OK, OK, OK!!!

I know it has been a while. One of those small life changing things has happened. I changed jobs in the last couple months. I am still not working in Lawrence County, I'm in Green County! Bloomfield to be more exact. I'm just not destined to work within 15 miles of where I live.

More to come this weekend! (I hope)

Doug

Last Night's Menu

Chicken fried/baked
Dressing
Green Beans
Mashed Potatoes
Salad

This is one of the easiest fried chicken recipes.
Empty a box of Stove Top Dressing and 1-1/2 cups hot water into a 9 X 13 glass dish. Dip 8-10 chicken tenders into flour and brown them in a hot skillet using some Crisco. Don't cook them more than 1 to 2 minutes per side and lay them on top of the dressing. Bake this in a 300 degree oven for 45-50 minutes.
I use a beef bouillon cube per can of green beans when heating them up. I like the Italian Flat beans.
Get some Chicken Base. You should be able to find it near the bullion in the store. Add a couple table spoons to your potatoes as they are boiling. Yummy.

Canada Pictures

I wanted to try adding some pictures just to see how. These were taken on a fishing trip in Canada with my father, uncle, and a good friend.

This first one is right outside our cabin one morning. We were staying at the Sandy Beach Lodge in North West Ontario on Trout Lake.

This one is me holding a nice stringer of smaller Walleye.

That was a great trip. We breakfasted in the lodge. They would cook anything you could ask for. One of the area specialties is called Red River Cereal. It is a five (I think) whole grain hot cereal that is a little like oatmeal in its consistency. LOTS of fibre. Then go out fishing until lunch. Each boat was packed with a lunch box which includes three huge red skin potatoes, two onions, about two pounds of lard, Ziploc bag of breading, a can of pork n' beans, a can of peaches, an 18" steel pan, and a small sauce pan for water to clean the fish and plates and stuff. They also gave us a cooler with bottled water and pop. My father has been several times and knows the good places to have shore lunch. Controlling the heat is the hardest part. Start the spuds cooking first and then melt some lard in the other boats' skillet and bread the fish fillets. There is no better fish in the world, NONE, than fresh caught Walleye from that cold water. After frying the fish in the lard and adding a spoon full of fried potatoes, a little salt, and some beans to your plate, you retire to a nice moss covered boulder to enjoy. We have all decided that it is the location that makes it taste so good. I was able to bring home some fish and I tried to make a shore lunch for my wife and son. It just didn't taste the same. Dad said to try making it on a fire outside. That was a little more fun but it still wasn't the same. After a long day of fishing, we would go back and clean up for supper. You might say "how could you be hungry after eating all that". Well, in the FOOD post you learned that I like, love, good food. That trip included some of the best food I have ever eaten. The supper menu was set and different every night. There was about twenty to thirty people at the lodge at one time. When one group would leave to go home, another would replace them. Dad had been there so many times that we were allowed to go out without a guide. The main lake itself is over 100,000 acres and Little Trout Lake is another 30,000 accessible by a couple rivers. It is pretty shallow and has lots of little islands and boulders, so you always had to be on the look out for rocks just under the surface of the water. If you hit one of these with your boat motor you had to pay for the motor. Not cheap because everything has to be flown into the lake, even us. You take your own gear and clothing, everything else is provided. I wore thermal underwear, T shirt, flannel shirt, rain coat, blue jeans, rain pants, and life jacket everyday. You also need to wear rubber boots so you can jump in and out of the boat easily. I also found some rubber coated gloves in out lunch box that were nice for taking off fish. The rain suit makes it a little hard to move around a lot, but it is nice in case that moss covered boulder happened to be a little wet. Showers pop up frequently and it is easier to just leave the stuff on then trying to put it on when a storm is approaching. When the wind picks up the water can be quite choppy. A great time was had by all four of us. I will post some more pictures later. I have a good action shot of the fish hitting the hot lard!

A new look

As you can see, not that many people have looked yet, but I thank those of you that have, I have changed my template and no longer use the html template editor. I think it looks good on me.

FOOD!

I love food. I love to cook food and I love to eat food. I love shopping for food. I love the way it looks and smells. I have always said that a woman that would wear Ode to Bacon would forever have my heart. Bacon is one of my favorite ways to make grease. If a recipe calls for butter or oil, I usually substitute bacon grease for a little added flavor. I put bacon on salads, in soups, on eggs, in my mouth. I know that bacon, or at least the grease, is not very good for you, but hey, we all got to go sometime why not happy being full of bacon! Another favorite meat of mine has got to be HAM! I love ham cooked or cold, on a sandwich or just a plate. I like it in beans, white, green, and black. We all could eat more ham and beans. Beans are very good for you. But aah enough about pork, on with the recipe.
My wife and I love this simple appetizer. Every time we take to out to a party or pot luck we receive many compliments. So here it is.

