Texas Cooking Online * April, 2005 Newsletter *

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Want to lose weight or feel better? Top Selling Health Products Atkins Products Atkins Baking Products | Atkins Bars Texas Cooking Food Gift Store Send steaks, gourmet meals, lobster or dessert as gifts Spring has arrived in Texas and is coming right along even in points far to our north. It may not be swimming pool weather yet, but it's close; it's close. John Raven treats us with two pieces, Scones, Salsa & Pot Roast: New Old Favorites, an eclectic mix of his personal favorite dishes featuring Raven's Should-Be-Famous Pot Roast, and the improbable Froot Loop Dreams, which is not really so improbable if you remember that it was April 1 just a few days ago. In Break A Few Eggs, Patricia Mitchell presents a veritable omelet primer with the promise of dinner on the table in fifteen-minutes. And we reached way back in our archives for one of Eleanor Bradshaw's best pieces, Three Lemon Pies. Our classic recipe Crispy Fried Chicken will have you thinking summertime thoughts. Don't miss our three new book reviews. The topics cover a lot of important territory: Texas Cooking, Texas History and Texas Women. We have also included a special tribute to spring flowers in our special reports on Texas Azaleas and, of course, Bluebonnets. Make a little time to check out what's going on in the Texas Events Calendar, and scroll down the page for this month's T-shirt contest winners. Keep you busy for a while. Help Yourself to Our Weekly Recipe Email Sign up for our latest feature, the Texas Cooking Weekly Recipe Email. Nothing fancy, just a carefully selected recipe that's sure to please with maybe a link or two to some compatible dishes. Recipes range from savory to sweet -- the entire spectrum. At Texas Cooking, we have always focused on quality over quantity, and we carry that tradition to our Recipe of the Week email. Sign up here.

Get better sleep - Improve your health - 30% off discount Special Features Break a Few Eggs: Making an Omelet by Patricia Mitchell After a long day at work, people everywhere return to a home full of hungry mouths, often without having any opportunity to plan for any kinf of meal. In this state, it is easy to let the situation spin wildly out of control. Fortunately, cooks can look to the lowly egg for rescue. Fruit Loop Dreams by John Raven, Ph.B. Many underprivileged Americans did not have access to hot breakfast in their formative years. Not having their peas porridge served hot, they had to start their day with cold cereal. The choice was between Post Toasties, Wheaties, Cheerios or Kix. The thousands of different cold cereal flavors we now find on the supermarket shelves had not been invented. Scones, Salsa & Pot Roast: New Old Favorites by John Raven, Ph.B. It has been a long, dreary winter in Texas. It snowed in places where it has never snowed before. Luckily, my yard was not one of those places. I had to settle for just enough rain to make a mess on nearly a daily basis. Test your knowledge of Texas trivia This month's trivia quiz concerns itself with a world record-holding Texas fish that is currently drawing crowds at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center. See if you can guess the weight, and see Splash in all her glory. Have you read John Raven's latest Q&A column, Ask Dr. John? A new online form has been added that makes "asking Dr. John" easier than ever. Not only does he field questions about barbecue, chili and outdoor cooking in general, but his downhome culinary knowledge extends to all parts of the menu. Cooking with Texas Highways: This collection of recipes from Texas Highway magazine is full of surprises. A trove of goodies, this new cookbook adds substantial Texas-style value to any kitchen. Great items for Longhorns, Aggies and Red Raiders fans. Visit today New Texas Book Reviews Lone Star Nation Historian H.W. Brands spins an entertaining and balanced telling of this American epic, the battle for Texas independence. Starting with the original settlements, painting life at the time, a group of heroic American settlers face down General Santa Anna, and other threats. Read Our Book Review Quotable Texas Women Texas is and has always been peopled by strong characters that, as often as not, know how to turn a phrase. This quality runs deep in Texas women. Read Our Book Review More book reviews in the Lone Star Bookstore on our sister website, Texana Special Report: Texas Azaleas April includes several Azalea trails and festivals with one of the South's prettiest flowers, the azalea. These colorful shrubs are found in East Texas. This is the time of year to catch them. If you can't make any of the Azalea gardens or trails this month, see some photos and facts in our new special report. You can also read our currently popular special report on Texas Bluebonnets. Bluebonnets are currently carpeting fields and roadsides all over the state. Find lots more about Texas culture, books and events on our sister web site, Texana. Discount Cigarettes Inexpensive shopping by the carton. Click on our link to find out more. Looking for free stuff? Participate in contests, get product samples, trial offers and information Three Lemon Pies by Eleanor Bradshaw Dyed-in-the-wool chocolate lovers often fail to properly acknowledge the many desserts not calling for any derivative of the cocoa bean. Therefore, this month's Dessert Spotlight deservedly falls upon not one, but three luscious lemon pies, all of which have been popular favorites for years. Classic Recipe: Crispy Fried Chicken If you like your fried chicken with a crust you can get your teeth into, this is for you. And to spice it up, go for the cayenne pepper. 