Russian Tea Mix

My aunt used to always make up some of this mix and give it out as a present at Christmas along with a big batch of hot chocolate mix. She still gives us the hot chocolate but stopped making the tea a few years ago. I found a Russian tea recipe like hers and thought I would share it.

1 large jar of Tang
3/4 cup instant tea
1 package Wyler's lemonade
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves (ground)

Put about 3 teaspoons per regular size tea cup. Bring water to boil in tea kettle and pour over mix while stirring until cup is full. It is good for what ails you! Especially this time of year.

Hoecake Mistake

I can't believe a month has passed since my last post! Recovery from Christmas is almost as busy as preparing for Christmas!

So, I guess I will get back on the blogging bandwagon.

We have had a crazy week. Monday was a holiday and then we had snow.

Wednesday I didn't go to work and stayed home with the kids and made a snowman.

Here he is with Buddy Row and Fancy Pants.

This snowman took two hours to make. It was not snowman making snow. After this we went in and I fixed a huge supper of roast and rice and gravy and green bean casserole and hoe cake. I don't usually fry anything but I had found the recipe online and wanted to try it. They were really good and I ate two of them.

After supper I was slowly getting more and more pain in my back and side and I thought I had pulled a muscle making the snowman. The pain got worse and worse until it was excruciating. I then started vomiting and thought, ok I have a stomach virus AND a pulled muscle. The pain was worse than labor and I spent the better part of two hours rolling on the floor in agony. The Yankee woke up and took one look at me and said, just lay still and you will be alright and then he went back to sleep(My Hero). Thank goodness I finally remembered I had some leftover vicadin from surgery last year and took one of those. If not I would have been in the emergency room before it was all over. The medicine gave me enough relief that I went to sleep about 4 am. When I woke up I had no pain and no nausea, I was just flat wore out and sore. I got up and looked online at symptom checkers and they all pointed to a gallbladder attack and that it was probably set off by eating the fried food. I then remembered that four years ago after a CAT scan for another problem the doctor said I had gallstones but that if they didn't cause any problems he would just leave them there. I am hoping and praying I don't have another attack. And I am positively never, ever going to get anywhere near another hoecake.

Really Good Ham and Cheese Rolls

Everyone will love these! I made them for a Christmas get together tonight and everyone wanted the recipe. You will want to eat the whole plate of them and lick it clean.

POPPY SEED HAM ROLLS
2 (9oz.) packages ocsar myer smoked shaved ham
2 (8oz.) packages Swiss cheese, sliced
1 (24 pack) precooked dinner rolls
1 stick butter
1 1/2 tbsp. poppy seed
1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tsp. yellow mustard
1 tbsp. dry minced onion

Split rolls in half. Place in large baking pan. Place a couple of slices of ham and a slice of cheese on each roll overlapping if needed - replace top.
Melt butter and add all remaining ingredients except poppy seed (I used one and a half recipe of topping). Pour over rolls and sprinkle with poppy seed. Cover with foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. For crusty rolls, remove foil for the last five minutes. Put on plate and wrap in foil until ready to serve.

Happy Christmas To All

I think a lot of people are going to be stressed during Christmas this year. I personally know a lot of people who do not have the money to spend on gifts and parties ( or little things like light bills and phone bills). A lot of rich people in this country spend more on beauty treatments in a week than most of the people I know make in a year. It is no mystery to me why the economy is collapsing the way it is. The rich have been getting richer and the poor getting poorer for so many years. The rich make their money off of poor people. They have sucked us dry for years with high interest rates and taxes while they got tax breaks and earned interest. Money has been flowing up for so many years that the well has run dry. I am all for capitalism, but it has to be fair. You can't take from the poor and give to the rich and expect it to continue to work indefinitely. Those that have made their money on the backs of poor people deserve anything they have coming to them and I hope that the government does not bail them out. Nobody has ever offered to pay my bills and I sure don't want to pay theirs. I'm sure the rich in this country will have a dream of a Christmas except that this year they will have one thing in common with the poor. They will have a cloud over their heads as to what tomorrow holds for the economy and ultimately they have a lot more to lose than we do.

Alfred E. Newman

I have always tried to put my finger on who Obama looks like. Comedien Dana Carvey did that for me last night. I was watching a little of his comedy special and he was cracking on all of the political figures we have been dealing with for the past couple of years. He called McCain the cryptkeeper! Then he said he had decided to vote for the man from Chicago. He described him as a cross between Erkel and the guy from the cover of Mad Magazine. Thanks to him I now realize where I had seen Obama before: evidently not only is he related to Brad Pitt but he is a distant cousin of Alfred E. Newman!