Ham Croquettes

With Easter coming, many of us will be looking for ways to use that left-over ham.
So here's a recipe my mom always used :

HAM CROQUETTES

After a baked ham dinner, Mom liked to make these tasty patties with the leftover ham. They were almost as good as the original meal.. As a child in those pre-food processor days, I loved to help grind the meat with an old-fashioned hand cranked meat grinder. I still own one just like it but it hasn’t been used in 20 years!

3 cups (or more) cooked ham, chopped
½ sleeve of Ritz crackers (Mom also occasionally used saltines.)
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 egg
3-4 Tbsp. spicy brown mustard
Black pepper, to taste

· Grind ham and crackers using a food processor or a blender set on “chop”. (If using a grinder, use the “fine” grinding blade.)
· Blend in egg, onion and mustard. Mixture should have a hamburger consistency. (If too dry, add more mustard or a little mayo, if you prefer.)
· Form into patties about ¾” thick and brown on both sides using a stovetop griddle or shallow non-stick fry pan.

Best served warm - either, alone or on a bun with condiments.

Add a little zing to the mixture with a dab of horseradish or Tabasco or a dash of BBQ rub or Southwest seasoning.

Do we really need a phone?

Ring! Ring! Ring!

My phone is driving me crazy these days. It has a mind of its own. It will ring, I answer and no one is there. This may happen five times a day or more. We do not have caller ID so I cannot track who it might be. Sometimes I just let the machine grab it. There is usually no message. In between there are, of course, a number of calls that I do get and am able to speak with the caller.

Then, every few days my sister-in-law or a friend, here or there, tells us they tried to call "for hours" only to get a busy signal. Often, we were home and NOT using the phone. Usually we can recall having had no calls at all that evening. We do not have dial up internet service.

We'd like to fix the situation but are having trouble defining just how to describe this problem to the phone company. Should we call them and they come out to service the line and find it working at that time, we will be charged for a service call. If they can find no trouble in the outside lines, we will be charged for a service call. (I sort of believe if the outside line had a problem some of our neighbors would be experiencing the same thing.) If they believe it must be in our personal equipment, we will be charged for a service call. I guess, no matter how you look at it, we will get charged.

Oh, I forgot to mention, it ALWAYS works when we want to call out. It never seems to have a problem when we call on the cell to check messages. Our family and friends have simply learned to call the cell. If it's turned off they can leave a message easily there. They also e-mail as they know we are on the computer a lot.

The more this happens, the more we find we may not really need that phone anyway. For now, we're just going to live with it. The only person it really seems to bother is my sister-in-law. Maybe the phone itself just doesn't want to talk to her!! Hmmmm. Like I said, it has a mind of it's own.

Door-to-Door Salesmen

Remember the Fuller Brush Man, the Avon Lady and Jewel-T? All of these folks earned their living going door-to-door selling their products.

Did you know that door-to-door salesmen still exist?


I was recently surprised to have a Kirby Vacuum Cleaner salesman come to my door. He wanted to clean my stairway or one full room for free. I had visions of the sitcoms where the guy throws some horrible staining product on the floor and proceeds to unsuccessfully attempt to clean it up, leaving the owner with a large horrible spot. I politely turned him away.

Then, this week another Kirby salesman showed up. This time, I told him someone had just been through the neighborhood pushing their products. I have to give him credit though, assuming the first guy had cleaned a room for me, he asked if I had a second room he could clean for free!!! I, again, turned him away although I did compliment him on the quick thinking for his sales pitch.

Later that same day, there was yet another knock at the door! No, it wasn't another Kirby guy. This one was a guy who wanted me to buy "fresh" meats from the back of his truck! He had a fairly small pick-up truck with a large cooler in the back. I told him I wasn't interested but he was very persistent. He wanted to know why I wouldn't even consider trying to save money in this day and age. I emphatically told him I don't buy my meat off the back of a truck from a total stranger. He went away muttering how did I think the grocery stores got their meat.

I guess in this day and age, with the economy in the state it is in, we must give these guys credit for getting out there and trying to make a living. I try to be polite to them for they are making an effort. When they get rude, I end the conversation and close the door.

Let's give credit to all those folks who are out there trying to earn an honest living. It's not easy out there today!

Daddy's Chocolate Ice Box Cake

While I'm away, I've left a recipe or two for you to try!

DADDY’S CHOCOLATE ICE-BOX CAKE

This was one of the first things I learned to make as a child since it involves no real cooking and makes for a great kid’s project. I was always led to believe it was my Daddy’s favorite. Since I had never seen this served anywhere other than at my Gran’s or at our house, I assumed it was invented by Mom or Gran. Until the other day. I was looking at a cookbook put out by the D.C. Blues Society and actually found a version had been submitted by Ann Rabson, one of my favorite performers. She’s definitely not a member of the family and not from this area so maybe it wasn’t a family original !!!

*** This has to be refrigerated for several hours before serving, so plan ahead !


Ingredients:
1 box Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers
1 container of Cool Whip or real whipped cream
A large tray or cookie sheet that will sit flat in the refrigerator.


