It's National Pickle Day!

Hi!  Winnie Griggs here.  I have a "National Day of" calendar and I like to check out all the fun or unusual commemorations noted there, and it's true today is National Pickle Day.  (It's also National Spicy Guacamole Day for those who might be interested in that bit of trivia).  It's difficult to imagine who might lobby for these special recognition days, but since it is the pickle's special day, I thought I'd dig out and share some fun facts about this popular garnishment and snack item.

• Pickles have been around for thousands of years - since at least 2030 BC in fact.  It was at this time
  
  that cucumbers were brought from India to the Tigris Valley.  There they were first preserved and consumed as pickles
• The ancient Egyptians consumed pickles, not only for their nutritional value, but also because they believed it enhanced beauty.  In fact, Cleopatra credited her good looks to her full diet of pickles!
• Both Julius Caesar and Napoleon fed pickles to their armies believing it would offer strength and good health to the troops
• Amerigo Vespucci, the man America got its name from, was a pickle merchant.
• The word pickle is derived from the Dutch word pekel, which means brine.
• During WWII, the US government commandeered 40% of all US pickle production to be used in rations for the troops.
• Drinking pickle brine is a common hangover cure in Poland
• The first annual pickle day was celebrated in 2001 in New York City.
• In The United States, over 2.5 BILLION pounds are consumed annually.
• The record for the world's largest pickle is held by Vlasic.  This award winning pickle weighed nearly five pounds and measured 16 inches in length and had a 3-1/2 inch diameter. That's about 10 times the size of a 'normal' pickle.
• More than half of the cucumbers grown in the US go into pickle production.
• In Connecticut, in order for a pickle to earn the name pickle, it must bounce! 

There were many more of these fun facts that I uncovered in my research, but I think I'll stop there.

So are you a pickle fan or not?  And which of these bits of pickle trivia surprised you the most?

GIVEAWAY ALERT:  Since I'm excited about my new release, Her Holiday Family, I'd like to giveaway a copy to one person who leaves a comment on this blog today.

HER HOLIDAY FAMILY

What happens when a straight-laced young widow’s home is invaded by ten rambunctious orphans and their handsome caretaker just in time for the holidays...

Reserved widow Eileen Pierce never considered herself the kind of woman who was cut out to be a mother. She wouldn't know what to do with one child, much less ten. But when handyman Simon Tucker is stranded in town with a group of young orphans just before Thanksgiving, she discovers she can't just turn them away.

Simon knows there's more to Eileen than meets the eye. Though his easygoing demeanor immediately clashes with her buttoned-up propriety, Simon's kindness soon melts Eileen's stern facade. Simon and the children have already upended Eileen's quiet, orderly life. Will they do the same to her guarded heart?

Victorian high tea with Danica!

Danica Favorite is here in California with me and we went to Victorian high tea! The special that month was a Downton Abbey tea and it was delish!

This was the currant scone and blackberry and brie cheese salad:

This was the finger sandwiches and chicken, artichoke, leek soup. It was SO yummy!

Anyone been to tea lately? Any favorite teas you’ve had?

Do you use a pressure Cooker?

Camy here! I am writing today’s blog post because I must confess to loving my pressure cooker almost as much as my husband.

Yes, it’s a dirty little secret. If my pressure cooker gives up the ghost (which I know it will eventually due to the excessive use I deal to it), I will cry copious tears before going on Amazon.com to buy a new one.

Why, you ask, such emotion over a cooking pot?

My number one reason is: homemade chicken stock. If you have never had it before, you are missing out on one of the wonders of the culinary world. And the best part about it is that even though cookbooks tell you that you can only make homemade chicken stock with a stockpot and a whole chicken and 3-4 hours of your time, in reality, you can make stock in less than half an hour, and most of that half hour is waiting while it cooks.

I use a chicken carcass and/or chicken bones and/or chicken gizzards and throw them in the pressure cooker. (I usually freeze any bones/gizzards/carcasses I come across in my normal cooking life so they’re ready for whenever I need stock.) I follow with a carrot broken into chunks, a celery rib broken into chunks, and an onion coarsely chopped. I throw in a bay leaf and a teaspoon (I eyeball it) of thyme (you can use whatever herb strikes your fancy). I add water to the little line on the inside of the pressure cooker (very convenient), slide the lid in place, and put it on the stove on high heat.

When the rocker is going wild, I lower the hear to medium low and time it for 15 minutes. When the timer goes off, I cool the pot by running it under the faucet for a minute or two, then I strain the contents into a bowl with a colander inside to collect the solids.

Solids go in the trash, stock goes in the fridge so the fat congeals on the top and I can scrape it off the next day. I use the stock or freeze it. I’ve sometimes used the stock the day I make it and don’t bother skimming the fat, but my husband scolds me when I do that.

