Marlene McKay » Food

Slept through the celebration

Marlene — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:36:05 +0000

How did you celebrate the new year? I wanted to stay up, and my hubby and I even broke open a bottle of champagne! We each drank two glasses (we sipped) and turned on the Dick Clark celebratory television show. I’m sorry to say that we both fell asleep (me on the sofa, him in his recliner) around eleven pm and woke up about around one am. Oh well, we missed it! But you know what, the new year is here just the same. Hopefully this is not the LAST new year our civilization watches!

Christmas fruits

Marlene — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:31:01 +0000

The past couple of days we’ve been getting gift boxes in the mail from my hubby’s relatives. Seems as if they all decided to buy fruit from Harry & David this year! We love their pears, so we are glad to get the gifts. One of the boxes arrived with no message as to who the gift is from, it just said in the message part for my son to keep his hands off of the fruit! I am thinking it is from my sister-in-law, but I’m not sure of that.

Today we got another box, this time from my hubby’s aunt – it had pears and candies and nuts and smoked salmon and baklava and all kinds of great goodies in it! That box cost a bundle, I am sure! The last time I remember eating smoked salmon was right around 1999, and I really enjoyed it, so I’m sure I’ll enjoy that treat, assuming that my hubby doesn’t eat it all before I get any of it!

What is your favorite summer salad?

Marlene — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:00:13 +0000

It seems that when the heat is high outside, my kitchen becomes the hottest room in the house. I will do anything to avoid having to spend an hour in the kitchen cooking with the hot stove and oven making the room heat up. So I’ve become a great fan of cold summer salads.

Do you have a favorite salad?

The new Twizzlers

Marlene — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 13:53:35 +0000

Yesterday I was at the store and saw someone buying a package of Twizzlers. No big deal, right? Well, these Twizzlers were not licorice, and not strawberry. There was an assortment of colors in that Twizzler bag.

Well, that piqued my curiosity, so I bought a bag for my own family to try. There are supposed to be a variety of flavors. One of them being watermelon, which happens to be one of my favorite flavors.

Got the bag home, and we opened the bag. We each took a different color. Much to our dismay, none of the new flavors tasted anything at all like the flavor it is supposed to be. Such a disappointment! No one in the house wants to eat anymore of that candy, so I guess we’ll be throwing it out. Or maybe I’ll take the bag to work to let my co-workers try it out for themselves so they don’t waste their own money on buying a bag.

Looking for coupons online – beware of hackers

Marlene — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 14:41:15 +0000

I’ve been trying to find coupon-clipping websites to use to clip some coupons to help cut down on my shopping expenses. Several ladies at work have told me that they get a lot of coupons off of the Internet. So last night I went online and found what looked to be promising, and I signed up. I was immediately notified by my security software that there was a hacker attempt at that very second to get into my system! Thankfully my system blocked the attack.

I thought that was strange, and a coincidence. So I went and picked out my coupons and tried to print them off. They wouldn’t print. I thought I had done something wrong, so I tried it again. Again I got that notice from my security software. So I wonder if that website is a front for hackers, or if my security software is blocking something that I really wanted. Either way, I guess I’m not going to get coupons from that site!

Soda wars

Marlene — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 17:55:09 +0000

I’ve always had a sweet-tooth. I much prefer sweet tasting foods and beverages over spicy-hot or bitter or sour. So it would stand to reason that I prefer Pepsi-Cola over Coca-Cola; the taste is much sweeter. I can remember quite a few years ago that Coca-Cola changed its recipe to be sweeter in order to compete better with Pepsi. What an uproar it caused among loyal Coca-Cola drinkers! I remember that for a time, to try to keep the consumers happy Coca-Cola then started selling both recipes, the original AND the new one; they marketed the original as “Coke Classic.” To be honest, I DID like the new recipe better because it WAS sweeter and tasted much like Pepsi. However, I now tend to drink the Pepsi-Free soda because it is caffeine free and I try to reduce my caffeine intake as much as possible. That being said, when I drink a diet soda, (and I avoid diet sodas because they have a nasty aftertaste) I think that the diet Coke tastes better than the diet Pepsi! The aftertaste is not as nasty.

Valentine’s Day

Marlene — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 18:03:30 +0000

Well, today is Valentine’s Day, and I hope everyone has a good one. I bought little boxes of chocolates and Valentine’s day cards for my kids and my hubby and put them by their breakfast bowls for them to see when they came to the kitchen to eat. I hope to eat dinner out tonight at Applebees! We’ll have to leave early to beat the dinner rush because it’s a Saturday!

Don’t peel your fingers

Marlene — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:51:10 +0000

My family doesn’t eat a lot of fruit. They tend to feel that it is “inconvenient” to have to deal with peels, seeds, slicing the fruit, juice running down your arm and pits. (Sigh.) So I try to make eating fruit easier by buying little gadgets that make it easier to deal with these things. After all, fruit is a healthy snack, right?

So I recently bought several little gadgets that are called “orange peelers.” They look a lot like a toothbrush, but have a sharp point that you use to score the orange peel to make it easier for the user to slide another part of the peeler under the peel to remove it. I thought that these were portable enough to tuck into a lunch box with an orange, and simple and safe enough for even older children to use. (By older I mean at least 12 years old.)

Well, I had no idea how dangerous those little peelers can be! In the past week both my husband and my adult son have sliced open their hands when they were using these little gadgets while trying to peel an orange! So I want to caution people to be really careful when using these things; they are not as “safe” as they seem! And if you are thinking about buying an orange peeler, please be very aware that they probably are NOT safe for young children, and may not even be safe for husbands!

Happy Holidays

Marlene — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 13:55:19 +0000

If you have a big family, I suspect you know all too well the stress of hosting a big family gathering. Whether it is a sit down dinner for everyone or a buffet or a pot luck, getting ready to feed a large crowd takes a lot of planning and energy.Time to roll up our sleeves and get cooking.

We hope to have a few of the closer family members stop by this afternoon and then we’ll host another get-together on New Year’s Day for the other family members who can’t make it here on Christmas Day.

Here’s hoping our holidays are warm and bright. Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving

Marlene — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:51:40 +0000

Best wishes to you and your family for a wonderful day of feasting and thankfulness. Maybe a parade in the morning and some football in the afternoon would be nice, too. Or get up extremely early and go deer hunting. Whichever way you choose to take advantage of the holiday, I hope it works out well for you and that you enjoy your day.