Red Neck Salad

This is supposedly a recipe by everyone's favorite cook, Paula Dean. It's called Georgia Cracker Salad, though I haven't verified that. It's so yummy I don't care where it came from. Discovered it at my friend Christie's house.

Georgia Cracker Salad
1 sleeve saltine crackers crumbled (I used store brand Ritz)
1 large tomato, chopped
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1-1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1 hard cooked egg, chopped

Stir gently until well mixed, chill and serve.

McDizzle? F'shizzle!

Hastings, Nebraska. Not just the birthplace of Kool-Aid, now the home of the McDizzle. Double Cheeseburger with a chicken patty slipped in the middle. I had a bite, quite tasty. Dare you to try to order one. I've also heard a chicken patty tucked into a Big Mac is pretty special, but I haven't tried that. I would not recommend ordering anything so special during a rush. You're more likely to get cooperation if you're there later at night, when the younger, more adventurous McDonald's employees are on duty. Let me know if you try a McDizzle. Maybe this is a trend that will sweep the nation, something like Kool-Aid.

Do they count as fruit?

Have you tried the new cherry M&M's? Quite tasty and I'm not a big cherry candy fan.

Someone in my office has suggested that because they are cherry they are a fruit and therefore count as vitamins. Anyone else want to weigh in on that subject?

Donut Debauchery

I went down the path, and took others with me. It was Jeff's turn to bring food to the office so I picked up a box of assorted yumminess when he did. My friend is not eating fried things or donuts for Lent. I convinced her that pastries are baked, and not technically donuts, therefore legal. How sick and wrong is that? Next thing you know she's gobbling a cream cheese danish and swilling it down with her Slimfast breakfast. I feel so guilty. Maybe the sticky I got on my mouse from the apple fritter will serve as a reminder to be better next time. I doubt it.

Spot on

It's always the last bite, isn't it? Today it was a bit of Sambosa off someone else's plate. It was the very last thing I was going to eat in this sumptuous meal of Middle Eastern food. I had avoided dropping soup on my favorite oatmeal colored turtleneck. I had kept salad dressing clear of my front. But that last bite was the coup de gras. For those of you not familiar, there's this distinctive yellow color in some Middle Eastern foods. It's not quite the yellow of a pencil, but it's close. Not a pretty color dripped down my front. Sad

Food traditions

Back to work today after leaving the office December 22. Wasn't as hard getting up this morning as I thought it might be considering I've been sleeping in a bunch. It was 5 degrees when we drove to work. Felt kind of fresh and lively.

Food news: don't think I'll ever serve traditional green bean casserole again. At Thanksgiving my niece Lauren, the Gap girl in the St. Paul paper, discovered a recipe for a remix. We enjoyed it for Thanksgiving, made it again for Christmas, and I don't think I will ever look back. Bacon, fresh mushrooms, half and half, what more could green beans ask for? To please the masses we did throw in some french fried onions from the can. Rave reviews.

I realize this was not a very exciting post. I may have gotten here okay this morning but that doesn't mean my brain is fully engaged. Happy new year!

OCD Snacking

My daughter has this problem. Maybe one of you can help. She can't randomly eat colored snacks. M&M's, (why is there an apostrophe in the name?), Skittles, Reeses Pieces, anything that comes in random colors causes her problems. As I understand it she has to eat them in pairs. Whatever is left gets handed off to someone else, she can't finish them. I understand her problem but have never felt compelled to give away snacks of any kind for lack of balance. If I have snacks I eat the largest color group first. Sort of a reverse survival-of-the-fittest mentality. Mostly I eat them right out of the bag so I don't see the colors at all. This habit was developed when they introduced blue M&M's. Food should not be blue.

Thank you for all your kind wishes during my recent bout of blogstipation. Hold your hats, I think the tide has turned. Now I have a million ideas and not time to get them posted. Do blog ideas have a shelf life? Can I blog about Halloween after Thanksgiving?

Paula Dean's Thanksgiving

Ladies Home Journal arrived with a lovely cover photo of Paula Dean and one of those beautiful, golden brown turkeys on a platter. Inside is a several page spread of Paula's menu plan. This treat included a recipe for something interesting to do with canned jelled cranberries. I'm personally anxious to try that one! It was a nice spread: corned bread stuffing, a cola basted ham to go with the turkey, sweet potato casserole with 900+ calories per serving. Yep, good stuff all the way around. There were however, some glaring omissions. Nothing pumpkin. I can live with that. But there were no mashed potatoes! Can you imagine? No mashed potatoes. You know what that leads to: no gravy!!!

To cut Paula some slack here, there were potatoes, but they were new red potatoes and cooked with the green beans. Now Paula, that's a lovely idea, but seriously!

What I haven't told you is that Paula deep fried the turkey. While some might say that explains why she didn't make gravy, no pan drippings. Why would she make mashed potatoes if there's no gravy. DUH! You have a whole fryer full of oil! Make all that into gravy! Hello!!! Have these people never planned a meal before? That's food utopia, a deep fryer of gravy and the stuffing and mashed potatoes to absorb it all!!!

Can we work cheese into that equation? Just asking, sheesh.

Food on a Stick

I wasn't even hungry when we got to the State Fair. We had eaten a great lunch with friends so fair food wasn't even interesting. Jeff tempted me with funnel cakes, pointed out lemonade at every turn, but I just didn't care.

I think frozen things on a stick make sense. Corn dogs are fine. Isn't steak on a stick called a kabob? I don't understand pizza on a stick. Can't you just pick it up and eat it? But I did my duty as a fair attendee. I ate a smoked turkey drumstick. It's fair food, it has a stick. It just came pre-sticked.