Edward H. Davis Interviews Mary Lou Cheatham, Part 4

Ed: Which unusual recipe has really made a surprising splash?

Mary:Dr. Paul Elliott, the co-author of The Collard Patch , helped develop the following recipe. We prepared if for food demonstrations. Tasters kept coming back to our table and asking for another little cup of it. It’s a mixture of south Louisiana gumbo, red beans and rice, and a mess of collards all in one pot.

When we appeared on Chef John Folse’s radio program, he raved over this gumbo. We call it Texianne cooking because it is what happened when a Texas cook and a Louisiana cook poured ingredients into one pot.

Red River Gumbo

Ingredients
1 cup small red beans
⅓ cup all purpose flour
⅓ cup olive oil
1 chopped onion (approximately 1 cup)
1 chopped green bell pepper (approximately 1 cup)
1 cup chopped celery
4 cups finely chopped fresh collards
6 ounces Richard’s tasso, finely chopped
1 can Ro*Tel® diced tomatoes with green chilies
2 cups cooked, diced pork or other meat of choice
2 tablespoons chili powder
¼ cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter
1 pound crawfish tails
2 cups frozen mixture of okra, tomatoes, and onions
Salt to taste
Ground pepper to taste

Preparation
•Soak the beans overnight, empty the water cover again with fresh water, and cook until they are tender:
•Make a roux in the Dutch oven by browning the flour in the oil. Add the onion, bell pepper, celery, collards, and tasso. Stir and continue to heat. Add enough warm water to cover the mixture as it continues to cook.
•Add the Ro*Tel®, pork, chili powder, lemon juice, and red beans; keep the pot simmering. Add water as needed.
•Sauté the crawfish tails in butter until they are warmed throughout.
•After the gumbo has cooked until the vegetables are slightly tender, add the tomato-okra mixture and crawfish.
•Adjust the seasonings by adding salt and red pepper as desired. Simmer until all the ingredients are warm throughout and the flavors are starting to smell so good you have to eat it.

Sprinkle on some gumbo filé. Serve it over rice.

Edward H. Davis Interviews Mary Lou Cheatham, Part 3

Ed: Which recipe from your book (it has so many! My wife and I like several) has gotten the most compliments from readers?
(Answer continued)

Mary: Many cooks don’t want to take the time to prepare fresh collards. Here’s a popular frozen collard recipe, which many health-conscious readers prefer:

Simply Delicious Collards

Ingredients
1½ cups water
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 cups (1 pound) frozen chopped collards
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon basil leaves
2 tablespoons Splenda®
⅛ teaspoon baking soda
Salt substitute to taste
Ground red pepper to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preparation
•In a large heavy pan or Dutch oven, heat ½ cup water with the oil until it is very hot.
•Add the greens and garlic. Cover and cook 5 minutes.
•Add the remaining ingredients and cook until almost all the liquid has evaporated.
Having said all this, I need to add that the first recipe in The Collard Patch is the world’s most famous. For years it was number one on google under the heading “collard greens.” Willie Crawford, famous Soul Food cook and internet marketer allowed me to feature this recipe – Awesome Collard Greens.

Edward H. Davis Interviews Mary Lou Cheatham, Part 2

Ed: Which recipe from your book (it has so many! My wife and I like several) has gotten the most compliments from readers?

Mary: The key word in that question is readers. Here’s the one tasters rave over most. It has a few collards and plenty of other yummy ingredients. This recipe is not traditional.

Crawfish Tortellini Salad
Ingredients
½ cup thinly sliced green onions with tops
1 small jar artichoke hearts, drained
1 cup small fresh mushrooms
1 cup large pitted ripe olives
1 cup fresh red bell pepper, sliced
1 cup thinly sliced carrots
12 ounces frozen crawfish tails
1 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt-free Cajun seasoning
½ cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon spicy mustard
1 teaspoon Splenda®
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salt substitute to taste
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped
1 cup seedless golden raisins
1 package (14 ounces) cheese tortellini
4 ounces (1/4 cup) feta cheese
4 cups tender baby collard leaves, chopped
4 cups Romaine lettuce, torn into small pieces

Preparation
•Place the first 6 ingredients in a big bowl
•Place ¾ cup olive oil in the blender. Add the vinegar, lemon juice, mustard and all the remaining powdered seasonings. Blend until it is well mixed. Stir in the parsley and basil.
•Pour the blended dressing over the ingredients in the bowl and marinate them covered at least 2 hours in the refrigerator.
•Sauté the crawfish in ¼ cup olive oil and Cajun seasoning about 5-7 minutes. Even though there will be other seasoning mixed with the tortellini, each individual crawfish needs its own spiciness. You don’t want those crawfish to get lonesome. After you sauté them long enough to catch the seasoning, set them aside to cool,
•Cook the tortellini according to the package directions. Cook it al dente. Drain it in the colander and allow it to cool.
•Toss the crawfish, tortellini, and raisins with the vegetable mixture.
•When you serve the salad, place it over the greens. Garnish it with feta cheese.

Edward H. Davis Interviews Mary Lou Cheatham, Part 1

Edward, before you start asking me questions, I’d like to ask you a few.

Mary:Why did you write a book about collards?
Ed: My colleague John Morgan and I have been curious about several things: the decline of home gardening since WW2, and the unique history, botany and geography of collards as a leafy vegetable - none of the other vegetables have such an interesting background! No geographer has done a food study at this scale, since the South is such a large cultural region, so it made for a fascinating challenge.

Mary: What is the name of your book?
Ed: Collards and the American South

Mary: How did you go about writing the book?
Ed: This is academia so we were just doing research for small publications - journals you would never hear about, but then we learned more and more and a few years ago someone suggested we could have enough of a story for a book. We began in 2000 by interviewing farmers and gardeners, then as the project grew we ended up surveying agricultural extension agents, seed savers, grocery store produce managers, restaurant owners, seed store retailers, and even 11,000 college students! That last piece is part of a larger project about food in the South - not all of that goes in the collards book.

Mary: Did your wife help you?
Ed: Sandy is a big help in my life, even though she works also as a community college teacher. She did not work on the book, but I ws lucky to have her all along. For example, she allowed me to disappear on long expeditions for weeks at a time!

Mary: What is your book like? Please describe it.
Ed: You got a glimpse in the answer to the third question. It is going to be like a journey through ten Southern states, from Arkansas to Virginia, but with lots of history and agriculture and geography and economics and even literature thrown in, since collards show up not just at covered dish suppers but in novels, poems, songs, festivals, fashion shows, interior decorations, celebrity scandals, and even prison farms!

Mary: What is one of the recipes in The Collard Patch you and your wife like?
Ed: One of the casseroles - I don't have the book with me to remember the exact name of it - but it was a big hit at my family reunion!

Books by Mary Lou Cheatham

I'm Choking . . . But Life Moves On Along the Path of Grief (Insights about Grieving:
"The process of grieving is like walking through a murky swamp. In this e-book I want to talk with you about the way it feels. There's no way I can know exactly what you are going through, not even if we could sit and talk and you could tell me. I will tell you though that I have experienced grief and known many other dear ones who have." Mary Lou Cheatham

The Collard Patch:
"I highly recommend The Collard Patch to anyone who loves cooking good, healthy, down-home food." Willie Crawford, The World's Leading Soul Food Expert

Do You Know How God Loves You?:
"If the question were actually asked of us 'Do You Know How God Loves You?' I'm afraid most of us would have to say 'I haven't got a clue!' It's easy to go through our normal daily routine without giving a thought to God's love. This book can help change that. Mary Cheatham has written a lovely devotional book that takes the reader deep into the heart of Scripture where, day by day, she examines the many facets of God's love for his people. I can't imagine anyone reading this without being informed, enriched and encouraged. I know I was!" Ann Tatlock, author one of the Top Ten Historical Novels of the year according to Booklist Magazine

Do You Know How God Loves You? [Kindle Edition]:
"I requested through Amazon that your publisher make your book available in an Amazon.com Kindle edition, so Kindle readers can find it and enjoy it 'on the go'. God bless you for such a wonderful book that reminds us of God's presence and love for each one of us." RBS Prods, one of the top 500 reviewers on Amazon

A Prayer of Nehemiah, The Birth of Leadership [Kindle Edition]:
Assuming a role of leadership can be challenging. We face all kinds of problems when we step out to lead. The struggles a leader faces are human problems that have not changed over the centuries of history. "Nehemiah, a cupbearer for a Persian king more than 400 years before Christ was born, led a company of his people from Babylon to Jerusalem, where he restored the walls and civil authority. Where his nation once existed, he found ruins. His challenge was for him a great one." Mary Lou Cheatham

