Brown Sugar Musings

A Most Awesome Meal!

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Am planning on working on this soon, hopefully!
Still feel guilty for quitting so soon.
Had to figure out how to sign in again, fer Pete's Sake.

Just gonna throw in a picture for the heck of it!

If you feel like having a scrumptious meal of this, here's a recipe for

Mama's Asian Chicken (Don't forget to keep that Brown Sugar soft!)

Okay, starting slowly, gonna take off now and rest on what current laurels I still might possess.

Life on the Farm is not 'Mighty Laid Back'!!

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:28:00 +0000

These beautiful girls were born in late February, and the one on the left nearly didn't make it. The weather was so cold, and my BIL Dwayne and SIL Wendy put them in the barn in a warming container with a hair dryer attached. If they don't get there in time, their little ears will freeze, as well as their tail and sometimes their feet!

I was so grateful to hear they both lived. What an experience!

This little girl's head (below) was lolling back and forth she was so cold...my heart broke.

Here they are in the warming barrel/container/holder, and they were so glad to be together, bein' twins and all!

Everyone should have a chance to visit a farm/ranch during Calving Season.
I have much more respect for farmers/ranchers now! (not that I didn't before!)

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We've already had Thanksgiving!

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:33:00 +0000

Now that it's been a few weeks, and our Canadian Thanksgiving is over, I'm beginning to wonder why we can't have another one on November 27!

After all, my family in Washington, California, and Minnesota will be celebrating on that favourite day!
I'm like my Dad, though, because I don't have to make an excuse to eat turkey.
I love it anytime!

I certainly don't know why I didn't take a picture of the table when we were eating and when it was full of food! This picture looks very sparse, and even though I love olives and pickles, this just doesn't cut it!

I thought we had more Thanksgiving decorations, besides the puny little candle holder on the table...sigh....
Guess I'll have to do better next year!

I'm pretty sure I have a mouthful of turkey here as James is stirring the everlasting gravy! I never seem to make gravy thick enough for my husband, but there is nothing worse than gravy tasting like flour! I know, cornstarch does the job, too, but I've never mastered that yet!
Margaret was the chosen 'potato masher' which used to always be my job when I wasn't the Mom. She seems to enjoy her task and put a lot of effort into making it into a lovely tower of hot buttery spuds! They certainly tasted great (with the less than thick gravy!)

This is the first year I decided to serve a bit of champagne to accompany our meal, and everyone had a go (including Ken) at opening the bottle. It was quite tricky, and when Vanessa's boyfriend Jeff (to her left) took his turn, the cork shot up into the loft, and I'm not sure we ever found it again! Which of course meant that we had to drink the entire bottle during Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful meal, and we all gave appropriate thanks for what was happening in our lives, but....I really want to do it all over again!

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Please Don't Let The Summer End!

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:40:00 +0000

It truly is so hard to go from this

to this and back again so quickly!

This has been the strangest summer in that you 'pays yer money and takes yer chances"!

We've had wonderful times - Family Reunions, Camping Trips, Golf Games, Ball Games, and there will be more to come! When you live in an area where Summer seems so short, you have to squish all the activities you can in a short amount of time!

I made this casserole from my sister, Penny, at the family reunion, and instead of putting the cheese on top like most recipes call for, this one calls for putting the tater tots on top so they're crispy. The Hall Family manages to come up with the BEST potluck during our 'every two year' reunion, and we all roll out of the hall after we've stuffed ourselves with great down home cookin'! What's great is we have the leftovers the next day for lunch after our Alberta vs British Columbia Slowpitch Tournament.

Gotta fry up the onions good and crispy so people who don't like onions don't know they're there!!

Then you cook the hamburger in with the onion - as gray as it looks, it does get better!!

Then you mix up a couple cans of mushroom soup (s'gotta be Campbells) and mix it with a cup of milk. Now slosh it all over the mixed hamburger and onion in a 9 x 13 casserole.

Now, even though the recipe calls for 2 cups of grated cheese, we make more than that, cuz we love cheese!
Dump and spread the cheese over the top of the soupy mixture.

Toss it in the oven (if it's glass, don't toss it!) and bake at 400 degrees until you see it start to crisp up!
Don't worry if it starts to boil up over the potatoes. There are still enough crispy ones to go 'round!! (I think it's probably because we put in too much cheese, but, Oh well!)

Then you dish it up with a bowl of green salad, and it's Comfort Food in the making!