Pull Apart Bacon Bread
12 bacon strips, diced
1 one pound loaf of frozen bread dough, thawed
2 Tbs Olive oil, use your taste preference here, I like EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1 envelope ranch dressing mix (the dry make your own kind) I like Hidden Valley

In a large skillet, cook the bacon over a medium heat for about 5 minutes. It won't be completely cooked yet but that is OK. This will render most of the grease out, drain it off and save it to cook some fried potatoes or add it to some green beans.
Roll out the bread dough to about 1/2" thick and brush it with about 1/2 of the EVOO and cut it into pieces about 1" square.
In a large bowl, toss the bread dough cubes, bacon, cheese, remaining oil, and the package of ranch mix. Make sure everything is coated and you don't see lots of the ranch mix in one area.
Turn the bowl out onto a greased cookie sheet and spread it out but it is OK if they are stacked up a little. If you are wanting to make it fancy, pile the bread cubes up into a loose cone or pyramid shape. Cover this with a piece of wax paper sprayed with Pam. Let it rise in a warm place for at least 1/2 an hour. The longer you let it go the larger and more fluffy the cubes will get but remember it does have partially cooked bacon on there so don't let it set out too long.
Remove the wax paper. Make a loose tent of aluminum foil over the cookie sheet and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 15 minutes, or a little longer if you want the bread more browned.

This stuff is great when it is just out of the oven. It is also an easy recipe to play with. I can see pepperoni instead of bacon, and a few black olives. Maybe even some sauteed onions. Try this one out and let me know what you think. We got the recipe from "Taste of Home Holiday 2003".

Another Blog Added

This time it is a baseball link to an informative well written Blog for the Cincinnati Reds. Nice Blog Shawn.

Tonights Menu

Salad, we ate Chinese Buffet for a late lunch so we are not hungry. Next couple of days look forward to Recipe Blogging.

Tonights Menu

Chuck roast, mashed potatos, green beans, and maple candied carrots. Look for some recipe post soon.

Major League Baseball

This is the first year that I really got into following baseball. My son played a lot of little league last summer and we started watching some of the Cincinnati Reds games at night. We went to see some minor league games last year including the South Bend Silver Hawks and the Louisville Bats. Louisville has a wonderful ballpark. We watched the game in South Bend while visiting some friends over the 4th of July last year. After the game we got to go into the outfield and watch fireworks. The grass out there, even in a single "A" park, is like carpet. In 2005 we went to watch the Indianapolis Indians play. It was a double header and the first game went 13 innings and the second game went close to 16 I think. We watched the first game and the first few innings of the second but with the hour and a half drive home we skipped out on the rest of the 16 innings.
I really got into watching the Reds play last year. Krivsky is doing some great things. The Reds had two pitchers in the MLB top 10 pitcher rating chart for strikeouts. Harang (216) finished out second. Arroyo (184) tied for ninth with Chris Carpenter from St. Louis. I think that the Reds have a good shot next year depending on what the rest of the winter does for them and other teams in the NL Central. I can't believe all the swapping and buying that is going on. Next year should be completely different from last year. Two players I hated to see go were Rich Aurilia and Austin Kearns. Kearns went to the Nationals during the season when he and Felipe Lopez were traded for some pitching. Kearns was one of the quickest Right Fielders in the game. I have saw him throw runners out at first on short hoppers that just clear the infield. He has a great arm and I'm glad to see him in the outfield instead of on the mound where he first started. What can't be said about Rich Aurilia. Not including a couple fill in guys that only played a few games, Aurilia was the only Reds player to reach the .300 batting average mark. Fifth in RBI's with 70 only missed tying for second with Brandon Phillips (75) by 5. The Reds 2006 Roster shows him at Third Base, but he played all the infield positions as well as any starter. The Reds have players to fill in for Kearns but they have not replaced Aurilia's bat this winter. Krivsky has made comment that he is trying to improve the Reds defence. Kearns and Lopez are both defencive starters for the Nationals and as I have said Aurilia not only held his own defensively but was also the one of the best bats. With the current pitching the Reds need to concentrate on the end of the game. They have decent starting pitchers but lack set up and closers. Working on Dunn to raise his hits with runners on base will be key to offense as well as keeping Ken Griffy Jr. healthy. I think Krivsky has a few tricks left up his sleeve. Hopefully one is batting average. I know that my fantasy team will look a little different this year than it did last year. Good luck Reds!

Mr. I mean Mrs. I mean Mr. Basketball?

The athlete the site at the end of this story should probably get more playing time. Check out their record, a few close wins 76-72, 87-84, a few not so close wins 82-72, 70-65, and a few blowout wins 73-38, and 101-40. Right now they are 9-2. Either this player isn't much good at all, or the coaching staff is playing the political favorites game. If your team is up or down by 20 points in the last 10 minutes of the game, you need to play the bench. My wife played four years of high school basket ball (BNL fall 89 - spring 93). Her total playing time wouldn't even amount to one full game. Her cousin 6' 5"+ his senior year didn't get to start on senior night. It was the last game of his high school career! Politics should not play as big a role in high school sports as they do.

New Blogger

I have updated to the new Blogger.

Happy New Year!