With a wind chill of 18, what do you do? Make stoup!

What is stoup? We'll get to that later.

On February 2, Punxsutawney Phil stuck his little head out of his hole and declared six more weeks of winter. In Alaska folks grabbed their shotguns and headed for Pennsylvania. Six more weeks of THIS!?! Oh, @#$@ NO! Down here, in Memphis, we just shook our heads and said,"Don't you mean six weeks of winter...finally?" It is now February 11. Phil was a little late with his prediction, but it seems he may have gotten it right. No. We aren't under two feet of snow, but it has been super cold and windy (by Tennessee standards), and flurrying all day. I went to a pancake breakfast this morning. As I was walking outside, a dear friend of mine made a very wise observation. "Now, I know why deer can retract their..." Since there is the chance some children might be reading this, I'll just leave that last statement as a "fill in the blank". I think you get the idea of how cold it is today.

So. What do you do when it gets that cold? You make soup. I have been waiting for soup weather. I know, it has been cool enough a few times this year that we could eat soup. However, this is the first day it was cold enough that as I was leaving breakfast, my mind was already mulling over what type of soup to make for lunch. I love soup. I know, as a society, we use the word love too loosely, but I LOOOOOOOOVE soup! Potato, french onion, chicken noodle, broccoli cheddar, vegetable. I love them all. Nothing beats the chills, or the sniffles, like a hot bowl of soup. So, for lunch I made soup...

...or, stoup.

 

Gettin' hungry yet?

I have a problem when I make soup. I add things. Lot's of things. You see, I decided to make some vegetable beef soup. I browned a pound of ground beef with a large onion and some Pennsylvania grown garlic. (Yep! I'm still trying to work through all the garlic Aunt Marcia sent back in October.) Once I drained the grease off, I added three cups of beef broth, and a cup of ham broth. Then, the adding really began. Two cans of veg-all, a can of green beans, a can of sliced potatoes, a can of petite diced tomatoes, and half a cup of quinoa (That's those little squiggly things you see in the picture above. They are a great source of protein and fiber...and the kids love them.).

Whew! I need to catch my breath.

After simmering for twenty minutes, I added a box of macaroni noodles. Once those became edible, I added the powdered cheese mix (Oooh! I guess that makes this soup use # 122 for macaroni and cheese!), and stirred it up. By the time lunch was ready, as you can see in the bowl, there was very little liquid left. What is an extremely important element in soup? The liquid, of course! Now I have a dilemma. I've added so much stuff that I don't have much liquid. I can't really call this soup. Can I? No! If I called this soup, the great culinary gods would race out of the giant kitchen stadium in the sky, and give me the what for! What does a man do? Change the name. Thus we had stoup for lunch. So, what is stoup? It's soup, with enough extras, one might be attempted to call it stew. It isn't soup. It isn't stew, but it is...I mean, was...mighty good.

The peach cobbler was good too! But, that's another story for another day.

Some Deep Dish Thoughts: Use #121 for Mac n Cheese

I decided it was time to write in the blog again. I came to the conclusion when a dear friend of mine approached me the other day and informed me that I had not logged on and said anything funny lately. I decided to write a blog entry on deep dish pizza. Why? That's what we had for supper last night, so it's fresh on my mind.

After I had decided what I wanted to write about, I had a brief moment of self doubt. Does anyone even pay attention to what I am writing? Not that it really matters. The thought that nobody is paying attention to me has not stopped me from speaking my mind in the past...except for when it is my wife ignoring me. Now that really chaps me. After all! Didn't the wedding vows say something about you will listen to your husband for better or worse, til death do you part? (I wonder how many times she has considered speeding up that death parting us part?) I think I should be listened to by my wife ALL the time. Not that I really deserve it. It should happen simply because I am the husband. Why shouldn't that philosophy work? It works for the kids! They certainly feel that you should be hanging on every word that comes out of their mouths. Just think back to the last time your eyes glazed over as your daughter told you about that lying, scheming, little shrew named Mary Alice; or that time when Bubba completely ignored Sandra Dee when getting off of the bus; or that time...