It's actually a better meal for a Winter day, but when it comes to a Potluck at a Hall Reunion on a 30 degree day, it still seemed to work! :o)

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Ken's Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:16:00 +0000

So, we decided to go all out and order pizza on Ken's Birthday night...(we don't mind overdoing the restaurant thing when it comes to the kids, but we can manage to hold back a bit when it's our turn!) I thought Ken liked Carrot Cake, so I decided to jump right in and make it before I asked! (I'm beginning to forget who likes what!)

So I opened up my trusty old Joy of Cooking cookbook (it's so old, it still doesn't think microwaves will be a success) which has the basic recipe for carrot cake and cream cheese icing. The dry stuff is the flour, salt, cinnamon, baking powder/soda?..

The wet stuff is the eggs, oil, and vanilla... Looks a bit lemony, but that's just a fluke! I think the sugar was in here too. I've slept since then!

Grated carrots from my trusty food processor. I took advantage of the fact that I had some old frozen grated carrot in my freezer. Man, I'm doing really well trying to empty that old thing and start filling it again!

Chopped nuts with a little extra light when the picture was taken!

Mixing the whole danged thing together!

It really doesn't look all that attractive before it bakes, but I hope I know what it's going to look like when it's baked!

Yep, it turned out ok..and smelled good, too!

Here we are after the cake was iced and candled! The three candles represent Health, Wealth, and Happiness - started by my Grammy! The problem was, we were so full from pizza and the danged brownies which came with the pizza, the only one who could manage a piece of Carrot Cake was Moi! No surprise there!

Ken opening his B-day card from his cousin Janice! She remembers everything, and is one of the only people who can make Ken laugh!

Relaxing amidst the inevitable mess after opening presents.
The Carrot Cake is now gone, but I think I ate most of it!
Kenny had another successful birthday, and that's a good thing.

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Billy's Creamed Chicken & Biscuits

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:08:00 +0000

Thanks to my buddy Billy Cotton, here's a great recipe for a potluck or a big family.
I, however, decided to make it last night, and there was no one to eat it but Ken and me, so we have a whack of leftovers.....no problem there!

This is definitely a comfort food since, in my mind, if it's got some kind of Campbell's soup in it, it's comfort food....not gourmet food. :o)
Not that there's anything wrong with that!

Two potatoes peeled and cubed. Got a picture quick before the taters turned brown!

Used the JBK Pot Minder so the water wouldn't boil over, and when it rattles and drives you nuts, that's when you take it out of the water and either turn it down or add the vegetables.

Billy's Creamed Chicken & Biscuits

Servings 8

1 1/2 tsps butter
1 lg onion chopped
4 cups frozen vegetables (thawed)
2 med potatoes, cubed
4 cups cooked and shredded chicken (or one whole chicken, cooked, boned, shredded)
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 can cheddar cheese soup
1 cup sour cream
1 cup milk
1/2 cup pimiento, chopped - optional (cindy didn't use it)
2 can Ortega green chiles, chopped - optional (cindy didn't use it)
2 can refrigerated biscuits (used one can and cut 'em in half)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 14.5 x 10.5 inch baking dish.

Blanch the cubed potatoes for 3 min in boiling salted water, add the thawed frozen vegetables and let all blanch for another 1-2 minutes.
Drain well and set aside.

Heat butter in a large pot (unlike the relic I used); add the onion and saute till tender.
Add the rest of the ingredients, including the potatoes and vegetables, except the biscuits, to the onion; heat over medium heat just to warm.
Add salt & pepper to taste.

Spoon mixture into prepared baking dish.
Place dish on a cookie sheet and bake in oven for 20 to 30 minutes.
Remove from oven; distribute biscuits closely over the top of the casserole.
Bake till biscuits are golden brown and the sauce is bubbly, about 20 minutes.

Discovered that even when you use a food processor to chop onions, taking the lid off will still make you cry!

I realized that one kind of soup I don't have hanging around the house is the Cheddar Cheese soup...so I had to run out and stand gaping in a soup aisle for about a half hour before I found it!

Dairyland sour cream - the best!

Not particularily appetizing in a too small, harvest gold, retro dutch oven pot!

Lovely salt from Margaret's Mom!

Uh oh, another photo of the retro pot! Not only that, it's wa-ay too full!

It's actually starting to take on a more appetizing look!

Finished product, and I was told by Vanessa it tasted pretty good! I thought so too.

Thanks, Billy!

