Thursday, April 25, 2013

Corn Fritters Recipe from 1927

I love, love, love my old cookbooks!  I've endured the shame of having workers from moving companies look at me in wonderment and dismay;  of hauling them back from the various sale locations wheres I've found them (from parts of West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas);  Trotting across the lawn with an old recipe box and ragged books from a yard sale where others are looking for Anything but old books! (yes, I get odd looks there, too);  Lysoling the covers of each and everyone before I shelve them:  and admitting to myself that...I may have a problem.  The last moving company had a man who gently informed me that he had, "cleared out my books and there were 12 boxes."  Oh, honey!  Little did he know!  That was only one set of shelves in the house that stored part of the "old cookbook collection"!  I'm glad that the other packers were working in the other areas of the house!
 Here in Arkansas, I've started to settle in and when I'm not hunting for a house to live in, I enjoy searching my new area of the country for vintage cookbooks;  I especially like to find a book that's both historic and has a regional focus.  So I'm now on the lookout for traditional recipes from Arkansas (and her surrounding states!)

Found this little book at a consignment shop in Springdale, Arkansas.  Butterick Recipes and Household Helps from 1927.  I used to love corn fritters as a kid, so I was happy to find this recipe.  (Of course you can just mix your corn into leftover pancake batter, too.  It's a way to stretch time and money!)

Corn Fritters pg. 90

2 C corn, fresh or canned
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1 egg
1 tsp melted butter
1/2 C milk
2 C flour
1 tsp baking powder

Chop the corn very fine and add salt, pepper, well-beaten egg, butter, milk, flour and baking powder.  Fry in deep fat.

SWAPS:
Our Delightful Home
Simply Sweet Home
The Shabby Nest
My Romantic Home
Common Ground

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Bacon Wrapped Chicken with Honey Mustard Glaze

Well, I've hinted lately that I'm in crazy transition mode.  We've moved from beautiful north Texas to beautiful northwest Arkansas.  Fortunately, our Texas home was under contract four days from listing it! So we are in a comfortable  2 bedroom furnished  apartment here in Arkansas while we house hunt.  It's a fun time, but very unusual for me.  I'm cooking, for just 2 people,  in an apartment sized kitchen.  My cooking essentials are sitting somewhere in a mover's vault as I "make do".  I'm cooking on electric instead of gas which I haven't done in quite a while.  Someone else comes in and cleans, changes the bed linens and vacuums.  I have access to a golf course, sauna, and other goodies,  that I have yet to use.  Instead, I spend my free time out driving my van around, finding my way to different areas and getting used to our new hometown!  Other times, I'm with our realtor, Ida, looking at houses.  Hubbie's new job is going well, the community has been very warm and welcoming and we've already attended several community events.  There is a nice inventory of homes, so I'm hopeful that we will find the right one soon...one with a gas range.

Because I'm cooking for just the two of us and presently have a very small freezer and fridge, I use meat that is frozen in individual portions.  I find the Tyson frozen chicken tenderloins and Member's Mark frozen fish fillets very handy for meat options.  Here's a recipe that I made this past Tuesday.  The bacon keeps the chicken very moist and the marinade gives it a tangy flavor.  Love the cracked pepper on top, too!

Bacon Wrapped Chicken Tenderloins

1 lb. chicken tenderloins (I thaw them ahead and rinse that icy glaze off)
1 lb. bacon (I like applewood)
1/2 C  honey
2 TBSP Dijon mustard(or whatever kind you prefer)
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
1/2 TBSP white vinegar
salt and fresh cracked pepper

-Whisk together all wet ingredients and seasonings except pepper.
-Marinate the chicken in 1/2 of the marinade for 30 minutes.
-Remove chicken from marinade and wrap each tenderloine with bacon.
-Place on jelly roll sheet with edges;  brush with the rest of the marinade and top with cracked pepper.
-Bake 10-12 minutes at 375 degrees;  turn, brush other side with marinade,  and bake another 10-12 minutes. Make sure bacon is brown and crisp.

SWAPS:
Flour Me with Love
I Should Be Mopping the Floor
Stone Gable
Mrs Happy Homemaker
Make Ahead Meals for Busy Moms
Create with Joy
Couponing and Cooking
Lines Across My Face
Alderberry Hill
Serendipity and Spice
Cedar Hill Ranch
Skip to My Lou

  

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Protect Your Child Online

I am pleased to offer a guest blogger today as this is such an important topic for our families.  My thanks to Jack Meyers.  I hope you find this information as helpful as I did.

Ways to Protect Our Children from Negative Internet Circumstances
As the Internet plays an integral part of our daily lives, the threats seem to increase to our children. Whether it is cyber-bullying, sexual predators, or malicious programming, our children need to be protected. Unfortunately, many of us don't have the money to put into state-of-the-art nanny protection. However, there are many ways that we can keep our children safe without spending a single dime on costly monitoring programs.

