Frost On The Pumpkin

The heat is on ….my "Warm Spices" Yankee candle is burning, and my "mini has paused", those pills really work! No more hot flashes for me! I’m freezing!! It’s really too soon to be this cold in October, with 39 degrees this a.m. in south Alabama. I love it when you go through that seasonal transition of summer air conditioning to opening the windows and letting the cool breeze of fall flow through the whole house! *sigh* What happened?

I’m relishing the upcoming holidays going through my Gooseberry Patch Cookbooks. Love them! My faves are "Magic of Christmas" and "Homespun Christmas". They have great heartwarming recipes and crafty gift ideas, thoughts for making holiday memories and homemade tree trimming treats. The hand-drawn art in the books---sigh--- is awesome! I love these books. I swear I smell cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg scents while reading these holiday cheer ideas and recipes while combing through each page!  Visit the Gooseberry Patch Blog too!

“Christmas is not in tinsel and lights…its lighting a fire inside the heart” ~ Wilfred A. Peterson

Sunday was our family---husband’s side---reunion. We gathered the family in the usual place seeing loved ones we had not seen since last October. We also saw people we didn’t know and some we had never seen before. They could have just come in off the street and no one would have been the wiser about who they were!

My cooking for this event began Saturday afternoon ---after another baby shower attendance--- with a 10+ pound ham, slow cooked to perfection and carved to the bone and a Lemon Cheesecake Pie – recipe blogged here.  After I swore I was not cooking anything else, Sunday led to some deviled eggs, oven fried cornbread, collards, and a gallon of sweet tea. Jackie prepared the collards to cook, I boiled the eggs and deviled them---ha, that sounds funny. Now about the cornbread---jalapeno style, oven fried NOT baked! Jackie’s grand idea…So Yummy GOOD!


Oven Fried Jalapeno Cornbread


Fine ground plain cornmeal
Jalapeno peppers- chopped in small pieces
Salt
Water
Cooking oil-enough to barely cover the bottom on the skillet, about ½ inch deep
A good old seasoned iron skillet


Preheat oven to 450 degrees. We don’t measure…just pour up some meal in a medium bowl and add salt to taste. Stir in the peppers and enough water so that the mixture will easily drop from a spoon when placed on the oil. They should be fairly thin so they will cook evenly. Fill the skillet without letting each piece touch the other, approximately 7 pieces per pan. Sometimes they will stick to the bottom of the skillet so we spray a little Pam before pouring in the oil. Bake—I mean fry--- turning once until golden brown. If you don’t like the peppers---leave them out---plain is good!
With all this good food, including some of my homemade sweet pickles; in tow...we headed off to the reunion.

This time of year also lends to all things spooky and scary on TV. Horror movies galore! I do love to watch a good scary movie---only because I know its all fake---but there’s something about watching them alone…it’s NO fun! Holly and hubby Richard are my scary movie buddies---Jackie hates to watch movies period! Well since they are in Louisiana and I’m here in Alabama, I have no scary movie buddies to watch them with. So we are planning a scary movie night when they come home for Thanksgiving…

Saw V---yes I know Saw VI is out but I have still not seen V yet so the plans are on…I smell popcorn and cappuccinos and feel some goose bumps brewing. Can’t wait! No Wrong Turns here!

Boooooooooo!

Items on my grocery shopping list for this week:

Orange drink mix

Lemon tea drink mix

Allspice

Cinnamon

Carrots

Cream cheese

Nutmeg

Artichoke hearts

Frozen spinach

Mayo

Monterey Jack cheese

Romano cheese

Parmesan cheese

Can you guess the 3 recipes I’m making?

PS….all the food I took to the reunion and I do mean ALL of it was eaten …leaving us with no leftovers for supper Sunday night! Not a smidgen left!