Yeah, that's right! You know exactly what I'm talking about. Your body goes into natural self preservation mode, and your eyes glaze over. Then...it happens! "Daddy! You're not listening to me! This is my senior year and should be the happiest time of my life. Instead it is the worst year since I've been born...AND YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!! You hate me!"
"No I don't, Dear."
"Well! You practically said you hated me."
"What? I said no such thing."
"You're not listening to me, so you might as well have! I'm just going to go live with Memaw!" At which point Daddy lets out a thunderous laugh, taking an already explosive situation to the point of nuclear devastation. Do you listen to your daughter's endless chatter, or do you ignore her and listen to the screaming about how bad a parent you are. Do you get your fingernails ripped out, or your toenails? Either way, it's as painful as @#$#^$!

Not that talking to my son is any better. It is just a different kind of pain. "How was your day, son?"
"Fine."
"What did you do today?"
"Work."
"What kind of work?"
"Math."
"What did you do in math?"
"Dunno. Numbers."
"Thank you for stimulating my brain, son. I'm going to go over there and have a real conversation with that rock."

I digress.

The whole point of this, is if I have to live with this torture from my kids, shouldn't my wife have to live with my senseless banter? Therefore, if my wife should have to suffer through my senseless banter, shouldn't you as well?

I wonder though, how many of you are really reading my blog, and suffering like a good person should? Officially, I have three followers. However, I think they just did that out of the kindness of their hearts. I know one of them (my daughter) has to practically be forced to read this blog. So, since she is a follower by coercion, I will say I have two followers. Even then, nobody leaves me any comments? So...do those other two really follow me? Why don't any of you leave comments? I know the people officially following me ALWAYS have opinions. (I am not above goading you into commenting.) Perhaps, it is because you cower in the presence of such literary genius. You feel there is nothing you can say which compares to what I have already written...Or, perhaps it is like my daughter says. You just hate me! You're ignoring me, so you might as well be saying you hate me! (I might be forty two, but I can still throw a teen tantrum with the best of them.)

The whole point of this nonsense is simple. Leave me a comment on this blog or Facebook. I would love to know someone, other than the prisoner who is my daughter, is reading my blog...and hopefully, enjoying it.

Once again, I digress.

So, yesterday I was lying on the couch doing what I do best. Nothing. I happened to turn to my favorite educational channel (Food Network), and saw a guy pulling a deep dish pizza out of the oven. A light bulb suddenly flashed in my head. I've never made deep dish pizza before. Let's have that for supper. I pulled out my handy iPhone and looked up a recipe for deep dish pizza, and decided, yeah. I can screw that up real easily. So, Christina and I go to the store. As we are going up and down aisles, getting a few things, she asks me, "Are we gonna have mac n cheese?"
"No, Dear. We're having deep dish pizzas."
"I know. I'm talking about a mac n cheese pizza."
"I'm not going to cook a deep dish mac n cheese pizza. We might as well just sit down with a huge pot of the stuff."
"But, Daddy! We haven't had Mac n Cheese pizza in a long time. You know how much Joseph loves it."
"No."

Anyway, below is the recipe for the Mac n Cheese deep dish pizza we had last night.

