Joyful Abode

I’ve always been addicted to stationery. When I was six years old, my best friend Kelly Simon moved to Massachusetts, leaving me behind in South Carolina. We were pen pals for YEARS, writing constantly. When I was 8 and my oldest sister went to college, we exchanged letters frequently. Then, when I was 11, I started writing with some pen pals I “met” through a library program. New stationery was always something to show off and inspired a rush of outgoing letters.

With email, instant messaging, and blogging (not to mention cell phones) to keep in touch with friends now, I don’t write nearly as much as I used to. But I’m still addicted to stationery.

A few years ago, I crocheted a little box with the word “write” on top of it, for storing my cards and envelopes. It was supposed to remind me and inspire me to send mail. It worked sometimes, but couldn’t keep up with the rate at which I was buying the cutest cards ever! I soon outgrew the box, and started a library of cards beside the box on my shelf.

Last week though, I decided it had gone far enough. (This picture doesn’t include all of my stationery… I found some more after I snapped this shot.)

Since my husband and I have combined our files, I stole the file organizer from my desk makeover for my stationery. I organized the cards into categories… formal, informal, blank inside, thank-yous, etc, and put them into the accordion file.

It’s deliciously cute, and now my cards all fit in one container on my shelf again.

I wonder what to do with my crocheted “write” box now though.

Besides that, I need to start writing more letters again. That’s always fun!

A couple of years ago, my sister Jessica sent me this recipe. I just recently tried it out and it was fantabulous. It was full of flavor, and creamy and warm… perfect for pretending it’s already Autumn in Florida.

So here’s the “recipe” (no measurements) for yummy paprikash-ish chicken and rice.

First, sautee a chopped onion, garlic, carrots, and red peppers. Brown some chicken in the saucepan with the veggies. Leave it in the pot. When the chicken is browned, but not completely cooked, add a can of chicken broth (for 3-ish breasts). Salt and pepper are always good too.

Boil for a while, until reduced. Then stir in sour cream and paprika. Heat through.

Stir it up, and serve over rice.

It was delicious, and the leftovers were great too. We cut up the leftover chicken into little pieces, and put the chicken-and-rice mix inside of our leftover crepes. It was really really tasty.

This is a recipe that I snatched from my stepmother’s pile of recipe cards. It’s sort of like a quiche, but eggless and more tomato-y. Obviously.

You can use a pre-made store-bought pie crust and it’s delicious that way. I made my own pastry crust (my mother-in-law’s recipe), and it was fantastic.

The result of my recipe-thievery? Check it out.

If you’re using a pre-made crust, bake it at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 minutes before filling. If you’re going the homemade route, don’t worry about pre-baking.

Slice some large tomatoes, and place the slices on paper towels to take out a bit of the juice. If they’re too juicy, your pie could boil over and make a mess in your oven! No good.

Fill the pie shell with tomato slices. The sprinkle salt, pepper, basil, and onion powder over the tomatoes. I’m quite liberal with the basil and salt.

Mix 1/2 cup mayonnaise with 2 cups of shredded cheese (your choice of cheese). Spread this over the tomatoes.

If you’re using homemade crust, add the top and pierce for ventilation.

Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 35 minutes. I used a tin-foil shield on my crust edges for the first 20 minutes, then finished without it. Let it sit for about 10 minutes, if you can stand waiting. Then slice and serve.

Flaky Pastry Pie Crust

If you’re afraid of making crust from scratch, don’t be. I’ve made this one many times (the first couple of times under the supervision of my mother-in-law) and have never had a failure. It’s delicious and flaky each time. Perfect for tomato pie, quiches, or dessert pies.

You Will Need:

• 2 cups sifted flour (2 cups minus about 1 Tbsp, put through the sifter)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2/3 cups shortening
• 6+ Tbsp ice water

Mix the flour and salt. Cut in shortening until the mix resembles cornmeal. I usually just do this with my fingertips, but you can use forks if you prefer that.

Sprinkle water over the surface, one Tbsp at a time, mixing lightly and quickly with a fork. When the dough holds together, do not add any more water.

Shape into 2 balls on a floured surface. Roll each ball until it’s about 3 inches larger than your pie pan. Cover with a damp cloth while you prepare the filling.

After filling, dampen the edges with water and place the top crust on the bottom, crimping edges and trimming excess.

Cut steam vents into the top, and cook according to the filling.

Well, if Consumer Reports gives points for being happy…maybe so! This one is enjoying munching grass and frightening the local flowers.

Since we are moving again soon (GASP! Have I mentioned it in Joyful Abode yet?), this time to a house with a YARD… we went ahead and bought a lawnmower.

