XEROX IS DOING SOMETHING REALLY COOL

You can go to this site, LetsSayThanks, and pick out one of several thank you cards, all drawn by kids, and xerox will print it out and send it to a soldier, currently serving in Iraq. You won't be able to pick out any one specific soldier but they will send it to someone in the armed services.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could get everyone you know to take the time to do this. And wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these cards for Christmas time?

It's totally free and it takes about 10 seconds to do it and it doesn't matter if you are for or against the war, these men and women deserve to be supported and encouraged.

Please take the time to send a card and please pass this on through your blog. Saying thank you seems to be such a simple way of supporting our military.

Pass it on.
Thank you.
R.

CACKLEBERRIES

Ahhhh, the amazin' cackleberry.

They are an excellent source of protein, containin' all the essential amino acids needed by the human body.

A cackleberry contains most of the recognized vitamins with the exception of vitamin C. It's a good source of all the B vitamins, plus the fat soluble vitamin A. It provides useful amounts of vitamin D and some vitamin E.

A cackleberry contains most of the minerals that the human body requires for health. It's an excellent source of iodine used to make thyroid hormones and phosphorus for good bones.

And with the right kind of diet, a cackleberry can be produced to have higher levels of Omega 3.

What is a "cackleberry?" you ask.

Well it's what my dad always called an egg. I always thought that was funny and when I would call them "cackleberries," everybody would go, huh?

I know a few years back all the "experts" were sayin' limit your eggs, eat no more than 3 per week. They had everybody freaked out and thinkin' eggs were bad for us. Me and my clan just kept right on eatin' 'em. They are just too good to give up. And now they say they were wrong, there is lots of good in them thar eggs. I say you just gotta use common sense. Great Snakes! Iffin we stoped eatin' everythin' they contemplated was bad for us we'd all starve! Some people just 'think' too much.

I fix deviled eggs a lot. CD loves 'em, but I think most people do. When I fix 'em for company or to take to a dinner, I seldom have any leftovers. I have more than one way to fix deviled eggs but right now I'm stuck on eatin' 'em this way.

Ingredients:

12 cackleberries (eggs)
3-4 green onions, diced
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon real mayonnaise
5 teaspoons sugar
5 teaspoons cider vinegar
1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
paprika
vinegar

Put your eggs in a pan and add cold water to cover and pour about 1 tablespoon vinegar in. This will help when you peel the hard boiled eggs, the shell will come off easier with less egg left on the shell.

Bring your pot of eggs to a hard boil and then I lower heat till they are gently boilin' and let 'em cook about 3 minutes this way, then I turn off heat and let 'em sit in hot water for about 10 minutes. If they are extra large eggs you can leave 'em in hot water about 15 minutes.

I then sit the pan in the sink and run cold water into the hot water for several minutes and let 'em sit and cool. I usually don't use hard boiled eggs that have been in the icebox because they will sweat too much. If you do use ones out of icebox you will need to let 'em come to room temp.

Check the water in the eggs and if it feels warm, run more cold water and let 'em sit a spell longer.

Crack and peel eggs and slice in half and gently remove cooked yolk with a teaspoon.



Sit your cooked egg whites on a plate with a paper towel, upside down to dry.



In a small bowl, mash your egg yolks well with a fork.



Dice your green onions into fairly small pieces.

Add the onions, mayonnaise, sugar, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper.

Mix well.

Fill each egg white with about 1/2 tablespoon of the yolk mixture usin' a spoon or pastry bag.

Sprinkle sweet Spanish paprika (you may use regular paprika) over tops of deviled eggs.

Makes about (it makes a difference on how many you eat when preparin') 2 dozen deviled eggs.

Now remember how good cackleberries are for you and don't feel guilty when you eat of feed your family more than 3 per week.

Happy eatin'. Let me know how you like my "cackleberries".

Youn's come back dreckly, ya hear?

Rebel

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Grandma's Pie

Grannie made such beautiful pies! One day, I asked her "How do you

get such beautiful pies with the crimps

around the edge so even?"

"It's a family secret" she said, "So

promise not to tell."

"I roll out the dough then cut a bottom

layer and carefully put it in the pie plate.

Then I slowly pour in the filling, making sure it's

not too full. Next I cut a top layer and put

it over the filling.

Finally, I take out my teeth and just run

them around the edge of the pie crust

and they make the nicest even impressions

you ever did see!"