Solomon's Porch:
"In this warm, personal story of a devoted marriage, a tragic illness, and incredible perseverance, Jane Riley presents us with the full spectrum of good and evil. But it is not done through high drama, or in complicated philosophic terms. Rather, with a constrained writing style she shows us how it appears in our ordinary, everyday, lives: good friends and devious friends; doctors guilty of deplorable malpractice and callousness, and doctors moved by unswerving concern for their patients; churchgoers who run the gamut from cruelty, hypocrisy and selfishness, to those kindhearted souls that harken back to the early Christians who met at Solomon's Temple and shared compassion and love for one another. All of this is dealt with, fought with, and savoured, in this story of a loving wife-mother-and-caregiver's story, which is gently and beautifully written (with a wonderful knack for dialogue), and -- as several reviewers have already noted - very hard to put down." Andrew Cort, author of "The Purpose of Religion: Enlightenment, Meaning and Love in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Symbology"

Flavored with Love: Mary Lou's Family and Friends Can Cook:
"Jane Riley is a pen name for Mary Lou Cheatham. 'Jane' has garnered recipes from her lifetime of cooking, mostly from family members and friends, to compile this omnibus cookbook. 'Flavored with Love' is additionally punctuated with a nostalgic overview of the Louisiana and Mississippi regions, and its people, in particular." Patrick Crabtree, one of the top 500 reviewers on Amazon.

All quotations are from reviews and product pages on Amazon.com

E-Book about Grief: I'm Choking . . . But Life Moves On Along the Path of Grief (Insights about Grieving)

Months pass; nothing changes. We sleep in our beds, awake to the buzzing of our alarm clocks, go about our daily routines, enjoy our health, feed the dogs, and interact with our families. We start thinking that our lives will always be the same.

No matter what we think, life moves on. Someone close – a family member or a cherished friend – dies.



It's okay to cry. It's okay to grieve just as it's okay to eat. Problems arise from negative effects when we become stuck and continue to gratify our yearnings and uneasiness by luxuriating in abnormal amounts of normal behavior.

Have Yourself a Happy Little Mother's Day

What makes holidays sad?

It's Mother's Day and we're supposed to be happy, but it doesn't always work that way.

This realization became evident to me when I was a young girl. In our yard we had several varieties of roses in all colors. We always pinned them on our dresses for church. Those whose mothers were living were supposed to wear red ones. Those whose mothers were deceased wore white ones.

The year after my grandmother died, I remember going out and selecting the roses. Our red ones were small, but the white rose blooms we had were huge and impressive. The one we found for Mother that year was the most beautiful I had ever seen. I still remember the bittersweet expression on her face.

On holidays the memories of the times when we were all together can overwhelm us. The personnel at our gatherings changes. Some of us have no one. We tend to romanticize the past times -- to see them through rose-tinted lenses. Our minds tell us the good old days were better than they could have possibly been.

As much as possible, it's best to look for ways to make each holiday special within the context of the joys we have today. It's time to make some new happy memories.

I have published a new Kindle book entitled "I'm Choking But Life Moves On Along the Path of Grief." It is under review and is scheduled to appear in Kindle today. The purpose of this book is to help us deal with grief.

Light Chocolate Cake

Lightening Up Chocolate Cake

It is possible to have what you want, eat what you love, and lose weight. Small choices made daily will bring big results By thinking ahead about food, I’ve managed to lose weight slowly.

Last night I wanted chocolate cake. By making a few adjustments I was able to enjoy a great cake without going on an eating binge. In the recipe I substituted soy milk, which has only 70 calories per cup. Instead of making a layer cake with rich frosting or cooking a chocolate pound cake with an abundance of butter, I made a simple chocolate cake in a bundt pan. By the way, this cake was easy to prepare.

I took the cake while it was still warm to a meeting and enjoyed a slice with whipped topping. The others attending seemed to enjoy the rich chocolate taste as much as I did. When I left the meeting, I left the cake with my hostess.

I always use Hershey’s Cocoa. It happens to be the cocoa I like.

Here’s the recipe:

Chocolate Cake
2 cups sugar
1¾ cups self-rising flour
¾ cups Hershey’s cocoa
2 eggs
1 cup soy milk
½ cup plus 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
Cooking spray
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup hot coffee (decaffeinated or regular)
Canned light whipped cream
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray the bundt pan with cooking spray and add 2 teaspoons vegetable oil to make sure the cake doesn’t stick.
Combine the dry ingredients. Mix in the eggs, soy milk, oil, and vanilla. Beat 2 minutes. Add the hot coffee.
Bake until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. This should be about 45 minutes.
Turn onto a pan.
Slice while it is still warm and serve it with whipped cream. The cake has a rich chocolate taste.

I'd love to read your suggestions about ways to lighten up favorite foods. You can send me a message on Facebook.

Quinoa

Recently I tried some NatureCrops Nutrition Bars
containing quinoa. (It's pronounced “keenwa.”) Delicious! I especially liked the way the quinoa seeds popped when I chewed them. I couldn't wait to try cooking quinoa.

We bought a cup of quinoa seeds in the bulk foods department at Central Market in Plano, Texas. This evening I cooked it for supper. Yum!

DIRECTIONS ON THE BAG: Add 1 cup quinoa to 2 cups water or broth. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer 15-20 minutes. Yields 3 ½ cups. Serve as a side dish. Add sauteed onions and vegetables.

I don't like to run to the store. Usually there is something on hand that can make a tasty meal. While the quinoa seeds simmered in broth, I found enough vegetables to fill a huge skillet: frozen English peas, broccoli, green bell peppers, corn ; fresh onions, garlic, carrots. I stir fried the vegetables in a small amount of olive oil. After combining the vegetables and the quinoa, I added a generous amount (six tablespoons) powdered green chili dissolved in water, a big shake of black pepper, and a small amount of cumin. Then I stirred that together.

Topped with sour cream and a small amount of grated cheddar in bowls, it was a winner.

Quinoa was cultivated in the Andean region of South America by the Incas. It's been an important food for thousands of years. The greens can be eaten as a nutritious food.

Three and one half ounces of uncooked quinoa seeds contains 368 calories with 7 grams fiber. It's rich in vitamins, especially thiamine, riboflavin, B6, and folate.

The seeds can be toasted and served in salads or with toasted nuts. It is a good source of essential amino acids; therefore vegetarians find it a healthy choice.

As people throughout the United States are developing a love for Louisiana food, where do they get their recipes?

After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a wave of desire for the Louisiana food experience swept across the country with the Louisianans. People began wanting to eat more Cajun food, to collect more Louisiana recipes, and to read more of the lore of Louisiana.

Using the pen name of Jane Riley, I wrote the story cookbook reader, entitled Flavored with Love: Mary Lou's Family and Friends Can Cook

This book is full of heart-warming stories and yummy recipes about and by my relatives and friends who live mostly in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

After Katrina and Rita hit the region, people buying and reading Flavored with Love, Second Edition, begged for more south Louisiana food and experiences.

To meet these requests I interviewed cooks with knowledge of authentic Cajun and Creole food in Louisiana towns such as Grammercy and Donaldsonville to add to the book. I persuaded some of the leading Louisiana restaurateurs to share their tastiest recipes in Flavored with Love. I interviewed south Louisiana people and captured their words the way they spoke them.

Flavored with Love, Third Edition, contains New Orleans influenced cuisine, Mississippi comfort food, and spicy Texas dishes. It introduces a new style of intermingled cooking–La Cusine Texianne®.

Many of the recipes are for the best old stuff that is difficult to find these days. Other recipes explain methods of cooking light food with an accelerated sense of taste. With this book you can serve an authentic Louisiana meal that you prepared without difficulty and fill your house with the distinctive odors of Creole and Cajun food. There is no equal!

Flavored with Love, Third Edition, contains over 300 recipes. There are 320 pages in the third edition with more than 60 new recipes not found in the previous versions. The recipes are in big easy-to-read print so it is possible to place the book on the counter and read it while cooking without smearing it with fingerprints. The book has a lay flat binding, which also helps the book stay open on the counter-top.

With its big 8½ x 11" pages and clever cover, it is pretty enough to place on the living room coffee table. Humorous and poignant stories mixed with the recipes are well loved by all who read them. The stories warm hearts while the food satisfies taste buds.

