum foil around the pan
Put in a larger pan, and pour water half way up the cake
Bake in a 350 oven for about an hour
I use a 6in. springform pan I got at the kitchen store. I makes a nice high cheesecake.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Helpful resouces

DID YOU KNOW?
Peel a banana from the bottom and you won't have to
pick the little 'stringy things' off of it. That's how the primates do it.

Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store.
If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.


Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil.
It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!

Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating.
Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.


Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef..
It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.

To really make scrambled eggs or omelettes rich add a couple of
spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.


For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt chocolate mint patties
in double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a wonderful minty frosting.


Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste
of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.

Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simply chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. Yummm!

Reheat Pizza
Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm.
This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on the cooking channel and it really works.


Easy Deviled Eggs
Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.


Expanding Frosting
When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.


Reheating refrigerated bread
To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water.
The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.


Newspaper weeds away
Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers


Broken Glass
Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can't see easily.

No More Mosquitoes
Place a dryer sheet in your pocket.It will keep the mosquitoes away.

Squirrel Away!
To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper.
The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it.


Flexible vacuum
To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.


Reducing Static Cling
Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing pantyhose. Place pin in seam of slacks and... ta da!... static is gone.


Measuring Cups
Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup.
Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.
Foggy Windshield?
Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box ofyour car.
When the window s fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!

Reopening envelope
If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.

Conditioner
Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth.
It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair.


Goodbye Fruit Flies
To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2' with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to thecup and gone forever!


Get Rid of Ants
Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it 'home,' can't digest it. so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works and you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!


INFO ABOUT CLOTHES DRYERS
The heating unit went out on my dryer! The gentleman that fixes things around thehouse for us told us that he wanted to show us something and he went over to the dryer and pulled out the lint filter. It was clean. (I always clean the lint from the filter after every load clothes.) He told us that he wanted to show us something; hetook the filter over to the sink and ran hot water over it. The lint filter is made of amesh material... I'm sure you know what your dryer's lint filter looks like. Well ...the hot water just sat on top of the mesh! It didn't go through it at all! He told us that dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh that's what burns out the heating unit.You can't SEE the film, but it's there. It's what is in the dryer sheets to make yourclothes soft and static free... that nice fragrance too. You know how they can feelwaxy when you take them out of the box ..well this stuff builds up on your clothesand on your lint screen. This is also what causes dryer units to potentially burn yourhouse down with it! He said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very longtime (and to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out and wash it withhot soapy water and an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least every six months.He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long!
How about that!!
Learn something new everyday! I certainly didn't know dryer sheets would do that.
So, I thought I'd share!
I learned also that the vent pipe for the dryer also causes failures, especially the expandable tubing often used. It clogs up with lint and needs to be cleaned or replaced. Our dryer has a heat fuse in it (45.00 service call and 10.00 fuse) and I had to replace it twice because just cleaning the corrugated expandable tubing didn’t solve the problem but replacing it did. So call your favorite chimney sweep, they are used to doing this job of cleaning the vent.

Helpful resources

This is interesting.
When you get the web site up, click on the state.
Then the next window is a listing of all the cities in that state.
Click on your city and there are the speed traps listed. SPEED TRAPS - NO JOKE...CHECK IT OUT! I had no idea this was available to everyone.
http://www.speedtrap.org/speedtraps/stetlist.asp

Helpful resources

Few things annoy me as much as automated telephone systems. I know theysave companies money. But I think it is bad customer service to makecallers jump through hoops to speak to someone. This site lists telephone numbers for a wide variety of companies. The companies are divided into categories for ease of use. You'll find the customer service number for the company. Then, you'llfind out how to get through to an operator. No more voice prompts! COOL SITE, GO HERE: http://www.gethuman.com/us

Helpful resources

I checked with Verizon today and they do not sell and will not release our numbers unless we sign something to do that but she did say if you sign up for contests etc it could be given out and said to call the do not call list. She verified this number for me that it is the correct one as some people are receiving bad numbers so then you could be giving out your number that way/ This is SAFE AND CORRECT
Call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot call from a different phone number. HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS. It take about 20 seconds.

