Cooking, Making Memories, Etc.

My daughter reminded me that it has been 5 weeks since I have posted.  I know you are all having withdrawals.  NOT.  What have I been doing?  Well, there have been two baby showers to give, one family birthday to celebrate, Dallas market to attend, 4 weeks of no voice, super bowl party for a few friends, re-purposing a room in our house, etc. This has to have been the busiest January and February in my life.  I thought winter was suppose to be slow.  And in between all of that we had three large snows.  Texas never has three snows in three years, let alone in one year. 

Living in the country when it snows is absolutely the best.  It is the ultimate in peaceful and I am at a time in my life that peaceful is just heavenly.  Since I office from my home, I really can't claim to have a snow day.  My computer still works, but for a couple of those days, I did take a break to sit by the fire and enjoy a bowl of chili.  Did you ever wonder what people up north that get snow after snow do for food?  In Texas, if it snows, we eat chili.  After three snows, I am tired of chili.  What if I lived where it snowed all the time?  Would we get to where we could eat other things with snow on the ground?  I even noticed on Facebook how everyone here was making chili.  It got rather comical.  There won't be anymore chili in this house until next winter I can assure you. 
Tonight I made a new salad dressing recipe a friend gave me.  She said she really didn't enjoy eating lettuce until a friend gave her this recipe.  Now she takes romaine, cuts it up, applies this dressing and eats it daily and it sure can't be as fattening as that favorite white creamy stuff we all love to eat. The other wonderful thing about this dressing is that you do NOT refrigerate it.  Leave it in the cabinet, pantry, on the counter or wherever you decide to store it.  Here is the recipe:

3/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 Tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons garlic salt
Shake and store in cabinet.  Do not refrigerate.

Very simple, light and makes eating lettuce a whole lot easier.  Of course, it would be good on a whole salad with all the fixin's too.  I just didn't happen to have any of that stuff tonight.  I served it with frozen P.F. Chang dinner that took 11 minutes to heat.  If you have never tried the P.F. Chang meals in the bag, they are great.  I cooked a little rice to go with it.  What an easy meal!

Aren't we blessed that we live in a society where there are easy meals?  I love telling the story about making lasagne that took two days.  One day to make the sauce so it could blend the flavors and then the next day to put the lasagne together.  When Sam's Club opened and I bought a Stouffer's Lasagne and served it to the family one night, Gary made the comment that he liked that one better than the other ones I normally made.  He had no clue it was a frozen store bought one.  Well, needless to say, that recipe has never been used by me since then.  I love to cook and I don't feel guilty taking short cuts on a good meal, but I refuse to take a store bought anything to a party.  The whole fun of a party is sharing a good recipe!  I can remember my mother taking so much pride in her cooking when we would have "dinner on the grounds" at church.  All the women would try to out do the other ones.  The one that sticks out in my mind the most was when we were taking two coconut meringue pies to one of these gatherings along with the rest of a meal.  That is when everyone had a car with a back seat and floor board.  Remember those days?  None of the SUV's for transporting everything - and no seat belts or car seats!  Mother always drove to church because Dad was the pastor and would go earlier than we would.  That meant my older sister got the front seat and my younger sister and I always had to sit in the back seat.  We pulled up to the little country church and I hopped down out of the seat to get out of the car.  Dear me.  Not a good feeling.  The pies were under my feet.  My shoe went down into one of the pies.  Thank heavens it had Saran Wrap on it!  I think I might have squenched my mother's Spirit that day at church.  It was truly a day for making memories! I hardly ever make a coconut pie without thinking about that day so many, many years ago. 

Have a Blessed Day!