New Recipe :)

The other day I was wanting to try something new in my kitchen. So I pulled out some recipes that Christa gave me. I settled on General Tzo's Chicken, a delicious Chinese recipe for supper. Since I had turkey on hand, I substituted chicken for turkey. The result . . . "It's a keeper." :)

General Tzo's Chicken

Cut up 8 chicken breast into cubes; mix in 3 eggs
Breading:
1 c. flour
1 c. cornstarch (I don't like cornstarch, so I added extra flour)
1 T. parsley
1 t. ginger
1 t. salt

Sauce:
4 c. BBQ sauce
2 c. corn syrup
2 T. soy sauce
1 T. ginger
1/2 t. cayenne pepper

Dip chicken into eggs, then breading. Fry in oil. (Olive oil works well.) Remove chicken. Add sauce to frying pan. Stir until boiling. Add chicken. Let set to glaze.
Serve with rice and enjoy! :)

Now I'm getting ready for a cookie bake on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I left the best recipes for Christmas cookies at home! I'm longing to make the delicious jam filled cookies. Mmmmhmmm, they are good!

Really Big Turkey

After watching the price per pound of turkeys, I decided to cash-in on some of the good deals. I got two BIG turkeys, one for 57 cents per pound and the other around 25 cents per pound. I had to go with the non-traditional method of cooking the turkey. I cooked it in a roaster pan on the stove top (we are still waiting on the appliance store to "fix" the oven). Anyways, after cooking a turkey, I decided that one is enough to last for a while. . . the other one will keep the freezer until Christmas.

Michael has been enjoying turkey sandwiches, while I have worked on freezing the cooked meat in ziplock bags. So far, I've put away 4 quarts with 4 cups per quart. We won't be needing meat for a while! The rest of the turkey I'm in the process of pressure canning. I was giving a wonderful pressure canner for our wedding and I thought I'd try it out. :) Thankfully it has a pressure-canning booklet with recipes, as my Blue Book is still packed away. Two quarts of turkey meat and hopefully three quarts of turkey broth will be done by the time Michael gets home from hunting tonight.

On a different note . . . the Bosch meat grinder works really good! After having some difficulty with the venison getting jammed in the grinder, we realized to just drop the pieces in and let the grinder pull it through. :) Now we are enjoying ground venison and put about 10 pounds in the freezer.

Thanksgiving Surprise

Wednesday evening we drove to the Matsonian's and surprised U. Matt at the door! He had just come up from the basement and there we were at the door. :) After getting over the initial shock of us standing there, he brought us down to the basement were the guys were chilling. Josiah, Benj and Peter were all shocked to see us walk down. It was priceless!

Rachel drove up a short time later and saw our car with the Texas license plate in the driveway . . . she guessed it was us. :)

Thursday was filled with finishing the Thanksgiving meal. Aunt Susie and Rachel made a delicious brunch, complete with bacon, eggs and money bread! It was the perfect way to start Thanksgiving. The kitchen was overtaken with food . . . turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potato pudding, gr. bean casserole, spinach souffle, stuffing, sweet potato casserole (with marshmellows), and tons of dessert!


The rest of the family made it in and the house was turned into a hearty celebration. The camera's were snapping all through out the meal. Now, no Thanksgiving is complete without a good game of hearts. The girls kept up the tradition while the guys crashed in front of a movie downstairs . . . we had more fun. :-)

Guys weekend

So, the guys (Caleb, Ben and Joel) stayed up late watching "Miracle" and some hunting video. I watched most of Miracle and then called it a night when they put in the hunting video. :-)
The next morning they were stirring before 6 AM. I decided to pullout the camera and get some "before" shots.
Joel got to enjoy sleeping in until I got up to make brunch. Michael requested Venison Taco Soup for the guys. :) Around 10 am Michael called with news that Caleb had shot a BIG buck! Joel and I wrapped up the kitchen stuff and headed to the field. It was a BIG buck . . . . 13 point! Very nice job Caleb!

(Pictures will be posted once I get more batteries for my camera. . . it died in the middle of uploading them.)

Friday

 It is FRIDAY! Not that it is to much different from the rest of the week . . . it just means the guys are coming over tonight so they can go hunting early in the morning. I'm still debating whether or not to get up and make a big breakfast . . . it means I'd be up before 6 AM on a Saturday! :) Still it is always nice to hear those nice compliments like, "MMMMmmm, this is good!" :)

Below are pictures from the guy's FIRST deer ever. Ben got his just this last week . . . it was a really nice shot! 

 

 Michael shot this doe last season.  Since then he has also shot a buck . . . but I don't have the pictures on this computer. They are out hoping for another successful evening of hunting tonight. :)

Settling into a new life

The weekend is approaching and it promises to be another busy one. Men's meeting for Michael, the youth meeting and guest speakers for the weekend. Grocery shopping still awaits, if only I could get my printer operating. It looks like I need to download "something" to help the printer run correctly.
Today has been a productive day. Internet was setup, kitchen is clean and I ordered my Bosch! Plus wonderful attachments like cookie paddles, meat grinder and a cookbook. Now to get a good oven so I can start making goodies for Thanksgiving.