Home Grown (Restaurant), Bodie, And Snow

When Madison (granddaughter) lived with us the first time, she was in 8^th grade and, even though we had two dogs, we decided to get her a dog of her own.  After some looking around we ended up with a cute little Maltese puppy that Madison named Bodie and we all grew to love him so we were disappointed when she moved back home and opted to take Bodie with her – but of course we understood. 

When Madison went off to college, Bodie ended up with Rhett and Beth, which is the current situation but since they both retired in October, they have been traveling extensively and Bodie ends up being boarded a lot.  Since they plan on more traveling, we all thought it would be best for Bodie if he stayed with us for a while, which of course we will also like.

To get him we each made the approximately three-hour drive to Asheville, NC and met for lunch at an interesting little place called HomeGrown  which is a converted old house.  I borrowed some of the pics from the web.

Smoked Pork Chops With Sauerkraut, Bacon, Apples and Onions And First Fire

When Karen posted this recipe for Smoked Pork Chops With Sauerkraut, Bacon, Apples and Onions on her “Backroads Journal” blog, I knew I wanted to make it.  We like kraut and pork anyway, but Karen’s treatment of the kraut especially appealed to me.  I made it per the recipe except for mistakes.

4-Ingredient Spinach and White Bean Soup and Eggnog Taste Test

Bev had saved this recipe for 4-Ingredient Spinach and White Bean Soup from “Simply Recipes” and we decided to give it a try one day when we wanted a quick meal.  I wasn’t optimistic that it would be blog worthy so I took no pics of it - this one is from their site and ours looked just like it.  I followed the ingredients list but changed the instructions so as not to have to scoop out half the soup.

Hoppin’ John’s And Spinach Artichoke Dip For New Year’s Day

Tradition has it here in the South that black-eyed peas should be eaten on New Year’s Day for good luck in the coming year.  It’s hard to know if it really helps but we eat them and seem to enjoy good luck and no since tempting fate so we had them again this year.  It’s been 13 years since we used this recipe so I decided a redo was in order but I made several changes to the recipe as shown with the strike thru's.  Also, I tried to add as little heat as possible for Bev and Cindy although the Kielbasa had some.

Eliza Christmas, Neighborhood Ham And Bean Soup

Eliza and family didn’t make it down until Saturday for us to celebrate Christmas with her and for a meal on a rainy day we opted for a soup to use more of the leftover ham from Christmas dinner.  After looking around the web, I settled on the recipe for Neighborhood Ham And Bean Soup from Food.com.  But before we get to the meal lets have a look at Eliza having her second Christmas with Bev’s help.  As a seven year old, she walked in the door, gave me a hug, said Merry Christmas then asked "do you have presents for me." 😊

Christmas Leftovers – Hot Turkey Sandwich And Cheesy Ham & Asparagus Bake

Now that we have made it thru the Christmas meal, we have plenty of leftovers to use up up as you will see on my next couple of posts.

Since I didn’t get to eat as much gravy on Christmas Day as I would have liked, the next evening I made an open-faced hot turkey sandwich.  I added some gravy and sliced turkey to a bowl and nuked it then built the sandwich as follows: slice of homemade bread, turkey, gravy, and chopped bacon.  It was delicious.

Christmas Dinner – 2024

Christmas Dinner attendees for this year were the four of us (Bev, Pat W, Cindy, and me), our neighbors Pat L and Steve and special guest granddaughter Madison (also her birthday) and the one thing I wanted to do for sure was smoke a ham half and a turkey breast on my yet-to-be-used pellet smoker.  As Bev and I discussed menu items many things popped up and the two things we knew we wanted for sure was gravy for the turkey and homemade bread.  Then we considered many side dishes such as dressing, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, etc. until Pat L pointed out it could be simpler and healthier to just make green beans rather than the casserole.  Then Bev and I realized we had plenty to eat without the dressing and our favorite way to cook sweet potatoes was to simply bake them and so a menu was born that was way easier and much healthier - smoked turkey breast and smoked ham, gravy, green beans, baked sweet and Irish potatoes, salad, and homemade bread.

The table is all set.