3 pounds frying chicken pieces 2 to 2-1/2 cups Crisco (or other vegetable shortening) 1 teaspoon salt (or to taste) 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (or to taste) 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional) 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 egg, lightly beaten 1/2 cup milk Combine the flour, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. Set aside. Combine the egg and milk in a separate dish. Set aside. In a heavy skillet, melt shortening to a depth of 1 inch over high heat. While the shortening is heating, rinse the chicken pieces and drain. Working with one or two pieces at a time, flour the chicken, shaking to remove excess, then coat with the milk/egg mixture, then dredge again in the flour mixture, coating well. Place pieces in a single layer on a piece of waxed paper until all are coated. When the melted shortening reaches a temperature of 360°F on a frying thermometer (or test it with a small piece of chicken -- it should sizzle madly), carefully add the chicken pieces, skin side down, starting with the dark meat in the center of the skillet. Reduce the heat to medium-high, and fry chicken until skin side is golden brown, then turn and brown the other side. Reduce heat to medium, and cover the pan. Cook for 25 minutes, and remove the cover. Cook, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Remove chicken pieces, and drain on paper towels. Serve hot with Cream Gravy, or refrigerate and take with you on a picnic. You can find this and over 450 more recipes in Grandma's Cookbook. Cookie Gifts Our sponsor Chip-N-Dough offers a sweet selection of cookie gift tins. You can order them now for the holidays. Custom designed gift tins are very popular, no lead time. Texas Cooking readers get $5 off regular price. (coupon code AFF5 at checkout) Martini Gifts Martini Glasss Gift Packs. We have the most unique martini glassware online. Shipped FREE, Gift Wrapped FREE, and FREE Gift card. We are sure to please. More Great E-Mail Newsletters Texas Cooking's Recipe of the Week email is great for people who enjoy our new and classic recipes from our cookbook. Cooks, recipe collectors and fans of Texas will enjoy this brief, weekly email that contains a carefully selected recipe with maybe a link or two to some compatible dishes. Sign up here. Stop Spyware! Kazaa, Gator and other similar programs have been sneaking onto people's computers wreaking havoc to their systems. These malicious programs are difficult to remove. They flood the screen with their own pop-up ads and open up the computer to a host of viruses. If you have programs like Kazaa, TopText, Gator, WhenU and others on your system, take a moment to learn about the problems these programs cause. We have written a useful and quick tutorial that will inform you about these programs and how to uninstall them from your computer. Free Catalogs Enjoy Great Savings from Free Catalogs Clothing Bridal / Wedding Invitations Wine & Brew Sporting Goods Hobbies / Crafts Pets _________ Cosmetics, samples, DVDs, promotions Gratis! April T-Shirt Contest Winners Tammy C. of Waco, Texas Elise D. of Knoxville, Tennessee Scott E. of Greensboro, North Carolina Adam H. of Lake Charles, Louisiana Dave J. of Scottsdale, Arizona Babs M. of Canton, Ohio Sherilyn S. of Houston, Texas Mitch S. of Seattle, Washington Jerry T. of Amarillo, Texas Sharon W. of Lincoln, Nebraska Congratulations winners! We are frequently asked if we award T-Shirts to non-US residents, and the answer is Yes. We have had quite a few Canadian winners, and have also sent T-Shirts to winners in England, Australia, Ireland, Switzerland and Germany. The Rules Since we began our T-Shirt giveaway seven years ago, our contest rules remained unchanged. Readers have been able to enter as many times as they like, and their entries were retained in our database. As you can imagine, our contest database has become very large (which is good), BUT much of it consists of old email addresses that are no longer valid. Therefore, we are making the following change in our contest rules: Readers can still enter as often as they like; however, each contest entry will expire three months following the date it was entered and will disappear from the database. This will greatly reduce the number of "names in the hat" and improve the odds of winning. We think this change will result in an even better contest. We are frequently asked how one goes about entering the T-shirt contest. Sign up here. Subscription / Unsubscribe Help This newsletter is sent to you because you, or someone on your behalf, indicated you would like to receive it when you signed our Guest Book or entered our T-Shirt Contest. If you wish to stop receiving the Newsletter, click here or point your browser to http://www.texascooking.com/unsub1.ihtml If you would like to change your email address, please send an email to txmailbox@texascooking.com. ©2005 Texas Cooking Online. All rights reserved.