Chinese or Mexican?..............Mexican Take out or home-cooked?.....home cooked Burgers or hot dogs?.............burgers Cheeseburgers or plain burgers?..Plain French fries or tator tots?.........Fries Ham or turkey on Thanksgiving?....Turkey Cranberry sauce or green bean caserole?....both Yams or regular potatoes?....regular only Corn or stuffing?....cornbread dressing Broccoli or spinach?....Broccoli Celery or asparagus?.....Asparagus, as long as it is fresh Bagels or doughnuts?.....doughnuts Cream cheese or butter?.....unsalted butter only Canned vegetables or fresh?....canned food is dead food...fresh

Diane, definitely get the software installed, I love to see everyone's pictures! For the muffins I used a King Arthur recipe, which I took some liberties with. I added a grated carrot, some leftover chopped pineapple and a handful of dried cherries. They didn't rise high and were a little dense, but very good. Apple Muffins These dark, moist muffins, studded with fresh apple, will keep well for several days. You don't even need to heat them up to enjoy them, which makes them a perfect after-school snack. The brown sugar sprinkled on top adds a nice, crunchy touch. 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature 1/2 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup brown sugar, divided 1 large egg 1 cup buttermilk; or 1 cup plain (not Greek-style) yogurt; or 3/4 cup Greek-style yogurt + 1/4 cup milk 1 cup (4 ounces) King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour 1 cup King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon 2 cups peeled, cored, and chopped apples; about 2 large apples, about 3/4 pound whole apples 1) Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease and flour a 12-cup muffin pan, or line with papers and grease the insides of the papers. 2) Mix together the butter, granulated sugar, and 1/4 cup of the brown sugar, beating until fluffy. 3) Add the egg and mix well, stopping once to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. 4) Gently mix in the buttermilk or yogurt. 5) Stir in the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. 6) Fold in the chopped apples. 7) Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, sprinkling the remaining 1/2 cup brown sugar on top. 8) Bake the muffins for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. 9) Remove the muffins from the oven, cool them for 5 minutes in the pan, then turn them out onto a rack to finish cooling completely. Yield: 12 muffins. In the meantime, my day started with a sore throat. We went to the farm where we found the water faucet had frozen so we hauled 150 gallons of water in a barrel to fill the stock tank. The tractor wouldn't start because of the cold so we towed a 1,000 round bale with the pick up. On the way home we broke a belt and limped the truck to Dave's for repair. (sigh) It was not a good day, and Elery made chicken soup when we got home. OK, that Asian fish wrap picture just isn't right, it looks fine on Photobucket, but won't copy over so I'm deleting it. Onward and upward! One night we had chicken quesadillas with refried beans and a side of wheat berries in a vinegar based dressing: Another night we had brisket, using Carol/Dishesdone's recipe. I didn't use catsup and chile sauce, though, I used a pint of Chase's chile sauce and in place of the beer I used some apple cider. It was really good and we had mashed turnips, peas and some multigrain bread with it. The multi-grain bread thread made me think about baking a loaf: And Johnliu's Fried Chicken thread made me haul out the cast iron skillet and make some fried chicken, along with some homecanned kale, warm cornbread and chipotle mashed sweet potatoes. Who knows what tomorrow might bring, in the kitchen or otherwise! Annie

All the talk about Scalloped Oysters - I am adding them to my menu for this year. I found the following Martha Stewart recipe, it sounds pretty good to me, but since I have never had a scalloped oyster, I'm not sure if it has too much "stuff" and should I stick to the recommendations above? Scalloped Oysters Choose fresh, briny oysters that are small or medium in size. Martha Stewart Living, November 2012 http://www.marthastewart.com/939250/scalloped-oysters Prep Time25 minutes Total Time35 minutes Serves8 Ingredients 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided, plus more for baking dish 3 cups coarse fresh breadcrumbs Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper 1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley 1 celery stalk, very thinly sliced on the diagonal (1/2 cup) 3 scallions, trimmed and chopped (1/3 cup) 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves 2 tablespoons dry sherry 3/4 cup heavy cream 2 pints (32 ounces) shucked fresh oysters in their liquor, drained, with 2 tablespoons liquor reserved 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg Directions 1.Preheat oven to 450 degrees with rack in top position. Brush a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with butter. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add breadcrumbs and 1/4 teaspoon salt, and cook, stirring frequently, until breadcrumbs are golden brown and crisp, about 10 minutes. Stir in parsley, and remove from heat. Sprinkle half the breadcrumbs evenly in baking dish, and transfer remaining breadcrumbs to a plate. 2.Wipe pan clean, and return to stove. Melt remaining 4 tablespoons butter over medium-high heat. Saute celery and scallions, stirring occasionally, until scallions just begin to soften but celery is still bright green, about 2 minutes. Stir in thyme. Add sherry, and simmer 30 seconds. Add cream, and bring to a boil. Stir in reserved oyster liquor, the nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Remove from heat, and stir in oysters. 3.Spread oyster mixture evenly over breadcrumbs in baking dish. Top with remaining breadcrumbs, and bake until bubbling and oysters are just cooked through, 7 to 8 minutes. Serve immediately.

Food prep day! Mom is making the turkey, stuffing, corn casserole and probably peas and onion this time, I'm doing the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and pies. Skybird is making apple butter and cranberry orange sauce. I'm heading to Mom's today to get the tableware prepped, chop vegetables, anything I can do to avoid scrambling tomorrow. I hope to be done and home before our weather moves in. Everybody drive safe tomorrow! keen10138, Both Schumacher and Sheffield seed companies carry persimmon seed. Looking at the zone, I think Diosyros viginiana is your best bet for cold hardiness, it's listed as zone 5. I would look for a seed source from a northern, colder climate. Sheffield's stock was collected from Louisiana. Schumacher's lists the seed as being from a northern source, but doesn't list the state collected from. Sheffield's Schumacher's If you'd be interested in buying a small tree instead, Oikos has 2 varieties in stock. Oikos is in Michigan, so cold hardiness wouldn't be an issue. Oikos A brief reading off the net tells me there are male and female plants. I don't know how you'll know what you have until the tree matures, so you may need to grow several and hope you get at least one female. I have no experience with persimmon, but started buying a variety of tree seed from Sheffield's last winter. I had mostly failures (my fault), but have learned a lot and have few Scarlet oak seedlings to show for my efforts. I'm going to try 4 conifer varieties and cornelian cherry from seed in the spring. Barb