Meet My Parents

Meet my parents, Fred and Maxine. We had a wonderful time this Christmas. Here we are at the Cracker Barrel having lots of fun.

 Mom and I got to do some shopping.

They are the best parents ever! They have been married for 54 years! WOW. Aren't they a nice looking couple.

Angry Birds Light Display

I am a huge fan of Angry Birds, but this guy is over-the-top! This is incredible!




Are you an Angry Birds fan?

Original Recipe

So I got eight Rainbow Trout for Christmas. I cooked them on the grill in foil with a little lemon and butter. They were great.

But I had a lot of leftover meat. What do you do with leftover fish? I decided to experiment!

I put the meat in a bowl. I added a box of Jiffy cornbread mix, one egg, 1/4 cup chopped onion, a little garlic powder, cayenne pepper, celery salt, salt and pepper. I mixed it all up in the bowl. Then, I formed little balls and fried them in oil.

 

They turned out great. They taste like hush puppies and fried fish! Try this next time you have leftovers!

Have you ever made up something to eat? Usually, when I do, it doesn't turn out too well. But these were yummy.

Fish?

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I had an awesome time with my family. I did get a surprise, however, with one gift.

We got 8 Rainbow Trout fresh from the river!

Pretty cool huh? Does anyone have a good recipe for grilled trout?  What about you? What was the most unusual gift you ever received?

Merry Christmas

Christmas Cake

Yesterday, I made a cake for a gift to my friends.

I made a plain white cake with buttercream frosting.                                                                             
                                                                               

 

All the frosting is on, ready to decorate.

I decided to add a green swag to the side. I found the edible presents at the grocery store.

  

Next, I added the top border and made the roses. 

 

I sprinkled the roses with edible gold glitter. Also, I added little pine cones next to the roses.

Here it is. I hope my friends like it! What about you? Do you bake Christmas gifts for anyone? 

 

White Christmas

Here are some pictures my friend took after the blizzard hit Monday night in Texas. I hope we all have a white Christmas! Enjoy!

 

Release Day and New Giveaway

Today is the release of THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CHRONICLES: CHRISTINE.

This is the last novella in the series. I hope you enjoy it.

Also, the winner of the $20.00 Amazon gift card is Elaine.
Winner of Acquainted with the Night by Piper Maitland is Sasha Summers.

Ladies, contact me @ loriwilde@aol.com to claim your prize.

This week's Tuesday giveaway is a $20 gift card to Barnes and Noble.

Go forth and read.

Sistine Chapel

This is so amazing! If you click on the link below, you can visit the Sistine Chapel. It takes some time to load, but it's worth the wait! Use your mouse to travel around the chapel and the arrow keys to zoom in or out!

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html

What Makes You Vulnerable?

Vulnerability is the number one trait that makes readers connect with a character. I came across this awesome lecture by Brene Brown. It got me thinking. It's long but worth watching.





My question to you. What makes you vulnerable? Do you have trouble embracing your vulnerability? Go ahead. Be authentic. Be real. Take a risk. You are enough.

"What, Me Worry?"

How many of you remember Alfred E. Neuman? He is the funny looking kid from Mad magazine.

When I was a little, I used to go grocery shopping with my mother. While she was inspecting produce, I would escape to the aisle which had the magazines. The magazine I would grab was Mad. I wasn't suppose to be reading it because it wasn't considered very nice. I just couldn't wait to fold the page together at the back of the magazine to make the "new" picture. Do you remember doing that? Well, now you can do it all you want online. Somehow, it takes all the fun out of it. Try it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/03/28/arts/20080330_FOLD_IN_FEATURE.html 


I had no idea Alfred E. Neuman had been around for so long. Why does he continue to fascinate us today?  No one is quite sure where he came from. It is believed he developed from a comic strip character called The Yellow Kid in the late 1890's. I guess they had no problem with children drinking back then. Yikes!

Here he is in 1908.

 

In the twenty's, he was given the motto, "What, Me Worry?"

In 1955, he first appeared on Mad magazine. It was in an ad selling rubber masks.