Mac n Cheese Deep Dish Pizza

Ingredients:

2 boxes of your favorite mac n cheese dinner mix

1 Stick butter

1/2-2/3 cups milk

1 small jar alfredo sauce

1 canned pizza dough

pepperoni

2-3 cups cheddar cheese

Large spring form pan, deep dish pizza pan, or deep foil pan

Use the mac n cheese dinners, butter, and milk to create mac n cheese. (Do I really need to tell you how to do it?) Roll out the pizza dough so you will have enough to cover the bottom of the pan, come up the sides, and overlap a little. Spray your pan and place the dough in it. Layer 1/3 of the cheese in the crust. Follow that with half of the mac n cheese. Then one layer of pepperoni, followed by half the alfredo sauce. Repeat with an additional layer each of cheese, mac n cheese, and alfredo. Finally, layer on the last 1/3 of the cheese. Fold the overlapping crust over on top of the pizza. Don't worry about covering the entire top. I just think the folded crust gives a nice rustic look. You might want to lightly brush the crust with olive oil to keep it from burning too much. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes. Drop the temperature to 350 and bake an additonal 30 to 45 minutes. The crust should be golden brown. The picture below shows what mine looked like. I used a cheap foil pan. I have a spring form, but I made two pizza's and wanted them both the same.

The final step is to serve this sucker. It can easily make 6-8 servings...or it can make four scrumptious monstrous heart attack inducing servings! Guess which route we took!

As I mentioned above, I made two pizza's. The second was more traditional, and equally delicious. I took a bag of three pepper and onion blend, and sauteed it with a pound of mild Italian sausage. I then made the pizza by layering in the following order: Mozzarella, sausage pepper blend, pepperoni, pizza sauce. I repeated those layers again, and finished with another layer of cheese. Just for kicks, I places a few leaves of fresh basil on top of the cheese. Below is the scrumptious results.

I would say that even if my deep dish experiment did not result in truly authentic Chicago style deep dish pizzas, it was still a resounding success! Give one of these pizzas a try and tell me what you think. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeze! Tell me!

Friday Night Mystery Double Feature!

Have you ever had one of those nights when you looked in the pantry and discovered that Old Mother Hubbard had a wider selection to choose from? On top of that, your children remind you of  a whole pack of man eating plants crying, "Feed me, Seymour!" Sound familiar? That's what I was facing last night. Of course, our pantry wasn't completely bare, but what was in it were the types of items that don't exactly scream, "We will go well together to make a healthy, tasty, meal for you and your family."

It all pretty much started like this:

Scene: I'm in my car driving home. I call home (using my hands free bluetooth. I promise.)
Neva - Hello?
Me - Howdy doody tutti frutti!
Neva - Hello.
Me - Watcha cooking for dinner?
Neva - I don't know? What are YOU cooking?
Me - I don't know. What do we have?
Neva - I brought home some leftover cheese, tortilla chips, and ground beef from our taco salad day at work.
Me - Tell Sissy(Our daughter, Christina) to brown the beef. I'll be home soon and figure out the rest.

I know! I know! Not exactly the makings of a hit movie, but pretty close to the truth. Anyway, I get home and walk in the kitchen. Sissy is just about done frying some ground beef and diced onion. Obviously we are having Mexican (actually, a very loose interpretation of Mexican). What else would you have with beef, cheese, and tortilla chips? I open up the spice cabinet and hand Sissy some chili powder, beef bouillon, and creole seasoning. What!?! Doesn't every Mexican dish get seasoned with Tony Chachere's? I did say this was a very loose interpretation of Mexican. Why did I add beef bouillon to my ground beef? Call me crazy. I think it just adds a certain richness to the flavor of the beef. I sure wish I had some cumin. Oh well. Chili powder and creole seasoning. Just call me Pancho Thibodeaux.

I opened up the pantry to see what else I could use. I pulled out a can of spaghetti sauce (Now I'm Pancho Gino Thibodeaux). Ah! There's some instant brown rice. Crap! It's only half a box. What to do? (This blog is getting very hard to write. It could have something to do with all the fart noises coming out of Sissy's Kindle Fire. I'm sure Santa is so happy she is putting that thing to such good use.) Hmmmmm. Well...there is some quinoa. I wonder how that will go with a Mexican, Italian, Creole dish? Only one way to find out. Without further adieu, I pulled out my gorgeous heavy duty baking dish that Santa Neva gave me for Christmas. I mix the beef, spaghetti sauce, rice, quinoa, two cups of water and more chili powder and Tony Chachere's. I then place a layer of tortilla chips in the dish, followed by half the beef mixture and a healthy layer of shredded cheese. Next, I repeated the whole process. I topped it off with crumbled up tortillas and more cheese. Then I covered with foil, and set to bake at 350 for about 45 minutes. The first part of the mystery double feature was in the oven.

