Category Cuisine and Beverages

Day Light Savings: Springing Forward with a Picnic on the Twelve Mile River, Cateechee, South Carolina

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The days are growing longer and springing forward with the time change today extends the sunshine, albeit cutting an hour of sleep off. What’s a person to do but to catch the rays on the riverbanks and perhaps rock out to the humms of the rapids.

While seeking a different venue (my digital map wasn’t working properly) I came upon the river and it’s idealic location, simply because Lay Bridge Road is closed/blocked off, allowing a pseudo parking area to be created and locals/adventureres to enjoy the serenic setting. Catechese Dam on lay bridge road is also a minor historical site as well.

I stopped by the local store and chose a few items for a picnic, sticking my purchase in a re-usable small shopping bag as I don’t currently own an actual picnic basket and the durable bag makes it easy to carry my food items to and from the site (plus, the handles don’t dig into my fingers, especially important when carrying items on an adventure!)

While I am a fairly skilled person I realized that hunting and gathering for my food isn’t really conducive for feeding myself, packing a picnic is a very affordable way to eat well without breaking the bank or spending a small fortune on take-out (my entire picnic would have easily fed 2-3 people for less than $8 total.) I usually pack a bit extra–in case I stay out a bit longer than expected, meet a new friend, etc-one may never know what excitement adventures lead too and who doens’t like good snacks and food to eat and share?

The weather has been dreary, grey rainy skies lately and with a clear, sunshine filled cool day, it was a lovely adventure to enjoy the river and lay on the banks and soak in the sun, eat my picnic and enjoy the sounds of nature serenade me with their melody. A special treat? A group of 4 kayakers paddled by with their colorful paddles and head gear on!

A little video I snapped of the river, about 1/4 mile from the historical damn sign

Easy Homemade Chicken and Rice soup

Anna--The Adventurer 2 Comments

Hot homemade soup is great for any occasion and why not make it easy on yourself and your wallet?

2 cups of leftover chicken, diced (or 1 large can of chicken breast)

2 chicken boulion cubes

1/2 cup of dry white rice

2 carrots, peeled, and diced

lemon zest (dried or fresh)

sea salt and pepper

1 tsp dry basil

1 tsp minced garlic (I like the jar stuff)

1 small green bell pepper, cored, and diced

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1 small onion pealed and diced or 4 green onions, snipped, and diced

a few white mushrooms, washed, diced (optional)

Large Pot, filled with 2-3 quarts of good, clean cold water

Dump all ingredients in the pot and let simmer for roughly 45 minutes. Enjoy!

*on a side note, instead of using canned chicken and boullion, my sister boils the whole leftover rotissiere/baked chicken, saving the broth for the base of chicken soup and cleans the leftover meat off the bones once removed from the pot after boiling. Either method is easily used!

Easy Chicken and Veggies pot–a quick, hot meal for a cold day

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Super easy and takes very little time!

1 small can of chicken breast, drained

1 medium bell pepper (I used a green one), seeded and chunked

2 green scallion, cleaned up and chunked

1 tsp of flax seed

1 tsp of Tony Satchere’s seasons (or any season of your choice)

1 large can of yellow kernal corn, drained

Put everything in a medium sized pan and simmer for 10-15 minutes on a low-medium heat and enjoy! Serves 3-4 people. It’s less than $6 for the whole pot, pretty darn affordable to feed people!

The Beautiful Joining of Two Hearts-The Margaret Johson and Christoper McCann Wedding

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The Joining of two hearts!

Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Christoper McCann!

The wedding was officiated by Pastor Stephen Oelhafen (also the bride’s brother-in-law) at St. John’s Lutheran Church, with a lovely, heart felt-Ceremony!

The couple met in college and found love, may they enjoy many many decades of bliss together!

The happy couple dancing at their reception

Guest Chef Kevin Harris and his Sous Chef, Kota, homemade Pizza

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My dear and beloved Bestest Friend, hailing from Northeast Colorado, is quite talented in the kitchen, with his trusty, cheese-tax collecting dog, Kota.

The dough recipe he used can be seen here, it’s so easy!

Kevin described the pizza making process as super easy, using the following ingredients:

Mozzerrella Cheese

The pizza dough (made from the recipe)

Marinara sauce, homemade or jarred he says is fine

Pepperoni sliced, prepackaged

Spread out the dough to the desired pizze size, lay it on the pizza stone or tray

smear the marinara sauce as the base

Sprinkle lightly or heavily the mozzarella cheese, to preference, give a sprinkle of the cheese as tax to the dog.

Top with Pepperoni (and/or other toppings)

Bake at 350 degrees Farhenheit for 30-40 minutes

Cut the pie into 4 or 8 slices and Enjoy!

An Autumn Dish-baked in Terra Cotta

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Squashes are definitly in season-and so delicous!

