Happy Easter!

I wish everyone a wonderful Easter, what a wonderful day it is!  Andrew and I are thrilled to have his brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Cate, here with us for Easter.

Since we will be at St. Andrew's in the morning, I figured it would be easier to do the "big meal" today...so we had pork tenderloin, green beans, mac and cheese, corn, and biscuits for dinner with chocolate cake for dinner.  The pork was a "Gray creation," the beans were fresh/frozen from the Farmer's Market that I made "country style," I made PW's mac and cheese, the silver queen was from the Farmer's Market, and I whipped up some bisquick biscuits.  The chocolate cake was PW's.  From the look of our plates when we finished it was delicious!!

Told you we didn't hold back...

And this was supposed to feed 8 - 12...yeah right...maybe 6.

We took them to Kiefer's last night, which of course was a big hit.  And we are going to Julep for brunch tomorrow before they head back to Georgia.  They are getting a chance to have the yummy local foods.

I had great plans to take pictures of our dinner since I set the table and used all kinds of serving pieces, but I forgot (heck I nearly forgot the corn)!  Sorry all you get are those that I took of the "leftovers."

Special

This comes via Taylor (Soap) Sandusky's facebook.  I can't stop laughing at the paint colors.  Here are some of the comments that this pictures has generated.

"Sweet. I want one.  What do you call this?"
"Looks like a 91 nissan sentra with a bed"
"How do you say "Camino" in Japanese?"

Folks - never be surprised by what you will see in Atlanta.

A Day of Rest and NASCAR

To Granddaddy:

Thank you for teaching me at a very young age that Sundays are reserved for Church, rest, good food, and NASCAR.  Oh and one more thing...thank you for teaching me that you watch the first 20 laps of a the race before sleeping for the next 2 hours and waking up in time to watch the last 20 laps.

To Everyone Else:

Try it some Sunday (I suggest one that you have finished your weekend chores), it makes facing Monday a whole lot easier.  Oh and if you plan on calling me - check to make sure the race is over first - otherwise you will likely wake Tucker and I up.

Recipe for Strawberry Muffins

Here is the link to the Strawberry Muffins.  And yes, I followed it except I used my usual margarine (only use butter when it calls for unsalted butter) and "Break Free Eggs" rather than eggs (because that was all I had).

http://nancysrecipes.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/fresh-strawberry-muffins/

Storms

First, we are all okay.  No damage here.  It seems that just before hit the Rez it lifted, then dropped over the water, then lift again over land.  I can tell you that the strong thunderstorm that came through after lunch tossed more leaves, small limbs, etc than the tornado.  I drove up the Rankin County side of the Rez for a while last night and never spotted anything more than a single tree on a fence.

That said - here are some links to videos, pictures, etc...

"Jackson man says Tornado pull his burger from his hand."  He is also known as "Jackson's finest."  If you can figure out what he means by, "I was supposed to be gone 30 minutes ago," let me know.

Storm Chaser footage This is one of the those real-life Twister movie people...he is also the only midwest chaser that will come to the south.

Newspaper pictures

Local News Station Footage

Homemade Strawberry Muffins

Kroger had 2 for $4 containers of strawberries over the weekend so I bought two of course.  They were starting to get a little soft and I was wanting strawberry cupcakes, but I settled for muffins (they are slightly healthier without frosting).

And let me tell you - I don't think I will ever by the muffin mix again.  It is kinda like cinnamon rolls...once you have gone homemade, you can't go back.

Suggestions

Need some suggestions...

I wanted to use up some "break-free" egg stuff yesterday so I made a batch of my Heart Association Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I couldn't find an equivalent measure on the container other than "for fluffier cakes, muffins, etc use 1/3 cup instead of 1 large egg."  So I figured...1/3 cup it is.  Turns out - my dough was more like batter so I poured it in a stone baking sheet with a small lip thinking I would get a fluffy-sorta cookie cake (think Great American Cookie Company).  Wrong - I ended up with chocolate chip cookie flavored thin cake.  It had the texture of a cake, not cookie.

After eating on it for about 12 hours and letting Andrew having a piece, we decided it would be awesome as a bread pudding.  So after lunch I created a vanilla custard to make the bread pudding.  Baked it up and served it.  And although it was awesome - we decided it needs a topping, a sauce, a little something...

This is where I need suggestions - what should I try?  To get you started - white chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, coffee cream, vanilla cream sauce...