Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

Kitchen Tips for ALL

Monday, March 9th, 2009

Kitchen Tips

  • Peel a banana from the bottom and you won’t have to pick the little “stringy things” off of it. That’s how the primates do it.
  • Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.
  • Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!
  • Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating.
  • Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.
  • Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.
  • To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.
  • For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints in double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a wonderful minty frosting.
  • Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.
  • Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert:
Simply chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream.
Yummm!
  • Reheat Pizza:
Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on the cooking channel and it really works.
  • Easy Deviled Eggs:
Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, and cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.
  • Measuring Cups:
Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don’t dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.
  • Goodbye Fruit Flies:
To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2″ with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!
  • Expanding Frosting:
When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.
  • Reheating refrigerated bread:
To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.

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Welcome to Susan’s Pondering!

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

WELCOME! This is my new blog site.  Truthfully, I am still learning about what blogging is all about so bear with me. The natural place to start is to give you a little history.

I am a 4th generation native of Colorado.  This fact seems to be boring to me, however to many people, they are impressed with the longevity of my family staying together here in the Longmont area.  My family started as farmers east of Longmont with many of the sons following their father’s steps.  My grandfather at one time owned all four corners of I-25 and Hwy 66.  That has been just a “few” years ago.

I grew up in the old brick house (torn down in 2008) on the corner of I-25 and Hwy 66.  There are many memories from living in that house at that location.  Can you believe I used to walk across I-25 to visit my grandparents?  There is no way a person can do this now a days.  When the Beatles toured the United States, they came through Colorado.  I was very young and I still remember seeing them.  A big limousine pulled up to our home.  They had a flat tire and wanted to know where they could get the tire fixed that was not highly populated.  My Mom sent them to Mead.  What I remember about them is their haircuts and the funny way they sounded when they talked.

I took a sociology class at the University of Colorado in Boulder.  When the professor asked how many extended families reside in the same state, I was the only one that raised my hand.  We spent the rest of the class time talking about how rare in this day and age to have multi family generations living in the same state, and even more rare, is to have them live in the same area within a few miles of one another.   The professor even proposed doing a study of our family ~ I was not impressed not thinking having my family all together was “cool.”

With that said, I do know Northern Colorado well, although there are a lot more lights on the horizon from when I was younger.

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