Throwback Thursday

My guess this is in the 1960s I’ve posted this photo before. Those slipcovers!!

My mother holding my sister’s cat Morgan Le Fay

So I was influenced…

I admit it.

I follow a young woman Katipederson on TikTok who puts together meals for a family of four for $15, shopping at Aldi or Trader Joe’s or Costco.

I’ve not been inspired to actually prepare any of the meals to feed my family but I like her enthusiasm and energy and the taste testing portion with her teenage son. Here’s her link to her dip. She’s got almost 600 thousand followers.

The other day she shared a dip recipe from Trader Joe’s ingredients. Here’s the total cost of this 13×9 dish of hot dip. Using ingredients from Trader Joe’s. The Steelers vs. Browns (rivals) were playing Sunday afternoon. I had a plan. This is not one of the just under $15 total posts.

I can tell you it’s pretty rich with the cheese and heavy cream in the queso. Don’t over consume.!! And I can tell you that everyone who eats chicken in the house, loved it!!!

Just under $28 for the dip ingredients. If I’d purchased a couple of the bags of the organic corn chips it would have been an additional ten dollars.
I already had a bag of Tostitos scoops at home in the pantry
You drain the liquid off the salsa
It’s not too spicy but is flavorful with jalapeños in the queso
Stir it all up in a large bowl
Bake at 375. It did make a lot

Here’s what you need. I added a can of black beans, rinsed and drained. Got that idea from the comments. That would add $1.49 to the total.

This pic is from the Tik Tok video. The corn chips aren’t shown. I used this screenshot to find the exact products in the store. I’ve not bought them previously.

So bad. Soooo good.

Do you have a favorite bar food? Click for recipes

Onion Rings at Fireside Public House Pittsburgh

Recipe from Joanne

Sloppy Lennys Recipe

From I Dream of Dinner so You Don’t Have To by Ali Slagle

The second time I made it I used green lentils instead of red. Seemed to hold shape better. Serve on toasted buns just as you would their cousin Sloppy Joe.

Still celebrating

A guilty pleasure which many don’t understand. Pouring milk on cake. Usually I’d do it on a stale piece but this little piece was still fresh.

Here’s a 14 second video of milk being poured over a piece of Trader Joe’s Lemon Sheet Cake atop a nest of juicy blackberries.

A Bowl Full of Cherries (Not)

Cherry Tomatoes. I liked the varied shades

A former post Not Always

Bowl of cherries

idiom- definition from Wikipedia

  1. An idiom (Latin: idioma, “special property”, from Greek: ἰδίωμα – idíōma, “special feature, special phrasing, a peculiarity”, f. Greek: ἴδιος – ídios, “one’s own”) is a phrase or a fixed expression that has a figurative, or sometimes literal, meaning. An idiom’s figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning.

 “sometimes used ….to mean just the opposite”

If you’ve been with me since the beginning of this blog (almost six years) you’ve probably seen one of my favorite posts from 2009.  Shot in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.  Fiestaware bowl.

LIFE IS A FIESTAWARE BOWL OF QUEEN ANNE CHERRIES

“Fiesta® Dinnerware was designed by Frederick Hurten Rhead in 1936 and is now among
the most collected china products in the world.”  Go to their website and see what colors were produced in which year(s).     http://www.hlchina.com/fiestacolors.htm   This bowl with the cherries was photographed on a balcony  in Sheboygan WI in August.

Unexpected Spectacular Delight

Look what my daughter-in-law Nataliya found FREE on FB Marketplace Sunday afternoon. Yes, she was browsing through marketplace while she’s in Mexico thousands of miles away from Pittsburgh. Actually (2,893 miles)

Nataliya texted me and alerted me to this fabulous FREE cake being offered and I drove less than a mile to pick it up!

What a lovely pastry chef Marla Mae and her husband Logan who carried it out in a large white box with a window to peer in. Oh my!!!

They brought it out to my car.

Wait.

Let’s get it out of the car and take some pictures!!!

Marla’s husband snapped this photo of the presentation.

@madebymarlamae is on Instagram

An impromptu party was about to take place.

Drove over to the neighborhood and pulled up to the curb just as my friend Barb was about get into her friend Sonia’s car. I yelled across the street-Baaaarb!!.

Barb and Sonia then changed their plans from going to the movies to see The Sheep Detectives and instead we all went inside Barb’s house.

Barb and Sonia got on their phones and invited a few friends and neighbors to come for a surprise cake tasting. One by one, everyone ooohed and ahhed when they arrived and saw what a fabulous cake awaited tasting!

Here’s a YouTube video of everyone’s responses to the gorgeous cake.

It was so generous that everyone got to take a piece home, too. There were raspberries and fresh strawberries and real pink roses and “The cakesicles are basically just cake pops with a chocolate shell” and raspberry macarons. Chocolate dipped strawberries decorated the numerals. Chocolate cake with raspberry preserves, buttercream. Delicious!

Here’s Marla Maes website.

If you live in Pittsburgh area and need a special cake……

We ate the 2.
Details

Easy Egg Pan Clean Up

I heard about this method of cooking eggs so they don’t stick to the pan.

1. Heat your pan

2. Heat your fat (olive oil and butter)

3. Pour in beaten eggs (one minute video I filmed) click to watch

Frame from video

This is after the eggs are on the plate.
A pretty clean pan

Throwback Recipes 1965

In 2011 I started a blog of Throwback Recipes. I didn’t check the dates to see how long I kept it up but it was short lived.

Here’s an example of a post. My mother’s Chocolate Pound Cake Recipe

Last week at the Community Center I saw an old cookbook on the “Free Table” so I brought it home and found a handwritten recipe and a newspaper clipping and had fun going through the pages. It was from Lake Charles. Louisiana first printing in 1965

Found inside
The handwritten recipe
Notes:
Raggedy Ann Salt Ornament
a Pea Salad
and Cornflake Macaroons
A Party !
Sounds good to me
Do you like Okra?

Farm Fresh Eggs

Saturday I helped out with Sheep Shearing day at Flower Hill Fleeces Farm.

Skirting the fleece with Rachel
of Tableten Podcast fame.
It was chilly in the barn.

At the end of the day, I was given a dozen farm fresh eggs from their chickens. Thanks Jodi. You can let the eggs sit on the counter until you wash them. Then they need refrigeration. I washed two and put butter and olive oil in my omelet pan to fry them up.

Here’s the short video of them cooking. Look at those vibrant yolks.

Buttered toast waiting for the eggs
Freshly ground pepper
Just right to dip the toast in

They were delicious.