It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year....Fall!

Good Morning everyone. Fall is finally here and the miserably hot tempertures have broken. At least it is no longer over 100 degrees each day. Here in our part of Texas is still gets up into the 90s but it is amazing how somehow that doesn't feel too bad. Unlike many parts of the United States, we still have green grass and flowers blooming. The leaves on the trees have not yet started to turn colors. I have a Crepe Myrtle tree right outside my front window and it still has big beautiful pink blossoms. I love to read some other blogs written by people in other parts of our country that talk about how the leaves are turning yellow, gold, orange and red, all the beautiful autumn colors. The nights are crisp and clear. Down right chilly and needing to pull out their big soft cuddly sweaters. But, for now I will live vicariously through others.

As we get deeper into the Fall season the produce stands and Farmers Markets promise a return of seasonal fruits and vegetables. Just seeing a big pile of the plump orange pumpkins makes me happy. Another seasonal  fruit that ensures that Fall has arrived is apples. Bright shiny red and green.

Look at the beautiful apple. It's no wonder Eve was not able to resist the temptation to take a bite from the sweet apple. An apple by itself is delicious and can be a tasty dessert. But if you slice a crispy Gala apple and dip each bite into warmed caramel ice cream topping. Oooooo...it's a little slice of Heaven. If you are looking for a quick and easy dessert that is fancy enough for company hop over to the recipes page and try the Cranberry Apple Tart. Top it with some fresh whipped cream and you have a Fall dessert that everyone will think you spent all day in the kitchen.

Enjoy your Fall everyone.
Until next time......
   

Apple Peeler Corer Slicer

When I find a new kitchen gadget that saves time, energy, heartache, and money I like to shout it from the nearest mountain top to everyone I know.  Many of you are apple pie makin' mamas and this apple peeler is going to make your life so much easier. It has a suction cup on the bottom to hold it in place on your counter top. This enables you to have both of your hands free to direct all of your attention the the apples. All you have to do is place it on the end, hold the apple in place and turn the hand crank a few times to get it going and with just a few more turns of the crank and your apple it peeled, cored and sliced. It is amazing and so much fun. If you are looking for ways get the kids to help in the kitchen, this will surely draw them in. They will have a blast turning the hand crank.  We found the great little invention at Academy Sports and Outdoors. The cost was $19.99. It is great for turning all of those crisp fall apples into delicious pies, cobblers, cakes and apple crisps.

Try this recipe for a quick and easy Apple Crisp

4 1/2 cups peeled, cored and sliced apples

2 teaspoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons water

1/2 cup honey

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup rolled oats

4 tablespoons butter

        Evenly spread the apple slices in the prepared dish. In a small bowl, mix the lemon juice and water, and pour over the apples. Drizzle apples with honey, and sprinkle with cinnamon.

      In a bowl, mix the brown sugar, flour, oats, and butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over the apples. Pour apples in a 13 x 9 greased pan.

Bake 25 minutes in the preheated 350 degree oven, until apples are tender and topping is lightly browned.

Add a dollop of fresh whipped cream and you will be in Heaven.

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time....

Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad with Love on Top

Whew! The summer heat has been lingering on for weeks here in Texas. We almost broke a record of consecutive days to reach over 100 degrees that was set back in 1980. However, on Saturday we had a tiny bit of a break. Our temperature only topped out at about 95. Now, I know 95 degrees is still very warm but, when the old summer sun just will not give you a break and the sweltering heat rises to over 100 degrees for 40 days....well, 95 seems almost cool. Since it has been so hot the last thing I wanted to do was turn on the oven to prepare a nice hearty hot meal. So, we have been eating a lot of salads lately. I love salads and I like a lot of variety but my family is not quiet as adventerous as I am so I have to get creative and make it little more interesting.

We love croutons in our salads. If you have bought croutons in the the bags you know they are very hard. Almost too hard to bite into.  So, I like to make my own. They are still crunchy but with a nice soft crunch on the outside and a middle that is a bit on the chewy side. Like a warm piece of buttery toast. There are alot of advantages to making croutons at home .
1. You can use left over bread that is about to turn stale. This saves money.
2. You can control the flavor of the crouton by adding any spices you like.
3. You control the amount of spices. This is especially good if you are watching your salt intake.
And my favorite part......
4. You can make them any shape you desire.
Most croutons are simply tiny little cubes of toasted bread. If you have some tiny little cookie cutters you can make it fun by cutting the crouton into different shapes.

