Lori Leiser Manning, me, Barbie Barton Greer and Mendi Rutledge Hawkins

Bagel shop on May and Hefner

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Over the last 5 years or so, I've tried to get some of my high school classmates together when I'm home over Thanksgiving.  This year was slated to be huge but we had a no show from Dagne Day Newcomb and a last minute "can't get away from work" excuse from both Angelia Pope Johnston and Leslie Johnson Williams.  The four of us had a great time nonetheless but missed the others.

Leslie told me about this Bagel shop over 2 years ago when I was in town for the Sheryl Crow concert in August of 2008.  We met here for lunch and Leslie had said classmates Danny Cowan and Wayne Hansen owned it.  We loved running in to them and catching up.  We didn't see them this year but certainly enjoyed our lunch today.  The place was packed but we found a booth for the four of us.  I love the style of the cafe, very modern and clean. 

I had a hard time picking out what to order as did Lori and Mendi.  I usually get the Pizza Bagel but I make these at home so much (the idea was from this store), so I ordered the Veggie Bagel on an everything bagel.  It's cucumbers, spouts, thinly sliced carrots, provolone and honey mustard that I substituted for spicy mustard.  I loved the bagels spices, it kept the sandwich from being bland.  I ate that whole thing!  I know Barbie got the Egg Salad and loved it.  You can order your sandwich on regular bread or make your own with lots of choices.  They also have several listed for breakfast.

I got 3 bagels sliced for Jackie and a huge chocolate chip cookie for Chloe.  The bagels are so fresh and made daily at 3 am I found out from their website.  You can also get your sandwich hot or cold and I love that they have sandwiches named for the Sooners, Cowboys, Bricktown, Old Smokey and Mile High.  When you're in this neck of Oklahoma City, go to the Old School Bagel Cafe, it's fresh, quick and affordable.  My lunch and extras was under $10.  Say Hi to Danny and Wayne for me while you're there.

This great restaurant has locations in Tulsa, Edmond and Stillwater.  Quail Creek Location 10946 N. May Ave., Oklahoma City, 405-286-CAFE.  Check out their awesome website: http://oldschoolbagelcafe.com/

Thanksgiving at Mom's, Edmond

Mother's Dinner Table

I had to take this photo under the kid's table with everyones' feet

Kathy's Corn Casserole (recipe follows)

Erin, Corie, Chloe and Audrey



Mom had her buffet set up in her tv room



Mom's new, updated kitchen, that's Aunt Barbara

After lunch, Chloe and Audrey played dress up
(way too much makeup!)

One of the 6 clothes changes
 (they did a passing through the living room)

Edmond's Turkey Trot 5K, Jackie and I braved the 30 degree and high wind morning...burr...I set a near personal best trying to get back in the car...lol!

Thursday, November 25, 2010

I was glad that this year I got to go home for Thanksgiving and bring Chloe to see all her Oklahoma relatives and cousins.  Mother is a master of cooking and planning and had our Thanksgiving feast rolling and dolled out to everyone that showed up.  Luckily she took my advice this year and ordered a cooked turkey.  Jackie suggested this two weeks ago when he heard an ad for our favorite BBQ restaurant in Memphis.  I told mom to order one up to take the heat off and it was an excellent and tasty decision.

Mom had Jackie, Chloe and I set the tables for our 15 people.  My cousin Krista was in charge of her delicious Broccoli Casserole, I did the green bean, Mom did the smart thing and bought frozen mashed potatoes then cooked them and added butter and milk (what a great short cut), she also had croissants, her legendary Spinach Salad, Barbara made her dressing that we had to wait 20 minutes on, Kathy made her Corn, recipe follows, and plenty of olives and the like.  (It does seem like I'm forgetting mentioning one of the many delicious dishes....)  We finally ate at about 1:30 and it was great!  We all enjoyed the three desserts Barbara brought which were chocolate pie, rum cake and a pumpkin pie.  But I have to confess this diabetic didn't have any desserts.  I just enjoyed my one, large plate of food, and it was wonderful!

We had a great time watching Chloe and Audrey's fashion show after lunch.  They loved getting makeup on and strutting around in heels and necklaces.  They were so cute.  We had a fun and heated spades game that lasted for two rounds during that pitiful Cowboys game.  It was my cousin Krista and me against legendary card cheaters my brother Craig and Jackie.  It got loud and unruly at times but full of laughter and accusations of cheating.  Fun times even though they beat us twice.  We repeated the game the next day in Weatherford with Kathy sitting in for Krista.  Luckily, she and I whooped the boys and we enjoyed every minute of it.

BTW, Jackie and I brought our mountain bikes because mom lives within a mile of Lake Arcadia and they have a 9 mile rough course called Spring Creek.  We rode bikes Wednesday and Saturday.  

Thanksgiving is always a great time, some more memorable weeks than others, but this year was a ton of fun.  Jackie especially likes the OU/OSU game.  He made the comment that this year he'd been on his most favorite football campuses, Ole Miss, Fayetteville and OSU.  We're hoping that this year we will get to go to the Sugar Bowl if the Hogs make it there.  That will be fun!  Mom did a great job on all the meals all week and did a great job once again on Thanksgiving.  There were lots of leftovers which is a blessing in my book.

Kathy's Corn Casserole

2 bags white/yellow frozen corn, thawed

1 8 oz package cream cheese, chopped up

1 stick butter, chopped up

1/2 c. milk

Salt and pepper

Spray a crock pot with Pam and cook over low for 4 hours.  Kathy said you can also bake at 350 for 45 minutes.  My note is I think you can use lite cream cheese, skim milk and half that butter, just sayin...

