The Plantz family from Charlottesville had an exciting trip with Capt. Reese Stecher of BeachBumFishing.com at Oregon Inlet.  Site casting to vast schools of red drum, the family scored with fish after fish. Reese said there are plenty of stripers in the sound, but that there are too many drum around to mess with the stripers. He also said that the speckled trout are showing up now, but they … [Read more...]

  When we were counselors for the youth group at our church, we often served Sunday night dinner for the kids. Of all the meals, they overwhelmingly preferred Sloppy Joe’s and Spaghetti Pie. Spaghetti Pie may be the ultimate comfort food. It’s tasty, easy to prepare, and everybody loves it – especially kids. There are dozens of recipes for the pie, but as always, I go for the … [Read more...]

  There used to be an Opening Day of Trout Season and it was the equivalent of a Barnum & Bailey Circus coming to town. Men, women, and children headed for the mountains to try and catch a few of the hundreds of thousands of trout that had been stocked and were now hungry enough to eat raw worms. I have been a participant of lots of Opening Days during my fishing career, but one … [Read more...]

I went into Aldi’s Grocery store on the way home to pick up some lettuce for that night’s salad and saw a cluster of vine ripened tomatoes for two bucks and change. They looked good and I bought them, not really knowing what I would do with the little red fellows. I decided to roast them. Sometimes we cooks overlook the simplest of recipes. Always struggling with what to prepare for side dishes … [Read more...]

When company comes, cooking breakfast can be a chore. There’s bacon to fry, cheese grits to stir, potatoes to roast, eggs to fry and toast to brown. But what if you could put an entire breakfast into a single muffin tin? You can, and it’s both good and easy - allowing more time for company and less to spend in the kitchen. And it’s fun! I saw a recipe from Betty Crocker that triggered my recent … [Read more...]

    We get coupons in the mail from time-to-time from Kroger’s as “Preferred Customers”. I’ll generally pull out the ones for butter, avocados and eggs - things we use all the time - and redeem them.  But they often toss in a “free box” of yellow cake mix from Betty Crocker, so I get one of those for sure. The other day I looked in the cabinet and saw four boxes of yellow cake mix … [Read more...]

Sam’s Club is widely known for its Rotisserie Chicken. At $4.99 for a perfectly seasoned, ready-to-eat chicken, I have often made a last-minute stop at Sam’s to pick one up for diiner. Several years ago, Sam’s started cutting up their leftover rotisserie birds and making chicken salad, and it is the best. This week, I thought I’d pick up a package of chicken salad from Sam’s and Nancy and I … [Read more...]

Nothing beats a French Fry - salty, hot and crispy, freshly scooped from of a pan of hot oil. But all that oil and grease?  A heart attack waiting to happen and a weight gain for sure. Too bad you can’t get the flavor of a deep-fried French Fry from the oven. Well, you almost can. I ran across a recipe recently that – honestly – rivals that of a traditional French Fry. They were easily … [Read more...]

My Aunt Lena was the Undisputed World’s Champion when it came to Chicken Pies. Course, she used lard in her homemade pie crusts and often snatched a fresh hen from the backyard. How can you top that? But thinking about Aunt Lena, I baked a Chicken Pie this week, and while it won’t claim any ribbons from the County Fair, it was pretty darned good. There are no real secrets to baking a Chicken … [Read more...]