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The Mouse Saga

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:33:00 +0000

So the mouse story all started on a Friday evening in late March.
I was just heading off to bed, and I opened the cupboard door under the sink to throw away a bit of garbage. When I shut the cupboard door, I had an image in my mind of a grey furry shape, so when I swallowed, opened the cupboard door, and lifted the lid, I was still shocked to see the little furry buzzard staring at me with bright beautiful eyes as he leapt straight up in the air to escape. He didn't quite make it, so I shut the lid and closed the door in a nano-second! I'm not even afraid of mice, but it's the shock that gets you!
I listened as he managed to escape, presumably the way he entered!

Although I've tried to use humane traps in which they've died of starvation because I totally and shamefully forgot about them, I finally had enough. This was war. Vanessa picked up a couple of the old fashioned traps for me, and for the first time in my life, I set one myself. It was too loose, so the little bugger got cake and peanut butter for free that night. I wised up and set it a bit tighter that very morning. Amazingly enough, I caught 3 over the course of the weekend, and although I cried every time I caught one, they have now wised up and realized I mean business!

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Birthday, Painting, & Easter

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:22:00 +0000

Concentrating on a wish!

Whew, this last weekend was exhausting! Maybe that's why it took until Wednesday to mention it!
Good Friday was Vanessa's Birthday, Saturday we began to paint an entire wall plum, and Sunday was Easter when I didn't hide eggs for the first time in a huge amount of years..sigh..

Friday, we went to a wonderful Greek Restaurant in Calgary called The Broken Plate, and it was beautiful!
We had the Tzatziki (classic Greek cucumber yogurt dip) Melatzano (baked eggplant,cream cheese) Hommus (chickpea, tahini, cumin, and garlic dip)Kopanisto (grilled red pepper, feta, and smooth cheese) and grilled pitas to go with the dips!

We all had Entrées which were amazing, and a wonderful dessert of banana Nutella crepes(with a sparkler they lit from the bottom up) to split 6 ways (I mean, c'mon, there was birthday cake later!)
Vanessa even got to break a plate after supper as a symbol of material things being unimportant and the importance of family and friends! If you look closely, you'll see the fateful Visa card in hand!

Saturday was spent prepping a wall for this beautiful plum coloured paint to take the place of what used to be a white feature wall. I don't know what feature wall means, but it sounds good when you want to pretend you know something about interior design! We painted one coat.

Sunday I got up early to make the braided bread with Easter eggs in it. I put the eggs in the bread a little too early, (when the bread was still slightly warm) so parts of the bread looked a bit moldy when the blues and greens leached a bit! We got past that - well....I got past that!

Finally, we painted the second and last coat of paint, and by the time we were finished, we just sat and ate Easter chocolate and admired our wall.

It was a wonderful weekend, and Monday still came much too early!

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Easter and the Eggs

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:45:00 +0000

Sigh....

I asked my Vanessa (who's turning 22 tomorrow - March 21) if she wanted to have our annual Egg Hunt and Basket Hunt on Easter Sunday this year.

I was shocked when she hemmed and hawed and ultimately said it might be ok not to do a search this year.

This coming from a girl who stood in line for two hours at Disneyland so she could hug Winnie the Pooh and Tigger!
Perhaps it's wise not to mention we were all in Disneyland approximately 7 years ago!

I'm realizing as time proceeds, the traditions we all take for granted evolve and remain only in memories. It's so very difficult watching children grow older...
Ultimately, the comfort I can glean from this is when my children have children of their own, part of our traditions will be carried on.

I must admit, though, as Vanessa and James got older, it was a lot harder for the Easter Bunny to hide those eggs and to come up with tougher and better clues as to where the famous baskets were!

I guess I'll have to content myself with delivering one more candy and trinket Easter Basket to each of them as well as their Jeff and Margaret.

Here's hoping they'll still share!

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Broken Plate

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:33:00 +0000

Sometimes it would be wise to stay in bed, have a snack or two, and watch movies or read through the day.

That's how I felt this last Saturday when all sorts of unusual things began happening.

It was an all nighter on Friday night for some people close to me, and so the day took on even more of a surreal effect...

An ambulance and police car visited the neighbors across the street from us. When the same neighbors stopped by later in the early evening to ask me a question, and when I asked how they were, they somehow sidestepped the question and referred to it as an 'incident'. Good thing I'm not too nosy, or I would have continued with that line of questioning.

At the same time, the neighbors beside us were outside in the dusk with their brand new puppy with a bark the size of a building, and with a name like Scooby, I began to feel like our whole neighborhood was becoming a virtual comic strip.