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

I hope you and yourn have a wonderful love filled day.
HillbillyWoman

DILLY BREAD

This is pertneer the best bread I've ever eaten. CD is always a hoot'n ana holler'n for it. No matter where I take it, people can never figger out what's in it. It's a good hearty bread and it is extremely easy to make, no kneadin', so that works for me.

The picture I have showin' is actually the recipe cut in half. When you make the full recipe the bread rises and bakes much higher. When I just make it for CD and I, it gets cut in half. If I make it to take somewhere I put the dough into a 9" x 13" casserole dish and I double the recipe. But if you are making it for more than two at home, put the full recipe into a 8" x 8" dish to git er done.

Here is the full recipe

You are gonna need:

2 package dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
2 cup cottage cheese, heated to lukewarm
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoon dill seed
2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs, unbeaten
4 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup milled flax seed

Dissolve yeast in warm water.

Put the cottage cheese into a small pan and heat to lukewarm over low heat, stirrin' frequently.

Mix the sugar, dill seed, salt,flax seed and soda in a small bowl.

Add the eggs, canola oil and the warmed cottage cheese to the dill seed mixture, mixing well.

Add the yeast and water mixture, dill liquid ingredients and the flour alternately.

The dough will be stiff, just mix all ingredients well and let rise until doubled about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Put the dough into your greased casserole dish and let rise until double. Figger on about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Bake at 350 degrees, 40 - 50 minutes. The top should be good n' browned.

This bread makes good breakfast toast. Just slice a piece in half and butter and toast.

Yum Yum, good eat'in
Rebel

Rockaway Beach

Rockaway Beach, MO on beautiful Lake Taneycomo.
A small town in Taney County, in the Branson Metro area. At one time it was the largest resort town in Missouri.

The town was started in the early 1900's and in the days of the Roaring Twenties it was a party town. People from Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago and other large cities would take the train to Branson and jump on the boat and ride down to Rockaway. During prohibition there was plenty of moonshine whiskey available in the area. The Ozark hillbilly's liked their likker and had perfected the makin' of it to an art.
There was a dance pavilion and everyone would party the night away.

There is an old story that the infamous gangster, Al Capone, had a secret summer hideaway in Rockaway Beach. Locals will even tell you that you can see the ruins of his old cabin on the shore of Lake Taneycomo across the way from Rockaway.

Back in the sixties there was an amusement park right on the banks of the river in downtown Rockaway. I remember in the late sixties going to the park on some kind of school trip. It was a lot of fun. Teenagers liked hanging out there and Rockaway got kind of a bad name for being wild.

Now days it is a lot quieter and more family pleasin'. There are a lot of motels and resort rentals.

My husband and I visited Rockaway late this summer and took a few pictures. It was the first time I had been there in about 30 years. You drive down into the resort town on a winding country road.

This is looking down the main drag. It's after Labor Day so it's perty quiet.

They have kayak rentals.

I love the bright colors of the kayak's.

Here's one of the resorts, one of many. One of the streets runs up behind this resort on up the hill and there are about a zillion more motels and resorts up there. Or close to a zillion anyway.

Don't you love these bright red steps. Maybe it helps if you've been hittin' the moonshine to find your way.

Looking down the street to another resort. Can you see the haze? If you've never been to Missouri in the summer, well all I can say is you'll be glad ya missed the humidity. You can cut it with a knife, literally. Some people call Missouri, "Misery" because of this humidity. We have the green house effect majorly 'round them thar hills. It's all them thar trees.

Look at that red building. It's a restroom. It's red in case you've been hittin' the moonshine, it'll help you find your way.

Here's lookin' across the lake and see those houses up on the hill? There were some major homes up there. High rent district let me tell ya.

Lookin' down the lake.

There's the "Welcome to Lake Taneycomo" sign.

It sure is perty country down at Rockaway Beach. Hope you get to see it sometime. Just look for the red, in case you been hittin' the moonshine.

Youn's come back dreckly, ya hear?

Rebel

BE SURE AND CHECK OUT THE JEWELRY CONTEST BELOW.

EARRINGS

Hey you'uns need to check out this giveaway over at Mama's losing it. You'll need to go to Jessica Strong Design and pick out a pair of earrings that you would like to have, then go back to Mama's losing it and in the comment section let her know which earrings you like. Good luck!

Steak Fingers

One of my daughters favorite foods is Steak Fingers. When my kids were little I always fixed them a special meal of their choice on their birthdays and my daughter always chose steak fingers. My granddaughter takes after her momma and she loves them too. So for supper last night this is what we had.