Now we just had to figure out the second mystery. My wonderful wife decided we would watch something on Netflix. The movie of choice is Shutter Island. Now my wife is an absolutely wonderful person, able to do many wonderful things. However, operating a remote is not necessarily one of those talents. We watch Netflix through our Nintendo Wii. The story played out last night like it usually does.

Neva - How do I get it to play
Christina - Just hit the A button.
Neva - I can't get the arrow to move
Christina - Momma. Just hit the A button.
Neva - The arrow won't move. I must be too far away.
Christina - Momma! Just hit the A button!
Neva - But I'm too far away.
Christina - You don't have to move the arrow! Play is already highlighted on the TV. Just hit the A button!
Neva - But, I'm too far...
Christina and Dad - Just hit the freakin' A button!!
Neva - Fine!
Insert long pause
Neva - You didn't have to yell at me.
At this point Christina and Dad roll their eyes in complete exasperation.

Thus began the second part of our mystery double feature...finally!

A little into the movie, the oven timer goes off. I pull off the foil and stick this concoction back in the oven for another 10 minutes. Another ding resonates through the house. Our mystery dinner is ready. As Christina and I are eyeballing the thing I took out of the oven, I  look at my daughter and say, "If it turns out nasty, this was all your mother's idea. If it turns out real good, It was all me!" Dinner was served up and the appropriate blessing was said.

"Dear Lord,
Thank you for this supper, for the hands that helped prepare it, and for everything you have done for us and given us. Bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies....And PLEEEEEEZE let this food taste good. In Jesus' name, Amen."

 On that Friday night, the Lord said, "This is good."

...and, it was.

Happy New Year, 2012!

Can you believe we are already twelve years into the new century? It seems like only yesterday we were wondering if the world's computer systems would survive the turn of the century. They did. We did. And, we are all just a little grayer now. Ha!

So, how did you celebrate your new year? We started out by baking a fresh loaf of banana nut bread to take to some friends house. We all ate, drank (non-alcoholicly) and were merry...until about 2am.

Fresh Banana Nut Bread

The bread seemed to be a huge hit. I let everyone know it was an old family recipe. I'm sure it is...just not from my family. A big thanks to 57grace71, at BigOven.com. Your old family recipe has now become mine.

Banana Nut Bread
Wet Ingredients
3/4 cup softened butter
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1.5 cups sugar
1.5 cups mashed ripened bananas (about 4 bananas)
1/2 cup buttermilk or sour cream (I used the buttermilk)

Dry Ingredients
2 tsp. Baking Powder
2 cups flour
3/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cups chopped pecans or walnuts

Mix wet and dry ingredients in separate bowls. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix well. Grease two loaf pans and divide batter between both. Bake in oven preheated to 325 degrees Fahrenheit, for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Bread is done when inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Thankfully, we had a full loaf of bread to ourselves. I was able to start 2012 off with a nice cup of coffee in my Pooh mug (Yeah, I'm a big softy), with a slice of banana nut bread, slathered with butter. Yum!

Buttered Banana Bread and Winnie the Pooh. What could be better in the morning?

Meanwhile, the rest of the family slept. I had started a slow cooker full of black eyed peas the night before. I gave them a stir, and a little extra seasoning. Then I started a pot of turnip greens and mixed up a batch of buttermilk cornbread (This really is an old family recipe.)

Meanwhile, the rest of the family slept. I am beginning to notice a pattern here. My family sleeps the day away, and I spend the day eating and preparing more food. No wonder we are the picture of such stellar health.

