Left-Over Friday 55..........

Honey-Basted Roast Turkey
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Baked sweet potatoes.
Green Bean Casserole with French's Cheesy fried Onions
Home-Made Pierogie.
Fresh Hand-Chopped Cranberry Salad
Lime's Aunt Virginia's Pineapple Pudding.
Savory Sage Sausage Stuffing
Home-Made Fresh Kielbasa..Smoked Kielbasa
Pumpkin Pie
Pecan Pie
Fresh Whipped Cream
...Thanksgiving Dinner, At the G-Man's!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving......

Stuff Me.....Please?............

OK...I decided to forego the Oatmeal Cake recipe', for my world famous Sausage Stuffing Recipe'!.Regardless of what Alton Brown and the rest of those Food Channel twits say, Our family always enjoyed a stuffed turkey, and I can't recall any botulism killing off any family members. This is NOT an exact science people, It's COOKING, and it's FUN!!!!!

The night before Thanksgiving, cube or break-up 3 loaves of bread..Any bread will do, stale bread, wheat bread, raison bread, challah, Wonder Bread, marble rye, pumpernickel, you get the picture, just NOT moldy bread!!! When you are done, put it all in a large roaster, and put it in the oven overnight. The oven is SHUT-OFF of course.

The next day when you are ready to stuff your bird, assemble this........
6 stalks of celery
2 large onions
4 apples of any variety
2 pounds of Bob Evans Savory Sage Breakfast Sausage (any sausage will do).
Salt
Pepper
Sage..(Thyme or Rosemary work also)

In a frying pan, scramble the sausage.
In a separate pan, add one can of Turkey or Chicken broth and add your finely chopped onion and celery, cook for about 5 minutes after it comes to a boil, then shut it off and set aside.
Scramble the sausage till it is done, and without draining the drippings, add 1/2 cup of water to it. At this point take your pan of bread cubes, and dump both the veggie pan and the sausage pan into the bread, along with the peeled, cored, and sliced raw apples. Add salt, pepper, and sage to taste...Stuff your bird, and VOILA!!!!

One more thing!!! I saw this yesterday on the Food Channel, (Rachel Ray no less) and I am actually going to do this. With your leftover uncooked stuffing, instead of just putting it into a separate dish and baking it for an hour or so. Take a couple of muffin pans, and with your hands, make some stuffing balls about the size of a snowball, then drop each one into a muffin spot. Rachel called it, "Stuffin Muffin's", they get all crispy all over, and they seem to be the perfect serving size. 'How good is that?...Yummo!!!'

I'm starting to get very excited about Thanksgiving. It is an American Holiday that knows NO religious boundrys, and the house smells soooo fricken great all day long. And tonight when I pick up Mandy from school and bring her home, My whole family will be together for a Holiday for the first time in over a year!!! Thats something to be truely Thankful for!!!
Peace!!!

Cooking With G-Man..........

Hi Everybody, I hope you all had a better week-end than I did... Grrrrrrrrr

Being that this is Thanksgiving week, and I am hosting a little family get together Thursday, I thought that I would deviate a bit from the regular 'Themed' days. My daughter, as many of you know, spent last year in Prague studying. She made a request for one of her favorite dishes, since she missed last years feast. And that is Pierogies!..Ahhhh, those tasty little Polish treats that we usually get from the local Dom Polski, but I just found out that they only make them now on Christmas and Easter!! Whats a father to do?..Buy some Mrs. T's ? Well I could, I have done it before, and they aren't bad for store-bought, but please...It ain't Rocket Surgery!!!

Pierogies are a filled ravioli-like dumpling that is filled with numerous items.. They could have a Kraut filling...A cottage cheese-like filling..A Prune filling..But the favorite filling is Cheese and Potato!!! ...When you buy the frozen ones you boil a pot of water, then you boil them for about 5-10 minutes...Drain them..Then fry them quickly in a pan that has fried onions and melted butter in the pan...Toss them till each one is coated with Butter and Onions...and enjoy with a dollop of sour cream..

The Home-Made ones are served the same, but they are much much better!!!