Jackie had us entered in the Edmond Turkey Trot 5K on Thanksgiving morning.  We had planned on taking Chloe with us but it was 30 degrees that morning.  We left mom's about 7:15 to get our timing chip and get situated.  There were 700 runners for their first event, amazing! 

Benton's 36th Birthday, Jonesboro

Great cake Alexis

Cade Martin, Benton, Matt Boone, LB Vaught, Jackie and ?? Alpe

Chloe had a blast at Tom B's

Saturday, November 20, 2010

I think I was behind getting this party started!  Alexis and I got together the week before and ran the Upper Crust 5K at Craighead Forrest Park and I wondered what they were gonna do for Benton's birthday.  So she got his buddies together and we came up for the party.  We went on a 35 mile road bike tour before hand and socialized at Chuck and Lisa Blanton's house.  Then we loaded up the kiddos and headed to Jonesboro.  Benton had delicious, marinated pork tenderloin, potato casserole and I brought the spinach casserole (see Thanksgiving blog 2009 for recipe).  Alexis had the cutest cake too!  It's always so fun to be with Benton and Alexis, their children are darling and so well-behaved.  I brought Whit and Stella with us because Martin and Kara stayed home with Auggie who was running a fever.

Homemade Yogurt

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

My best friend Wendy Koons Meir makes her own yogurt. This past March I spent a weekend with her and she showed me how easy it was. Yes, in the back of my mind too, I thought, Good Lord, who has time to do that? Kara gave me a yogurt maker for my birthday and I have made yogurt once a week now since May. And yes, it is that easy. When I take a moment and think about all the energy Danon and other yogurt makers take, from the maker, on the truck, to the grocery store, and when I buy it I drive it home. That's a lot of energy! We should all try to grow and make our own food. Plus there's no container to recycle. I just heard on CNN that there's two enormous plastic bottle piles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Wow, what a fat and lazy society we are. So here's how quick and easy it is to make yogurt for a week.

In a saucepan, warm to almost boil, 4 Cups Skim milk with 1/2 Cup of Nonfat Powdered Dry Milk. This takes about 20 minutes. Heat it until it almost boils then let it hang out for about 30 minutes until it gets down to 110 degrees. I use my candy thermometer in the pan until it's cool enough. Then add 1/2 Cup plain, non-fat yogurt and stir until somewhat combined. Then pour in the 7 glasses the yogurt maker comes with and put lids on them. Turn on the yogurt maker and let it cook for 8-10 hours then refrigerate. I have over heated that milk in the first step and it was nasty, boiled yogurt. And I have also put the yogurt in too soon and it will flatten (or kill) the good stuff inside. So take your time and get good at it.

I added Chloe and Biscuit and Chloe and I from our local Kids Marathon. We had 146 kids entered on that 29 degree morning! It was a great day!

Recycling...

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Well it's been a while since I've talked about recycling. I just took about 50 hangers back to my local cleaners instead of throwing them in the garbage. I have done this for about 10 years now...one cleaners said they didn't do that way back. I just gently said I sure didn't want hangers in the landfill especially when they are basically brand new. After that, they started letting me bring shirt hangers back. My cleaners is thankful for them, I'm sure it doesn't cost them much to buy hangers, but at least they're not in the landfill.

Recently I had an idea about re-using those cups from my local Lenny's and McDonald's when I get their tea. Lenny's was always so easy with the idea of me bringing that cup back in and paying for a refill. Our local McDonald's drive thru could kinda handle it when I'd order two large, unsweet teas refilled in my two McDonald's cups. They'd usually mess it up at the second window and have one poured up but I'd show them my empty cup and they'd refill it. This went on for about two months every other week. Then last week, I ordered my two large, unsweet iced teas in my cups and a man interrupted and said, "we don't do refills in the drive thru." When I got up to that second window, I explained that I was just trying to be green. I realize now that it does take an additional 15 seconds to fill my cup with ice, tea, a lid and do it times two, that's 30 seconds. What a pain! Now it's up to me to park and take those cups inside. What a pain! I'll report back on what happens.

I have an out building where I store our glass. I should give Jackie the credit on glass, he started my obsession, just saying. We have a 20 gallon trash can we keep in the kitchen. I go to Memphis twice a year with a pickup truck packed full of glass. It's located at Harbor Town in Downtown Memphis. You can check out the City of Memphis website on recycling. I called them a year ago to see if they'd take the vet clinic's vaccine and medicine bottles and they do! www.cityofmemphis.org

We take all our cardboard and obviously, the clinic's, to our local Cross County Special Workshop. They crush the cardboard and send it on trucks to a big recycler. They also take paper. I have a container behind my desk in my office that I use for envelopes, magazines, post its, etc. Then at the clinic, we add all the paper and plastic into boxes and send it to the workshop. They charge $15 to come and pick up your recycling, we have it picked up every other month so it will fill up the trailer. Look at all those boxes! I'm proud the clinic recycles, we do the same thing at home.

The workshop also pays for your aluminum cans, we just send ours and let them keep the money. All our plastic also goes there too where they crush it and send it out to big plastic recyclers. Plastic is the rings and tabs on your milk jugs and cartons, saran wrap, shampoo bottles, drano bottles and on and on.

Batteries...yes, I recycle batteries. I have a bag of batteries that's four years old. I thought 4 years of batteries would be a bigger sack. You can take them to Batteries Plus in Memphis and they take them to a recycler. Yes, I did say that I saw that 60 Minutes show on computers in China that are in a landfill poisoning people instead of at a recycler. He assured me that they do send them to a battery recycler. You can also take your aerosol cans to the Memphis recycling bins at Harbor Town. That box is about a year old.

Ok...just sharing some ideas. Yes, my utility room is mainly recycling, washer and dryer and Chloe's hamster hut. But I don't mind, I really don't spend much time in there.