Helpful resources

This may be useful to know when grocery shopping, if it's a concern to you. The whole world is afraid of China-made "black hearted goods".Can you differentiate which one is made in Taiwan or China ?
If the first 3 digits of the barcode are 690, 691 or 692, the product is MADE IN CHINA.
471 is Made in Taiwan .
This is our right to know, but the government and related departments never educate the public, therefore we have to RESCUE ourselves.Nowadays, Chinese businessmen know that consumers do not prefer products "MADE IN CHINA ", so they don't show from which country it is made.
However, you may now refer to the barcode, remember if the first 3 digits are:690-692 … then it is MADE IN CHINA .00 - 09 … USA & CANADA30 - 37 … FRANCE40 - 44 … GERMANY47 ... Taiwan49 … JAPAN50 … UKBUY USA /CANADA by watching for "0" at the beginning of the number. We need every boost we can get!

Helpful resources

Who knew! And you can buy 1,000 at the Dollar Tree for $1.00, even the large ones.1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the microwave. Coffee filters make excellent covers.2 Clean windows, mirrors, and chrome... Coffee filters are lint-free so they'll leave windows sparkling3. Protect China by separating your good dishes with a coffee filter between each dish.4. Filter broken cork from wine. If you break the cork when opening a wine bottle, filter the wine through a coffee filter. 5. Protect a cast-iron skillet. Place a coffee filter in the skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust.6. Apply shoe polish. Ball up a lint-free coffee filter.7. Recycle frying oil. After frying, strain oil through a sieve lined with a coffee filter.8. Weigh chopped foods. Place chopped ingredients in a coffee filter on a kitchen scale. 9. Hold tacos. Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for messy foods.10. Stop the soil from leaking out of a plant pot. Line a plant pot with a coffee filter to prevent the soil from going through the drainage holes.11. Prevent a Popsicle from dripping. Poke one or two holes as needed in a coffee filter.12. Do you think we used expensive strips to wax eyebrows? Use strips of coffee filters.13. Put a few in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries, chicken fingers, etc on them. It soaks out all the grease.14. Keep in the bathroom. They make great "razor nick fixers."15. As a sewing backing. Use a filter as an easy-to-tear backing for embroidering or appliqueing soft fabrics. 16. Put baking soda into a coffee filter and insert into shoes or a closet to absorb or prevent odors. 17. Use them to strain soup stock and to tie fresh herbs in to put in soups and stews. 18 Use a coffee filter to prevent spilling when you add fluids to your car. 19. Use them as a spoon rest while cooking and clean up small counter spills. 20. Can use to hold dry ingredients when baking or when cutting a piece of fruit or veggies. Saves on having extra bowls to wash. 21 Use them to wrap Christmas ornaments for storage. 22. Use them to remove fingernail polish when out of cotton balls. 23. Use them to sprout seeds. Simply dampen the coffee filter, place seeds inside, fold it and place it into a zip-lock plastic bag until they sprout. 24. Use coffee filters as blotting paper for pressed flowers. Place the flowers between two coffee filters and put the coffee filters in phone book.. 25. Use as a disposable "snack bowl" for popcorn, chips, etc. OH YEAH THEY ARE GREAT TO USE IN YOUR COFFEE MAKERS

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Grandma Claudine's Salami (or GG as the kids called her)

You will need-
5 lbs lean ground beef (80-20 no fatter)
5 tsp cure salt ( Morton makes a good one, comes in a blue bag)
2 1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp mustard seeds
2 tsp liquid smoke
2,3,4 tsp red pepper flakes depending on how hot you like it
Mix very well (i use my hands)
Put into a bowl, refrigerate, for 3 full days mixing well each day

The 4th day roll into 8 tight logs about the width of a silver dollar and about 12 inch long or so
Place these into a broiler pan and bake 150 degrees for 8 hours turning once half way through

Using paper toweling roll to remove the extra grease that has pooled
Wrap in parchment, foil etc. enjoy! I usually freeze some
Great for sandwiches, crackers or just eating
If you dont have a brolier pan, crumple up some foil and then straighten out some leaving ridges for the grease to pool into.
I will post a picture when i make it again (Sam should be asking soon-lol)