* Holding a wafer in one hand, spread the whipped cream and put a layer on one side of the wafer. In deciding how much to use, remember you want to use enough to have an eighth to a quarter-inch layer between the wafers, plus enough at the end to cover the whole thing. Place a new wafer on the iced side of the last one and ice the other side. Sit this “wafer sandwich” flat on the tray and work on that surface from then on. Repeat icing wafers and stacking them next to the previous wafer, until you run out of wafers. It will sort of resemble a train.

* Cover the entire train of wafers with the whipped cream just as if you were icing a long, rectangular cake. You can sprinkle the top with chocolate or colored jimmies or add a maraschino cherry or two for decoration.

* Cover the cake and put it into the refrigerator for at least 5 hours.

To serve, take it out and cut into slices. Gran used to slice this on a diagonal so that each slice had pretty stripes. Mom used to just slice across most times (which is MUCH easier!)
This is VERY sweet, so small slices work best !

*** Ann Rabson’s version differed in that she calls hers a Crawling King Caterpillar and arranges it with a curve or two, like a caterpillar. She grates a little bitter chocolate over it and adds walnuts to the finished product.

P.S.
WOW!!!
It took 50 years, but I just heard of someone else again making a similar dessert! A Martha Stewart Show viewer sent photos of a Radiator Cake from the ‘50s. They made it with whipped cream and graham crackers instead of chocolate wafers. As a variation, they suggested adding chocolate syrup to the whipped cream! An audience member stated the Radiator Cake she recalled from childhood was made with chocolate pudding between the crackers and iced in whipped cream.


And to think, all these years, I believed this was a family original !

Smile !!!

Thought for the day:

When you're feeling a little down, look for someone who makes you smile, because sometimes it only takes a smile to brighten up a very dark day.

The reverse is true also: When you see someone who's down, give them a big smile. It just might be the best thing that happens to them today!

Take time to share a smile, a wave or even pick a Spring flower to give to a neighbor or friend today.

Back with you soon!!

News Flashes

Sometimes, the local news just makes you want to smile!


Earlier this week, the local reporters had a great time with a story concerning Jenna Bush’s Secret Service detail. As you probably know, the former president and his immediate family will enjoy Secret Service protection for the next ten years. (Bush is the first president not to receive this protection for life.) As you may not know, Jenna Bush and her husband moved to a row home (known as a townhouse in other parts of the country) in downtown Baltimore a few months ago. For those familiar with Charm City, her home is in Federal Hill very close to the touristy Inner Harbor and not far from both the Ravens Stadium and Oriole Park. Therefore, parking is very limited in her neighborhood and highly restricted. It seems the Secret Service vehicle had received numerous parking citations which had gone unpaid. It also seems, the City enforced their parking laws and impounded the vehicle last week!!

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Then, there are the times when you wonder how Defense Attorneys can live with themselves. (Remember, I spent many years working in the legal profession.)

There was a murder in the Baltimore suburbs that took place in a gas station on Mother’s Day morning last year. The young man that was killed was on his way home from work and was filling his gas tank so he could go home and take his wife, who was in labor, to the hospital to deliver their first child. A 17-year-old attempted to rob this poor man and when he refused to give him his wallet, the robber proceeded to whip out a knife and stab him to death. The Defense Attorney first attempted to have him tried as a juvenile. Failing that, he has now gone with s defense argument that this young man (the robber) was merely trying to get enough cash to buy his mother a Mother’s Day present and had no intention of killing anyone. (Intent is required for a first-degree murder conviction.) He claims the victim actually caused his own death by refusing to turn the wallet over. Had he simply turned the money over, he would be alive to day spending time with his child!!



Sometimes, I’m glad I’m no longer associated with that profession!

Vacation prep is hard work!

Another hectic day of travel prep! Spent the day finishing up the laundry, packing the suitcases and putting the finishing touches on an outfit for our little Katie! She’s still at that great age where she’s thrilled to get something I made for her so I never arrive empty-handed. The paint should be dry on that by morning!

Oh, and I’ve been making Easter eggs (the chocolate kind) throughout the day. It’s a family tradition that I make tons of Easter candy. The problem is, I didn’t start until yesterday.

We planned this trip within the last two weeks so I really didn’t have a lot of warning that the candy would need to be done so soon. Mixing the buttercreams for the filling is really hard on my shoulder and wrists as it needs to be so thick. I normally space out that part. Well, I mixed two batches of peanut butter yesterday and a batch each of chocolate and vanilla today. It hurts to raise my arms high enough to brush my hair!!

I just dipped 35 eggs this evening. I’m sure a few will need a little re-dipping for finishing purposes but I’m letting them set up at the moment. I’ll handle the final dipping just before I go to bed. I need to get up at 4:45 to take The Big Guy to work. Since he works west of home, it makes since for me to pick him up after work and we can head out from there, saving us about 2 hours of drive time and avoiding the worst of the rush hour traffic.

I still need to gather my activity stuff (paints, books, etc.), toiletries and print some pictures to take with us. I also need to type in several blog posts to run while I’m away- so y’all won’t forget me! I won’t have internet access while I’m gone. Hopefully, those posts will run without a snag. We’ll see. I just hated to leave you with nothing for so long. I won’t be back online until April 7th. If they don’t run well, please bear with me - this is experimental!

Well, gotta run. Lots more to do before I sleep tonight. I will post one more time before leaving tomorrow.