I try to find anyway I can to tell my family that I love them. Actually saying "I love you"  does not come easily for everyone. I grew up in a family that did not run around all the time telling each other we loved them. I am the youngest of  four children. Our mother was a terrific Mama that raised four children without a father in the house. I do not know how she did it. Let me tell you, whether you are the Mom or the Dad , being a single parent is one of the toughest jobs in the world. We came from a family that did not hear the words "I love you." But boy, did we feel it. We all knew we were loved  by her actions.  She would swat us on the behind when we were being bad then turn right around and love on us to let us know that all is forgiven. I can hear her say, "Now don't do that again and let's move on." My Mama also had many "looks."  She could be in the front yard watering flowers all the while carrying on a conversation with one of the neighbors and spot one of us kids out of the corner of her eye doing something good and she would flash us a look that said, "You are one terrific kid and I am so proud of you". Then in a blink of an eye, that same Mama could turn her head and stop a misbehaving child dead in their tracks with just one look.  All the while she hadn't missed a word the neighbor was saying. Now that my friends is a gift from God. Yes, I know from personal experience that a person can feel the love without actually saying those 3 little words: I LOVE YOU. But, I am a very blessed woman. I am married to my best friend. Over the years he has taught me to say "I love you." But, I am always striving to develop that same God given talent my Mama had. I have always wanted to be able to express my love with just a special look that comes from deep in a person's soul.

So, my tiny little heart shaped croutons are a kind of a subliminal message to my family. A tiny little hug sitting on top of their cool crisp salad or floating in a steamy hot bowl of tomato soup from a loving wife or Mama who loves her fully grown baby girls. 

This my friends, is dinner tonight. A Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad with a little love on the top.

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time......

Beer Can Chicken

My sweet adorable husband loves to cook out. He truly is a Grill Master. He has a great big stainless steel gas grill with all the bells and whistles and he has a smoker too. His smoker even has a name. It is Oklahoma Joe. Actually, I am just kidding about him naming  his smoker. Oklahoma Joe is the brand of smoker.  He has cooked everything imaginable on his grill. It is nothing for him to whip up a batch of the most fabulous hamburgers on the planet. Just hint that you might want hamburgers for dinner or a Saturday afternoon lunch and he is on it like a duck on a June bug. On old Oklahoma Joe he smokes chicken. brisket, sausage, and ribs. Oh my! While the chicken, brisket and sausage are delicious the ribs are something just this side of Heaven.  Recently, a new cooking weapon was added to his grilling arsenol.

Meet the newest addition. It is a piece of equipment that is William and Sonoma's answer to Beer Can Chicken. Oh my goodness people! I have heard of Beer Can Chicken for many years but for some reason my husband had never tried to prepare it for us and I had never thought to ask him too. It could be because we don't keep beer at our house very often. I simply just never thought about it. Then a couple of weeks ago my hubby found this cute little cooking toy online and had to have it. Let me tell you it makes the most delicious chicken. The beer makes the chicken so most and tender. It is all kinds of yummy.

All you have to do is place your beer can chicken cooking tool in a disposable aluminum pan. Pour your beer in the cup, place your cleaned chicken on the tool ,place it in a 350 degree grill with the lid closed. In about 1 hour you will have a delicious grilled chicken.

I understand there are many people that really use a can of beer to cook the chicken on. If you decide to try this just be very cautious. I have heard there could be lead in the paints on the outside of the cans. I recommend if you want to try Beer Can Chicken get one of these little cooking tools. It was only about $15.00 from William and Sonoma and  since we bought ours I have seen it even cheaper at Academy Sports. Be careful folks. You are precious. I wouldn't want you to fall ill.

Until next time......

