Wonderful Christmas

Slow Cooker Orange Cranberry Bread Pudding by frances robson

Good evening and come on in for a cup of coffee and will soon have some warm, bread pudding for you. I will share the recipe with you later and it is really good and one I concocted to use leftover breads of all kinds. We don't throw away anything or almost anything.

I hope ya'll had a good Christmas for we surely did. Our children and one grandchild was with us plus 1 grand dog and 2 yellow kittens. They were all well behaved and got along famously- even the children and grandchild. There were no fights, mostly smiles and though each of them are most opinionated, individuals and stand their ground, there was no bloodshed and we all had a great time. Just wish our granddaughter and her family could have been with us for we had one more sofa bed we could open up - love a full house.

They took really good care of their mama and daddy with gifts. We got a new coffee maker, Starbucks and Jittery Joe coffees and homemade jellies and preserves. My great brother and his wife provided the teas, hot chocolate and scone mixes. These will all be great with homemade scones - can't wait to bake them. We enjoy scones and I have found the Sticky Finger mixes are the best. The only problem is they are hard to find around here and World Market is the one place I can always find them and that is several hours away. When I do find them I buy a bunch.

If you have never heard of Jittery Joe's coffee - you have never been to Athens, GA for this is the place which keeps UGA students wired for class. It is a coffee shop and the students keep it packed along with locals for the coffee is good, hot and strong. Their warehouse is in Athens and you can buy the beans or they will grind it for you and put it in a can with their unusual label. They have 7 shops with 5 in Georgia, 1 in New York and 1 in Dallas and you can order online. You have to try it for it is strong but mellow and delicious. Add the fresh baked scones and the fig preserves our son and his wife brought and you have a feast.

Now I will share the bread pudding recipe with you. I like to make bread puddings and most always use the slow cooker for it is so easy and a great way to use day old breads or older of any sort. You can use a single type of bread but mostly I mix lots of kinds including biscuits and muffins. Leftover doughnuts and pannetone bread make great puddings but most any kind of bread can be included and I like the mixed breads and I always toast them slightly before cutting them in cubes. Try it and if you don't have a slow cooker, shame on you, but you can also bake them in the oven.

This is my latest concoction for I had several breads and some oranges from our tree which I needed to use. If you don't have fresh oranges, use juice from the carton and you can substitute raisins for the dried cranberries - use what you have and don't run to the store for one recipe.


Slow Cooker or Crock Pot Orange Cranberry Bread Pudding

Ingredients:
3 eggs, beaten
3 cups milk
½ cup orange juice – fresh squeezed if possible
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tsp. Orange flavoring
1 to 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
sprinkle of freshly grated nutmeg or ¼ tsp. ground
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups lightly toasted bread cubes - use any breads you have- mix all kinds
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 apple quartered, cored, and sliced thinly
orange zest

Preparation:
Combine milk, eggs, orange juice, and flavoring ingredients in smaller bowl. Pour over bread cubes- gently stirring until cubes are thoroughly moistened but still in cubes. Add cranberries and stir gently. Place mixture in a butter sprayed slow cooker. Place sliced apples on top. Cook on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours, or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean. Serve hot or cold.
Breads I used – sliced white bread, 1 cinnabon muffin, 1 sandwich thin, 1 small biscuit, sliced whole wheat bread , couple slice of pannetone bread– use whatever leftover breads you have – will taste good.

I hope you will try this recipe for it is good and good for you.

Ya'll be careful going home and come back to see us real soon.

Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach

Thursday's Thoughts

Good morning, ya'll. Come on in for the coffee's ready and sure does taste good. Speaking of coffee, my sweetheart was telling me about a blind coffee test of some of the really expensive coffees in comparison to the house brands. You know those coffees you go in these coffee houses and pay a lot of money to stand there and look at that wall of choices and think and think and then choose something you never heard of, pay $5 for 1 cup. Then you sit down with a paper cup of something that doesn't even taste like coffee because they have added cinnamon, chai (whatever that is), all kind of flavors and you wonder why in the world you did such a stupid thing when all you wanted was a cup of coffee!

Now don't get me wrong or your panties in a wad or BVDs, whichever you wear, I like some of these fancy coffees and I've been drinking Dunkin D for years when I can get it, but some of these places have just gone out of their gourds with their combinations. Why would you want to mess up the nectar of the gods or that great brown bean which gives us that boost every day, several times a day in my situation?