1. Involvement - First, and always foremost, you should be involved with your child's life regardless if he or she accesses the Internet or not. This involvement doesn't mean you need to hover over his or her shoulder, but more of a constant interaction with your child. Spending time with them while they are on the Internet can help you teach them what not to do and what to watch out for. If you could engage your child for a few hours per day online and off, it would make a world of difference in his or her behavior in nearly every area of their life.

2. Router Settings - If you have Internet connection at your home, there is a very good chance you also have a router of some kind. Did you know that most of the routers developed now-a-days have built-in firewall capabilities? This means you can block specific words of websites from entering your home - such as pornographic material and unwanted social sites. In fact, many of them can work in a variety of ways including: access day and times of the Internet, specific computers being blocked, and exact website URLs to block. If you don't know how to set these settings, take a few minutes and look up your routers model number on Google. You'd be impressed with what you can accomplish with tools already in your possession.

3. Monitoring Registration - For children under the age of 13, a parent is needed to help them set up registration for specific websites. Make it a rule that your email address is used for this registration. Most websites on the Internet today already have this parental option available and request parental email addresses anyway. If the child is registered with a website that you didn't authorize, ground them from the Internet for a specific amount of time. It may seem harsh to some, but rules are rules. If you have to be nosy in order to get the truth from your child, take a look at his or her browsing history. It will show you what sites they have been visiting.

4. Malware Protection - There are many anti-virus and anti-malware programs out on the market that cost money to operate in order to keep your child's computer safe from destructive applications. However, did you know that you could offer an unbelievable amount of protection and security from just two free programs?

Online Armor: When it comes to stopping programs from running, installing, or spreading, Online Armor does an incredible job. The free version is feature rich and allows you to password protect the program. This disallows any installations from happening without your password whether they are retail games or virus installations from the Internet.

Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware: Although Online Armor stops programs from installing and infecting your computer, downloading of the actual virus program is still possible. If for any reason you shut down Online Armor, the virus or malware application will immediately run infecting the computer. Periodically running Malwarebyte's Anti-malware will rid your computer of these annoyances.

These are just a few ways that you can keep your child safe from an ever advancing world. We can only do so much and the best we can hope for is that our measures can help quell some of the damage that the negative aspects of the Internet can cause. As the Internet is so influential in our lives, depriving the children from such a valuable resource is not the answer. Keeping involved with your children is.
Author Bio:

Jack Meyers is a regular contributor for www.nannybackgroundcheck.com. As a detective he wants to spread the knowledge of terrible things that can happen when people don’t fully verify the credentials of a caregiver or any employee. He also writes for various law enforcement blogs and sites.

Swaps:
Flour Me with Love
I Should be Mopping the Floor
Stone Gable
Mrs. Happy Homemaker
Make Ahead Meals for Busy Moms
Create with Joy
Beyer Beware
Natasha in Oz
Couponing and Cooking
Lines Across My Face
Alderberry Hill

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Southern Cakes 1947 from Arkansas

Since my last post I have relocated, well, make that semi-relocated.  We have sold our home (very quickly) in Texas and have moved into temporary housing while we house-hunt in Arkansas.  Although we will miss Texas, we're very excited about this new chapter in our life.  This location and job opportunity were too good to pass up!  I'm already in love with the Ozark Mountains that surround me;  it's so similar to West Virginia!  I've had the chance to search a couple of antique places here, and I'm happy to report that I've found an old cookbook, already.  A new place to live, for me, means researching its history and its food history, as well.  Look for my upcoming "Adventures in Arkansas" and snippets from vintage local cookbooks (as I find them).  This little red soft cover book was discovered in a Siloam Springs antique consignment shop (where I also found a rose Fiesta pitcher to match my set...for $12.00!!  Sorry, but I was so excited to find that deal;  there was also one in orange, but I only have the rose Fiesta.  The Selected Southern Cakes book was printed in 1947 by The Progressive Farmer.  Enjoy this traditional recipe from page 33:

One Egg Cake

1/3 C fat
2/3 C sugar
1 egg
 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/3 C light corn syrup
1 C milk
2 C flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

Cream fat, and beat sugar in slowly.  Mix well.  Add beaten egg, vanilla, and stir well.  Blend syrup and milk.  Sift together dry ingredients and add alternately with liquid to first mixture.  Bake in greased square pan in moderate oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour, or in two greased 8-inch layer cake pans at same temperature for 30 minutes. Cool and frost.

Look forward to our guest post next time!
My next post will be a guest post by  Jack Meyers, writer of Nannybackgroundcheck.com.  Mr. Meyers contacted me and offered to do a guest post.  He asked me to choose some topics that might be of interest to my readers .  I think the topic he wrote about  is crucial to all child caregivers:  Ways to Protect Our Children form Negative Internet Circumstances.  I know that you will find his information helpful in protecting your children, grandchildren or any children in your home when they use the internet.

Swaps:
We are That Family
Raising Homemakers
Deep Roots at Home
Cuisine Kathleen
Rose Chintz Cottage