What you can prepare before Easter Sunday!

Now that you have your shopping list for your Easter Menu out of the way, you can prepare several of the dishes ahead of time!

I always prepare the Green Bean Casserole and Yummy Yams the day before; covered with aluminum foil and placed in the refrigerator.

The Potato Salad can be prepared and also refrigerated.

You can season your pork roast and also prepare your ham in their respective baking pans in the refrigerator.

Then on Sunday morning you can pop your already seasoned roast in the oven with your baked ham.

After you have prepared your meats, bake your green bean casserole and yummy yams.

The only dish you cannot prepare ahead of time is the Dirty Rice.

It makes for a more peaceful day when everything is ready to go early Sunday morning in the kitchen!

Bon Appetit!

Easter Time!

Time for planning your menu and writing your grocery list! This will help you stay on course for that delicous Easter Sunday Dinner!

This is our menu for Sunday, please feel free to choose any combination or all for your "spread". The recipes are in Roux!

MENU

Baked Ham (follow directions on packaging)
Tenderloin Pork Roast, p. 26
Green Bean Casserole, p. 14
Yummy Yams, p. 17
Potato Salad, p. 8
Dirty Rice, p. 13
Steamed Rice, p. 15

I break my list down by recipe and check off what I already have in the cupboard.

SHOPPING LIST

Spiral Cut Ham
Molasses, brown sugar

Tenderloin Pork Roast
fresh garlic, one onion, Tony Chachere Cajun Creole Seasoning, bell pepper, Kitchen Bouquet,

2 Cans of Green Beans
1 large can of Fried Onion Rings
1 can of Cream of Mushroom Soup
Soy sauce, salt and pepper, milk

White long grain rice
1 pound of ground pork
1 pound of lean ground beef
1 onion, 1 bell pepper, celery, parsley, green onions, ground thyme, bay leaf, vegetable oil

2 large cans of yams
brown sugar, salt, cinammon, nutmeg, butter, evaporated milk, mini marshmallows

5 or 6 red potatoes
3 or 4 eggs, sweet pickle relish, yellow mustard, salt and black pepper, sugar, white vinegar

Have a blessed day!

Bread Custard

Delicious creamy bread custard is a must for Easter Week!

1 quart of whole milk
5 to 7 slices of torn stale bread
4 eggs
3/4 cup of granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons of vanilla
3/4 cup of raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place the torn bread into a bowl.

Scald the milk in a sauce pan or 4 minutes on high in a microwave. Then pour the milk over the bread. Set aside and let stand 10 minutes.

In another large bowl, beat the eggs slightly. Add sugar, salt, vanilla extract and raisins to the beaten eggs. Mix well.

Pour over milk and bread mixture. Mix well.

Pour into a deep, buttered, baking dish that has been placed in the center of a pan of hot water. Bake for 1 1/2 hours or until a butter knife comes out clean when piercing the middle of the custard.

Be very careful when sliding the pan of water with the bread custard dish from the oven. It is very hot.

So, early this morning I am sitting on our new porch...our retirement porch, having coffee. I am listening to the birds and looking at an old piece of driftwood intermingled with my three little potted plants.

On a beach, in a far away land and in a far away time, I was walking with my papa. He bent down, picked up a piece of driftwood and said, "Here SouSou. Keep this."

What? What for? Just an old piece of ugly driftwood to haul back to the beach camp...what for? This ugly gnarled piece of wood...so what that the ocean gleaned it smooth and carved its name on it! That means nothing to me. I hauled it back to beach camp and threw it in the back of the station wagon. hmmph.

So, I sit here at 61 years of age and look back at that 7 year old little girl. How our perspective of just a gnarled piece of wood can change in a life time...

After the flight! Red beans and Rice Simmering on the stove!

2 lbs of red beans, rinsed in a colander
1 large onion, chopped
1 large bell pepper, chopped
1 lb of bacon, cut into one inch pieces
2 lbs of smoked sausage, cut into slices
Season to your taste

Fill a stock pot half full of water. Add red beans, onion, bell pepper, sausage and bacon; add salt and pepper. Add Creole and Cajun Seasoning (optional). Stir. Cook on high heat until it comes to a boil. Lower heat to medium low. Simmer approximately 1 hour until the beans are soft and the gravy is thick. Stir often. Season to taste while simmering.

Serve over steamed rice.

Being naive sometimes keeps you safe...

A friend of mine used to crop dust for money while he was in college.

He was all of 21 and I was all of 16.

I would go up with him while he dropped the dust on the fields.

It was absolutely exhilarating,of course, I never told my mama. I always said we were going riding (and we did, in a plane!)

The dropping slowly of the plane made me excited about life. And of course he showed off his skill by climbing so quickly...sometimes I think more quickly than he should have...I think back on these times lately and now I realize I probably lived a lifetime before I was 25.

So you touch base with friends from the past. 

You wonder where they have been in their life while you were living your life.  Seems that every one was doing the same thing,  just in different places.  We sleep, we eat and we love.  What more could we ask for in this life.

So you go back to 1964 and remember the poster that hung over your bed until you married and wonder,  "Did I ever have an Endless Summer" and the answer is yes, with you my dear friends from the past!

Water and waves. Bikinis and "boy shorts". Hot summers and cool streams, oceans and Gulf.  Endless in a time when time wasn't measured.