Back to my original thought, they found out that the old Eight O'Clock brand won! Bet their bubble was busted. I like this brand also and used to buy it at the old A&P store and when you would open up that package of beans, pour it in the grinder and press that button, you could smell that wonderful aroma all over the store. You just couldn't wait to get home and make a cup and drink it. It made you want to grab a coffee pot and make a cup right there. I had a non-coffee drinking friend say that if it tasted as good as it smells she would be a coffee addict like me. She is a little strange any way.

So, I guess that proves that we can make our own coffee using whatever our favorite brand is and know it is the best around. and not have to go to one of these fancy places and pay an arm and a leg and mortgage the house for 1 cup of coffee with lots of stuff in it. Just give me a cup with a tad of sweetener and a tad of cream and I am in "coffee heaven." So come on in for a cup with me. Don't it smell good and tastes better.

That's about all for today for my face hurts from Dr. Jekyll and I'm going to get out the ice pack.

Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach

Saturday's Musings

Good evening. Come on in and have a cup of coffee for it just finished dripping and it is good, strong and hot. We like strong coffee and I don't know why Roy does but mine is inherited from my Granddaddy Williamson.

Granddaddy was Mississippi born, bred and raised in or about Bunker Hill, MS which is close to Columbia which is close to Hattisburg. Not sure the name of the specific community but this is close. He was a carpenter by trade but did some oil field work during the depression to feed his family. A jack of all trades is a good description for him for he also preached during his latter years as a Baptist preacher. I never heard him preach but I saw him reading his Bible and studying a lot but I just never could picture him in the pulpit for he was a pistol ball! I think that is why I see all preachers as not perfect, for I knew my granddaddy. Sorry Ben.

The coffee making came from his years spent in Louisiana and he became partial to their coffee with chicory in it. The best I remember he used Luzianne with chicory for many years and there were hard and fast rules about the coffee making process. These were - never wash the pot with hot water and soap, always begin with fresh, cold water from the well, percolate until strong enough to eat the finish of the spoon and serve hot with nothing added.

Now for those who don't know what a percolator is, it is a metal coffeepot with a basket in it where you put the ground coffee after filling it with water. On the top, there was a little glass bubble thing where as the coffee bubbled you could see it in that little bubble thing. Of course it was not electric but sat on the wood stove or the eye of a gas or electric stove and you had to watch it carefully to keep it from boiling over. There was a fine line between percolating and boiling over and burnt coffee is not a very pleasing smell.

Years later, there were electric versions and this was wonderful for it was set not to get too hot and boil over. That was a miracle for us coffee adicts and then came the drip pot, etc and etc. As you can tell coffee is a staple for me and is at the top of the food pyramid.

Back to Granddaddy. He would start the coffee every morning with fresh cold water and the Luzianne coffee in the pot that had only been rinsed out with cold water and you could smell it all over the house and it was like a bugle call to me. When I would crawl up in his lap as he drank his coffee, he would take a spoon, fill it with coffee, blow on it to cool it off and then slowly let me drink from the spoon. Soon this wasn't enough though and as soon as I could drink from a cup he would fix me my own cup with half coffee, half milk and lots of sugar. Talk about good! That was nectar from heaven or hot stuff from Louisiana.

He also never made a lot of coffee and warmed it up during the day. You had to have a fresh pot several times a day for old coffee was unacceptable. I kinda think that myself although I will drink warmed up coffee if that's all I can find. There is one big line I draw however and that is instant coffee. That would be a "Williamson sacrilege" and I will just do without before drinking that stuff. It would make my granddaddy roll over in his grave to see me drink instant coffee.

I'm so glad that he taught me one of the finer tastes in life and how to enjoy this nectar of the gods. I don't follow all his rules but there are a few:

1. Buy good coffee - cheap is cheap and doesn't taste worth a flip
2. Drink coffee from a mug when at all possible for you don't have to keep refilling and it stays hot longer.
3. If you have to have a cup and saucer - don't saucer your coffee to cool it. That is unmannerly. Now for those that don't know what saucering your coffee might be, it is pouring some coffee in your saucer, blowing on it and drinking from the saucer. That is ill-mannered and only the ones their mama didn't raise right do that. WE DID NOT - our mama raised us right and so did our granddaddy.
4. Drink it strong and drink a lot.

So, if you want a good cup of coffee, come on over for I have Granddaddy looking down from heaven to make sure I do it right.

Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach