Jewelry

[SportyShorty07]

@Enufstuff   Isn't the Betty Crocker Cookie Cookbook so much fun?! That is so cool that we bake a lot from the same cookie cook book! I love all of the pictures and the illustrations and the descriptions of each recipe.  I will have to make those Egyptian rose cookies and I've been meaning to make the Love Letter cookies. Oooh and the Marzipan cookies.   Your spritz cookies sound lovely and the soft drop cookies from your mother's recipe sound like the perfect hybrid of a cookie and a brownie- and that is so cute that you decorated them for Christmas with Christmas colored frosting and toppings and then made them into little orange buttercream frosting Jackolanters for Halloween.    You are very festive and decorative and fun!  Speaking of cookies, I made some wonderful, rich white chocolate chip double chocolate cookies yesterday.

      Yes indeed, I love my parents very much and every day is a new opportunity to show them I care, especially through my cooking.  Tonight I'm making roasted garlic and cauliflower with lemon pepper herb marinated chicken thighs. My lovely sisters visit for dinners and they love my cooking too.  Cooking is such a great way to show my love and  boost my confidence.  I like to make my parents fun snacks- they love my county fair style kettle corn popcorn that I make in my Westben stir Crazy popcorn popper and they love my homemade cracker jax- I make the caramel absolutely  from scratch with a candy thermometer, then I put it over popcorn and peanuts in a big roasting pan and bake it for an hour and stir it in intervals, let it cool and break it into pieces- I may be biased, but my caremel popcron is even better than Cracker Jax .  

     One pot meals and soups are the way to go, especially with your back pain.  I'm sorry to hear that you've had back pain for so long, you must have a lot of inner nad outer strngth to deal with back pain.  I can understand your hesitance about surgery given allergies and reactions to anesthesia and medications, and its good that you found relief through massages.  I hope that you find a way to get massages again somehow, as they're good for you and a great form of relaxation.  The CBD cream and hot pad are good options and I'm sure that those do provide comforting relief for you.  Hair cuts are always a great confidence boost and really relaxing, and I'm sure your hair cut looks lovely! 

[Enufstuff]

@SportyShorty07    Your chocolate chip cookies sound delicious.

Your dinner with lemon pepper herb roasted chicken is something that I would like. What herbs did you use?

Your parents and sisters must feel like they are having dinner at

a fine restaurant, when you cook.

Your caramel popcorn sounds like quite a treat. It must be a hundred times better than Cracker Jax. I have never been that ambitious with popcorn.

I still make it in my old $10. Orville Redenbacher air popper made by Presto. I like air popped popcorn the best and I only add butter, no salt. (high blood pressure).

  I cannot abide the smell of microwave popcorn. It is nauseating to me. Sometimes teachers would make it at school, and you could smell it down the hallway.

   Half the time, they would burn it. Yuk!

[SportyShorty07]

@Enufstuff   The double chocolate chip cookies were a crowd pleaser- and I even made homemade strawberry lemonade for them; its lemonade form scratch combined with my simple syrup that I make by boiling and then  simmering down strawberries and cane sugar with water and straining the final result- so good and a beautiful pink color.  My from scratch cracker jax popcorn is so delicious- such a labor of love and it keeps fresh for a week and a half in my Lock and Lock tupperware .  I remember the Presto Air Popper! My family and I had one when my sisters and I were kids and I remember the popcorn flying out of that machine at lightning speed- it needed a tall and wide bowl underneath it or else the air-born popcorn would go all over the kitchen .  I also can't handle the scent of microwave popcorn- there's something really synthetic and chemically about some brands of it and burnt microwave popcorn is the worst!  

    My lemon pepper chicken marinade works on any cut of chicken, but here's the one that I use for boneless skinless chicken thighs: 

                             Lemon Pepper Marinade

- 4 boneless skinless chicken thighs

-2 tablespoons olive oil

-zest from 2 lemons

-juice from 2 squeezed lemons (ideally using a lemon juicer device to get out all of the juice)

-1 tablespoon of minced garlic

-1 teaspoon dried oregano

- 1 teaspoon brown sugar

-1 teaspoon onion powder

- 1 teaspoon kosher salt

-1 teaspoon ground black pepper (fresh or from a shake container)

1) Combine all ingredients and whisk them around in a bowl

2) Take a small ziploc bag and put 2 pieces of boneless skinless thighs in it, add 1/2 of the marinade, add the other 2 boneless skinless thighs and add the remaining 1/2 of the marinade. 

3) Close the ziploc and shake it around until all of the thighs are evenly coated.  Marinade for 4-6 hours. 

4) Bake 425 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until the internal temp is 165 degrees.

5) Enjoy with Phil and your son! 

[Enufstuff]

@SportyShorty07   Thank you so much for the Lemon Pepper

Marinade recipe. I love anything lemon pepper. One favorite is lemon pepper swordfish.

  We grind peppercorns and we use a lot of pepper.

There are some chicken breasts in the freezer and I will definitely use your recipe. I think that my guys will like it.

 A long time ago, I got a recipe for chicken breasts and that had lemon and oregano. I made that a lot.

 Your recipe sounds so good. I'll just have to omit the salt. I can't have it with blood pressure issues and I'm allergic to and can't have the medications. So I have to be extra careful with sodium.

 We have a supply of lemons and a juice reamer. For the past year, I have been drinking warm lemon water every morning.

My doctor, who is from India, told me that in her country they do that to lose belly fat. It also prevents kidney stones, which I have had problems with in recent years.

  I have lost 27 pounds over the past year. I'm losing too much weight, so I'm not having the lemon water every day now, only a couple of times a week.

 If you know who Zsa Zsa Gabor was, she said  "At a certain age, you have to choose between your face or your butt".

I don't want my face to get saggy or sunken in.

Your strawberry lemonade sounds scrumptious. Your family must have loved it.

 You are right about the air popper sending popcorn flying. I'm still using my huge "popcorn bowl" that I've been using since the 60s. It is the largest bowl in my Pyrex set of white and turquoise "Butterprint".

You could have a future as a personal chef. Just yesterday, I read in the Royal Gazette (the daily Bermuda newspaper) about a lady in Bermuda who had gone to Culinary school and was doing just that.

She started her own business.

She signs up clients for a month and goes to their homes to

cook meals that they could enjoy for the week.

The clients buy all the ingredients and she makes what they want. She cooks in their kitchens. That could be fun.

You can Google Royal Gazette, Meagan Boyles is her name and  her story is online today too.

 Tonight I'm making chili, a double recipe so I can freeze some.

[SportyShorty07]

@Enufstuff   I think that you'll really like my lemon pepper marinade and its great that you already have a lot of the ingredients on hand! This lemon pepper marinade would be amazing on swordfish, chicken breasts, shrimp, chicken thighs and more.  Feel free to omit the salt, as its flavorful enough without it .  I hear that lemon water is great for digestion and skin too- I think I'll try it each morning.  Zsa Zsa Gabor was so great- glamorous, funny and wise.  I love that quote- I also don't ever want to lose my curves or too much weight in my faces.  I have high cheekbones and if I get too thin I look way too gaunt. I lose weight when I'm stressed or sad.

   I looked up Pyrex butterprint- I love classic pyrex prints/colors and that particular print goes for a lot of money on ebay! Hold onto that popcorn bowl .  Thank you for telling me about the Meghan Boyles article- I read it and its really inspiring how she persevered and promoted herself and revived her business after covid.  She is a very savy business woman and chef and I think that she will do very well in cooking for a large range of clientel and providing for her daughter.  I told my family that if for whatever reason this law enforcement career doesn't pan out, I will launch my own sweet and savory popcorn business and/or launch my own dessert business.  Who knows- I have a bright future and I just have to be patient and believe in myself. Your chili will be delicious and nutricious! I love to make homemade chili. 

[Enufstuff]

@SportyShorty07  The first thing that I will make with your marinade recipe, will be chicken. I will have to try it with swordfish and shrimp.

 Do you think that sauteing the shrimp would be the best way to cook it? I would be using shrimp with shell removed before cooking.

 I love your idea of starting a business with your popcorn. There have been a couple of gourmet popcorn shops, that I have been to.

  The one that was in Salem closed. They were in a seaside tourist center with very high rents. I don't know if they opened elsewhere.

 In Freeport Maine, a large tourist area, where L.L.Bean is, there is a small shop that has many flavors of popcorn. It is very good and they have been there for many years. I think that they ship out too.

 Without having a shop and having to pay rent, online would be  a great way to sell popcorn. Shipping would be easy, since

it would not be damaged during shipping.

When we go to Maine or New Hampshire, I always pick up a small bag of Maple popcorn. It is so good and could be addictive.  A tiny bag is $5.00. There is a lot of profit in popcorn. The investment would be in the ingredients and time

creating the coatings and packaging materials.

Desserts would be fun to create and sell, but probably more labor intensive than popcorn and not as easy to ship. I knew someone who made his pies for a couple of restaurants, but not as a full time business.

There was Mrs. Fields, back in the 80s-90s, who made a business selling her chocolate chip cookies. There was a shop in Boston.

Shipping cookies or any desserts, would require a lot of packing materials.

I was very disappointed this past December, ordering cookies as gifts for Christmas, from Vermont Country Store.

I have been buying things from them for the past 30 years, but never bought cookies before.

I had all the gifts for my children bought, but I saw something that would be a nostalgic little extra something for my five children.

When they were young, I used to buy Windmill Cookies for them. Vermont Country Store had them in their catalog, imported from Germany. They were $7. each and the packages were not large, probably only a couple dozen cookies.

I thought that it would be a pleasant surprise for the kids, until I received them. I could not believe that a well established company like that would send out thin , crispy cookies, with no packing material, only a piece of paper in the box. The individual packages were not wrapped, and to make it worse,

another hard item was in the box, to bang around and break the cookies. I had ordered a man's wooden, natural bristle hairbrush and that was not wrapped. All that stuff, just in a box together. What?

When I took the packages of cookies out, all I could hear was crumbs and broken pieces. Of course I called (three times over the next week) and never got a call back. Finally I called early one morning and got someone in customer service.

I explained my delemma and suggested that maybe it was just a mistake, that the cookies were sent out with no protective packaging. She said that they would send more cookies out and for me to return the damaged ones. I was surprised, most companies now, don't expect damaged things to be returned.

Well, a week later, I got the new shipment of cookies and guess what, they were shipped with a piece of paper and they were all broken.   I was going to write them a letter complaining

about it, but didn't even bother).

I really didn't want to give the kids broken cookies, but I did and explained to them what happened. They said, that they would still taste good. But I was not happy, giving them damaged goods. I will never order fragile foods from Vermont Country Store again. This was the first time in 30 years that I ever had a problem with that company.

They should eliminate fragile food items from their catalog if they can't be shipped out intact. Their items cost two to three times what stores charge for the same things, if you can find the items.

[SportyShorty07]

@Enufstuff   My marinade is delicious on chicken breasts- you'll like it !  Great question- I think that sauteeing the shrimp in a pan would be the best way to cook it when using the lemon pepper marinade.  This marinade smells amazing and is so zesty and flavorful, I make it atleast once a week. I originally found a version online and adapted the ratios of ingredients to suit my flavor preferences

    Thank you so much! You've given me some really great tips and hope about if I choose to start a popcorn business!  Excellent advice and you're so right about how popcorn could turn a great profit, its easy to ship, and online sales would be a hug money saver in terms of not having to rent a storefront.  Maple popcorn sounds deliciious- I'll have to come up with my own recipe for that .  Desserts would be labor intensive and difficult to ship - your friend had the right idea of creating desserts and selling them dierctly to restaurants, that's another great alternative to shipping them.  You're very business savy and intelligent!  I love Mrs. Fields- the woman who created that company is such an inspiration- a really excellent baker and a hard working mom,  I have her 80's cookbook that she made and I've made delicious cookies and desserts from that cookbook.  

   I'm so sorry to hear the The Vermont Country Store put you through all of that trouble- that's truly disappointing and really reckless of them to haphazardly put fragile cookies into a box without any bubble wrap or packing foam- and to make you go to the post offfice to return the damaged cookies, only for them to not honor their promise of properly packaging the second set of windmill cookies.  That must've been very disappointing, esepcially since they were gifts for your lovely 5 children- but, its touching that your children were happy to receive the cookies and ate them even though many were broken.

   I had a similar experience when I purchased my favorite Baltimore chocolate chip cookies called Otterbein Cookies.  I made the mistake of buying them from an online gift shop of a 3rd party distributor that had free shipping- that distributor put the 6 bags of cookies in a box without any bubble wrap or foam.  The cookies arrived broken- maybe 30 percent were whole and unbroken.  I didn't call the company and just ate them with my family, but it was disappointing.  Now I know that even though its pricier for shipping costs, I will buy direct from Otterbein cookies since they do probably package cookies with care.

   Speaking of broken items- a friend sent me a porcelain trinket box that was circular with a lid and she didn't wrap it well in the box, just a light sheet of bubble wrap and it arrived broken into about 12 pieces.  I don't have the heart to tell her its broken, so over the past month I've been carefully supergluing it back together .  Its been a fun craft project and I've superglued the seams of the breaks so well that it looks brand new, I just have 3 tricky pieces left to glue and when it's done, I'll post  a picture on here for you. 

   Oh, I forgot to ask, did your family like the delicious chili that you made? I'm making barbecue ribs and biscuits tonight! 

[Enufstuff]

@SportyShorty07   Thank you so much for your wonderful marinade recipe. I made the chicken tonight and we absolutely loved it.  I love all kinds of things with lemon flavor.