Baked Coon

Soon it's going to be too warm to cook this recipe. We're reaching the end of the "R" months.

Raccoons love city life. A country coon weighs as much as fifteen pounds, but a city coon can weigh as much as sixty pounds. Louisiana country coons are content with acorns, fresh fruit, vegetables, and crawfish. Urban coons prefer the higher calorie diet they find in garbage cans. Country coons sleep in the woods, but city coons reside in outbuildings and abandoned houses.

People try to turn raccoons into pets. Although they are cute, I don't recommend them as pets. Their claws are dangerous. If people feed them pet food such as cat food, the raccoons develop gout, which can be painful for the little fellows.

They are not as clean as we have thought. They don't really wash their food; instead they like to play with it in the water when they can. Furthermore, some of them have rabies, leptospirosis, listeriosis, tetanus, or tularemia. Coon eaters, beware.

In earlier days, raccoons were considered a delicacy. They were popular food items, especially at Christmas in the United States. People in all social circles loved them. Today they remain a well-loved source of food. I know families who enjoy eating raccoons for Christmas dinner. They tell me it tastes scrumptious.
Here is a great recipe for baking a raccoon.

Terry Chrisman shared her mother’s recipe for baked raccoon with me. Since I can’t find any raccoons, I have not tried this recipe. Although it is my policy to try recipes whenever possible—my freezer door is propped closed because of all the food I’ve cooked and stored—I will make an exception in this case. Terry is a distinguished cook, and I trust her. She called her mother to verify the recipe. Because you may find a raccoon you need to cook, I’ll share the recipe with you.

It was one of the first entries at this blog, which now has 370 entries. Also the readers of the Bernice Banner (Louisiana) told me they enjoyed it when I shared it there as a suggestion for Christmas dinner.

Baked Coon by Ann Webb

Dress the coon.
Remove all the glands, especially from under the arms.
Quarter it.
Cover it with pepper sauce.
Lay thick slices of peeled sweet potatoes around the edges.
Pour a little bit of water in the pan.
Sprinkle a cup of dark brown sugar over the sweet potatoes and coon.
Cover the pan.
Bake at 350 degrees until tender.

Terry told me that her mother cooks coon two or three times a year only in cold weather. Her father kills them when he goes squirrel hunting. She said, “He’s supposed to be squirrel hunting, but if he sees a coon, he kills it.”
Baked coon would be a gourmet meal with collards and cornbread on the side.

Flavored with Love: Mary Lou's Family and Friends Can Cook

Aunt Etta's Turnip Greens

The little memoir of Uncle Dan's concern over eating turnip greens is a true story. It appears in Flavored with Love: Mary Lou's Family and Friends Can Cook

It also appeared in the Bernice Banner (Bernice, Louisiana).

Feeling queasy a few months after being married, Etta decided she needed medical help. Uncle Dan took her to the doctor, who informed the young couple that she was pregnant. “Don’t hurt yourself lifting heavy loads and working too hard on the farm,” the doctor cautioned. “Eat a balanced diet.”

As they were walking into the waiting area on their way out the clinic, Dan, exposing his ignorance of the subject, turned around and went back to talk with the doctor another time. “Doctor, I’ve got a question.”

“What is that?”

“Is it all right if I eat turnip greens?” he asked.

My family laughed about this for years.

Etta's Turnip Greens

1. Pick some nice tender greens from the patch down in the damp hollow. The best ones are grown in cold weather with a kiss of frost on them.
2. Wash them thoroughly to rid them of grit and sand. Don’t skimp on the washing.
3. Be sure to pull off the stems and ladybugs.
4. You may want to peel and slice a few turnip roots and toss them into the pot with the greens.
5. Fill a big pot with greens.
6. Cover them with water.
7. Throw in a lump of bacon grease the size of a large egg.
8. Add salt and black pepper to taste. Shake in a tiny bit of red pepper.
9. Add a spoonful of sugar–the size depending on how bitter the greens are.
10. Throw in a douse of pepper sauce, or if you don’t have any, use vinegar.
11. Cook the greens over low heat for hours to make sure they are tender.
12. Cut them before serving.

Notes

1 .It’s easier to cut the greens before cooking, but that procedure is unorthodox.
2. Serve the greens with plenty of thin fresh cornbread to sop up the pot liquor. Try cracklin’ bread.
3. A sprinkle of hot pepper sauce would taste good on greens.
4. A ham hock or a small block of side meat could be substituted for the bacon grease.
5. If you want to make a pot of heart-healthy food, try omitting the grease altogether and add low sodium beef bouillon with a few drops of liquid smoke.
6. Greens have been enjoyed with slices of fresh raw onions.
7. You may want to dip some sliced green tomatoes in flour and fry them in a small amount of fat in a skillet to serve with your greens.
8. Sliced ripe tomatoes would be good too.
9. Some people serve peppers–sliced bell peppers, sweet banana peppers, hot peppers–with greens.
10. Linda R., a Louisiana friend, cooks garlic in green leafy vegetables.
11. Frozen greens taste good if they are cooked carefully.
12. Diane, my sister-in-law, cuts cooked fresh greens with a pizza cutter.


FLAVORED WITH LOVE has more stories about Aunt Etta and Uncle Dan. THE COLLARD PATCH is an entire book about cooking greens, primarily collards, and the cornbread to go with them.

My Home Town -- Those Funny Names of Mississippi Places in Our Neck of the Woods

Join this Facebook group if your heart is in Taylorsville, Mississippi (Smith County)

We natives of Taylorsville (Smith County, Mississippi) have our pride about our town's name. Even though our town is small, we at least have a better name than some of the surrounding communities can claim.

To the east of the town of our origin is Soso. This name was given to that community 125 years ago by Jim Eaton, a Taylorsville post office worker, who thought the community was so so. Those dear people have kept the name and made the best of it. It has become distinctive. The Soso residents received a lemon of a name from a Taylorsvillian and made lemonade out of it.

To the southeast is Sullivan's Hollow, named after Wild Bill Sullivan. The legendary rowdy ways of that community have become internationally famous. We Taylorsvillians cannot help adding the sin of envy over their name to the pride we feel for our own name.

South of us is Hot Coffee, Mississippi. This community supposedly had an inn there that sold hot coffee. Most people have never heard of Taylorsville, but they know about Hot Coffee. Taylorsville is much more significant than Hot Coffee. It's too bad! We have such a respectable name but people don't know about us.

Part of the problem is that there's nothing very original or unique about the name of our town. We share the name with places in Utah, California, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, and Iowa. In fact, there are two towns named Taylorsville, Mississippi.

We pronounce the word by accenting the first syllable with no emphasis on the "ville." We are very boastful of the name.

Recently I read that it is believed that the original town of Taylorsville was called "Bullace" back in 1898 when a road from Jackson to Laurel was built. How humiliating to have had such an undignified beginning name!

Sources:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3291/i s_2_23/ai_n29132353/

http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?loc Index=285673

http://www.mize.town.ms.gov/history.html

http://www.mapquest.com/directions

Five Prizes

How do you make broccoli salad?

When I compiled and wrote FLAVORED WITH LOVE, which includes recipes from my friends and family, I published two broccoli salad recipes because I liked both of them.

I've been wondering whether some of you have other ideas about making broccoli salad. Send me your recipe at MaryLCheatham at gmail.com. The contributors of the five best broccoli salad recipes will receive free copies of FLAVORED WITH LOVE!

Please send me your recipe by March 30, 2010.

1. Broccoli Salad
1 bunch broccoli (Use only the flowerets.)
½ cup red onion
½ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup raisins
½ cup chopped pecans
1 cup celery

Combine the above ingredients.

Dressing
1 cup Miracle Whip® (We use the low fat.)
¼ cup white vinegar
¼ cup sugar

Combine the dressing ingredients and stir the dressing into the salad.

2. Broccoli Salad
4 cups broccoli
½ cup raisins
½ cup nuts
½ cup onion
½ cup celery
½ cup real bacon bits
½ cup light mayonnaise
½ cup sugar
¼ cup vinegar (apple cider or white)

Mix the first 6 ingredients. Make a sauce out of the mayonnaise, sugar, and vinegar. Pour the sauce over the salad. Toss and chill.





Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Crawfish Tortellini Salad

Who said crawfish and collard greens don't mix? This salad from The Collard Patch will prove otherwise. When we cooked this and featured it on KTVE news, the staff had trouble giving the news that day because they kept sneaking over to get a little more of this while they were trying to give the news, weather, and sports.