Earlier today I took a couple of Sirloin steaks out of the freezer to thaw. They weighed about
1 and 1/2 pounds each. I laid them on a plate and sprinkled about 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt on each steak on each side. Then I set the steaks in the oven which I heated just so it is warmed on the inside. Every couple of hours I warm the oven again. Now I mean just warm, turn the heat on for 2 minutes and then turn off keeping door of oven closed. This thaws the steaks and causes the garlic salt to cure into the meat. Do this also even if your steaks are already thawed. Do this about 5 hours before preparing the steak fingers. Don't worry if it's longer than 5 hours or if you are not able to warm up oven,the steak fingers will still be good.

Now we'll make up some home made steak sauce.

The ingredients you need are:

1 and 1/2 cups of ketchup
3-4 tablespoons brown sugar
3 and 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1-1 1/2 teaspoons Chinese hot mustard

Add all the ingredients in a small bowl and mix well.

Cover and refrigerate.

When it's time to prepare your steak fingers, slice each sirloin steak into 3 sections. Slice these sections in half through the thickness of the meat. Say your steak is 1 inch thick you are going to slice it so it is only 1/2 inch thick. Cut these pieces into strips.

You can see how the garlic salt has changed the surface of the steak.
Mmmmm it shore makes 'em good and flavorful.


Now mix 4 cups of flour with 1 tablespoon of kosher salt and a good grinding of fresh pepper.

Mix the flour and seasonin's well.

Dip each slice of steak into the flour mixture and coat well then dip into a bowl of plain water and dip back into the seasoned flour.

Shake off excess flour and place each piece carefully into about 3 inches of hot oil in deep pan or deep fryer. Don't over crowd pan so steak fingers will fry up crisp. Fry till golden brown.

Serve with home made steak sauce.

Shootfire these are good. You'll want to fry up a mess of these bad boys and I guar-an-tee they'll be hollerin' 'Gimme smore!'

Biscuit Sopapillas with Mozzarella Scrambled Eggs

My granddaughter is spendin' the weekend and when she's here I always fix foods I know she likes. She loves sopapillas and this mornin' I was going to fix them for breakfast but we kinda stayed up late the night before and so we kinda slept in. When we woke up she was starved so I fixed a shortcut sopapilla. They are really very good and a lot quicker then homemade.

You start with a can of biscuits. Just plain store bought canned biscuits. Open them up and on a piece of waxed paper mash them flat. Just use the heel of your hand and mash them bad boys down flat.


Heat canola oil in a deep pan or deep fryer, which I'm thinkin' about buyin' (any suggestions on what type is good) heat to about 300 to 325 degrees. Put 2-3 biscuits in hot oil and fry til golden brown 1-2 minutes. Flip over carefully and fry till golden brown 2-3 minutes on opposite side.

Carefully remove from hot oil and place on paper towel lined plate to drain.

Don't these look good and it took me about 15 minutes to fry a can of 10 biscuits. Oh, there's only eight on this plate. I wonder what happened to the other two?

Now let's fix some honey butter to go on these little pieces of fried dough.

To 4 tablespoons softened butter I added 1 tablespoon honey and blended well. Just taste to see if it tastes sweet enough for you, if not add a little more honey.


Okay so while I was frying the sopapillas I added 4 eggs to small bowl and added 4 shakes of the salt shaker and one good twist of the pepper mill and 2 tablespoons of cream. I also added some chopped ham to give flavor. Just use whatever amount you want in your eggs.

Pour the beaten eggs into a heated iron skillet to which 2 teaspoons canola oil was added. If you heat the skillet well before you cook eggs in it they won't stick.

Cook over medium heat till almost cooked through and then chunk some mozzarella cheese on top of the eggs. I used about 2 ounces of cheese. (it's just a personal preference on the amount of cheese you want to use)

Don't stir just put a lid on top of skillet and turn heat down low.

I know the cheese looks like mini marshmallows but it really is mozzarela cheese.

Check after a couple of minutes to see if cheese is melting, you may need to cover for a couple of minutes more. If the eggs seem firm you may want to turn heat off put lid back on to finish melting cheese.


When the cheese is melted serve with the sopapillas and honey butter.



Yum-Yum, sopapillas that are quick and easy. Fix these for your kids and see how quickly they disappear.

BLACKBERRY CORNBREAD

The past two summers we have been blessed with more rain then we have had in several summers. Our wild blackberries have done well. I have been able to pick enough to make jam and put some in the freezer. I usually don't start pullin' them out and bakin' with the berries until January when I am longin' for spring. The good flavor of blackberries seems to help. But I've been cravin' blackberries for a few days and the jam doesn't seem to be fillin' the void.