Anyway, it was time to eat, and I had my black eyed peas (with huge chunks of ham), turnip greens, and cornbread, along with a nice glass of wine. Down south, we all believe that eating black eyed peas, pork, and turnip greens are supposed to bring one financial good luck. Considering we are one of the poorest regions of the country, I can't attest to how much truth lies in that superstition, but it sure is fun trying.

Good luck...or, just plain good eating!?!

I don't normally drink wine, much less red wine. If I drink wine, I have a tendency to to go with a sweeter white wine. However, my boss gave me a bottle of Blue Rock Baby Blue wine from the Blue Rock Vineyards, in Geyserville, CA. Baby Blue is a blend of four different red wines. It is not sweet, but goes down very smoothly. If you are just introducing yourself to red wine, this is an excellent bottle to start with.

Anyway, I digress. I had everything for a great start to 2012...with one exception. Friends and family! That was quickly fixed with a shout upstairs. "Lunch is ready!"

All the peas and greens in the world won't really bring you good luck (Just a lot of gas). The one ingredient that has proven reliable, year after year, is friends and family. If you aren't close to your family, perhaps you should resolve to mend some fences this year. At one time or another, we all need family to lean on. If you feel you don't have any friends, resolve to make some new ones...or find some old ones. I find great comfort in thinking I may have touched someone's life, and they just might be sitting somewhere, sipping a hot cup of joe, and wondering "Whatever happened to Jim? He was one swell guy."

So, Happy New Year to all of my friends and family. You have all made me a truly blessed ...and lucky... man.
I lift a glass and salute all those wonderful people who have gone to the great banquet beyond. People like my Dad, Uncle Bill, Mr. & Mrs. Temple, Nodya Hair, and many others. In more ways than you could ever know, you have made me the person I am.

I salute all those people who have passed thru my life at one time or another over the many years, like Paul Eastman, Kirk Chandler, Ernie Fargo, and the Olivers. I hope I have blessed your life as much as you blessed mine.

Finally, I ask for blessings for those of my friends and family who found 2011 to be a particularly hard and painful year. May God bless you with the celebrations in 2012 that eluded you in the past year. You are always in my thoughts and prayers.

Now, I think I've mixed together all of the really important ingredients for a wonderful new year. Happy New Year, everyone. May God bless you in all that you do in 2012.

OoLaLa! Lasagna!

As you know, I am really into comfort food. Fortunately, I have a very broad view of what the term "Comfort Food" encompasses. Comfort food, in my humble opinion, is quite simply food that makes you feel good. It reminds you of home, and reminds you that the world really isn't going to h*ll in a hand basket. In the summer, that could be a dish as simple as a ripened tomato, sliced and sprinkled with course ground salt and fresh ground pepper. In the winter, it could be a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup, or chicken and dumplings. Every once in a while one comes across one of those dishes that transcends the seasons. It represents everything that a comfort food should, and is just as desirable in the heat of summer as it is in the chill of winter. One such dish is lasagna.

Lasagna! If there ever was a king of comfort foods, lasagna would certainly be a contender...if not outright champion. Nothing seems to say comfort like a giant serving of noodles, meat sauce, and both gooey and creamy cheeses, all layered on top of each other. Lasagna seems to be one of those comfort dishes though that appears to be daunting to many cooks. However, it really is easy to make. I think what makes lasagna so daunting is the fact that when it is a success, it is truly amazing. However, when it is a failure, it always seems to be a spectacular failure. There rarely ever seems to be a lasagna that is just OK. This past week I got a taste of both.

