At Home My Way

      A couple of weeks ago, the most EXCITING thing happened! My sister-in-law called us at about 8PM one weeknight.  Weeknights in winter or early spring are boring for us.  I make dinner, we do dishes, we eat, and we kick back.  Until the weather warms up and there is mowing to do, we generally don't do much that is entertaining during the week. My hubby was all laid out on his bed watching TV and I was in a similar position in my recliner.  My phone rang and my sister-in-law rarely calls me so when I saw her name on my phone, I answered right away.  She asked me if we still had honeybees?  I told her that all of our three hives had died the previous year so we didn't have any.  She told me that a friend of hers was mowing and found a bunch of bees hanging on a branch in her yard.  Normally, if bees are in a tree they are nearly impossible to capture.  You have to get the queen and if she would be inside the trunk ...

One of our favorite "cooked by dad" treats is smoked pork loin.  My husband can cook rather well (even though I do most of the cooking at our house).  The one thing he is most known for at our house is his ability to make delicious smoked meats!  He has a "real" smoker and uses only wood, typically hickory since we have lots of that available to us. Years ago I found a recipe for homemade dry rub in a Southern Living magazine, back before the Food Network and Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives LOL.  Last night as I was digging through every unorganized piece of paper containing a recipe in my kitchen searching for that recipe, it occurred to me that if I had that recipe on this blog, I wouldn't have to search to the ends of the earth to find it!  So, here it is! We use this dry rub for pork (loins, butts, or chops), and even chicken/turkey.  We love it!  We have shared this recipe with a few select friends and one of our...

I am a lover of fried chicken!  I love it from a grocery store deli, fast food, or buffet restaurant.  But seriously, who can tell you they don't love one of those southern comfort-type Sunday dinners that involve fried chicken, real mashed potatoes, summer squash, green beans and lots of homemade desserts?  You know, the kind we all ate at our granny's house when everybody was getting together? Sadly, I don't have a granny to make those type meals for me anymore... Although I only remember MY granny typically frying chicken LEGS for some reason LOL???  My mom doesn't really care for chicken so its a rare occasion that we eat chicken at her house (although I do beg her sometimes for a favorite meal that I grew up eating called "Chicken & Yellow Rice").  But, I digress. Last night I had some gardening to do to beat the next downpour that is sure to arrive here in Missouri late tonight.  So, I had the extra time required to make this oven baked ...

We have had some seriously cold and rainy weather here in central Missouri.  It seems the sun only shines and there is enough warmth to feed the soul on days that I am locked away at work.  Ugh! Being a Florida native, this weather has really gotten me down!  I find myself dreaming about "home" (Florida), trying to find ways to move there, fighting the urge to start boxing my stuff to leave, and basically making everyone miserable around me who accepts that this has to be a way of life LOL. But... my dear friend Cindy called me Sunday and told me that in spite of the terrible weather, her strawberry patch was LOADED!  She invited me out to come pick some berries. My friend's strawberry patch is relatively small (I would guess about 6' x 12') but LOADED it is!  She has picked and picked, and I went out and picked only about two rows which completely filled a plastic Walmart bag.  I had just gotten home and dumped my berries into this...