Crawfish Tortellini Salad
Ingredients
½ cup thinly sliced green onions with tops
1 small jar artichoke hearts, drained
1 cup small fresh mushrooms
1 cup large pitted ripe olives
1 cup fresh red bell pepper, sliced
1 cup thinly sliced carrots
12 ounces frozen crawfish tails
1 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt-free Creole seasoning
½ cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon spicy mustard
1 teaspoon Splenda®
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salt substitute to taste
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped
1 cup seedless golden raisins
1 package (14 ounces) cheese tortellini
4 ounces (¼ cup) feta cheese
4 cups tender baby collard leaves, chopped
4 cups Romaine lettuce, torn into small pieces

Preparation
Place the first 6 ingredients in a big bowl.

Place ¾ cup olive oil in the blender. Add the vinegar, lemon juice, mustard and all the remaining powdered seasonings. Blend until it is well mixed. Stir in the parsley and basil.

Pour the blended dressing over the ingredients in the bowl and marinate them covered at least 2 hours in the refrigerator.

Sauté the crawfish in ¼ cup olive oil and Cajun seasoning about 5-7 minutes. Even though there will be other seasoning mixed with the tortellini, each individual crawfish needs its own spiciness.

You don’t want those crawfish to get lonesome. After you sauté them long enough to catch the seasoning, set them aside to cool.

Cook the tortellini according to the package directions. Cook it al dente. Drain it in the colander and allow it to cool.

Toss the crawfish, tortellini, and raisins with the vegetable mixture.

When you serve the salad, place it over the greens. Garnish it with feta cheese.

Cooking Tips
Instead of crawfish, substitute 1 of the following:
3 cups white chicken meat, cooked and chopped
1 pound jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
If the feta cheese is a block, cube it.
Cubed ham would be tasty too.

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

My New Job

Hello from the Collard Patch. I stopped by to tell you about my new job. It's exciting!

My official title is Examiner. To be more specific, I am the Shreveport Christian Books Examiner. I've been having fun with this new assignment. I write reviews of the books I'm enjoying reading, and I interview authors. Also I talk about the skill of writing.

Please go over to Shreveport Christian Books Examiner and take a look.

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

How Not to Lose Your Mind Eating Venison

The following article appeared in THE BANNER of Bernice November 12, 2009:
My nephew, Jameson, gave me this recipe to include in FLAVORED WITH LOVE, a book of recipes by my family members and stories about and by the cooks. Y'all will love this:

Mustard Fried Venison

Venison (ham pieces or loin)
Plain mustard
Onion
Soy sauce
Garlic salt
Self-rising flour

Trim and slice venison into 1/4" to 1/2" pieces. If using ham pieces it's a good idea to tenderize (beat) the venison. Also cubed venison works real well. Place meat in bowl.

Mix in mustard, large chopped onion, a couple splashes of soy sauce, a few dashes of garlic salt. Make sure all meat has some mustard on it. Let marinate as long as possible in fridge. Overnight or all day is fine.

Place flour in a paper sack, mixing in salt and pepper freely. Dredge venison pieces through flour mixture and drop into hot cooking oil.

Plain mustard is prepared yellow mustard. Heed the following warning.
Jameson's Note. At the bottom of the recipe he wrote: This is one of my favorites. You can tell it's a guy recipe as the minutia are missing–you just go by feel. It was given to me a long time ago by a friend, Eddie, of South Carolina. My copy is dog-eared. Eddie is one of the best deer hunters I've seen. He's one of those types that spend days in the woods prior to opening day scoping out a big buck. He is also a bit crazy.

Warning. He also wrote: :Do not put a piece of this on top of your head or your tongue will beat your brains out trying to get to it!

More about Jameson: As a youth, Jameson learned to hunt and fish on his grandparents' farms in Mississippi. As an adult, he has traveled extensively to hunt and has gathered game recipes and hunting stories along the way.

He claims: Once I was hunting elk in an aspen forest in Colorado and confronted a grizzly. I jumped up to catch a limb ten feet over my head. I missed, but luckily caught it on the way down.

For Louisiana Readers Only: Don't bother to read my observations about this recipe if you are from South Carolina or Georgia. Everybody in Louisiana knows that most recipes (including cakes, cookies , and brownies) need a little shake of cayenne pepper. An addition of our favorite spice could enhance this recipe. Cayenne pepper opens the palate so you can appreciate all the flavors. Sometimes when we put too much, it opens the eaters' whole heads up. Noses drip, eyes water, mouths drool, ears smoke, and scalps bead sweat. That way we know we've overdone it.

One more suggestion: If you cannot get a deer this year, try this recipe with pork chops. Y'all have a good time hunting!

Mary Lou Cheatham
Email: MaryLCheatham@gmail.com
THE COLLARD PATCH
http://collardpatch.blogspot.com
http://www.collardlovers.com
FLAVORED WITH LOVE
http://www.flavoredwithlove.com
DO YOU KNOW HOW GOD LOVES YOU?
http://www.DoYouKnowHowGodLovesYou.com

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Eating Venison During Poor Economic Times

The following article appeared in THE BANNER of Bernice, LA, November 5, 2009:

Eating venison is a solution to having a bountiful meat supply during this time of down-turned economy.

A friend of ours is preparing for a bumper crop of deer meat this year. He has planted his deer salad. The other day he went to the store and bought his supply of deer corn. He wanted the sacks to say, “Go, Razorbacks,” but all he could find was in yellow and purple bags honoring LSU. He had no choice but to buy it, and since it was fifty cents cheaper per bag if he bought a ton, he bought a ton.

Having purchased more corn than he could possibly use, he arrived the next morning at the local coffee club with a plan. Being a frugal man … okay a penny-pinching Scrooge … he offered to sell some of it to his deer-hunting, coffee-drinking, yarn-spinning buddies. Not above making a tidy profit off his friends, he proudly announced a special offer: fifty cents a bag more than he had paid at the ton rate. One of them told him, “_____, you can buy deer corn down the road at the convenience store at fifty cents per bag less than you are asking.”

It was particularly embarrassing when it came out that he had bought a ton to get the same price he could have gotten at the local convenience store while buying it one bag at a time. To put it mildly, he was perturbed! What came out of his mouth next cannot be reported here.

He decided to make good use of the corn. At his stand he has the fattest, best fed deer in north Louisiana and south Arkansas. The deer that eat at his place are so fat he doesn't need to use his gun. He can just go out and run them down. Is catching deer on foot included in the primitive weapon season? Any way, our friend could be considered a primitive weapon. Like us, he's definitely an antique.
His wife told me, “At $450 .00 a pound, this solution for stocking the deep freeze may not be so economical after all.”

A while back I was collecting recipes to place in my story cookbook, FLAVORED WITH LOVE, which is about my family and friends. Most of the people are real, and all the stories are. Bill, my deceased brother-in-law, gave me this easy recipe for venison:

Venison Hash

Cook 2 pounds venison in salted water until tender. Drain all but small amount of liquid. Add 1 chopped onion. Season to taste with seasoned salt. Cook until tender and liquid is absorbed.
Note: When I was a little girl, Bill cooked this hash dish with goat meat one time. Just in case y'all can't find a deer ….
.
Mary Lou Cheatham
Email: MaryLCheatham@gmail.com
THE COLLARD PATCH
http://collardpatch.blogspot.com
http://www.collardlovers.com
FLAVORED WITH LOVE
http://www.flavoredwithlove.com
DO YOU KNOW HOW GOD LOVES YOU?
http://www.DoYouKnowHowGodLovesYou.com

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Poinsettias

Last year I bought a beautiful large red poinsettia at Sam's. For an entire year I have managed to keep it alive. Today in early November I decided I needed to repot it and rebloom it. I wish I had read earlier the article I found today. It may not be too late to try. I'm going to pay attention to this paragraph from "Poinsettia Care in the Home" by Paul Ecke:

"The poinsettia is a photoperiodic plant, meaning that it sets bud and produces flowers as the Autumn nights lengthen. Poinsettias will naturally come into bloom during November or December, depending on the flowering response time of the individual cultivar. Timing to produce blooms for the Christmas holiday can be difficult outside of the controlled environment of a greenhouse. Stray light of any kind, such as from a street light or household lamps, could delay or entirely halt the re-flowering process."

www.ecke.com

It is wise to use what we have to improve our lives.