I found myself suffering from an insatiable craving for lasagna this week. I can often go months at a time without suffering from these cravings, but when they do hit they hit with a bang. I thought I would get to satisfy these cravings on Wednesday. The wife and I were at the store, looking at the frozen lasagnas. Please don't freak out. There are actually some very tasty frozen lasagnas. Of course there are some that end up on the other end of the spectrum as well. The problem with frozen lasagnas, is that if you are not accustomed to eating late at night, these are out of the question. They simply take too long to cook. There are some smaller ones that can be microwaved, but most of those fall closer to the disaster end of the scale than the amazing success end. Anyway, we ended up eating spaghetti and meatballs.

The next day, I thought my prayers had been answered. The mother in law had hosted a Christmas dinner the night before and served two frozen lasagnas. One was a meat lasagna. The other was a five cheese lasagna. Miracle of miracles, she had over half of the five cheese lasagna left over, and took pity on me. That night I could hardly wait for the leftover lasagna to heat up. Beep, Beep! The oven timer ended. I pulled out the lasagna and began to salivate. It looked really good. Then I took a bite. Mmmm! A very bright and tasty tomato sauce followed by the creamy texture of...

Dry wall spackling! I took another bite. Yep! Definitely spackling. I looked over to my left. The look on her face said it all. She was preparing to put up some drywall as well. I like ricotta cheese as much as the next guy. That was NOT ricotta cheese. Like I said, there is no inbetween. This was definitely a spectacular disaster. My insatiable appetite for lasagna had yet to be placated.

Now it is Sunday. The wife and I are finishing up on some Christmas shopping. We have to stop by Kroger to buy a gift card. I convince the wife to let me buy the ingredients to make a lasagna. Everyone should really try to make a home made lasagna at least once. We try to eat healthy for the most part. We aren't always successful. Okay! We are less successful than I would like to admit. One of the ways we try to be good is by usually cooking with ground turkey or chicken. However, tonight my wife found a pound of ground pork marked down for quick sale. We decided to blend that with a pound of ground chuck. Now I happen to be somewhat impatient with some cooking, as well as cheap. I don't have the time to make a home made marinara or spaghetti sauce. I also think it is ridiculous to have to spend five dollars or more on a simple jar of sauce. Heck! Spending two dollars on a jar of sauce chaps my hide. What do I do? I buy a one dollar can of Hunts spaghetti sauce and fancy it up with some basil, salt, pepper, fresh garlic, and cinnamon. Don't worry. You don't need to get your glasses subscription checked. I really did say cinnamon. Give it a try some time. Just a small amount can really add a truly inspired note to your next pasta dish.

Anyway, I won't bore you with a long drawn out story about baking a lasagna. I don't have a secret family recipe for lasagna. My family is as white Anglo-saxon as one can get. Not a drop of Mediterranean blood to draw from. As a result, no secret family recipe for lasagna, handed down from generation to generation. I simply took the recipe on the back of the Barilla no-boil lasagna box, and modified it to my own liking. I am happy to say that there was nary a small morsel of meat left over. That entire dish of lasagna disappeared in no time flat. So, without further adieu, here is my recipe.

Jim's Meaty Lasagna

Ingredients:
4 cups mozzarella
15 oz small curd cottage cheese
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
One jar or can of your favorite marinara/spaghetti sauce
1 - 28 oz, or 2 - 14 oz cans petite diced tomatoes with juices
1 tsp cinnamon
1lb ground pork
1lb ground chuck
2 eggs
1 package of no-boil lasagna noodles

Brown pork and chuck in a skillet, seasoning with salt, pepper, and dried basil. Drain off rendered fat. Add the spaghetti sauce and diced tomatoes with juice. Stir in cinnamon. Heat to a simmer, seasoning to taste.

Mix together cottage cheese, 2 cups mozzarella, parmesan cheese, and eggs.

Spray a 9" X 13" baking dish with cooking spray. Spread one cup of meat sauce in bottom of dish. Cover with a layer of noodles. Spread 1/3 of cottage cheese mixture, followed by meat sauce, and one cup of mozerella cheese. Do two more layers of noodles cottage cheese mixture, and meat sauce. Add the final layer of noodles, last cup of meat sauce, and final cup of mozzarella.

