Fabulous Friday

10 Steps To Great Corn

1. Look for it on sale, you can usually find corn for at least 4 ears for a dollar.
2. Buy it in the husk, it's cheaper that way.
3. Husk your corn over a newspaper or right next to a trash can.
4. Be sure to grab as much of the tip of the husk as possible and pull down, trying to grab as much of the silks as possible.
5. Work in an assembly line fashion. Husk all the corn, then wash all the corn, then work on the silks.
6. To remove any remaining silks use a wet paper towel and starting at the top of the ear drag the towel down to the bottom.
7. Bring a large pot of unsalted water to a boil. Turn the heat off and drop the prepared corn into the water. You really don't need to cook the corn you just need to heat it, that will keep it tender.
8. You can also grill it directly on the barbecue it you'd like.
9. Serve the corn with butter, salt and pepper.
10. You can flavor the butter with your favorite herbs or even chipotle peppers. Just whirl the softened butter in the food processor with the herbs or the peppers.

And that is this gal's view for today. Enjoy your weekend and make sure to fix yourself some corn!

Fabulous Friday

If you are anything like me you love to read recipes.

I have a personal library of cookbooks, a huge stack of Everyday Food magazines, I'm always picking up a new cookbook from the library and that doesn't even take into account all of the food blogs and cooking sites I find on the internet.

It's fun to read all of those different recipes. It's like a hobby for me.

But too much of even a good thing is too much!

The problem comes in trying to remember where a dish I really would like to try is located!

And that is where this Friday's tip comes in.

A 3 ring binder!

What could be simplier?

I keep 2, 3 ring binders. One is larger than the other. In the smaller one I keep a running list of recipes I would like to try. I record what book or magazine they are from and the page number. If I find a recipe on the internet that looks good I copy it and stick it into a plastic sheet and then into the smaller binder. I also list it on the list and state it's loction as notebook.

Then when I am in the mood to try something new I just review my list and can easily find the recipe.

Once I've tried it and if I like it, it gets recorded in my "Cook It and Don't Forget It" journal.



If it's an internet recipe it gets moved from the small binder into the larger binder and then recorded in the journal as located in notebook.

If I don't like it, it gets filed into the circular file never to be thought of again.

And that is this gal's view for today.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Fabulous Friday

It's Friday yet again with another weekend on the horizon.

It will be a bit busy for us. We're going to be celebrating by son's 28th birthday. I have a shopping trip planned with my daughter, I'm cashing in on my Mother's Day gift. And there are two basketball playoff games to watch and The Preakness! Will there be a triple crown winner this year, do you think?

But before all of that fun let's start with this week's tip.

Rice.

Now I'm not a terribly big fan of rice.

But the family likes it so I'm always trying to get it just right.

Last night for dinner I made orange chicken and I wanted to serve it with rice. My daughter had jasmine rice in a restaurant recently and she loved it, so I decided to give it a try.

I bought brown jasmine rice. Since the brown rice does not go through the milling process of white rice the husk is left in tact and so the rice is not stripped of it's fiber, essential oils and minerals.

As a matter of fact brown rice has 3.5 times more fiber than it's white counter part. And it has 88 percent of the recommended daily amount of manganese which helps to helps produce energy from protein and carbohydrates, aids in the body's synthesis of fatty acids, promotes central nervous system health and aids in the production of good cholesterol. It also has selenium which helps to ward of colon cancer, boosts the immune system, and plays a key role in thyroid hormone metabolism.

So you see, you get lots of bang for your buck when you eat brown jasmine rice.

But how to cook it?

Well I searched around on the internet and this is what I came up with.

1. Soak 1 cup of brown rice in 2 cups of cold water for 1 hour.
2. Drain the rice and put into a medium saucepan and place over a medium temperature burner until the rice dries out.
3. Meanwhile boil a little over 2 cups of water.
4. After the rice is "dry", pour the boiling water over it and add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Bring the rice back to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 40 minutes.
6. Don't stir it while it's cooking.
7. At the end of 40 minutes remove from heat and let sit, with lid on, for another 10 minutes.