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!


Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Growing Up Near Hot Coffee, Mississippi

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!


Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Re-Green the Green

"Have you ever noticed how easy it is to grow stuff in Louisiana?" A friend observed. "If it falls on the ground in Louisiana it will just grow!" Grass grows here. We are in the middle of the grass-growing season. Another friend could not attend excercise class this morning because he had to stay home and mow his grass. Our back yard stays so wet from the sporadic rains that we cannot mow the grass. The crawfish and moles compete for space there. Then when it dries out, the sunshine makes the grass grow. Before the earth dries enough to mow the grass, the grass is waist high.

I read about somebody in the North who let her grass grow a little higher for Easter so her grandchildren could hunt eggs. That tactic wouldn't work here. Saturday before Easter the backyard grass was so high and thick that we would have lost not only the eggs but also the children.

All over the civilized world, especially in our dear nation, we are spending a fortune mowing grass. Think of all the money and resources spent on gasoline, electiricity, or human strength to cut the grass. My mother and father used to have me push a girl-powered mower. They called that kind of energy fuel "elbow grease."

Riding through the neighborhood, we noticed today that more and more people are tilling up large sections

I'm not sure how many people had victory gardens in WW II, but more and more people have them now. Growing garden is actually less work than mowing grass.

Wherever you live, it is possible to grow stuff. Don't forget to grow collard greens. Collard greens are almost perfect food. In the cool climates, they grow beautifully in the warm weather. In the warm climates, they grow best in the cool water. They are prettier than many of the plants that are considered ornamental. Also it's easy to grow onions, turnips, lettuce, carrots, and tomatoes.

Get your plants, garden seeds, gloves, and spades here:
http://www.1newmall.com/nh

We have shared more of our thoughts about this practical way to improve the world in The Collard Patch.

Picking and Fixing Collards

Paul Elliott is the co-author of The Collard Patch. He loves to pick collards, cut them up, cook them, and eat them. I wash them. Get your own collard-cooking manual to learn the best ways to fix collards.

ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON88q82BQq4

Top Secret Green Beans Recipe -- 25 Servings

I overheard the recipe for church beans! And here I'm sharing it with you. This is top secret. I'm sharing this with you so you can make some outstanding beans the next time you have to carry a covered dish to a fellowship.

In addition to what I overheard, I suggest you add a teaspoon of garlic powder, a generous shake of red pepper, and two generous shakes of black pepper to the sugar and butter mix. (Only if you are a spicemouth.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Place 1/4 of a small bag of brown sugar and two sticks (1/2 pound!) of salted butter in a saucepan. Cover that with water, not too much. Heat that until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves, not too much.

Place an institutional-sized can of cut green beens in a big pan. (Don't drain them. You will have to be careful not to spill them on the way to church.) Pour the sugar and butter mix over the beans.

Cut a pound of bacon in pieces -- about 1-1 1/2 inches long. Spread the butter over the top.

Bake the beans 30 minutes or until they bubble and the bacon is cooked (not crsip).

Cover it and take it to church. You will have enough beans for 25 people. Don't even think about the number of calories or fat grams in this dish. Beans are health food, aren't they?

Collard Wraps

Make delicious wraps with collard greens!Paul Elliott, co-author of THE COLLARD PATCH, demonstrates his method of preparing wraps containing collard greens.


Get your copy of THE COLLARD PATCH at http://www.CollardLovers.comor Amazon.com

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Picking and Fixing Collards

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Collards fresh from the collard patch can be prepared hundreds of ways. THE COLLARD PATCH is full of delicious recipes and information to be read about collards and to read while the collards are growing and cooking. Farming and harvesting them is excellent exercise. To prepare them it is beneficial to remove the stems. Collard wraps and collard tortellini are two examples of unusual ways to eat collards. THE COLLARD PATCH is full of traditional and innovative ways to prepare collard greens.

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Flavored with Love Review

People in California love it!

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Do You Know How God's Loves You?

Do You Know How God's Loves You?

Do you need a last minute gift?

Here is a unique gift! Chances are that no one else will duplicate your gift because it is FRESH OFF THE PRESS as of December 10!

There is still time to order from Amazon and receive a gift with free shipping before Christmas. December 17 is the last day to order and expect to receive something by December 24.

I'm sharing with you a new daily devotional book that will make you think and show you some more about the Bible both as inspiration and as knowledge of God's word that is not usually included in material such as this. This book will give each person who studies it daily guidance to make 2009 a more meaningful and succesful year.

The most powerful, most intelligent, most loving, most beautiful, most self-sacrificing Person who has ever lived loves you more than anyone else is capable of loving you. He came to the world as a Man, and He was totally a Man. Yet He is God, totally God with more glory and power than we can comprehend. Jesus, the God-Man, loves you so much that He died for you.

"For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:7-8)

DO YOU KNOW HOW GOD LOVES YOU? came out on Amazon.com, just in time for Christmas gifts. (There are only two more days until the end of the guaranteed deliveries for free.) The book contains a daily devotional for each day of the year.

Please take a minute to go look at this big beautiful book. It has over 400 pages with an inspirational study for each day of the year. Some of the subjects included are angels, the names of God, the chracter of God, witnessing, grief, prayer life, and daily living. There are amusing stories about children and musings about life. In fact, the book is full of stories that will challenge you and inspire you.

Here is the link: http://adexclusive.com/r/amdy/


Merry Christmas,
Mary

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Spicy Guacamole Dip

This message is from Paul Elliott, the co-author of The Collard Patch The recipe is for Jane Butel's spicy Guacamole Dip. Paul says: We know you love delicious food. How about healthful food that ALSO helps you lose weight?
You're gonna love this!

It's called cooking with chiles! Yes, the capsaicin (hot stuff) in chiles actually stimulates your metabolism by about 30% and THAT burns more calories. But you don't need to go around with a flaming mouth and a scalp dripping with perspiration to get the benefit.

1 Delightful spicy Guacamole Dip recipe and 2 Southwestern Recipe and Chile Resources--

First, a delicious spicy guacamole recipe--

Jane Butel, the Queen of Southwestern Cooking and owner of the "Best Cooking School in the US," designed this recipe.

GUACAMOLE
Guacamole at its best! For greatest flavor, appearance and keeping
quality - always cut avocados with two knives into coarse chunks
about 1/2 inch square.
**[Paul's hint: "Two knives" means one in each hand cutting across in front of you so you don't squash up the avocado. Jane says chunky avocodo is tastier and has a better texture. You know what? Jane's right!]
Yield: 4 servings
2 ripe avocados (preferably Haas)
½ teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice, or to taste
1 medium-size tomato, chopped
¼ cup finely chopped Spanish onion
1 medium fresh jalapeno, minced
2 Tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1. Halve the avocados; scoop pulp into a bowl. Coarsely chop with
two knives. Add salt and garlic; then slowly add lime juice to
taste.
2. Fold in tomato, onion, chiles and cilantro. Let stand a few
minutes before serving to allow flavors to blend.
3. Taste and adjust seasonings. Some like spicy guacamole, while
others like it quite mild. Often piquancy is best determined by
the other foods you are serving. If some like it hot and others
don't, a solution is to serve a side dish of spicy salsa.
4. Serve guacamole in a Mexican pottery bowl and garnish the top
with a few tostados thrust into the top. Serve with a basket of
tostados. As a salad, serve over chopped lettuce and garnish each
serving with a cherry tomato.
Note: Many myths seem to abound about placing an avocado pit in
the guacamole to keep it from discoloring or oxidizing. I don't
find that to work so well. Cover the guacamole well or sprinkle
with a few drops of ascorbic-acid mixture, the mixture used to
prevent darkening in freezing fruits. Be careful not to add much
of the acid, as it can be slightly sweet.
** [Paul's Note: ascorbic acid is nothing more than Vitamin C: great for keeping food from turning a brown color on exposure to air. Of course, it's still good food with excellent flavor, the ascorbic acid keeps it looking nice.]

Yum!

FREE: A delightful Southwestern recipe e-book and Southwestern Cooking resource--tips, tricks, and recipes

Jane is offering all our friends a free subscription to her newsy, recipe filled Butel's Bytes. As a bonus for joining Butel's Bytes, you will receive her five favorite recipes and a weekly series of fun, newsy notes about chiles, health, and Southwestern cooking.

To subscribe click here for Jane's Site. When you get to the site, look on the right side turquoise menu bar and select the button labeled "subscribe." You will be taken to the form where you put in your name and email address. Press "submit."