Here's the recipe'..The filling...

Peel, boil, and mash, 5#'s of potatoes

While mashing, add one finely chopped bunch of green onions (scallions). Tops and all!

Add one package of cream cheese.

One stick of butter

8-10 ounces of shredded Cheddar Cheese

Add NO liquid and when finished mashing..let cool!!

The dough...

2 cups of flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

Add gradually one beaten Lg Egg, and a 1/2 cup of sour cream.

When dough is "not so sticky" gradually knead in one cut- up stick of soft butter..

On a floured surface roll the dough until about 1/8 inch thick..

With a round 'cutter' or a 3 inch glass, cut out as many circles as you can..

In theory, you should get about 3-4 dozen, I used this method and got exactly 2 Dozen!!

I had lots of left-over filling, and it will keep until She comes home from College on Tuesday night. I will then have her help me really make about 4 Dozen for Turkey Day!!..

The Pictures above are the stages of preparation but the order seems to have come out backwards...hehehehe..Low-Tech, remember?

1) Put a spoon-full of filling on the center of the cut-out, fold over, then hand-crimp the edges tight..

2) Drop the Pierogies into a pot of boiling water till they start to float..

3) When they have been drained for a while, fry with Butter and Onions!!!

This week..If you would like to share a recipe' with us all, feel free to comment here, or direct us to your Blog.. I think I will post a recipe' for a yummy oatmeal cake tomorrow..We'll see!

Peace!!!!

Flash 55.........

Have you ever seen such a phenomena as texting?
Eight years ago it barely exhisted.
Today..? If you want one of of your kids to respond to you,
you had better learn how to text!
They will rarely answer your calls....
Because a parent is waaaaay boring.
But they will text you back...
Maybe!!!!

No double 55 this week...
You know where I'll be tomorrow?
Ann Arbor Michigan
"The Big House"
Section 41
Row 26
Seat 13
Go Blue!!!

Tim Horton HNT.......

A little bit of Heaven on Earth!!!...HHNT Y'All........Photo By Barman

Ask Mr. Knowitall......

Hi Everybody, if it's Wednesday, it must be time for "Ask Mr. Knowitall".....

A Mr. Randall McNally of Atlas Michigan asks..Dear Mr. Knowitall...
'Please tell me some interesting geological facts about our planet.'

"I'd be glad to Rand, To start with, the earth is not round at all! It's flattened at both the top and bottom!
The longest mountain range in the world is the Andes, it is 4525 miles long!
The deepest lake in the world, is Russia's Lake Baikal. It is only 30 wide, but it 400 miles long, and in some places it is OVER 6000 feet deep!
About 20% of the Earth's surface is desert. However only about 15% of all deserts are sand. Most deserts are made of rock or gravel.
The Sahara Desert takes up almost 1/3 of Africa. It is almost as big as the continental US.
OK, this fact is NOT geological, but it's kinda cool. If you took all of the salt out of the ocean and spread it on land, You would have a 500 foot layer of salt covering the Earth's surface!!!'
One more thing about Lake Baikal...You could empty ALL 5 Great Lakes...AND Lake Champlain into it...

A Mr. William Telle of Lake Geneva Illinois asks...Dear Mr. Knowitall...
'How can I get to Switzerland real cheap?'

"Hey, you are not making overtures toward me are you? Bill, I think you oughtta consider heading on over to Sugarcreek Ohio. They have gas stations that look like ski chalets, the world's largest cuckoo clock, AND the worlds champion Steinstossen guy lives not in real Swiss-Land, but in Sugarcreek Ohio!..OK, Steinstossen in Swiss means Stone-tossing, and that is HUGE over there...So, thats all I have to say on that neutral subject!...(get it?)

A Miss Sherry of Genteel Virginia asks.....Dear Mr. Knowitall..
"How much colder in the mountains is it, than on flat land?"

'OK Sherry...For every 984 feet that you climb, it gets 3 1/2 degrees colder!'
Thanks for asking such an easy question...
Short and very sweet
Thats how I like my Questions
Thanks a lot Sherry!!!!!

Mr Knowitall grows weary...Peace!