THE "REAL FAT" HOUSEWIVES OF COBB COUNTY...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of having the "girls" over for lunch.....A good time was had by all as we spent the day picking out paint colors for a new back porch, eating, discussing the cost of food, eating, discussing the cost of gas and eating some more......We all have in common a love for food and we really don't care much that we're all a tad bit over weight....on the menu .......

Italian salad with my special dijon mustard, oregano, wine vinegar and olive oil vinegrette

a Ham and 3 cheese Quiche with a cheddar sauce

Ina's peanut butter and jelly bars (wrapped in cellophane to take home)

Ice Cream Sundaes with butter pecan ice cream and a butterscotch/caramel sauce......and real whipped cream...thank you very much.

here's the Quiche recipe.......

1 Pillsbury pie crust

4 large eggs

1/2 cup of good mayonaise

1/2 cup whole milk

1/2 pound of deli ham, sliced thin and then diced (I used Boars Head Tavern Ham)

1/2 pound Gouda grated

1/2 pound Swiss grated

1/2 pound Cheddar grated

a little freshly ground pepper and a bit of salt....

parsley

preheat oven to 375.........let pie crust sit out a bit for easy handling. Beat the eggs with a mixer, not by hand. Add the mayo and the milk and mix until well blended. Add the cheese and ham, the salt and pepper and stir well by hand. Put the pie crust in a deep dish pan. I use a fluted edge tart pan with a removeable bottom 10" round with 2" sides. Spread out the cheese mixture evenlyand sprinkle with parsley, dried or fresh. Bake for 30 minutes or until puffed up and nicely browned. Let sit atleast 15 minutes before cutting.

for the cheese sauce......

melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan, add 2 tablespoons of flour and whisk together. Add 2 cups of warm milk a little at a time, whisking the whole time to prevent lumps......Add 1 cup of cheddar cheese and stir until melted. Add more cheese until sauce is nice and thick. Usually for a total of 1 1/2 to 2 cups of cheese.......

You can also substitute 2 cans of solid white tuna for the ham.

WARNING.......I recommend that this is eaten just once a year.......for health concerns!!

Deadliest Catch......

Only a man could get enjoyment out of a show that week after week has the exact same story line.......a boat....bad weather....catch fish. I'm just saying...............

Cooking in My Sleep.......

Most days I get up and go straight to the kitchen. Instead of brushing the teeth and washing the face I open the fridge and turn on the Jennair...Three days a week I put on a big pot of soup and the other days the crock pot gets fired up. I've been known to cook from morning until night. If you lived in our neighborhood it would not be unusual to see BBQ smoke billowing off our deck at midnight. I've been using the crock pot since 1994 when I almost burnt the house down. That day will always be the worst day of my life....Cooking eggs preparing to make my famous "egg salad" I was distracted when daughter came home and suggested we go off to the mall.....Three hours later we pulled up into the cul-de-sac to find four fire trucks.....yes, even one of those huge hook and ladder thingies.......and the front door off the hinges. I saw everything in black and white . The house, the lawn, the trees and the fire trucks had no color. I thought for sure I had burnt the house to the ground....Upon entering the house I was greeted by three firemen up on the second floor balcony.....In full firefighting gear they came walking out of the husbands den mesmerized by his toy soldier collection. They were here to fight a fire and instead they were taking a tour of the house! With the husbands den being directly over the kitchen one of the fireman assured me that there was only smoke damage and I was very lucky fire hadn't spread to the room above. At that point all I could picture was a pile of melted lead......needless to say for about two years I posted a sign on our door leading to the garage that read..."did you turn off the stove?" Anyway, back to the food. Today I made a pot of Italian veggie soup. I'm entering it in a contest at Better Homes and Garden mag. We eat this all week long as I've convinced myself that it's healthy for us. It's a pot of vegetables how bad could it be?.....ofcourse the unhealthy part comes with the 2 dozen Ritz crackers with butter that I have to eat along with it.....here's the recipe............

Tuscan Vegetable Soup
3 cans of Progresso Light Italian-style soup 18.5 oz. size
1 large or 2 small cans of DelMonte petite-cut tomatoes (any brand will do but they have to be petite cut)
1 cup of canned green beans cut into small pieces
1 cup of corn, either frozen or canned
1 VERY large russet baking potato peeled and diced small.

salt and pepper to taste

a dribble of extra virgin olive oil

add all ingredients and cook to a slow boil for 30 minutes. Stir a few times. At the end of the 30 minutes cover with a tight lid and let it sit for up to 30 minutes before serving. You can eat it after the first 30 minutes but letting it sit thickens it up a bit....Serve with some freshly grated Reggiano Parmesan cheese on top and lets not forget the Ritz crackers. I discovered the new "Roasted Vegetable Ritz" and they are really good.......Enjoy!!

BOO.....THE PYRENEES.

We have a dog that weighs more then our daughter and she's 32! He's huge, he's gorgeous and he doesn't listen worth a crap. Oh, for the husband words don't even need to be spoken. The husband just opens the back door, nods at the dog and he comes running...Me, that's another story. We love dogs, infact at one time we had 5. They were Golden Retrievers, they listened. Boo on the other hand knows he's French. He has that "Don't bother me" air about him...he secretly hates me....I don't know why? I feed him, give him his medicine and I get up in the middle of the night to take him out. To be fair I open the back door and he lets himself out into his run. That's when the trouble begins. I could stand at the top of the stairs with links of sausage around my neck and he still wouldn't come in. If he had hands I swear he would give me the finger. For years I thought he was deaf. I was honestly concerned because he wouldn't even acknowledge that I was standing there......no eye contact....nothing. But the the husband, who thinks this dog is a saint, told me what my problem is..........The dog can sense that I'm not sincere when I call him...................I don't think anything more needs to be said.