National Ice Cream Day. July 17, 2011

Today is National Ice Cream Day. Since the temperatures are soaring into triple digits here in Texas ice cream is the perfect treat to cool us off. One of the things our family likes to do is celebrate crazy holidays.  Crazy holidays are just plain 'ole fun.  These holidays give us a reason to smile, a reason to make our families happy,  A few examples are Yellow Pig Day, Pickle Day, or Tuna Day, Pie Day, Ferris Wheel Day, National Board Game Day, Cow Appreciation Day, or Ice Cream Day.  There is a special day for almost everything you can imagine. The true National Days have been declared by Congress. However, you can declare a special day just for your family. It can be a day that you all agree that you will celebrate each year.  Have a family meeting to discuss the special day for your family. You can discuss it over an ice cream cone to celebrate National Ice Cream Day.

Until next time.....

Favorite Kitchen Helper

I love kitchen gadgets. Many of them have a very specific use and some of them are a bit more versatile. The one gadget that I love the most is my Handheld Vacuum System  Food Saver. It has saved us time and money. One of the things I like to do with my Food Saver is buy meats when they are on sale. I remove the meat from the store packaging and place it is the Food Saver bags. The Food Saver pulls all the excess air from the bags. After, I write the contents and the date on the bags I place them in our freezer and it is available when I need them.

One of the things I love to do with my Food Saver is to buy Ground Beef on sale. Brown the ground beef then place it is bags that are in portion sizes. When packaging the browned ground beef I keep in mind what meal I will be preparing. This way I can portion it and I only thaw what is needed and ultimately there is no waste. It also doesn't take as long to thaw the browned ground beef that is takes to thaw a frozen hunk of raw ground beef.

The Vacuum System is not only for meats. I place fresh vegetables in the zippered bags and seal them. It will keep carrots, radishes, green beans, grape tomatoes, lettuce and many more vegetable fresher much longer than if they are loose in the vegetable bin of your refrigerator

If you are planning to buy a Vacuum System for yourself,  I recommend the Food Saver Handheld Vacuum System. I know they have a larger one that will handle much larger cuts of meat such as if your guy is a hunter and brings deer or fish home to process. The larger one can sit on your counter top for your convenience. The handheld version fits our needs much better. By all means, check out all the possiblities and make the choice that serves your individual needs.

As always , I love hearing from you. So, leave me a comment.
Until next time.....

American as Apple Pie

Good morning my friends. I am so happy you stopped by.
Isn't this a beautiful pie? I wish I could take credit for this gorgeous creation but I must admit my adorable husband made this pie. A few months ago he decided he wanted to learn to make pie crust. So, as he always does, he turned to the internet for some advise and pie crust recipes. One of the things we discovered is there are people out there that actually seem to think making pie crust is an easy thing. Well, they must have a God given gift to making pie crust. It must come very natural for them. There is an art to making a really good pie crust.  It has some very unique qualities. It must be tender, it must be flaky and it must have a heavenly flavor that melts in your mouth as soon as it touches your tongue. It took him more than a few tries but, Greg was persistant and before we knew it he was turning out delicious buttery pie crust that would make any little 'ole gray haired grandma proud. Now, I can proudly announce he has mastered the art of pie crust. Anytime I need a pie crust he is my "Go To" guy.

Now, let me say there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying and already made pie crust at the grocery store. Pillsbury makes an excellent pie crust. You can find it in the dairy case at your grocery store. You get 2 pie crusts rolled up in a little red box. Simply set it out for a few minutes so the temperature can rise a little. This makes it easy to work with. Just place it is a pie plate and you are ready to fill it with your family's favorite filling. As soon as they taste the warm goodness you will be well on your way to Mom of the Year.

There is something special about the sweet warm smell of a pie baking in the oven. It is the ultimate comfort food. A pie baking in the oven fills your home with a happy fragrance that will bring the kids out their bedrooms and make your husband turn off the TV just to come and see what yumminess is calling for them in the kitchen. The aroma will make them come running just to get a whiff of  the delicious sweetness. There is nothing more American as a fresh made pie and glass of ice cold milk.