The night before, another friend/neighbor began moving, and with all the help he was receiving, it seemed the move was going nowhere....after all, they had to take a break now and then and trot off to visit anyone who was willing to part with a beverage or two!

During this hectic day, I managed to drop a large Corning Ware plate on our kitchen tile.

It exploded/shattered into a million pieces and flew from one end of the house to the other.

Chipper was lying in the kitchen minding his own business and ended up with quite a few bits of plate in his fur. He was unconcerned, as usual, but as I was picking out the shards, I realized it was a good thing his eyes had been shut!

Perhaps now and then we need a day like this to remind us how nice a normal day is. Although, I'm not really sure what a normal day is.

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Happy Birthday, Penny!

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:13:00 +0000

It's hard to believe my little sister isn't my 'little' sister anymore! She's all grown up and has been for years now.
I can't wait to hear how she likes the presents I got her.....
Miraculously, I sent them nearly a whole month ahead of time which surprised her and me!
She looks tough here, but she's a softie, and she's still as beautiful as the day she was born!
Penny, now do you understand my endless emails about discovering pennies on the ground? It was killin' me!

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Freddy Wanted Equal Time

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:58:00 +0000

It just seemed right that I include a picture of Freddy, after all, he was a very large part of the party, too. It's just that he was much more polite and hovered (or hoovered) around the food instead of getting in everyone's way!

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Party's Over, I'm Exhausted!

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:08:00 +0000

Wow, a weekend to top all weekends!

We had our 'Going Away Party' for our good friend! He has so many friends who love him, and since he's moving to BC, we had him invite who he wanted, and we provided the party!

There was a lot of food, totally non-healthy, but still necessary to make it be real party food!
Chicken wings; cheesy toasty things; cheesy, olivey, toasty things; bacony cheesy Melba toast things; several other appetizers and some (clean out the liquor cabinet) Punch...with lotsa ice and frozen strawberries to keep it even colder.

People were kind and thanked us profusely! Even though they had to step around Chipper the Great in the middle of the kitchen for the duration of the party!

Went to bed at 12:30 AM Sunday morning from pure loss of adrenalin! I had a few glasses of punch, but they weren't as scary as I thought they'd be!

Next morning I was so happy it was only 8 AM until I realized it was actually 9 with the time change! Found party recipient friend and my husband Ken at the bottom of the stairs with drinks in hand, still awake and chatting quite animatedly, (or as Ken says 'chin wagging') about whether they looked at a glass half-empty or half-full.

Later, the weather outside was so wonderful, we headed outside and sat around the remaining fire all over again.....
Our friend had been a bit concerned about an old girlfriend and a new girlfriend showing up at the party the night before, so, ironically, he invited them both to our backyard after they phoned him (one right after the other) yesterday. What fun we still had, and a few Caesars were mixed and handed out with what little bit of food was left over. I still can't fathom someone staying awake for two full days!

I have to say it's the first time in my life I cleaned up the kitchen a day after the day after the party! Maybe we can live for a month from the proceeds of the bottle returns!

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Appetizers for a 'See You Later' Party!

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:13:00 +0000

So a good friend from across the street is moving....
...sigh.....
We're having a 'Going Away Partay' for him, and since it's not a Surprise Party, he's inviting his friends and family, and that'll be just fine!

It remains to be seen how many will attend! Probably more than expected in this case. Our friend has many friends.....only partly because he's such an excellent joke teller!

He and my husband have been known to stay up well into the late morning, so I've made sure I have my trusty earplugs at the ready for when I toddle off to bed!
They seem to lose their hearing as the party progresses, and they need to turn up the stereo!

My ultimate chore beforehand is to clean house (how dreary) and make a whack of appetizers. I have several cooking websites to thank for the recipes!

Hopefully there will be a couple pictures of the party by next week!

Cheers!
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New Beginnings

noreply@blogger.com (Brown Sugar) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:23:00 +0000

My ultimate good friend, Tricia Rendina, once told me that instead of making New Year's Resolutions, a person should think about making New Year's Intentions. It takes away the guilt!
What a wonderful thought!

So, on beginning this blog, I'm thinking maybe I'll just begin with an intention which is to continue every day or two and mention a few thoughts now and then.....perhaps about life in general, perhaps about life in specifics, but hopefully nothing which would rile a few feathers.

Well......maybe feather riling isn't so bad - after all, it's just words.

A person could get into this, really!

I'm extremely excited, because we're going to change our website, make a newsletter, and produce new brochures for our pottery. What fun we're going to have!

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