Hi Dana, I'm sorry that your lettuce looks beat up. I hope they recover, but wanted to make sure that you understood the objective of the process of hardening. You said I had them outside today on a covered porch, out of full sun but they were getting some wind and cooler temps. They're worse off now than they were this morning. It sounds like you might have expected them to look better after a day of hardening than before? The purpose is to toughen them up so that they will survive the permanent move outdoors. As such, they are going to get stressed along the way. We want to control the amount of stress so that it isn't enough to kill them, but they will sometimes look the worse off in the process. If temperatures are already suitable for the particular vegetable to be grown, we can avoid the hardening process by direct-seeding outdoors, as others have indicated. That way the seedlings grow up accustomed to the outdoor environment from the beginning.

Well...I have recruited the help of "The dietitian!"...my friend and often co-cook, who knowas lots about amounts etc... My other side kick, the caterer, is on the gulf coast! The bread is not regulart bread but unsliced French bread....about 4 to 5 inches in diameter, and the sausages are those little smokies cocktail things, on special for super Bowl sunday! In a meeting of the minds, with The Dietitian and me, we decided that 5 eggs per pint of milk should be about right. And we figured out we wanted to use one egg per 3 slices of bread. so I will buy 6 dozen eggs and 2 gallons of milk, realizing that some kids will want "vanilla milk" instead of chocolate. And we will monitor the intake of the little smokies. We will buy canned peaches and have fresh pineapple, bananas and grapes (the grapes weren't my idea)...some fruit will be donated...like bananas and a pineapple. I have 3 "fryers" abd others to do the dishing and pouring milk etc. And I just had an email saying that about 5 choir members will come early for practise so they can eat....will I have enough? Sure I said! The baked stuff in theory sounds easier...b ut for that nunber...it's really easier to fry and slap on platters in the oven, and put the plattersd on the table as needed, than to construct 10 casseroles. BUT....I won't be buying eggs nor nmilk nor the fresh fruit until we see what the weather is!! not supposed to be bad....but the reason I am cooking this week is because there was a weather cancellation and the person who was supposed to cook, can';t...

"Ahem"....moving to the mike... "tap tap"..."is thing thing on?" For those of you who were not raised in the dark ages, or who never even drew breath way back in the primordeal soup that first began the organisms called :"jello salads...in those dark days immediatly following WW II, there were many strange and wonderful recipes. Some can be called "classics", those like wilted lettuce salad and Waldorf cake...but certain ones are best forgotten. I am sure this had a name of some sort...but blessedly it has been forgotten, or lost. One package of lime jello 2 cups boiling water 1 can of Campbells vegetarian vegetable soup, drained. 3 eggs, hardboiled Mix the jello with the water, refrigerate until it turns syrupy. While the Jello is cooling, drain the soup. Mix the jello and the drained soup, turn into an 8 by 8 dish and halve the eggs and bury cut side up in the jello mix. Serve in squares on a bed of lettuce, dressed with a dollop of mayonaise, for a refreshing salad suitable for the modern health concious family. Linda C

My camera memory card died so I can't take pictures right now. But the sweet potato dish was a hit. Here's how I ended up making it. Didn't use an egg, and the vanilla yogurt was moldy so didn't use that., it would have been unnecessary anyway. I scrubbed four sweet potatoes, and put them in a 9 inch metal pan with a little bit of water in the bottom, and baked them at 400 degrees for just under an hour. Then I peeled them and diced them up and mixed them with about a half cup of crushed pineapple, 2 TBLSP of melted butter and 2 TBLSP of brown sugar and a heaping half tsp. of cinnamon and a tiny pinch of salt. Mixed and mashed this all together and put it into a greased 8 inch pyrex baking dish. Topped with mini marshmallows mixed with chopped walnuts, two big hand fulls. Took this to dad's house covered in foil. Baked at 375 covered for about 35 min. and then uncovered for about 10 more. I have to say I kinda liked it and the marshmallows went well with the toasted nuts. They didn't add much other than color and texture to the top, but that was not necessarily a bad thing. It was totally a dessert though, but since I just had ham and rice pilaf and salad to round out the meal, it was fine, not too sweet under those circumstances.