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Ask Granny
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July 6, 98
Hello my friends, I wish you well. I hope you’re not working too hard in that fine garden of yours- pause here for much laughter from most of you if your efforts in the truck patch are as pitiful as mine are this year! I remembered buying some asparagus roots when I saw a T V program on how to plant it one day- and searched them out without too much trouble. Right-hand nephew J.W. dug holes in the hard dirt- I use the word loosely- and I managed to at least get them in the ground. I told him if it can grow from where a bird "deposits" a seed it should grow, I did my best. The "tommy-toes" that grew a foot and a half tall before I finally set them out have started blooming and looking good Now I must get the time and energy to dig the rest of the elephant garlic and the various types of onions. I forgot where I planted what so I won’t know which did well and which barely made my sets back till they’re all dug up. One good thing for us lazy gardeners, if you leave onions or garlic in the ground it’ll set there for awhile waiting for you to do your duty then it will just start growing again when the rains and cool days of Fall roll around. Time is passing me by so fast that may be tomorrow!
I hope you had a safe and happy Fourth of July with all your family around to love you. We had the Grand Kids overnight so we had a very active one anyway. They seemed to be even more energetic than usual (A polite way of saying they moved at warp speed, bodies and mouths.) and it never dawned on me till Richard came to do the fireworks bit that all the sodas and iced tea they were drinking was full of sugar. I know the experts say sugar won’t make kids hyperactive, so I issue an open invite to any of these experts to come over here and test these two kiddoes. I’ll start them off on raisins, which they love. They ate a few handfuls one night and were actually running in circles in the middle of the living room. Fast! I had to eat a few myself before I could catch them to put them to bed!
We had to wait for Richard to set off the fireworks because Papa and I "didn’t know how". Johnny tried to teach us- he said" You put the light thing on the fuse then you run real fast". Then he looked at me real thoughtful like and said" Granny, can you run?" I told him it depended on what was chasing me. We waited for Richard. Amber and I made some most delicious fruit salad and Johnny helped make the chili dogs. I sliced up a nicely ripened cantaloupe and opened a bag of blue-corn tortilla chips and called it a good enough-to-eat meal when washed down with lots of freshly brewed iced tea.
To the lady who wanted the recipe for "Beanie Weenies"- As far as I remember I’ve never had such a recipe. If I was going to fake one up I would just slice Vienna sausage into my favorite baked beans recipe.
I don’t have a written recipe, just dump fried onions, brown sugar, a dab of mustard into Van Camps pork and beans and heat and stir once in awhile till they start sticking to the pan. How’s that for a recipe? Don’t forget to sprinkle crisp bacon bits on top.
My "Red-white-and-blue fruit salad" is just as easy. Pour a can of red grapefruit slices and a can of Mandarin oranges in a bowl. Add 2 chopped bananas and some chopped red apple- with peel left on. Add some green grapes and red ones too if you like. Stir up a container of peach yogurt and gently stir in to mix. (I used Dannon’s regular, not low-cal.) Sweeten to taste. Now, you yogurt haters out there, trust me on this one- you’ll never know it’s in there. If you don’t want it this juicy you could drain the citrus fruit. I liked it fine the way Amber and I made it and the juice is pretty. I’ll never go back to my old recipe where I peeled and sectioned all that citrus fruit. The regular canned oranges in the dairy case were too expensive so I’ll keep an eye out for those in tin cans- if they make such a thing anymore. When we made this salad every Christmas when I was growing up we always put the nubs off grated coconut in there, and I know some folks add regular shredded coconut to their recipe. Some call this Ambrosia - Food for the God’s I believe is the translation. It’s Greek to me!
Let me hear from you folks at 1417 Lakeview Terr., Clarksville, TN. 37040, or askgranny@juno.com