Mad put Alfred on the cover in 1956 as a write-in presidential candidate with the slogan, "You could do worse......and always have."

And Alfred is still going strong today.

What memories do you have of the little guy?

Texas Trash

 TEXAS TRASH
Adapted from Original Chex Mix recipe

6 cups Wheat Chex
6 cups Corn Chex
6 cups Rice Chex
1 can Planter's Mixed Nuts
2 cups Utz's Christmas Shaped Pretzels
1 1/2 cups Pepperidge Farms Fish-shaped Crackers
1 1/2 cups Sesame Bagel Chips broken up into 1 inch pieces
12 tablespoons butter or margarine (I do tend to use margarine for this recipe - it works best and doesn't burn)
4 tablespoons Lea and Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce
3 teaspoons Lawry's Season Salt
1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (not garlic salt)
1 teaspoon onion powder (not onion salt)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place butter in the pan you are going to use - I use a commercial steam table pan - it is the perfect size.  Baking sheets won't work for this bulk recipe.  Maybe a big turkey roasting pan?
Place pan in oven and allow butter to melt.
Measure the dry spices into a ramekin and stir until well-blended.
Measure the Worcestershire Sauce into another ramekin.
Have a large, sturdy (I prefer commercial size metal) spoon ready.
Pre-measure the other ingredients (I use two large mixing bowls - I mix the cereals together in one and the pretzels, crackers, nuts, and chips in another)

Remove the pan with melted butter from the oven and stir in the Worcestershire sauce until well-mixed.

Add the combined dry spices to the pan and stir until evenly distributed in the pan.

Add all the cereals, nuts, pretzels, crackers, and chips to the pan and begin gently stirring, lifting the stuff on the bottom to the top.  Gently continue mixing until you don't see pools of sauce on the bottom of the pan, indicating the mixture is coating the dry goods.

Place the pan in the oven for a total of one hour.  Set the timer for 15 minutes.  When the timer goes off, remove the pan and repeat the gentle exchange of the mix from the bottom to the top.  Return to oven and set timer for 15 minutes again.  Repeat until you have done this a total of 4 times, for 1 hour of cooking.  Your house should smell deliciously pungent by now!

During the last 15 minutes of cooking.  Spread paper toweling over 3 baking sheets with rims and have them ready.  When the final timer dings, remove the pan from the oven and spoon out 1/3 of the Texas Trash onto each paper towel lined baking sheet and allow to cool completely.

Dog Blog

Hello world! My name is Penny Van Winkle. I am just thrilled to be Lori's guest blogger today. I asked her what I should write about, and she told me to write about my favorite thing. Well, that's easy! I am my favorite thing.

I am an eight year old rat terrier. I enjoy sleeping, eating, and sitting in the sun. My best friend Pepper and I have lots of good times together.

Here we are reminiscing about the time we barked all night at a possum. Boy, we sure told him off!

I often spend time waiting for the mailman. I know it is cliche, but I really can't stand him! There's just something about that little truck he drives that makes me mad!

Sometimes, I like to play with my toys,

or chew on a  nice bone.

But today, I will be reading the latest book from my favorite author.

All this writing has made me sleepy. I'm going to take a little nap. I hope you enjoyed my blog.                                            
                                                         The End

Giveaway Tuesday

Since Carrie Evans never claimed her $20 gift card to Amazon, it's back up for grabs. So we have two giveaways today.

1)$20 gift card to Amazon
2)A copy of Piper Maitland's Acquainted with the Night

The winners will be announced next Tuesday, Dec. 20th. Please be sure to come back and check to see if you won. I have prizes going unclaimed!

If you want in just post a comment telling me what you're reading today. I'm reading Dennis Lehane, Gone Baby Gone. 

Christmas Trees from Around the World

                                                                        America 

                                                                    Czech Republic

                                                                       France

                                                                        Russia

                                                                           Spain

                                                                        England

                                                                         Japan       

                                                           
                                                                       Portugal 

 
                                                                           Italy