Happy Thanksgiving

"The year has turned its circle,
The seasons come and go.
The harvest all is gathered in
And chilly north winds blow.
Orchards have shared their treasures,
The fields, their yellow grain,
So open wide the doorway-
Thanksgiving comes again!"


I Wish You Love, Peace and Happiness With Family & Friends,
Joyce

Mimi's Flan Recipe Repost

Here you have the ingredients.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup of sugar

8 extra large egg yolks

1/2 cup of sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup whole milk

1 cup evaporated milk

1 can condensed milk (14oz.)

1 -8 oz. cream cheese (room temp)

Unsalted butter for pan

The first thing you want to do is caramelize 1/3 cup if sugar on low heat.

While the sugar is melting, butter the bottom and sides of an 8x8 pan. Please excuse my scratchy pan. I promise I will buy a new one. It's just my favorite "flan pan".

Stir it and stir it, so it doesn't burn.

It should look like this.

As soon as it's completely melted (don't over cook) and has a nice color like this, poor it into the pan. Don't try to spread it around, just poor it in and set aside. It's going to get hard right away, but don't worry.

Now combine the egg yolks, 1/2 cup of sugar, vanilla, and salt in a bowl.

Whisk well.

In another bowl combine room temperature cream cheese and whole milk. This step is very important because you want to make sure the cream cheese and the milk combine well. You can warm the cup of whole milk slightly so that it helps melt the cream cheese and there's no lumps.

Then add evaporated milk and condensed milk, (do not heat), and combine well.

Now combine the egg bowl with the milk bowl and whisk well.

Pour into pan right on top of hardened caramelized sugar. As it cooks in the water bath the caramelized sugar melts and spreads all over the bottom of the pan. Place pan inside a much larger pan and fill with hot water half way up the sides. Cook at 325 degrees for 1 hour. Remove from the of oven and let it cool. After it cools cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate 3-4 hours or overnight.

Next day invert the flan onto a plate and this how it should look.

Serve in small squares and spoon some caramelized sugar on top. Other toppings you could use would be a dab of cool whip, or a spoon full of sweetened coconut is also very good. One more thing. You can make the flan without the cream cheese. You just combine all ingredients together in one bowl and continue from there. It is also very good!!!!

I hope you enjoy this creamy custard dessert.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

I Wish You Love and Happy Cooking,
Joyce

Osessed with clouds, I am

I have such a great view when I am working at the stadium. I have become obsessed

with the beauty of the sky and the clouds. Look up everyone!

I Wish You Love and Beautiful Clouds,
Joyce

What I Like......

These new Mabelline lipsticks are awesome...

Love these.....

Good smelling stuff...

Smells so good....

This is a great economical skin cream.....

A great mask...

and a very good hair spray.

Okay, I know everyone is into posting Thanksgiving recipes, but my daughter-in-law is cooking for the first time this year, so I don't have to worry about it ......yeah!!!!
I Wish You Love,
Joyce

This is a sin........

Me and my grands can't get enough.......just delicious!!!!!!

I Wish You Love,
Mimi

VETERAN'S DAY

Because of You, Unknown Soldier

By Courtney Tanabe

Because of you, I am here
Because of you, I am able to live freely
Yet I do not know you
And I have not done anything for you
But there you stand, ready to fight
And there you are prepared to die
For me
You've fought before
And you'll fight again
For someone you don't know
So thank you Unknown Soldier
Fighting for me
I'm here because of you
And I owe my future to you

"Our Gang" Halloween 2009

These kids live on the same street and have been friends for about five years. They have grown up together, playing basketball and football and hide & seek, listening to music and dancing, riding bikes and skateboards. They even get in trouble together. They celebrate their birthdays together. Whenever I go to visit, they are always outside playing and hanging out with each other. I have watched them grow and love that they continue to have each other to play with. It is a wonderful thing. They will always remember this time in their lives. They are such a happy group and truly "Our Gang".

I Wish Them Love and Happiness,

Mimi

All I know is that it tasted really good and we ate it.....

Every now and then I just feel like cooking and inventing at the same time, kind of like freelance cooking. Grabbing what I have on hand and going with it. The other day I was making cheeseburgers for the grands and had half of the ground chuck left over. So, I started thinking. What can I make? I looked in the pantry. Kelsey (the oldest, and my spicy food partner) said, Mimi, what are you gonna make?" I said, "I don't know but I really want to make something spicy." So we started inventing!!!! Here's what we came up with:).

I got my favorite cast iron skillet in the whole world and I browned the ground chuck until there was no pink left.

Diced up some onion and green pepper, and garlic.

Drained the ground chuck.

Sauteed the onion, green pepper and garlic in olive oil.

Added salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, oregano, 1l2 can of tomato sauce and let it cook for a bit.

Added the ground chuck and a can of black beans and a couple of spoonfuls of salsa.

Let those flavors simmer for a few.

Kelsey suggested we should eat it on a bed of white rice, so I made some white rice in the rice maker. And there you have it. Our invention!! Tyler said it smelled like chili. They loved it!!!! It was sooooo good and a no brainer to make. And the avocado on the side was just awesome!!!!!!