VERY IMPORTANT: Next, you will need to activate your subscription.

Check your mail from Jane Butel that says "RESPONSE REQUIRED." Open that email and click on the long link in the middle to activate your subscription. Very quickly you will receive Jane's email with the e-book of special recipes attached.

Spicy Guacamole Dip

You'll get her Butel's Bytes tips, tricks, information, and recipes in your email regularly and can even browse back issues. Yum!

All Jane's recipes are kitchen tested and guaranteed to delight!

Here's to Happy Cooking and eating.

Oh, yeah, that little ** thingy--Blatant confession follows . . . I, Paul, acknowledge that I know little of cooking. I am the Certified Spicemouth(TM) and Eater in Chief. So I'll watch out that these great chefs and magnificent cooks don't run in any strange terms on y'all.

Yum!

Mary Cheatham and Paul Elliott, the Collards Folks

Go to Jane's site here.

Original Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have heard stories about people paying huge amounts of money for cookie recipes. Here is the very best cookie recipe in the world. It is not for sale. Go to this link to get it.
http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/detail.aspx?ID=18476

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Who Invented the Chocolate Chip Cookie?

By: Steven Magill

Have you ever wondered who invented the chocolate chip cookie? Because chocolate chip cookies are so common, it is easy to forget that these treats have not been around forever. In fact, did you know that chocolate chip cookies are not even one hundred years old? It's true!

The answer to "who invented the chocolate chip cookie" is: Ruth Graves Wakefield.

Ruth Graves Wakefield was born on June 17, 1903 and she is person who invented the Toll House Cookie, which was the world's first chocolate chip cookie.

Ruth Wakefield was educated at the Framingham State Normal School Development of Household Arts and she graduated in 1924. After graduating from school, she worked both as a doctor and gave lectures about food.

In 1930 Wakefield and her husband purchased a lodge for tourists in Whitman, Massachusetts (part of Plymouth County). The lodge was first built in 1709 and has a long and rich history of its own. Many weary travelers have spent the night at the lodge as it is conveniently located around halfway between New Bedford and Boston. This is usually where passers through paid a toll, changed their horses and stopped for some much appreciated home cooked food. When the Wakefields bought it, they named the lodge the Toll House Inn and made sure to keep up with the lodge's traditions. All of the home cooked meals were prepared and served by Ruth and it was not long before her desserts earned her some local fame. There were many visitors to the lodge, one of the most famous being John F. Kennedy (when he was still a Senator).

In 1940, Ruth wrote a cookbook called Toll House Tried and True Recipes. Ruth passed away in 1977 and the Toll House Inn burned down at the end of 1983. While there are plenty of companies that make and sell chocolate chips now, the recipe printed on the back of the Nestle Toll House bags is the original Ruth Graves Wakefield recipe. As of today, Nestle is the only company with the rights to print the recipe on its bags. All of the recipes that are printed on other company's' bags are different from the original recipe.

The chocolate chip cookie was invented in the late 1930s (making it almost seventy seven years old) though there are different stories about how, exactly, the original chocolate chip cookie recipe was invented. Some stories say it was an accident, others say it was an experiment and still others say that it was a purposeful recipe. The story of how the chocolate chip cookie was invented varies according to the person telling the story. One thing is for certain, though, and that is that the answer to "who invented the chocolate chip cookie" is Ruth Graves Wakefield. Who knew that what might have started out as an experiment or an accident would someday be one of the most common treats in the Western World? Who doesn't remember eating chocolate chicookies p after school?

Copyright (c) 2008 Steven Magill

Article Source: http://articlestars.com

Just think, you can start enjoying the recipes right away -- no waiting at all! Can you taste the key limes already? You gotta try the Chocolate Chip Key Lime Cookies...mmmmmm!www.chocolatechipcookie.info/index.html

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

How to Cook Collard Greens

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Cllard Patch, Now!

How to Cook Collard Greens


These women are amusing, but they have
done a terrible thing.
They poured the pot likker down the
drain! There was a collander in the sink. Horrible.
Shame!
All that valuable nutrition and cornbread
sopping wasted.
I was impressed by the way Cynthia,one
of the cooks, pulled the stems out. We
prefer cutting our stems out.
Those cooks chopped the greens after
they cooked them. We always chop
ours first.
They had tofu with their collards; we have
not tried that yet.
Notice the way they cooled the collards
with icy cold water after cooking to make
them pretty and green. Most of us
Southerners don't care whether our
greens are bright green.
The members of the family promote
organic whole foods grown locally. We
believe in that too. (Our collard patch is
in the front yard.)Go here to see a funny and informative YouTube video of collard cooking.

Rice and Vegetables

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Rice and Vegetables
“Eat your carrots!” Sometimes we need to give our children some subtle encouragement. This recipe is simple and delicious. By combining a few vegetables with rice, it is easy to teach young palates to appreciate different flavors. Combining rice with vegetables improves the nutritional value of rice and makes everything taste special. We like this rice dish with pork. “Eat your carrots!” becomes an unnecessary phrase when they taste as good as these.

Yield: 4 servings
Begin by cooking ½ cup basmati rice for 5 minutes in 2 cups boiling water with the lid in place. (I need see-through lids. Also use an adequate container, such as a small stockpot. That way you will not need to worry about having the water boil over he sides.) Flavor the rice with 2 teaspoons ham bouillon or 2 bouillon cubes.

Add 1 cup frozen chopped carrots and 1 cup frozen corn kernels. Continue to cook until the liquid is absorbed. Stir in 2 tablespoons margarine.

Football Widows' Revenge

Coping with Super Bowl Desertion

Girls, today the computer is all yours.

“HE” is too busy watching television to keep you from the Web.
Whether he is cheering for the New York Giants and
New England Patriots is unimportant.

What is important is that this is your time.

Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)
Go to my favorite virtual hangout http://www.1newmall.com/ws/
and get your revenge. Here are some sharp looking clothes.
You will hardly notice that he is not listening to you today,
and he’d better not care how much you spend.

http://www.1newmall.com/ws/

Stevia, Chives, Rosemary, Fennel, and Cilantro -- The Joy of Living Green!

In our front-yard collard patch, last fall's collards have survived. We continue to cut leaves off the plants. Last night we had stir-fried collards with broiled salmon; tonight we
enjoyed collards in wraps with hot Italian sausage.

Mint is growing near the rocks piled in the patch. Soon we'll set out some onions in the collard patch. Today we bought stevia, chives, rosemary, fennel, and cilantro. We plan to start those herbs in pots inside the house.

Stevia, a tropical popular herb, is growing in popularity as a sugar substitute. Stevia's small green leaves are thirty times sweeter than sugar, and they can be dried. If our efforts succeed we'll save grocery money spent on Splenda©, Alterna©, and sugar.

We selected garlic flavored chives with long, flat leaves. They will be delicious on baked potatoes, in salads, and in stir-fried collard greens. Chives do not dry well, but the chopped leaves can be frozen.

Rosemary, ah, rosemary! We love it. Rosemary is very pretty in the garden. It is a great flavoring for polenta, marinades, salad dressings, soups, sauces, gumbo, chicken, fish, lamb, and pork. Since it flavors Creole, Cajun, and Middle-Eastern food like nothing else, rosemary is an essential in Louisiana kitchens. We use it dried, but we prefer it fresh. I hope our crop flourishes.

Fennel has a mild anise flavor. The bulbous stems can be served raw like celery or steamed. Their flavor will enhance stews, soup and collard greens. Paul likes to eat the
seeds.

Cilantro is important in Mexican dishes, which are important in our diets. It also flavors Mediterranean and Oriental dishes well. For a garnish it is unsurpassed.

All the plants we grow will help our personal economy, our health, and the world's ecology. Write me at Mary@CollardLovers.com to tell me how you are living green.

New Collard Greens Recipes

Visit The Collard Patch at Amazon.com for some new collard greens recipes. Check the blog entries there.

What We Are Doing Now

On BlogTalkRadio Paul Elliott and I have a new radio talk show called GreensCast. We appear there occasionally and speak with interesting people, friends and family, to discuss a variety of subjects. No matter what our program is about, we always share information about the preparation of delicious food. Check our archived shows there. Also on our BTR blog we have posted several recipes that we wish to share with you.

Our programs include a useful interview of Dr. Mike Stanley, my son-in-law, by Paul about food safety in preparation and storage. Mike, a veterinarian and an Air Force veteran, has a wealth of experience in public health and food safety.