Bad Review of 88 Minutes.....or Al Pacino what did you do to your hair?

The husband loves to go to the movies.....me, not so much. But when I saw Al Pacino had a new movie out I thought why not....After stuffing my purse with 2 bottles of Coke Zero, a jumbo glass with ice, some green grapes and a few pretzels (we're dieting) we were off for an afternoon of fun and entertainment. The theater was basically empty, there were maybe 10 people in the whole place. We settled in to our favorite end seats all the way at the top and ofcourse like clock work a few minutes into the start of the movie a couple came and sat right in front of us...there were hundreds of empty seats and they found the need to make me move my feet and sit down like it was the last two seats in the place. We were tempted to get up and move right in front of them but instead we moved to the other end of the theater. The movie was set in Seattle.....first mistake. In every scene it rained. It made you feel damp and cold just watching it. Alicia Witt plays Al's teaching assistant and how she gets any work in the movies is a mystery to me. No matter what scene she was in she had that half smirky smile on her face....I hate her in Law and Order CI and I hated her in this. But lets face it Al is who we came to see. Well, he needs to retire. Either that or do something with his hair. It was mesmerizing to watch. It's so bad that it has to be his own hair, they can't make fake hair look that bad. First of all there is too much of it. I mean he has enough hair for three people. To make things worse it actually looks teased. Towards the end of the movie it was more natural and it just appeared to be a thick head of hair. But through most of the flick it looked like someone convinced him by saying "lets tease your hair really high so maybe you'll look taller".... Bad choice. Plus he now runs like an old man and he cannot seem to find a tailor that can dress him in a pair of pants that fit .... I've seen him at award ceremonies dressed in bad tuxedos and I thought maybe it was a personal choice. But next time you see him take a look at the length of his pants......The man has a 28" leg inside of a 34" pants...The movie was a murder mystery and I have to say that they did a good job at keeping the murderer under wraps until the very end of the movie. Either that or I snoozed and missed all the clues as to who it was....In any case, wait until it comes out on video and for God's sake Al.....get a haircut!

FRANCOIS AND HIS HEIRLOOM LEISURE SUIT...

First..a big Thanx to the daughter for turning me on to those Wacky Real Housewives of NYC....Ofcourse last night was the season finale and I even got the husband to watch....He seems to be fascinated with Francois and his genius and the little bugger didn't disappoint..The kid is an idiot and it's not helped by the fact that they dress him like a little old man from "Boca"....what was with that leisure suit he wore when he went for the "genius evaluation".....Alex would probably tell you that it belonged to Grandpa Francois when he won the Australian Spelling Bee at the age of 2. Hideous.......and who lets their children sit under the table in a resturant like the 21 Club...Also who cares that they are teaching him French when they can't even teach him not to yell at the top of his lungs in public. These people should be ashamed of themselves. But more about them later....Then there's Betheny, how does she fit in? She's not really a housewife. Was this second prize for being a reject from the Martha Stewart Apprentice show. Ofcourse without her there would be no one to make fun of the other women. Ramona is just a flake who doesn't think before she acts. The Countess, well the husband pointed out that the "Count" probably has a family in every country he lives in. Luann is just his New York Tootsie. Jill is probably the most normal one on the show and she would fare better on a show called "The Real Housewives of Long Island".......and then there's Alex and Simon....If we were to find out that they were separated at birth and are really brother and sister it wouldn't surprise. They are, well, just plain creepy.......

CUPCAKE NATION.......

Martha started it, Ina does it best and Rachel Ray can't participate because we all know she can't bake....Cupcakes, the new "in" thing taking the country by storm. We loved them before but now they have actually kicked out cheesecake as our favorite sweet treat...Martha just had a contest looking for the "cutest cupcake"....I have to say that some of them were really fabulous. The bucket of popcorn was my favorite. I got inspired to bake some but I must admit that I went the route of Sandra Lee to the horror of my best food buddy from Ohio...She bakes everything from scratch, I cheat. I made an old time favorite, German Chocolate. The husband loves coconut and I try to do my best to keep his weight just above a ton. I used Duncan Hines Moist German Chocolate cake batter, it's wonderful. The frosting looked funky when I was cooking it but once the coconut and the pecans hit the pan it all turned out fine....judge for yourself and get a glass of milk.

FAT AND SKINNY HAD A RACE..........

while in the express line at the grocery store today I was reminded of the husbands favorite poem from his childhood about fat and skinny having somekind of race up and down the pillowcase.....there was a very slim women in front of me in line and on the conveyor belt was 2 bags of salad, tomatoes, fat free dressing, a deli salad with hard boiled eggs and flavored water...She probably weighed in at about 105lbs. Infront of Skinny was "Tiny"....Tiny weighed in at about 350.....her order consisted of 2 bottles of Coke (not diet) a jumbo size bag of chips, a loaf of bread and from the bakery 2 giant size "Whoopie" pies.....a southern thing. It showed me that you don't need Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers, just a little common sense......when it was my turn I promptly had the bag boy return my HoHo's to the shelf.