It feels like such a boring grown-up purchase. I don’t have any lawn-mowing experience, so it’s a good thing the husband (supposedly) enjoys mowing.

But I’m not looking forward to future deployments or long training exercises… just me and the lawnmower, together. Alone. Anyone have any tips on how to mow a lawn?

Why do some people call it “Chicken Fried Steak”? I don’t understand that, unless it’s because it’s fried like you would fry chicken. But why don’t they call them “chicken fried onion rings” or “chicken fried green tomatoes”?

I have even heard of “Chicken fried chicken,” which to me just sounds redundant.

In any case, I “winged it” with this recipe, and it turned out fantastically. I’m not sure how hard it would be to mess up country fried steak, but I’m pretty sure it’s beyond me (and you).

Get some cube steak on sale and keep it in your freezer until you feel like making this. It tastes better if you know you didn’t overpay for it.

Prepare a dredge of flour, salt, and pepper. And beat a couple of eggs in a separate bowl.

Dip the meat in the flour, then in the egg, then in the flour mix again. Pan-fry in a few tablespoons of olive oil until golden brown on the outside and cooked through.

Then, set the meat aside and cover to keep warm.

Now, we make the gravy. I was afraid of making gravy. Though I thought I knew how to make gravy, I worried it was a secretly complicated process, and that surely this would be one of those ERRORS to write about. But it wasn’t. And it was delicious. Here we go…

Add a bit of butter to the drippings and dump in the rest of the flour mix (a few tablespoons probably). Mix this up and cook it about a minute, until it’s bubbly and colored a bit.

Add some milk, and cook until thickened. Add some more milk, and thicken again. Add more salt and pepper.

Pour it over your country fried steaks and enjoy. And lick the plate.

The other day, I read a post on an internet forum that asked the question, “The more _____ a man has, the less likely he is to stray.” Well, I asked the husband, and he immediately, with no hesitation, answered, “food.”

Other husbands on the forum answered “home cooked meals” and “good food” along with other answers I’m sure you can think of.

What’s your answer? Or ask your husband and let me know his answer.

Anyway, if your guy is like mine, this recipe is a really great way to use up the leftover egg yolks after you make Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins.

Delicious Nectarine Crepes

Delicious Vanilla Crepes Recipe

You Will Need:

• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 Tbsp. vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 tbsp sugar (I used brown sugar)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 5 Tbsp. melted butter

Mix together the milk, egg yolks, and vanilla. Stir in flour, sugar, salt, and melted butter until well blended and bubbly.

Meanwhile, start your filling.

Fruit Filling Recipe - Nectarines

You will need:

• 3 nectarines, sliced thinly, though I’m sure fresh peaches would do quite nicely too.
• a little bit of orange juice
• a generous sprinkling of brown sugar
• some cinnamon, if you like that sort of thing

Throw it in a saucepan and cook over medium heat, covered while you make the crepes, stirring occasionally.

Heat crepe pan over medium heat. Use nonstick spray if you need to, but my pans are so awesome I don’t need it.

Pour 1/4 cup of batter into the pan and tip in a circular motion until the batter is spread thin to the edges. When the edges pull away a little bit and it’s easy to shake the crepe in the pan, it’s ready to flip. A few seconds after I took this picture, I flipped this one.

Flipping in the air is best, because it’s just awesome.

Cook for a few seconds on the other side.

Keep going until you have a stack of them and you’ve run out of batter.

By now, your nectarines have cooked fully and are swimming in a delicious syrup. Put a bit in the center of each crepe, folding the crepe over, and top with some more of the fruit mixture. Delicious!

These crepes are fantastically easy and I’m sure you could fill them with almost anything. In fact, later in the week, we had some leftover chicken and rice with a creamy sauce, and it tasted fantastic wrapped up in a crepe for lunch.

I can’t wait to try them with fresh strawberries and whipped cream sometime. Mmm… The strong vanilla flavor can’t be beat.

Ah, Autumn… my favorite season of all. My favorite colors are usually categorized as autumnal, and I love the flavors of spice cake, pumpkin, and gingerbread. Delicious!

A few weeks ago, I made these pumpkin cream cheese muffins to take to a party. I love the marbled effect of the cream cheese, and they were delicious with a glass of milk.

Recipe adapted from Kraft Food & Family Magazine, Fall 2007. We got it in our mailbox, addressed to someone else “or current resident.” Yay! It has a lot of really good-looking recipes in it, so it was a pleasant piece of “junk” mail.