Loosely cover with foil, and bake for 45 minutes at 375 degrees. Remove the foil and bake an additional five to ten minutes, until cheese is bubbly, and just starting to brown. Remove from the oven and allow to rest up to five minutes before serving. Serve with garlic bread.

Bon Appetit!

Four layers of gooey heaven!

Happy Thanksgiving

It's that time of year again; the official beginning of the holiday season. Yep! It's Thanksgiving Day. What does Thanksgiving mean to you? For me, Thanksgiving is the first day when a special feeling comes over my heart. You see, I absolutely love the Christmas season, and Thanksgiving Day represents the beginning of the Christmas season. I will admit, I am a hopeless romantic. No matter what is going on in the world, this season always reaffirms my belief that anything is possible.

For the past four years, Thanksgiving has actually started a few days early for me. My son, Joseph, is in the Boy Scouts. Every year, his troop holds a family campout at Camp Yocona, in Randolph, MS. It is during this campout that the first glimmer of the Thanksgiving holiday begins. What is Thanksgiving? It is a chance for family and friends to come together and give thanks for all we have been given, and fellowship together. There's nothing quite like feeding a Thanksgiving feast for upwards of 70 smiling faces. I think that qualifies as fellowship. I was blessed to be one of the head cooks this year. Every bone and joint in my body was screaming in pain by bedtime on Saturday night, but the pictures below show why every pain was 100% worthwhile.

Food! Marvelous Food!

Please, Sir! May I have some more?

Smiling faces, and stuffed tummies!

The menu consisted of corn casserole, two types of green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole (are you seeing a theme here?), broccoli and cheese casserole, green beans, corn, potatoes, roles, two hams, and five turkies. All of this was completed with a propane powered oven, a cinder block oven, propane turkey friers, and two turkies suspended from a tripod. It is a true wonder to see a huge feast like this come together in the middle of the woods. It is even more of a wonder to see how quickly this stuff was devoured.

Just a few days later, and it was Turkey Day. Down here in the South, we like to fry things. On this day, there are thousands upon thousands of deep fried turkeys being voraciously torn into. Our family does not fry turkies. We might roast them in the oven every once in a while (maybe once a year). However, on Thanksgiving Day, it is our tradition to smoke our turkey. Okay, enough with the "smoking turkey" jokes. No, I don't hold the turkey up to my mouth and puff smoke through the butt, like a massive cigar. No, my friends. This is no joke. Smoking turkies is something best left to us professionals.

Iron Chef Jim Reporting For Duty

This year I found a 14lb turkey named Tom. That brings up an interesting question. Are turkies really so uncreative that they have to name every male, Tom? What's wrong with Hank, or Frank, or John, or Jim? Just how do they distinguish one Tom from another? Also, if all the boys are named Tom, what are the girls' names? Anyway, I digress.

Hello! My name is Tom. I'd like you to meet my brother...Tom.

I took Tom, soaked him overnight in a brine solution made up of salt, brown sugar, molasses, and black peppercorns. This morning, I slapped that sucker on my trusty Chargriller Pro, and then the miracle started. This year, the wood of choice was a combination of apple wood and oak. After just a couple of hours, Ol' Tom was sporting a tan better than anything that can be achieved in a tanning bed.

Eat your heart out, George Hamilton!

Finally! four and a half hours later perfection is pulled off of the grill. Beneath a rich mahogany skin is a plethora of juicy turkey meat full of the smokey goodness that only comes from the right blend of wood. The sweetness from the applewood and richness from the oak just can't be beat.

Oooo, Mama! It's feasting time!

Once the turkey was ready, we packed it up along with a scrumptious dish of dressing, and some green beans, and it was off to Memaw's house. Oh yeah! My daughter, Christina had a wild hair. Sometimes her wild hairs result it some delectable treats. This was definitely one of those times.

