Saturday, March 1, 2014

Dutton Food, Family & Fun

We invited Dave & Nancy to come for supper while Bert was here visiting.  Mary said the only day she could bring the kids to visit would be Saturday and Cowboy and I said, "Perfect!"  I asked Nancy to please bring her keyboard to play some tunes!  We listened and sang to oldies, hymns, and country.  It was a blast, maybe a blast from the past too!!
 
 Cowboy PopPop with Angus.  The resemblance is uncanny! 


Grammy & Maggie looking at "kid" stuff on  the computer.
 
 Cowboy is the master chef!  His barbecued steaks are the best!  Yum!!
 Seasoning...
 
The majority likes medium rare...perfect! 
 
Grammy's helper!  We are making bread pudding as Aunt Bert had never had it before.  Bert made a bourbon vanilla sauce for the pudding.  Everyone said it was the best sauce!  We didn't have any cream or half-and-half to make a caramel sauce, hence the vanilla/bourbon sauce!  We country folks make do.  ha!


 Angus is a builder...
 And he built a town and he is driving the cars around and getting them parked...
 He has such a wonderful imagination!  Grandkids are the best!!
 Have to take a couple of pictures before we eat you know! Dave & Nancy, Cowboy & Cowboy's Sweetheart, The Farmer's Wife, and Grandma.


 
Mary and the kids and Grandma Margaret
 
 
Nancy and Maggie making music...

 Nancy is very accomplished!  Her playing tugs at heart strings and brings tears as it is beautiful!
 How does one keep from singing!  Mary can harmonize which was fun!
 After dinner music, in our own home no less!
 Listening...
Maggie is sure studying this operation!

 
Mary helped Rosie O'Grady (Aunt Bert) update her blog.  Mary also helped me update mine, so she was a pretty busy girl running back and forth helping us!  We need the younger ones to help us navigate this technology.
 
The last time I tried to blog I threw up my hands and hadn't blogged for about a year.  It is fun to have the books and look back at the pictures and they are all in a book!  No need to develop the pictures and then get them in albums.
 
We had a wonderful time and it was such a blessing to get to be together.  Bert lives in Texas and that is a long way from Montana!!



Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

POPCORN CRUNCH!

 
 
I love to try new recipes and am always buying cookbooks or cutting out recipes.  I found this recipe in a paper and saved it for Christmas.  Following are the pictures of Cari and my joint effort making this yummy snack.  We took the first batch to church at Sand Springs and came home with an empty pan.  We made another batch and will share with everyone coming on Christmas day.
 
Simple ingredients:  Sugar, butter, nuts, popcorn, Karo syrup, and vanilla!
We bought a new air popper after I broke our popcorn maker.  I dropped the lid out of the cupboard.  Drat! But we really like the popcorn and it is fast!
To the popcorn we are adding mixed nuts!  They were good, we sampled them!
Everything is better with butter!  Do I hear an AMEN!?
 
Melt the butter on medium heat and pour in the Karo syrup, stir, then add...
the sugar, yum, yum!
Get out the trusty candy thermometer and cook until 242 degrees--firm-ball stage, not hard.
Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.
Pour over the popcorn and nuts.
Keep pouring!
And stir and stir and stir...  whew!
The more you stir the better as the caramel goo gets on all of it!
Spread on a large, greased cookie sheet.
If you can wait to let it cool, then break into chunks!  At our house we seem to eat the edges away before it is completely cool.  It is sooo good! 
 
Karo Crazy Popcorn Crunch
3 quarts popped popcorn
2-3 cups mixed nuts (your own choice)
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon butter
1/2 cup light corn syrup
 
     Butter a large cookie sheet and mix the popcorn and nuts together.  Combine sugar, butter, and corn syrup in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly for 10 to 15 minutes until the mixture turns a light caramel color.  Cook to about 242 degrees or firm-ball stage, not hard.  Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.  Pour over popcorn and nuts.  Mix to coat well and spread to cool and dry.  Break apart and store in a tightly-covered container. 
 
     Thanks to help from the favorite daughter I was able to get this blog finally done and posted!  We did make this caramel corn again and again for special occasions!  It is lighter that some caramel corn recipes and we really like it.
 
     Thanks to my kitchen helper, Cari, another favorite daughter!