Another popular show is an interview with the famous marketer and cookbook author Willie Crawford. He discusses with us the way he cooks collards, and his background.

Paul and I are the authors of The Collard Patch, the world's best collard and cornbread cookbook. It is not only a book of recipes; it is also a book of stories and nutritional information about collard greens, the Cinderella of dark leafy greens. We believe that collard greens are important for maintaining good health. Collards, one of the most delicious foods imaginable when prepared appropriately, furnish a wealth of nutrients while remaining incredibly low in calories.

One of the beautiful aspects of collard greens is that they can be grown almost anywhere. They love cool weather and tolerate a mild amount of frost. These beautiful plants make excellent ground cover in yards. Also they can be used to add interest to flower beds. In a time when people are seeking more intriguing flavors than ever before because our taste buds have grown up and when people are needing to spend a smaller percentage of their budgets on food, we recommend growing collard greens.

Nutritionists consider green leafy vegetables such as collards to be one of the leading foods, as far as food value is concerned. They are nutritious when eaten raw, added to vegetable juices, or prepared in delicious dishes much as spinach has been traditionally prepared. There is a theory that the chlorophyll in them removes environmental toxins, such as heavy metals and pesticides from the body. Some people consider them to be a liver protector.

I cannot prove all these ideas, but I do know they are a source of iron, calcium, beta carotene (precursor of vitamin A), soluble fiber, and manganese. They provide vitamins C, K, B1, B2, and B9. Collards have potent anti-cancer properties, antiviral, and antibacterial components including diindolylmethane, sulforaphane, and selenium. There are only 46 calories in one fourth pound of cooked collards.

We devote a large amount of our time encouraging people to eat more collard greens. When we tell people about this project, some of them find us slightly insane. We, however, are devoted to this cause. We have appeared at book signings, crafts fairs, civic club meetings, radio interviews, and cooking shows on television in Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, and Wisconsin. We are willing to go throughout the country to promote the use of collard greens.

This recipe is an example of a collard greens dish that is packed with all the good things we need to eat without unnecessary calories. The taste is great.

Wilted Collards with Flaxseed

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil with 2 tablespoons minced garlic in a big deep skillet.
Toss in 1 pound finely chopped tender collard green leaves.
Heat and wilt five minutes or until tender.
Add some salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes.
Turn off the heat. Add 1 tablespoon honey and 1 tablespoon red vinegar.
Top with ¼ cup toasted flaxseed.

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Shopping at Central Market

Central Market
HEB Food-Drugs #/546
320 Coit
Plano, TX 75076
Phone: 469-241-8300
Store Hours: 8 a. m. to 10. p. m.

Central Market is the essential place to shop. It is a grocery store like no other.

Entering, you will go through the produce section. Fresh produce is not something on the periphery of the store. Instead it is important. There are fresh vegetables and fruits organically grown from all the right places. We like the bananas and the Brussels sprouts. I've never seen such a varied selection of potatoes. The precious little fingerlings of infinite variety are fun to select. They taste delicious. The artichokes are outstanding.

After winding through the marvelous displays of fresh fruits and vegetables, you will find yourself in the meat market and fish market. Let's check the leg of lamb. I love it! If you are not traveling too far, buy one. (Or perhaps you should buy a cooler.)

My favorite part of the store is the section deep inside the store where you can weigh spices and put them in your own bags. I love the spices, as well as many of the other food items there -- coffee, nuts, candy, peanut butter, honey, cereals, flours, meals – displayed in an endless array. Sounds expensive? No. Actually these items are less expensive than prepackaged items. The curry and the chile powder mix are the best. We usually select a big bag or two of Wasabi peas (dehydrated English peas coated in Wasabi and horseradish) to munch on the way home and for days to come. We like the flax seed, which are incredibly delicious and noted for their salubrious properties. If you lose us in the store, look here. We stay here about an hour.

Did I say what my favorite section is? It is the bakery. Our favorite bread is the white chocolate apricot. We eat it toasted or straight out of the package. Don't miss the most delicious item in the store
being made by expert cooks on the spot – tortillas. I like the little golden ones with sun-dried tomatoes and flecks of pepper in them. When I pass there, I admire these and the ladies usually hand me one to cram into my starving mouth.

What I really like most in Central Market is the selection of cheese. Along the walls there are coolers with every kind of cheese imaginable. What makes this section special is the station in the middle of the floor where someone is making mozzarella cheese balls in olive oil and garlic. Buy a jar of these and serve them on very special occasions. When you pass, the cheese preparer will give you a morsel. My advice: go there first and pass the section several times as you shop. The taste is splendid.

There is a section of sausages and prepared meats. We usually select the hot Italian sausage, the bratwurst, the Jalapeño cheddar sausage, the salami with Jalapeños. By the time we arrive in this section, which is my favorite, the shopping cart is too full to hold anything else.

And there is a deli section. Since we have already filled our cart, we don't buy things here, although it is the most intriguing food in the store.

On the way out, we will pass through the florist's section, where the flowers are unusual and inviting. By the time we arrive there, we are loaded with food. There is no more space in the car to place flowers.

You owe it to yourself to shop at Central Market at least once in your life.

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Take a trip to Natchitoches!

If possible go see the Christmas Lights of old Natchitoches, Louisiana.
As you approach the quaint downtown with its brick streets, you will see rows of antique and gift shops. Arrive before dark so you will have time to look at all the fleur de lis displays in the little shops. A horse with a carriage will be waiting to take you on a tour.


Enjoy an authentic Natchitoches meal – meat pie or gumbo. We recommend Lasyogne's.

The lights are a splendid display along the Cane River Lake.

Go here and click on the image to see a picture of the Natchitoches Christmas lights.

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

Kindle

Amazon has a revolutionary way to read books. If you haven't seen this, take a look.



Kindle:
Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device


Product Overview (Quoted from Amazon.com)

Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.
Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing.
Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed.
Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.
More than 88,000 books available, including 100 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers.
New York Times® Best Sellers and all New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.
Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes—all auto-delivered wirelessly.
Top international newspapers from France, Germany, and Ireland; Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Irish Times—all auto-delivered wirelessly.
More than 250 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN's Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post—all updated wirelessly throughout the day.
Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces.
Holds over 200 titles.
Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.
Unlike WiFi, Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones—so you never have to locate a hotspot.
No monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitments—we take care of the wireless delivery so you can simply click, buy, and read.
Includes free wireless access to the planet's most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia—Wikipedia.org.
Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing.

GreensCast - BlogTalkRadio - Collard Greens

This show is our first program on BlogTalkRadio. Here we are sharing recipes along with information about growing, preparing, cooking, and eating our favorite vegetable -- collard greens.


GreensCast - BlogTalkRadio - Collard Greens, Collards, Cooking, Health, Food, Gardening, Green Cooking, Greens, Living Green, Nutriton, Organic, Recipes, Southwestern Food, Thanksgiving Recipe, The Collard Patch, Delicious,

Great Cookbook Giveaway

Have you heard about the Great Cookbook Giveaway? It's going to make Internet marketing history.

Willie Crawford, a world-famous Internet marketer and noted cookbook
author, is asking his friends to give away electronic cookbooks. He's organizing the largest free list-building giveaway EVER.

(He's the author of the world's most famous recipe for
collard greens. You can get it in our cookbook, THE COLLARD PATCH.)

Willie and his wife Nancy have run a free recipes website for about
10 years. He told me that in November people start looking online
for holiday gift and cooking ideas.

He is expecting to have the largest free cookbook giveaway in the
history of the Internet. We're talking literally HUNDREDS of free
PDF cookbooks and cooking related ebooks.

The giveway started November 1, 2007. Go take a look. All you
need to do is drop by and get free electronic cookbooks: Great Cookbook Giveaway

Go there and get a free copy of "The Collard Notebook" and our free e-book
with reicpes from Flavored with Love.

Smoothies at Crescent City Coffee Shop

Yum! At Crescent City Coffee Shop, 1007 North Trenton Street, Ruston, LA 71270
(318) 232-5282, you can get a fruit smoothie made fresh by the attractive young men and women working there. (Most of them are students at Lousiana Tech or Grambling). As you watch, they toss a generous serving of fruit into a blender with a small amount of flavored syrup. Then they will ask you if you want whipped cream and how much whipped cream you want.