I have made the most fantastic vegetable soups with this miracle stock. It makes kale and cabbage taste amazing.

My number two reason for loving my pressure cooker is: beans. I don’t even presoak them, I just throw them in the pressure cooker with water (to a special line for beans) and let it go to town for about 30 minutes.

I’ve made homemade, fat-free refried beans from dried pinto beans, and I will never go back to the canned stuff. Slather that yummy goodness on a tortilla and you’re in heaven. My cholesterol levels like it, too.

There are other uses for my pressure cooker, I know: pot roast, stew, sauces, chicken, rice. But my most common uses are the chicken stock and beans.

So have I inspired you? I kind of hope so. Life is too short to waste on canned stock when you could be enjoying an exceptionally yummy soup made with homemade stock. And it uses those gizzards/bones/carcasses you’d otherwise throw away.

So do you use a pressure cooker? If you do, what do you use it for?

Camy Tang writes romance with a kick of wasabi. Her novels Single Sashimi and Deadly Intent are out now. She runs the Story Sensei critique service, is a staff worker for her church youth group, and leads one of the worship teams for Sunday service. On her blog, she gives away Christian novels and ponders frivolous things. Sign up for her newsletter YahooGroup for giveaways!

The Tip of a Drumstick® :-)

By Missy Tippens

Though school has started back, it’s definitely still summer in Georgia! As I’m typing this at 11 pm, it’s 75 degrees outside. And I just had inspiration for my post.

A Drumstick® ice cream cone. Or as they call it, The Original Sundae Cone. ®

Very inspirational, don’t you think?? :)

When I went to the Nestle Drumstick website to see if I could find a photo of one to use, I found the history of the treat. First off, a Syrian waffle-maker named Ernest Hamwi showed the first ice cream cone at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Then in 1928, I.C. Parker had the idea of coating an ice cream cone with chocolate and peanuts. When he did so, his wife said it looked like a fried chicken leg—or drumstick! :) Thus, its name. He and his brother started the Frozen Drumstick Sales Co soon after. Then years later, they added the chocolate lining inside the cone. They also added the part that so inspired me tonight—the little plug of chocolate in the tip of the cone.

Oh, I love that last bite! Weren’t they ingenious? You’re chomping along, a little sad once the ice cream is gone. But then that last little reward…a last burst of melting chocolate with a bit of cone crunch.

There’s nothing like a summer evening and a Drumstick. What about you? What’s your favorite summer snack? Or a food that always makes you think of summer?

Missy's June Love Inspired, His Forever Love, is still available! Visit www.missytippens.com

Back away from the refrigerator!

There’s a new technology out and it’s not the Iphone. It’s a refrigerator that will order your groceries for you.
Okay, I’m not afraid to tell you that I’m a bit skeptical here. How does it know what you’re using up? I’m betting you have to tell it.
That’s all well and good, if you like the extra work it’ll no doubt bring, but what it should be doing is scanning you to see what exactly you’re eating. I mean, I have a teenaged boy. And he has friends. I rarely have enough milk in the house and sugary cereals are an endangered species here. And I know my son. He’ll be opening this new fridge door and saying to it, "I’m taking a carrot now. We have only three left."
Meanwhile, he’s helping himself to the last half of pie. I’d be inundated with carrots before the week’s out, if this fridge believes my son and calls in an order of carrots to the local Co-op.
Now, what the refrigerator should do is scan the kid. It should use one of those beams we see on Star Trek and yell out in a loud voice, or better still, announce it on an in-house PA, "You are not taking a carrot. You are eating all the pie. Back away from the refrigerator. I say again, back away from the refrigerator."
Or wave its arms around yelling, "Danger, Will Robinson, danger! All the pie is being eaten! Danger! Danger!" Then grab the offending teenaged boy (because it’s not necessarily going to be my own,) and hold on until an adult can come to pry the pie out of his hands.
You know, this could work for dieters, too. You simply program into the fridge what you should eat and it simply won’t let you reach for pie, but rather grab you with those flex hose pipe arms and not let go. Why, you could work up a nice cardio routine fighting it off, and speed and agility too, trying to get the pie out of the fridge before it grabbed you.
Of course, your teenaged boy and his friends would consider the whole food grab a challenge. They do, after all, have a computer game experience. Or they could just reprogram the fridge.
You’d catch on pretty quickly though, when you opened the fridge for supper’s nutritious salad and it said something cheeky to you like, "Enter password within five seconds or this refrigerator will self-destruct."
Oh, yes, self-replenishing refrigerators are fine, but those scientists should be working on getting teenagers to eat three meals a day, all nutritious, with no snacking. Now, that’s technology worth buying.
Have a nutritious day!