I just love blackberries and if you have never had the experience of pickin' them well let me clue you in.

First it has to be the hottest day of the year, everyday you pick them, that day is the hottest day of the year, hotter than hades let me tell ya.

There has to be a minimum of at least 200 million June Bugs. I know it's July when blackberries are ready but they are June Bugs. These 200 million bugs are on each blackberry bush and they dive bomb you. If you don't know what a June Bug is here's a picture and this is about the size of a small one.

They are hard shelled and if one hits you, you'll know it. If you get hit by one on a motorcycle they can about take you off the bike. They are mean bugs and their sole purpose is to eat your blackberries and keep you away. Not really, they aren't mean. As kids we would catch them and tie a string around one of their legs and let them try to fly away but they couldn't and you'd spend part of the day playing with them before turning them loose. But they do eat your blackberries and they do dive bomb you.

And then there's the chiggers. Now chiggers are about the only thing that makes me think, do I really want to go out in all those chiggers. It doesn't matter how much bug spray you put on you still get some chiggers.

And then there are snakes to contend with and stickers. Ohhhh do those berry bushes have some mean thorns. You see, a blackberry bush is a briar and you always come back with battle scars. Did I mention it's always hot? I mean HOT.

You gotta love those blackberries.

Well I'll get on with the recipe. This cornbread is a little sweeter than regular cornbread and the berries add sweetness but if you want it sweeter you may need to add more sugar, but then you'd have cake. So you decide but the first time try it like the recipes says and I think you'll like it.

The ingredients you'll need are:

1 1/4 cups flour

3/4 cup cornmeal

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 cup milled flax seed - Be sure and use the flax seed. You can find it in the baking isle in the

grocery store. Here's the brand I use, but any brand is okay as long as the flax seed is milled.

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons canola oil

Brown your butter and then add the oil to the butter.

2 cups blackberries, fresh or frozen

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease an 8x8 inch baking pan.

Sift dry ingredients together.

In a separate bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk and the browned butter and oil.
Pour liquid ingredients into flour mixture, and stir well.
Add berries and mix gently.
Pour batter into baking pan.

Bake until top is lightly browned, about 30 minutes.

Cut into squares and serve warm with whip cream on top. This is good eatin'.

Let me know how you like my blackberry cornbread.
Rebel

COLLARD GREENS with CORNMEAL DUMPLINS'

Since I left you with a story yesterday that I'm sure you'll always think of when you hear the word's Hoppin John (I know I will) I'll just get right to the Greens and Dumplin's.

You'll need:

1 - 1/2 pounds collard greens

8 cups water

1 cup diced ham cubes

4 tablespoons canola oil

2 teaspoons salt

1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Wash the collard greens and shake off excess water.

Trim the stalk and vein from each individual collard leaf.

Rough chop the leaves.

Lightly brown ham pieces in 1 tablespoon oil in medium pan over medium heat.

Add collard greens to pan with ham, add 2 tablespoons oil and saute over medium heat until green's are wilted down.

To pot with green's add the water, salt, pepper and the red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil then turn heat to low, cover and simmer about 45 minutes to 1 hour. When greens are good and tender add the dumplins'.

Cornmeal Dumplins'

1/2 cup flour

1/3 cup cornmeal

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

dash of black pepper

1 egg, beaten

2 tablespoons buttermilk

2 tablespoons canola oil

In medium bowl, stir together dry ingredients.

In small bowl, combine liquid ingredients.

Add egg mixture to flour mixture. Stirrin' with fork just till combined.

Bring greens to rapid boil. This is important that the liquid is rapidly boiling and very hot. This is what cooks the dumplins' and makes them light and fluffy. If liquid is not hot and boiling the dumplins' will be doughy on the inside and soggy. This also works with regular flour dumplin's too.

When liquid is boiling drop small spoonfuls of dumplin' batter into greens. If you will dip spoon into a cup of water and shake off the excess water and then dip into dumplin'batter, the dumplin' will slide right off spoon into boiling liquid. This also works well for hush puppy batter.

Bring mixture back up to full boil, cover and turn heat to low. Cook, keeping lid on (no peeking) for about 10 minutes.

You can serve greens right along side a bowl of beans or like me, I just put them side by side in a bowl and let the bean and green juice mix together.

Whoo Wee! Good eatin' and no toads damaged.