My mouth craves Strawberry Smoothies. I confess that after my first one I have not passed many minutes without thinking about having the next one. There is also a Four Berry Smoothie, which is a blend of blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Alexandra, one of the baristas, recommends the Peach Pear Plus. For adventurous palates, there is the Mango Tropics Smoothie, an exotic blend of mango, pineapple, and bananas.

With one of the eight different types of biscotti to go with your smoothie, you can have a light healthy lunch. There are three sizes of smoothies: 12 ounces, 16 ounces, and 20 ounces. Let your appetite and your conscience guide you. Or perhaps you would prefer one of those great big cinnamon rolls or a fresh warm muffin instead of biscotti.

Beignets are the most popular food at the Crescent City Coffee Shop. Mike makes these authentic New Orleans style fried dough temptations fresh in the shop. There are big ones and little ones. Also before 11:00 am, there are irresistible stuffed beignets, filled with ham and cheese or sausage and cheese.

While you enjoy your smoothie, look around for a newspaper or for someone with whom you can enjoy a lively conversation. If you don’t see any of your old friends, don’t despair. There are always people there who love to visit: soon you’ll have some new friends. If you have your laptop with you, check your e-mail while you enjoy your smoothie. Use the free WiFi; if you need a private connection, bring a cord to plug into the Ethernet.

I’ve noticed that the frappes are more popular than the smoothies, but I have not tried one because I’m too busy drinking the smoothies, Diet Cokes®, dark roast coffee, or hot blackberry sage tea with lemon.

Warning: Don't sit down in the Crescent City Coffee Shop unless you have hours to spend. You will have so much fun you won't want to leave.

A Special Gift: THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT by Beatrix Potter

Peter Rabbit at THE COLLARD PATCH


Beatrix Potter's THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT is, in my opinion, one of the great masterpieces of all time. When Paul Elliott and I were co-authoring THE COLLARD PATCH, I wanted to offer something special to the readers of our story cookbook.

We found a treasure! We decided to make THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT available to our readers. This is the original book, THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT. (If you live outside the United States, please check the copyright laws in your country before downloading this book.)

Go to the lead at the bottom of any page in THE COLLARD PATCH to find a lead to download the book. If you set your printer in black and white, you can download some of the pictures for your children to color.

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

A Free ECookbook of Our Favorite Christmas Recipes

Christmas Cookbook - a collection of our best family recipes for the holidays assembled in one place. They are classics along with our families' latest innovations. Delight through the holidays to the sights, smells, and delicious tastes of some of the best food you'll ever put in your mouth! This book covers everything-from appetizers to party foods to breakfast to Christmas dinner to desserts to gifts to food with children to what to do with your gifts. (value: $19.97)

Availiable FREE at The Twelve Days of Christmas

The Midnight Clear

Houston – Carolyn Forche`, national best-selling author and motivational speaker, just returned from the book launch of The Midnight Clear, a collection of Christian and Christmas-themed stories of love, hope and inspiration by 20 national female African American authors. Many of the authors, such as Carolyn, are award winning, national best-selling authors. Sixteen attended the launch event held at Copeland’s Buckhead Restaurant in Atlanta, GA this past weekend. The book is published by KNB Publications in Atlanta. Forche's story, The Best Christmas Promise Ever, chronicles the riveting account of her 3-year vigil with a dying sister, and God's miraculous, near-death delivery, that stunned the Chicago medical community.

She is author of the award-winning Colors Come From God … Just Like Me, (Abingdon Press), which has sold nearly 30,000 copies. She hails The Midnight Clear as a first and one-of-its kind publication, that will touch and inspire the lives of people everywhere. The book was released in late November, and is already getting very positive reviews nationally.

Forche`, who is busy scheduling a number of book-signings here in Houston and in her native home, Chicago, says the book was timed for Christmas release and makes the perfect gift for anyone. Reading the “page-turner” contributions from the various authors on the plane home made her feel “privileged to be a part of such a stellar group of talented writers.” She applauds the efforts of Kendra Norman Bellamy, publisher and author of many best-selling works, whose genius in pulling together some of the best writers in the country has made this publication a sure-to-be best seller as well. Carolyn may be contacted at her office, (281) 914-0422.

Real Women Eat Chiles -- One day only – December 7, 2006!

What's this all about? Read on...
I am very excited to be able to tell you about my friend
Jane Butel and her award winning book "Real Women
Eat Chiles". For the last month, Paul Elliott and I have been
helping her put together an awesome “Real Women Give Away”
featuring her wonderful cookbook for the 2006 Holiday season.
When you order a copy of Real Women Eat Chiles right now,
as a thank you for your support, you will receive a complimentary
collection of gifts.
(Combined together, all of these gifts are worth over $685 and you
get them as a bonus, at absolutely no charge.)
Real Women Eat Chiles is full of fabulous spicy, Santa Fe-style
recipes and delicious, health-tested quick ideas for great, easy meals.
The inspiring stories about women and chiles remind us that the secret
to weight-loss without a diet is high-energy, healthy food!
This gorgeous gift book is perfect for:
· girlfriends
· teachers
· mothers
· sisters
· daughters
I recommend the reading for any woman who is a high achiever or who wishes to be!
But you must act now as this offer is for a limited time! Go here right now and check this out:
http://www.janebutel.com/realwomen.html
Remember, you must act today!

***MARK HENDRICKS' 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 06 OFFICALLY LAUNCHES ***

It's here and it's live now.... It's now in its 4th day!I've already spotted several things and started downloadingbut if you haven't gotten over there yet to take a look...be sure to do it soon before the huge download rushbegins...This only happens once a year — so download everything you want while you can...=======> http://www.collardlovers.com/12days/

We are including a Christmas Cookbook for you in that bonus package!

=======> http://www.collardlovers.com/12days/

The Collard Patch was featured on John Folse's "Stirrin' It Up" on October 4, 2006. To hear the radio program, go to this link:

http://www.CollardLovers.com/jfolse110406.mp3

Get This Amazing Collard Story Cookbook, The Collard Patch, Now!

Get This Amazing Southern Cookbook, Flavored with Love, Now!

RECIPE: Stacey Pardue's No Sugar Added Lemon Ice Box Pie

No Sugar Added Lemon Ice Box Pie
(Some of my television viewers have reported that the Crystal Light lemonade adds too much tartness. You may need to use only a 1/2 package depending on your taste buds.)


1 small box sugar free vanilla instant pudding mix
1 3/4 cups skim milk
1 tub Crystal Light lemonade powder (to make 2 quarts) or 1 package Kool Aid lemonade powder plus 1 cup sugar substitute
1 tablespoon lemon juice
8 ounces fat free Cool Whip
1 low fat graham cracker crust (See recipe below!)
Combine pudding and milk; add lemonade powder and lemon juice.

The above recipe is quoted from http://www.wafb.com/

Fold in 1/2 of the Cool Whip. Pour into crust and refrigerate until set. Top with Cool Whip.
Yield: 8 servings Calories: 215Fat: 4 grams


Low Fat Graham Cracker Crust
Reduce the fat and calorie content of your recipes by making your own graham cracker crusts! You may find that 1 cup of crushed graham crackers is sufficient for a small pie.
1 1/2 cups crushed graham crackers (about 8 full-sized crackers)
2 tablespoons sugar substitute or 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 tablespoons liquid Butter Buds
Place all ingredients in small mixing bowl and mix with a fork until moistened. Press into 8 or 9 inch pie pan prepared with nonstick cooking spray.
Yield: 8 servings Calories: 40Fat: 1 gram


WAFB <http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1385316&nav=menu57_10_2>

-----
Get your copy of FLAVORED WITH LOVE at www.FWLCookbook.com

RECIPE: Stir Fried Vegetables

Stir Fried Vegetables

Stir fry these ingredients in a wok as listed :

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

12 garlic pods, finely chopped

2 cups carrot s, chopped

2 cups collards, chopped

2 cups cabbage, chopped

1 Fuji apple, coarsely chopped

Pinch baking soda

1 tablespoon Madras curry

2 tablespoons pine nuts

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 tablespoons Teriyaki sauce

2 tablespoons raisins

3 tablespoons orange marmalade

Serve in bowls or over rice. Two servings.

An Offer You Cannot Afford to Miss

"Here's How To Grab Your $3,757.23 Book Buy Business Bonus Bonanza...absolutely FREE!"!
Go right now to www.CollardLovers.com

You have to grab these bonuses today, November 2, 2006, or not at all. This is a one-day offer.