Recipes for Life

Things are changing here at Cookbook Val.  I haven't done my blog for quite awhile.  I'm not selling cookbooks on EBay for the next 2 months.  Too many complaints about the mail service offered during holiday time periods.  Plus, I'm working a lot, to save for Christmas and my upcoming 2-week cruise to Hawaii in November.

But I do find the need to write.  So maybe I can have it all, writing, reviewing and most of all "recipes for life".

I am still working for the same discount airline in Atlanta.  Living in Las Vegas, working out of a Milwaukee base.  I've been home for the last 8 days, since I called in sick to work for a few days.  After working plenty of extra hours, my pay check was shorted due to new accounting procedures implemented and new taxes implemented by the US Government.  So not only did I work more, I worked for FREE.  Or at least that's the way it seems.  It created a stressful situation for me, which led to a case of Vertigo.  I always seem to have inner ear infections and with the added stress of a downsized paycheck, I was definitely wobbling all over the place.  Better now and a life lesson for me.  Maybe working too much is not good for the bottom line.

Bunco last night.  For those of you not familiar with bunco, it is a dice game, with a little similarity to Yahtzee.  Though I tried my hardest to get the most wins, most buncos, most mini-buncos or the biggest loser (a title, I have been given more than once), I couldn't win.  But we all put into a side-pot and what do you know I won-$75.  My $26 investment paid off.  It was a Halloween party and I came as a big Chicken. Cluck, cluck, cluck.  I was hoping for a picture of my big cluck, but it hasn't been posted yet.

Food for bunco.  I brought Greek Pizza appetizers, but while I really like these, they weren't a big hit.  Feta cheese is not for everyone.  My frozen chocolate cream pie though was a big hit!  I used a homemade peanut crust, with the inside filled with chocolate pudding and half a container of Cool Whip, mixed it together, froze it and then left it out on the counter for 30 minutes before serving.  It turned out to be a cool, refreshing pie for a hot Las Vegas evening-rich and delicious.

Last month for bunco, I made an old favorite from the 70's.  Sweet and Sour Meatballs.  This included one 48 ounce bag of frozen, pre-cooked meatballs thrown in the crockpot.  Add to this, 16 ounces of grape jelly and 16 ounces of chili sauce (like Heinz found in the ketchup section).  Let it warm up for about 4 hours and you are ready to serve.  This is my old stand-by, for when I'm invited to some one's house and I have no time to be really creative.  People love this recipe, they forget about it over and over again, until I bring it to another party.  Then they say, oh, I should be making this!