I think I will have to perform some quality testing here!

Anyway, I would like to close this entry by thanking all of my family, friends, and co-workers, for everything you have done for me. Finally, I would like to thank God for all of you.

God Bless & Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!

The Other Vegetable! (Come on! You know you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about!)

What vegetable comes to mind when I use descriptions like hot & steamy; creamy, golden & delicious; sometimes stringy; ooey gooey! Do you have any clue? Think about it. This is something that almost every reb-blooded American kid absolutely loves. Ok. Truth be told, it's not really a vegetable, but it might as well be. I can't think of a kid, or adult that wouldn't love to find a heaping spoonful on his or her dinner plate. Maybe the picture below will help.

OOOOH BABY!

Oh yeah! That's right, Baby! We're talkin' mac-n-cheese today. Of course, some of you are probably rolling your eyes at me right now, since I am calling mac-n-cheese the other vegetable. Well...lump it! Why shouldn't it be called that? Isn't that where you find mac-n-cheese on 75% of restaurant menus...listed with all the vegetables?

Mac-n-cheese is just like society. It ranges all the way from the inexpensive, non-assuming, box of powdered mac-n-cheese dinners (think Kraft Mac-n-Cheese), to luscious casseroles of macaroni noodles baked in 40,000 varieties of cream and cheese (including cheeses made from milk that came from animals we never knew made milk). That's right, folks. Even mac-n-cheese has a social class structure.

My brother-in-law tells me that he fed his kids Kraft Mac-n-Cheese so much, they wouldn't touch anything else. I have to admit, there is something about that simple packet of powder that mixed with milk, butter, and boiled macaroni, just can't be beat. It is cheap. But, cheap does not always equate to bad. This type of mac-n-cheese is by far, the most versatile variety. There is no end to the possible dinner creations that can spring from that little cardboard box. Slice and saute some smoked or polish sausage, then mix in with mac-n-cheese. One simple ingredient and you have a new dish. What is Hamburger Helper? Mac-n-cheese in a box with instructions to add ground beef. Wow! That was hard...Not! However, after time, the masses revolted. "We're tired of ground beef!" they said. "We want something different!"

"Fine!" said the Hamburger Helper people. "Use a can of tuna instead!" With that, mac-n-cheese became a great seafood dish.

Add a can of chili, and what do you get? Chili Mac! Mac-n-cheese has gone Tex-Mex.

It is truly one of the great wonders of the world how versatile a box of macaroni noodles and powdered cheese is.

My son, Joseph, is an equal opportunity mac-n-cheese lover. His loyalties don't just lie with the cheap stuff. He'll just as gladly go for the gooey, stringy, fancy concoctions that come out of the ovens. He loves the stuff so much, that no restaurant is worth its salt if mac-n-cheese can't be found either on the entree menu or the side menu. I have to agree with Joseph, while the cheap mac-n-cheese in a box is absolute bliss to eat, sometimes one craves something with a little more glamor. While 40,000 cheeses might be overkill on flavor (and certainly the wallet) there is certainly something to be said for the flavor that comes from mixing the creaminess of cottage cheese, butteriness of provolone or jack cheese, and the sharpness of cheddar. Boxed mac-n-cheese will never give you the image of a spoonful of heaven with strings of cheese stretching from spoon to dish.

I know I am not the only one with opinions on mac-n-cheese. I also know there are other great ideas for elevating the boxed stuff out there, just waiting to be heard. Leave me some comments. Please! I beg of you! Tell me your favorite way to fix mac-n-cheese.

At the end of this post is a link to a recipe from the Food Network show, Diners Drive-ins & Dives. This recipe for mac-n-cheese is easy, and absolutely awesome! For all of you campers out there, who love to do dutch oven cooking, the recipe is perfect. Joseph and I have fixed it in dutch ovens several times, to rave reviews.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ruths-diner--gramma-claires-macaroni-and-cheese-recipe/index.html