Oil Terra Cotta baking dish

Split/Halve and scoop out a spaghetti and acorn squash

put sphaghetti squash, face up, on the bottom

Top with a few pieces of chicken

Season with salt, pepper, dried onions, thyme, oregano, and whatever else you desire

put on 2 tablespoons of butter (real butter, not margarine) spread over

put the acorn squash on top, face down

Cover dish with baking dish top

Bake for 2 hours on 350 Degrees Farhenheit

A friendly Challenge-easy-peasy- lemony squeezy-Food and Hygiene donation drive- shop, click, delivered!

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” Blue Lightening states: Our annual Food Drive is back this year for the full month of November! All donations benefit the Wiggins Community Church. This year, especially, they are in need of food, cleaning products and personal hygiene products. Get up to a $25 Bill Credit with your donation”

Click here for the Amazon Wish-List fore ease of donating, shop, click, pay and it it’s shipped on it’s way to the donation box! There are many items to choose from that are under $1- $2-$3, and $4–including many “bulk” package items for helping to stretch the donation.

https://www.amazon.com/registries/gl/guest-view/FVB79V6FXUJ2

Blue Lightening is located in Wiggins, Colorado–and to help support their food and hygiene donation drive, I have created an Amazon “wish list” that, if one doesn’t live in the area or can’t stop buy during business hours to drop off a donation, they may purchase and have the items directly shipped (often, free with Prime!) directly to the donation box at Blue Ligthning! (see link below)

https://www.amazon.com/registries/gl/guest-view/FVB79V6FXUJ2-A $5 purchase/donation (one item or many that add up to $5) can go a long way!

A garden delight-spicy chicken bake

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So simple! Feeds 2-4 people (depending on how hungry the people are!)

2 pieces of chicken breast

2 jalepenos (sliced the long way, seeded)

Tony’s Satchere’s season

1 small onion

1/4 cup of coarse chunked walnuts

3 medium or large carrtos, peeled and sliced into rounds

Salt, pepper, minced garlic

A dash of oil

Put the oil in the botton of a baking dish or glass pie pan, put all the ingriedients intogether, cover with alumunium foil, bake at 360 degrees Farenheit for 90 minutes.

Walnut encrusted fillets-an easy whole meal

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My neighbor moved back to Egypt (she was an international student) and gave me some odds and ends from her kitchen (versus wasting perfectly good items!) What else to do but use up the items!

I put the partial bag of flour (about 4 cups worth? ) in a a re-usable plastic dish with snap on lid) and dumped in the partial small bottles of spices-including thyme, pepper, a mixed blend of “fish fry” spices, and some salt, and other items. I dolled out about 1 cup of the mix into a paper bag (small).

I put a half of stick of butter in the bottom of a deep skillet on low heat to melt.

The four fish filets were coated in an egg washed, shaken in the paper bag of coating, and placed in the butter and pan, the heat turned up to medium, once flipped coarse chopped walnuts were added and cooked with the fish until done. I added the green beans she gave me, with Rendered Molasses and candied almonds to the pan and all warmed up; served with mandarin oranges.

“Cheaters” Vegetable Beef Stew–Super easy family meal-25-35 minutes start to finish

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This one pot wonder is great for feeding a family, making transportable meals for the sick neighbor or a shut in or dividing up for freezer/prep meals. I bought all the ingrdients at the local Aldi, which I found makes the meal very affordable (the canned goods range from $0.50-$0.79 a can, the spices $1.18 on average and the ground turkery pound was under $3.)

In one deep skillet/Mid Sized pot, brown either one pound of ground beef or ground turkey.

Once the meat is cooked all the way through, chunk chop it up and leave the juice in the bottom, making a roux with the meat and drippings.

Add in the spices, 1.5 tsp each of oregano, garlic poweder, Dried Cilantro ground cumin, Tony Satcheres Creole Seasoning, Fresh ground sea salt and pepper (to taste).

Open and add a can of Sweet Corn, Green beans, Sliced Carrots and whole new potatoes (don’t drain, add the liquid to the pot).

Stir and simmer all together for 20-25 minutes until thoroughly mixed/simmered together.

I like to served it with Corn Bread (Jiffy box mix is super easy to make along side this dish or use up leftovers! )

If you don’t have these veggies, cans of Veg-All or a bag of frozen bag of Veg-All mix works nicely too as a substitute

Brown 1 LB of Ground Beef or Turkey
1 Can each of Sweet Corn, Green Beans, Sliced Carrots and Whole (or sliced) New Potatoes
Add Spices
1.5 tsps of Oregano, Garlic Powder, Cumbin, Thyme Leaves, Tony Satcher’s, Cilantro Leaves, and Salt and Pepper to taste
Simmer all ingredients together for 20-30 minutes.