I didn't have any onion powder, but use a little dehydrated onion flakes. The chicken was delicious. My husband agreed that it would be great on swordfish . He said that he will go to the fish market to get some.

I'm thinking that when I use it on shrimp, we will have it with linguine with lemon butter, maybe add some parsley and peas.

I have to let you know that if you drink warm lemon water, you need to protect your teeth. The citric acid can damage the enamel on teeth. I use the juice of half a lemon in a mug of warm water.

I drink it with a straw and rinse my mouth after drinking it too.

Since you work out and are young, I'm sure that you don't have

any belly fat. But for anyone trying to get rid of belly fat, it is best to wait for 20-30 minutes after drinking lemon water , before eating. I don't really know if that is necessary for the other benefits of lemon water. You can probably find information online.

It is too bad that you also had the same problem with ordering cookies online. I don't know what those people are thinking. It seems that they just don't really care, as long as they are making a sale.

That is sad that your trinket box arrived broken too. You are very industrious and patient, to glue it all back together. I think that the average person just does not realize the rough handling

that goes on in the shipping process.

My son and I enjoyed the chili. We just have Fritos with it. Sometimes I would make corn muffins, but the kids always liked the Fritos and that is easier.

My husband doesn't eat chili ( he is picky). I have to give him something else, when I make something that he does not care for. He is the classic meat and potatoes guy, but I'm not doing that every night. He won't eat tacos or falafel either.

I have opened a world of many ethnic foods that he had never eaten before. Many he likes, but not everything.

Would you believe that he told me that he never had eaten pizza until he was in high school!

His Irish mother boiled potatoes every night. They got fancy on Sundays and had mashed potatoes.

Your barbecue ribs sound good. I haven't done that in years.

[SportyShorty07]

@Enufstuff  Thank you so much for cooking with the marinade- I am so glad that you and your family loved my chicken marinade, and I'm so honored that you tried it ! It will be delicious on swordfish too and would be amazing with marinated shrimp, linguine, parsley, peas and even a dash of parmesan cheese.  The marinade is so versatile and you did a great job- especially in substitutiting dehydrated onion flakes for onion powder, so clever.

    Thank you for the tip about rinsing my mouth after drinking hot lemon water- I wouldn't have thought to do that! I'd mainly do the lemon water for digestion since I read that its good for preventing bloating. I read that lemon water is great for the skin, so I'll drink it to maintain my skin.  Its amazing how different types of fruit can have different benefits. 

    When I received those cookies in the mail, I was this close to putting them into my food processer and turning them into a pie crust .  I think that companies need to create better standards for packaging certain products.  You know what I've had the best luck with? Walmart- I can order glass jars of salsa or pickles online and they come wrapped in thick netted cardboard wrappers and then there's a ton of thick wadded paper in the box between the bottles- that's the way packaging delecate items should be done.  You're right about a lot of people overlooking how things are packaged- in my case. she was packaging things to send to a lot of people and I think she just overlooked how fragile my trinket box was.  Its fun to put it back together, but I keep forgetting to wear gloves so I end up getting gritty dried superglue on my finger tips that takes forever to get off .  

   Chili with fritos is delcious! Good for you for expanding your lovely meat and potatoes husband's palette! I laughed and smiled when I read that he didn't eat pizza until high school - that is so charming! I can see his love for potatoes runs deep with his Irish lineage .  I do love potatoes- baked potatoes, roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoe casserole, potato wedges. The BBQ ribs are delicious- I make a spicy, complex spice rub all over the ribs and then refrigerate them overnight and bake them low and slow and then baste bbq sauce on them in the final half hour.  Does your husband like to cook dishes for the family? 

[Enufstuff]

@SportyShorty07   To answer your question, there are just a few things that my husband will cook and that is on rare occasions.

In the warm weather, he will grill steak or pork chops outside.

If we get haddock, he will broil it, and that is not often. When we get the swordfish, he will broil it.

Years ago, he cooked a couple of things. He and his brother would go to the beach and dig clams. It had to be the right tides and the right phase of the moon.

A couple of times he made linguine with clam sauce and it was very good. He has also done shrimp scampi ( a long time ago).

When we were first married, he made spaghetti sauce. I was cleaning sauce spatters, not from just the stove, but the wall behind the stove and the floor. So, I did not encourage that.

He made beef stew a few times and I did not really like it as well as what I make. I found out that he had put beer in it!

It gave it a rather odd sweet taste.

So I pretty much do all the cooking except grilling or broiling fish.

I wish that he would make some of the meals, but he is messy.

I have a ceramic top stove and he tends to cook at too high heat, which causes spatters. Plus he drags pans across the stove top, which is a no no and will scratch the surface.