Kelly's Korner - Home on the Range

Hey, All!

Chicken and Biscuit Casserole

Now that the weather is (FINALLY!) starting to cool down, dinner thoughts are turning to those warm and savory meals.  I know we have actually started using the oven again (the Traeger is still tops for cooking meat!) and now is the time to start looking at your stove again.

Take a look at your surface burners and drip pans (if you have them) - are they in good working condition?  Do your drip pans need to be replaced?  Most are inexpensive, but we will need you model number to look up the correct ones.  Beware of the ones offered in variety stores.  These will fit some, but not all, stoves.  If something is not working right, contact your favorite appliance repair technician to come and fix them.  The closer to the holidays, the busier they get, so get a jump on this.

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Check out your oven - does it need cleaning?  If you have a self-clean oven, run it now.  Self-clean ovens have an unfortunate habit of blowing computer boards and you do not want this happening right before cooking the holiday meals and treats.  The boards could be a factory order, or no longer available and it is way better to find that out now, rather than the week before Thanksgiving and having to go buy a new stove, right?

German Chocolate Cookies

Also, Facebook and the internet are crawling with some great recipes - now is a good time to check these out and use your family as guinea pigs to see if it is a recipe you want to serve during the holidays.  My #1 son made a wonderful wild rice stuffing that we paired with some pork loin and it was FABULOUS!  I will post the recipe as soon as he sends me a link to it.  Definately a keeper!  I also just found a recipe for German Chocolate Cookies that I can't wait to try - yum!

Have a great week!

Kelly's Korner - Mini Almond Joy Recipe

Hey, All,

I hit the grocery store this weekend to begin getting stocked up for my marathon Christmas goody preparations - not much baking involved.  As mentioned last week, I am going to give you my Mini Almond Joy recipe - these are fairly easy to make but very time intensive as you will see.

In a large bowl:

1 large bag flaked coconut
1 2lb bag powdered sugar
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 cubes margarine, melted

Mix this all together thoroughly and divide into small plastic containers and put in freezer.  Why?  As you may notice, this mixture is very gooey and unless frozen, very hard to work with.  It thaws quickly, so as it softens, you can switch out containers.

Now, if your coconut mixture is hard enough, take a whole almond and roll some of the coconut mixture around it.  Place on a wax paper coated cookie sheet.  Keep making bite size balls, switching out your containers of coconut mixture as they get too gooey to work with.  Place loaded sheets back into the freezer until ready to dip.

While your balls are freezing, in a double boiler (I use one of those mini crockpots), melt a bag of chocolate chips and about 1/2 a slab of household parafin wax.  What?  Wax? Yes, this makes the chocolate harden fast and keeps it from melting in your hand.  Or you can use dipping chocolate (almond bark) that you can find in the cake making section of Michael's or Joann's.

Taking one sheet out at a time - well frozen - dip your balls into the chocolate mixture and return to the cookie sheet.  When sheet is full, return to the freezer for a final freeze.  You can then put them into your gift containers.  Keep them refrigerated.  If you want to get really fancy, melt some white chocolate chips in a ziplock bag and snip a very small corner off the bag and drizzle white chocolate over them.

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Now, if you aren't wanting to make individual balls, you can use chopped almonds and mix them in with your coconut mix and pour into a greased cookie sheet pan and freeze.  Then cut into small squares and dip those.

Now you all know why I take the week off before Christmas - I make about four batches of these and each year it seems I add more people to the list of who wants them.  As I said last week, my family won't let me come to family Christmas without them!

Don't forget to send me your favorite holiday recipes - kelly.m@wlmay.com - I'd love to see them!  I will be on vacation for the next two Tuesdays but should have a little something to share.


Have a great week!

Kelly's Korner - Homemade Ant Bait

Hey, All!

I don't know about you and the area you are in, but we've had some really mild winters here in  beautiful Portland and it is not killing off some of the insect population.  These little buggers can get into your appliances looking for crumbs and water and some place warm during the winter.

My house and some of the girls that work with me were getting inundated by those little bitty sugar ants (I know there is probably a scientific name for them but to me the are just a pain in the behind!) so I started looking online for some homemade recipes to get rid of the little buggers!  This is the recipe that I found and it works wonderfully - and the recipe makes enough to share with friends and neighbors.

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
1 cup water
2 tablespoons Borax (you should have some of this on hand from your homemade laundry soap recipe I posted a couple of weeks ago.

Boil water, remove from heat and dissolve sugar in it.  Do not keep boiling the syrup - it will get hard and won't work, you want to keep it syrupy so they can drink it.  Add Borax.

I have mine in a jelly jar with a lid on it and marked as ANT BAIT - DO NOT DRINK!!! and keep it in the refrigerator.  This recipe makes lots so share it. 

Clean the area(s) you see the ants in thoroughly (vinegar works well) then place a few drops of the bait on a flat lid or piece of plastic (I use a canning lid - you want to make sure the little monsters can get up to the bait) then put it where they are congregating.  It may take a day or two for the creepies to disappear but they will.  Just be careful to not let pets and small children near it.

I have also heard that ants like protein in the spring.  So if you mix about a 1/2 teaspoon of Borax with a glob of peanut butter and put it where the ants are (again, away from children and pets!) they should gobble that up, take it back to their nest and die.

Have a pest free week!