I love to cook like this every now and then. It's fun and there's not telling what you might come up with.

I Wish You Love and The Pleasures Of Cooking,

Mimi

Dolphins vs. The Saints, Idol's Kris Allen & The Fans

It was a very beautiful day but soooo awful HOT!!!!! I am still hoping for cool weather by next weeks game, I would love to put on the only sweater that I own.

I went to take a look at the field as I always do before the game, and there I saw American Idol's Kris Allen tossing the football around, and I was lucky enough to catch some pics of him.

The New Orleans Saints were in the big house and so were a lot of their fans who were very siked up, and dressed for the occasion.

They even have Saints sandals.

Dolphin fans.

And this must be Mrs. Miami Doplhin.

because she was AWESOME!!!!!

I was working, but I also had such a wonderful day watching people.

I Wish You Love,

Joyce

Cuban Stew Beef with White Rice

Ingredients:

1 pound of stew beef
1 can tomato sauce
1 medium onion
1 medium green pepper
3 cloves of garlic
Cumin
Dried oregano
Bay leaf
Olive oil
1/2 cup golden cooking wine
1/2 cup red cooking wine
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder
Beef bouillon
Sazon Goya with Azafran
White rice


Sprinkle stew beef with salt, pepper and garlic powder and brown in about a half a cup of olive oil in a heavy skillet.

Meanwhile get your Cuban trinity ready. Onion, green pepper and garlic diced up.

When your stew beef is browned remove it from the skillet and saute the onion, green pepper for a few minutes, until soft, then throw in the garlic and cook for a few more minutes.

Add the cooking wine and let it reduce.

Now you can start throwing in everything else while it's cooking on medium heat. Add one tablet beef bouillon, 2 bay leaves, one envelope of Sazon.

Add 1 can of tomato sauce and fill the can with water and add it too. Then add 1 teaspoon of cumin, l teaspoon of dried oregano, salt and pepper to taste.

Bring to a boil.

Cover, lower the heat to a good simmer and cook for 1 hour.

Serve over white rice.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. You can add diced potatoes about 20 minutes before the hour is up. Some people add green olives, and some add sweet peas. It's a matter of taste.

~I Wish You Love & Mucho Besitos~
Joyce

My View

Last weekend at work.

The U game.

The Dolphins vs. The Bills.

I Wish You Love,
Joyce

"Tequila Mojitos" From Southern Living.Com

I found this recipe here at Southern Living.Com and it looked soooo good, and refreshing. Of course if you want an original "Mojito" just use white rum instead of white tequila!!!!!

I Wish You Love,

Joyce

Monday Night Football/Dolphins vs. Colts

This is my place of employment.

It's just a beautiful place.

It was a beautiful day, but very hot and humid.

I arrive five hours before game time.

Reporters getting ready.

These sand castles were at the entrance of the stadium.

Tailgaters and BBQ!!!!

The pool.

Jimmy Buffet was performing.

The bar that I supervised.

Gloria and Emilio Estefan arriving.

Somewhere in the middle of this crowd is J-Lo and Marc Anthony.

The ramp after the game was over, it tilts downward so you walk fast.

These buses take us back to our cars which we parked at Calder Race Course, about 3 blocks from the stadium.

These ramps are keeping me in shape, walking up the ramp and down the ramp.

Too bad we lost!!!!!!!

XOXO,

Joyce

I Love the Thunder, Lightning and the September Showers

September In The Rain

by

Frank Sinatra

The leaves of brown came tumbling down,
remember in September in the rain
The Sun went out just like a dying amber,
that September in the rain
To every word of love I heard you whisper,
The raindrops seemed to play our sweet refrain
Though spring is here to me it's still September,
that September in the rain
To every word of love I heard you whisper
The raindrops seemed to play our sweet refrain
Though spring is here to me it is still September,
that September in the rain
That September that brought the pain,
that September in the rain


I Wish You Love,

Joyce

Superbowl Crab Dip

This is a repost due to the fact that I haven't been cooking anything interesting all summer. Husband and I are on an grilled chicken breast, pork loin, fish, diet with grilled or steamed veggies, and a small salad. I will start cooking again since the holidays are coming. I just thought I need to post something and this dip is really good for watching football.......

Ingredients:

2 cans Crabmeat (drained & paper removed)

2-8 ounce squares of Cream Cheese(room temperature)

Salt & Pepper to taste

1-2 cups of Ketchup

2-3 tablespoons Horseradish (creamy style)

Original Club Crackers

Lets' go!!!!!

Place room temperature cream cheese in bowl.

Mash up with fork.

Add crabmeat.


Combine well.


Add salt & pepper to taste.


Stir some more and set aside while you make the topping.



Add ketchup to another bowl.



Add 2-3 teaspoons of horseradish, depending upon how "hot" you like it.


As you can see, I like it hot!!!!!

Mix well.


Now place your crabmeat mixture on a platter and form an oval shape about 1/2 inch thick. Like this.



Pour sauce on top, letting it drip down the sides. At this point you may find that you need additional sauce to cover, so you can just make some more:).

Place crackers around dip and it's ready to serve.

I Wish You Love,

Enjoy,
Joycee