New Year’s Day is always exciting and full of tradition. Of course, you’re supposed to do what you would like to be doing all year long, right? So, there’s quilting, of course, but then, your day should be filled with wonderful things like good food (don’t forget the black-eyed peas!), family, and the ever-present New Year’s Day football games.

So, to help out a little, here’s our idea of the perfect Southern New Year’s day brunch. It includes a wonderful, spiral cut ham, sausage gravy and biscuits, and black-eyed peas.  Have your ham ready so that you simply throw it into the oven at 350F and warm it for 1 to 1 1/2 hours before your brunch. Fresh fruits are always a great addition to any table, so if you’ve got them, by all means, make them pretty, and put them out!

Once the ham is ready, it’s time to get going! Increase the heat in your oven, and put in your biscuits. Mrs. B’s frozen biscuits are wonderful! And totally worth the time saved. Just put the biscuits on a cookie sheet, and bake them according to the package directions.

Now it’s time to heat the black-eyed peas in a saucepan over medium heat, and make the sausage gravy. Sausage gravy is a favorite at our house, it’s not only simple, but everyone eats it, even my pickiest one.

Put all these delicious foods together buffet-style!  Slice the ham and put the biscuits in a covered basket to keep warm.  It’s always nice to have some fresh fruits around to add a little sweetness and color, and you can never leave out the cinnamon rolls … just because they’re so good!  Set it all out, and invite everyone in. It’s the perfect beginning to the year, and a great combination to begin the day.  The ham and peas can be warmed, and snacked on throughout the day. Or add chips, and make sandwiches! The perfect football snacks.

SAUSAGE GRAVY

1/3 tube of Owens pork sausage
1 (2.75-ounce) package Pioneer country gravy mix
1 cup chicken broth
7/8 cup water
1/3 to 1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
Red pepper flakes

Place a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté the sausage until fully cooked, breaking large chunks into small pieces. Drain excess grease, add the chicken broth to the skillet and bring to a simmer.

Combine the country gravy mix with water and stir to dissolve. Slowly add to the hot skillet, stirring constantly until thickened. Add the milk or cream, parsley and red pepper flakes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Thickness of the gravy can be altered by the amount of cream or milk added.   Makes about 3 cups of gravy.

Oh yes! I was thinking about biscuits and gravy, and almost forgot!  We want to know about your New Year’s Day traditions.  Send us a comment, and tell us about what you do to celebrate the New Year, and on Monday, January 4th, when we return to our workday, we’ll randomly choose a comment to win a Fat Quarter Pack of Benartex’s Victoria fabric line!  So, send in those comments, and good luck! You may just be the first winner of 2010!

Happy New Year, everyone!

I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Pat, first through Facebook, where I joined in on her OP Challenge in February.  It was so much fun and it was my first time to do an online class/challenge type event like that!  Did anyone else join Pat for that challenge? Anywho,  she was so gracious in my endeavers to blog that weekend!! I really learned a lot from her! She’s such an awesome coach!  We keep in touch on Facebook and Twitter and I make it a point to check out her blog often! You’ll have to check it out : Pat Sloan’s Place. 

Did you know Pat used to be a computer programmer? Yeah! From programmer to quilter extraordinare! That’s probably how writing patterns comes so easy for her.  Pat is known throughout the quilting world as a designer of patterns & fabrics, a lecturer, teacher, you can find her in several magazines and in several online quilting groups, on YouTube…hmmm…what else? I know you can find her just about anywhere on the internet and when you google her there’s page after page of links on where you can find her or read about her. She recently posted to her blog about where you can find her.  So, check her out!

Pat’s style is mostly of the folk art style and is inspired by anything from fabrics to flowers! Pat usually has a theme in mind when designing like with ‘Ma Ma’s Garden” wanting the feel of her great grandmother’s gardens and ‘Cottage Rose’ that began from one of her favorite traditional quilt blocks!

I found this neat video from Pat on YouTube. There are many more where this came from! Hope you enjoy! 

Don’t forget about the Drawing for the Scottie Turns 20 Quilt! All comments made during the month of April will be entered in for our drawing of this totally adorable quilt!

Guacamole! Something we love to eat, have trouble spelling, and wonder how it is made. I am a personal fan. To me there is nothing better than really good guacamole also known as avocado dip. Problem is that there are so many places who serve the really bad variety. What makes a good guacamole? The most common mistake that is made is that people add too much onion and cilantro. For some reason there is this opinion that without cilantro (and lots of it) it ain’t Mexican. And garlic…too much! I looked at a recipe the other day with these ingredients:

• 3 avocados – peeled, pitted and diced
• 1 tablespoon sour cream
• 2 (3 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 2 tablespoons salsa
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 dash ground black pepper
• 1 dash garlic salt
• 1 dash onion powder

Now to some of you this might seem simple. There are 8 ingredients here…you only need 2. That’s right! You can make a delicious guacamole salad from only 2 ingredients. Here’s how:

2 or 3 avocados depending on how large they are and how much you want to make. They need to be good quality – not mushy and not hard. A good rule of thumb is they need to be soft enough you can mash them up with a fork.

The second magic ingredient is On of the Border salsa (made in Dallas, TX!! Yoohoo!) – I usually get the mild variety. You can get it at Sam’s and most major grocery stores. You can make this recipe with other brands but I don’t guarantee that it will be as good. Although – it just might be better so don’t hesitate to experiment. How much? A couple of tablespoons to start with. Stir it into your mashed up avocados. You might want to add a few shakes of salt and a wee bit of black pepper.

The “taste test” is the important step. You should be the first to taste test. If it needs more salsa then add another “whateveryouthinkitneeds”. Taste test again. When it is really, really good invite your friends to taste test. Wait for loads of “Yummmmmm”s and “Wow..that is good”s. Eat it with chips (have you tried Megathins? – another personal favorite) or put it on top of your next Mexican salad.
I was appointed to make the guacamole at a recent Bunkhouse retreat and it was consumed post-haste so once again my secret recipe was a success! Remember: when making guacamole, don’t sweat it! It’s really easy!

Make up a batch and let me know what you think!

deb

This soup is really the best!  My friend Dana and I often get together at my house and sew.  And, being the focused individuals that we are, we don’t want to leave the sewing room to cook.  Dana discovered this recipe in the “Fix It and Forget It Cookbook” – a cookbook of crock pot recipes.  We added a couple of ingredients but basically here is how it goes:

4 skinless/boneless chicken breasts

2 cans black beans (I use Bush’s)

2 cans Rotel tomatoes (My friends, Karen and Brenda Lou from the west coast wanted to know what Rotel is…what??????)

1 small can chopped green chili’s (don’t use chipolte…Dana and I did this one time and had to give the whole pot to the fellows we had working in the yard that day.  TOO HOT!)

1 small can tomato sauce

Throw it all in a crock pot, set it to cook 4 – 6 hours or long enough for your chicken to fall apart (whichever comes first).  Add 1 can shoepeg corn and 1 small can sliced olives about 30 minutes before you serve it. 

This stuff is just yummy.  You can serve it with garlic bread, flour tortillas, or even cornbread.  Warmed over it is even better!  I have heard that this cookbook has been discontinued and I noticed we took it off our site.  I do believe, however that I might have an extra copy or two of it.  If you want one of them please email me and I’ll see what I can do.  Serve this at your next quilt retreat – you’ll make your friends smile! 

Ciao!