You will need:

• 1 cup canned pumpkin (not the whole can)
• 1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 4 egg whites (3 in one cup, 1 in the other)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 2 cups flour
• 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease muffin pans and set aside. (This recipe made a whole pan of mini-muffins plus 6 regular muffins for me.)

Mix pumpkin, 1 cup sugar, brown sugar, 3 egg whites, milk, and oil.

Then stir in flour, baking powder, pie spice, and salt.

In a separate bowl, beat the cream cheese with the last egg white and 2 Tbsp. sugar. This could take a while. I had the husband do it. hehe.

Spoon some pumpkin batter into the bottom of each muffin cup. Then add a small amount of the cream cheese mixture using the two-spoon method (scrape from one spoon with another, then drop). Finish off each muffin with another spoon full of the pumpkin mix.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean. I think the small ones took about 25 minutes, and the regular muffins took 30ish.

Remove to a wire rack and cool.

Enjoy warm (you can microwave them if they’re already cooled) with a glass of milk on your porch, in the cool autumn air. Yum!

This is a guest article by my mother, YaYaNaNa.

If you are interested in being a guest author for Joyful Abode, please send an email to “contribute at joyfulabode dot com”, and I will contact you.

Hopefully, guest articles will become a bi-weekly event here, so step up and make it possible! (Come on… I know you’re out there! This is the first guest article since July 15, 2007. It can be a recipe, a craft project, a home decor project you recently did, organization tips, some no-fail cleaning advice…)

Woo Hoo….After years of domestic slackness, I have begun working from home. Just not having to spend 2 hours a day in the car has been enough to inspire a domestic revival. That and the feeling of inadequency I have in the face of my domestic daughter’s blog. SO last Wednesday, David Reisman’s Bread Machine Challa bread recipe appeared in the paper (The State, SC). Since we have not 1 but 2 bread machines sitting unused in the pantry, I decided to act.

I bought yeast.

This morning, I threw all the ingredients into a bread machine and turned it on using the dough cycle.

2 ½ tsp dry yeast

4 C white flour

2 tsp salt

3T vegetable oil (I used corn oil)

1/3 C white sugar

1 C warm water

2 eggs

An hour and a half later, I took the dough out of the machine and shaped it into 2 loaves. The dough was very silky and not sticky at all, so I didn’t have to use any extra flour to handle it. Then I covered it with a layer of waxed paper and then a kitchen towel. That way the towel wouldn’t stick to the dough. I let it rise for 30 minutes. To keep it out of cool breezes or drafts, I just set it out on top of the stove.

Then I mixed an egg yolk with ¼ cup honey. I warmed the honey up for 20 seconds in the microwave first. Good thing too! If I hadn’t done that, I might still be waiting to get it out of the bear. A tip: spray the measuring cup with Pam, and the honey slides right out!

Next I brushed it all over the loaves and sprinkled liberally with sunflower seeds…because I didn’t have sesame seeds, which would have been more traditional.

I baked it for 25 minutes at 350. That sounded so short and not so hot…

…but it turned out perfectly.

Delicious!

Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens: Biggest Book of 30 Minute Meals

You will need:

• 6 pieces of pork. We didn’t have chops… our pieces were smaller. I forget the cut’s name.
• Rosemary
• Salt
• Olive Oil
• Garlic
• Balsamic vinegar
• Mustard
• Honey

Trim the fat from the meat. Sprinkle both sides with rosemary and salt, pressing into the meat.

Cook meat in oil in a large pan over medium heat until done. Transfer to a platter. Cover and keep warm.

For sauce, sautee garlic in the drippings for a while. Then stir in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, mustard, and honey (eyeball it… it should be like a salad dressing). Bring to a boil.

Pour sauce over the meat.

I really liked the flavor of this. Next time I think I might add more mustard than I did this time… but it was really good.

I posted about my ERROR steak before, and mub asked me for the recipe for my (success) Green Bean Casserole. So here it is!

You Will Need:

• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 2 Tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 cup onion, diced (but we were out of onions, so I used a bunch of onion powder)
• 3 cans of green beans
• 1-2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup of crumbled butter crackers (aka Ritz crackers)
• 1 Tbsp butter, melted
• 1 cup sour cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Melt 2 Tbsp butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Stir in flour until smooth and cook 1 minute.

Stir in salt, sugar, onion, and sour cream. Add beans and stir to coat.

Transfer to a 2 1/2 quart casserole.

Stir 1 Tbsp melted butter into the cracker crumbs.

Spread cheese over the top of the casserole and top with crumbs. Bake 30 minutes.