This was really good! It was kind of sticky, which I liked and it had a nice nutty taste to it. I will definitely make it again.

And that is this gal's view for today. Have an awesome weekend!

Fabulous Friday

Today may be Friday, but I'm not sure that it's fabulous.

At least not anything to do with my computer.

The desktop that I work on is old. Very old. And as of late, has been running slower and slower.

Yesterday the shelf that pulls out and holds my keyboard let loose and came crashing to the ground. Shelf, keyboard, mouse, and all.

So here I sit, starring into the screen of this impossibly slow, old computer with a mouse who's cord is hardly long enough any more and the keyboard on my lap.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that I have a newer computer sitting on my next right next to the old one. Which explains why I have no space for my mouse or my keyboard.

The newer computer is a hand me down from the hub's office. And even though it is used it will be much better than the old one.

But it's not hooked up yet. And I need to keep the old one for a bit so I can transfer my information to the newer one, once it is hooked up.

Does that make sense?

So in all of that what I am trying to say it that today's tip will be short even though it turns out that this post is not.

Today's tip concerns empty jars. Empty jars of mustard, jams, mayonnaise, whatever it might be.

Scrape out whatever you can and save the jar (in the fridge) for the next time you make a dressing or a marinade. Mix the dressing or marinate together in the empty jar. Make sure it's one that uses the content of the jar as an ingredient. And then shake it all together.

You will not only have a container for your sauce, but you will for sure be getting every last bit out of that used jar. And in this day and age that's always a good thing.

So I hope you found today's tip to be useful. And I hope to be up and running on my newer computer when I meet with you all again on Monday.

Have a great weekend. And Happy Mother's Day!!

And that is this gal's view for today.

Fabulous Friday

It's Friday! Time for another tip.

Do you dread looking into your crisper drawer in the fridge?

I know I do.

I hate to see those various bags of limp, wilted greens that I have to throw away. With the rising price of groceries today it is literally painful.

Well here's a tip that will keep those veggies looking fresher longer.

Wash your produce when you get home from the store. Dry it as well as you can and put it in a zip lock bag. Then take a paper towel, folded in quarters and place in the back. Or if you are, say putting grapes in a serving bowl, place the quartered paper towel under the grapes in the bowl.

This will keep your fruit and veggies dry. And they will lost longer since it is moisture that causes them to wilt and even mold.

It's also a good idea to line the crisper drawer with a double layer of paper towels. The dryer you can keep things the better.

And that is this gal's view for today.

Fabulous Friday

Fabulous Friday...I like that. Maybe I'll turn it into a regular series. I don't know, we'll see.

But what can be fabulous? Other than it is the last day of the week and it ushers in the beloved weekend. Well that's pretty good.

Maybe it's a good day to offer tips.

Tip of the week...maybe...

Let's see...

For this week's tip how about passwords.

How many times have you signed up for an account on some web page or another, determined that you would remember the user name and password you have chosen, only to find out that when you re-log in you are denied access because the user name and password you are remembering turns out to be not the one you chose.

How frustrating is that? And what a time waster!

Well, you say, easy, just choose the same log-in information for each account. Not a good idea some say and not always possible. Different sites often have different requirements. And for security reasons you should not always use the same password.

Well that leads us to this day's tip.

There are two things you can do. I, myself have done both.

1. Keep an address book next to your computer. Whenever you create a new account log the new information into the book. Of course arrange your entries alphabetically by web site name.

2. Create a password folder in word pad. Record all of your needed information there and then it is a simple step to copy and paste.

I like the ease of word pad with copy and paste, but I also like having all of that information in hard copy, just in case my computer crashes. Maybe doing both is a good idea. What do you think?

And that is this gal's view for today.