Christmas 2023 At Almost Heaven South

Just as last year, Kathy and Keith, came from Nebraska to Tennessee for a couple of weeks and spent the first part of the visit with Wende and the second part with us.  After they did Christmas morning with Eliza at Wende’s, they all came down to our place for more Eliza present opening and Christmas dinner.

With the addition of friend Kathy, her daughter Ashley, and our neighbors, Pat & Steve, we had 14 for dinner - Pat, Steve, Ashley, Kathy, Wende, Ralph, Beanie, Eliza, Kathy, Keith, Larry, Beverly, Pat, Cindy.

Making Country Ham Broth

DO US A BIG FAVOR AND HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A GREAT 2024

That's our plan.

While I had often mentioned our country ham broth on this blog, I can’t find that I have ever documented the process so I decided to do so for our most recent batch.  We are very lucky to have a famous country ham and bacon maker (Benton’s Country Hams) within a 10 mile drive and they debone many of the hams they sell and the bones are free for the asking.  I stopped by the other day to buy a whole rib roast, which they also sell, for our smoked prime rib Christmas dinner and I picked up 10 ham bones while I was at it.

Crispy Chicken Cutlets

When Pam recently posted the recipe for Crispy Chicken Cutlets on her “For The Love Of Cooking” blog, I knew I wanted to give them a try.  I increased most of the ingredients for my three chicken breasts and since I prefer putting most seasonings directly on the meat, I changed the seasoning method a little and made a couple of substitutions.  You can find Pam’s original along with her good pics by clicking on the link.

Manicotti Using Homemade Crepes

I’ve been trying to make a pasta dish on Sundays and Bev recently suggested we have manicotti using homemade crepes as we have done before.  Most stuffed manicotti seem to be made without meat but I decided I wanted to use our good Wurst Kitchen Italian sausage so off to the web I went for a search.  I found a recipe simply titled Manicotti Recipe on the “Dinner At The Zoo” blog and I opted to go with it.  I made it by the recipe except I used homemade crepes per the first link above.  You can click on the second link for pics and the recipe using store-bought manicotti.

Bologna Sandwiches Revisited – Supper & Breakfast

I’ve been wanting a fried boloney (bologna) sandwich lately as I recalled the one’s we had about a year ago that were based on the one I had in Rugby TN,

Like theirs, I made mine with a thick piece of the meat.

Tennessee Travelers (RV Travel Club) Christmas Luncheon & Beef Stew For Friday

We had our annual club Christmas Luncheon at Chesapeake’sSeafood House in downtown Knoxville on Dec 5.  Thirteen of us were able to attend and as always it’s good to have one final visit with friends before winter and the end of our rallies until April.

CREAMY SALMON ALFREDO PASTA

Doesn’t the title alone awaken your taste buds.  While on the girl’s junket to Marco Island, FL, Cindy had a birthday and when they got home, I decided to fix her a special BD dinner using our last piece of Sockeye Salmon from the freezer.  The dish I settled on was Creamy Salmon Alfredo Pasta using the recipe from Orchids and Sweet Tea.  I made the alfredo sauce by the blog recipe but I cooked the salmon as shown below.  The original recipe and good pics can be found by clicking on the link above.