Whetting your whistle

So I thought I'd better return to my original intent with this blog and share a few recipes with you. But given the fact that me and my kitchen are becoming increasingly less familiar with each other, I've had to reach down pretty far to come up with an idea. I will tell you that I'm so proud of myself. Last Friday I realized how crazy and torn up my house has been, and that dinner has been a rather iffy occurrence. Canned soup or fast food. So I took the bag of thawed chicken I had in the fridge and boiled the whole thing up. Then I made a huge dish of sour cream enchiladas and another huge dish of chicken and rice. Then I popped both into the fridge and made the enchiladas Saturday and the chicken and rice is for tonight. I made sure there were enough for lots of leftovers too. These are two of the three dishes that Jonny will eat leftover. "Genius" I was calling myself!

For any of you newbies reading this, I have the recipe for both of these dishes in my post "The More the Merrier".

I thought I would list some punch recipes, some refreshing drinks, some hot drinks, a great smoothie, and tell you "Northerners" just exactly how you make sweet tea.

As far as punch goes, my all time favorite albeit a trifle girlie, is Hawaiian Punch with 7-up and raspberry sherbet. Simply pour equal amounts of both liquids and pop in a few scoop of sherbet. So sweet and delicious! Not to mention pretty.

Another one is white grape juice, club soda, and sprite. Much more elegant looking and rather beautiful in a clear punch cup with all of it's bubbles.

I also discovered a couple of years ago that a delicious easy drink to serve in the summer, is a can or two of frozen flavored lemonade and instead of adding three cans of water, add three cans of club soda. Delicious!!

Now for a smoothie recipe. I will have to admit to you that I found those frozen Yoplait smoothie kits on sale at Wal-Mart and I had coupons as well. I stocked up on ten of them and they are quite remarkable. But as far as a homeade recipe goes, here's one from Good Housekeeping about thirteen years ago.

Cool Summer Smoothie

8 ounces strawberry yogurt

1/2 tub Cool Whip

1 cup frozen or fresh strawberries

Blend until smooth

Here's another one

Sparkling Grape Juice-Lemonade

1 bunch seedless grapes (about 1/3 pound)

1 (750ml) bottle sparkling white grape juice, chilled

1/4 cup thawed frozen lemonade concentrate

Place grapes in a zip-top plastic bag. Seal (duh). Do not remove grapes from stems. Freeze completely, about four hours.

Gently stir together grape juice and lemonade in a large pitcher. Add frozen grapes to pitcher. Serve immediately.

Sparkling Wine-Fruit Refresher (sans wine)

1 cup Sprite chilled

1 cup assorted berries

1 (6 ounce) can frozen limeade concentrate, thawed

1/4 cup loosely packed fresh mint or basil leaves, torn

3 (12 ounce) cans orange flavored sparkling water chilled

Combine first four ingredients in a large pitcher. Gently stir in sparkling water. Serve immediately.

Now if you're in the mood for something a little warmer and spicier here is an old recipe for Instant Hot Spice Tea.

1/2 cup instant tea

2 cups Tang

2 cups sugar

2 packages Wylers lemonade mix

1 tsp ground cloves

2 tsp cinnamon

Mix. Use a couple of heaping teaspoons in a mug of hot water.

This recipe is rather interesting, and you may have to tweak it a little. I cannot find Wylers lemonade and have never figured out if should be sweetened or not. Also that seems like a whole lot of Tang to me. But it a nice drink for one of these many nasty days we've had lately.

As far as the sweet tea goes, McAllisters doesn't have to be the only place to get good tea around here. You can make it yourself and it is extremely easy. Simply put three large tea bags in a four cup glass measuring cup filled with water. Microwave 5 to 8 minutes or until really dark. Then in a gallon pitcher filled about 1/4 of the way with cold water, add 1 cup of sugar (my Nonny adds alot more than that, but I have found that most of you don't like it that sweet at all). Stir until dissolved then pour in tea. Keep adding cold water to the tea bags until your pitcher is full.

And there you go!

I have heard from several of you that you cannot comment on here because of all the steps you have to go through. I have tried to modify this so that anyone can comment. Let me know if you're still having a problem.

Hope you enjoy this and that you find a couple of favorites for your family!