Then I Thought of Home

I'm either going to have to eat my words or start living by them. Practice what I preach or be still. You know me and if you have read many of my blog posts you know I'm all about hospitality. I can tell you all about how it's not the house or the place but the feeling that makes people feel welcome. I can tell you not to stress and focus on what's right and not on what's wrong. Oh I can tell you alright but can I live it? Well apparently not. Oh I do to a large measure but this last weekend I didn't. This last weekend I ate my words. As you know we had Mark's family reunion over at Lost River. I worried about the heat. I thought everyone would be to hot and then they would be miserable. We ended up with enough air conditioners to make the building comfortable. Problem solved. I was concerned about flies. People don't like flies and we were having a reunion on a poultry farm and the cows were not far from the building we wer...

I first had this at a ladies prayer meeting. We were meeting at Shirley's house and she served this in pretty glass dessert goblets with a dollop of  whipped  cream on top. It was a cool, rainy night in fall and her house was so warm and cozy and then she brought this out and the evening was complete. She sent me home with the recipe and I'm hoping you will like it as much as I do. If you are an experienced baker you will appreciate the ease of this recipe and if you are a beginner you won't be intimidated. It's the perfect fall dessert. 3 eggs 1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling, just plain pumpkin 1 (12. oz.) can evaporated milk, not condensed, make sure it's  evaporated, there is a difference. 1 cup sugar 1/8 tsp. salt 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice 1 tsp. cinnimon 1 tsp vanilla 1 box yellow cake mix 2 sticks real butter, melted 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)  I use them Mix the first 8 ingredients really well. Pour into a...

Lots and lots of recipes call for wine. Lots and lots of people for different reasons shy away from a recipe calling for any kind of alcohol. I've received a few questions about substitutes so I wanted to share with you what little bit I know. I have several recipes that call for some sort of wine and I usually just use what is called for but sometimes I don't. Don't just see  a recipe calls for alcohol and dismiss it, you will be missing a lot of good dishes. There are some good easy things you can use in the place of the wine. What if a recipe calls for red wine and you don't want to use  wine, no problem you can use beef broth. Just replace the wine with equal amounts of beef broth, yes it will give a slight flavor change but not much and the broth will add a richness. You can also use red grape juice, the grape juice is a little sweeter than the wine would be so add a splash of vinegar to off set the sweet. Now for white wine substitutes. Just li...