Did you know that pies have a very special place in the heart of Americans? It is so special that we have set aside a day just for celebrating pies. Each year, National Pie Day is the 3rd Saturday in January. Our church celebrates this very special day with a Pie Social. It is an event that everyone looks forward to each year. In our church everyone gets involved.  A few of our youth kids are the entertainment for the evening. They have a pretend radio station K.P.I.E. The disc jockies are members from our youth group.  Some of our members will entertain us with their beautiful singing or many other talents they have been blessed with. No event such as this would be complete if we didn't have a pie eating contest. The biggest act are the pies themselves. There are rows and rows of pies. Fruit pies, custard pies, cream pies, single crust pies, double crust pies, fried pies, ice box pies, meringue pies, whipped cream pies.... My goodness the possiblities are endless. Every pie you can possibly imagine is on our tables. There are so many pies it is hard to decide which one to pick. The best thing to do is take a tiny little sample slice of each pie. Oh, your taste buds will be so happy. Sit back. Enjoy the entertainment and good food and good fellowship with your church family. Oh, but don't wait until January to enjoy a great pie. Pies are good any day of the year. Pies are good for the soul. The ultimate comfort food.
Stop by anytime.
Until next time....

Weekly Menus

When I was working full time I did not always have a good handle on purchasing food for our evening meals. We were like a lot of people. Greg and I both would run by the grocery store on our way home from work every night to pick up items we needed. Then we would run home to cook dinner. It became sort of comical because my husband and I think very much alike. So many times, when we brought our purchases home we would discover we had picked up many of the same items. I knew right then, I needed to get a handle on grocery shopping. I created a weekly menu and it would get posted on the refrigerator in a magnetic backed acrylic frame.  ( see the photos below for samples) I would use the menu to create a grocery shopping list and all four of us go to the grocery store to purchase everything we needed for the week.

I saved all of our menus over the years in a folder. Now, when I get stuck for new menu ideas I just pull out the file and browse through them. I must admit we have had some great weekly menus through the years. It was always fun to see what borders would show up on the menus. They would be seasonal or they might be a Happy Birthday border if one of us was celebrating a birthday that week. There were times when Greg would type the menu for me. His were always very creative. He always added a lot of graphics.

I wanted our girls to feel they were part of the weekly planning so I would get menu ideas from everyone. I quickly realized this was going to be a fun learning experience for Katy and Jenny. Since they were young they thought it was a cool and fun thing to do. It also got them interested in menu planning. They were learning how to plan well balanced nutritious meals. The girls were always so proud of themselves the night their meal was prepared. They were always so helpful in the kitchen.

Do you have a unique menu planning idea? Leave me a comment. I would love to hear about it.

Until next time.....

The Family Meal

Welcome to Heart of the Home Blog. This blog is intended to encourage and help. There is no better way to communicate with your spouse and children than through a peaceful family meal. Each day all across the world families have an opportunity to come together to relax and enjoy each other's company. No matter how young or old a person may be as long as they are old enough to talk they always have something they can contribute to a family conversation. There is no better way to get to know your family than over a family meal. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. It doesn't even have to be homecooked. However that would be my personal preference. It could be something as simple as a bucket of chicken from KFC. (Kentucky Fried Chicken)

Our lives are so busy these days. In many cases both Dad and Mom are working outside of the home. The children are in school and have many activites they are involved in after school. Many people have church activites at least 2 days a week. All of these things combined can add up to not having many hours to get to know your family. So, for me and my adorable husband, we decided when our girls were very young that we would make it a priority to all have the evening meal together. As our girls grew and began spending more time with friends away from home it was still very important for all of us to be at home for dinner.It was ok if they wanted to bring a friend to our dinner table too. As a matter of fact I loved it when the girls had friend over to join us for a meal. I remember one time when our oldest daughter, Katy was in middle school she came home with a very sad story. She told us that during lunch that day one of her friends asked if her mom cooked. Of course, Katy said that not only did I cook but her dad cooked too. One of us cooked dinner nearly every night. This conversastion quickly drew in several other friends. Katy learned that most of her friends not only did not get a home cooked meal at night but the majority of them did not even eat dinner with their family. Most just ate dinner alone sitting in front of the TV.  Katy and I both thought this was very sad. It seemed like a lonesome evening. You see, at our house dinner time was when our family came together after a long day. Sometimes dinner time was quiet with not much talking but most were pretty busy with lots of chatting and laughter. These were my favorite dinners. These were the times when we got to know our daughters. They would tell us the stories of their day and Mom and Dad would throw in a few of our stories too. This is also the place where many life lesson were learned.

Please feel free to post comments. As a matter of fact, I would love to learn about your family meal times.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Until next time....