Bejeweled Barbie

This recipe was my daughter's, but I added brown sugar, rice and vinegar.  Ingredients: 1 head of cabbage, chopped 1 onion, chopped 1 pound ground chuck 2 15 oz cans tomato sauce 1 15 oz can diced tomatoes 1 1/2 Tablespoon Brown sugar 1 1/3 cup Instant Rice 1/3 cup water Dried Minced garlic approx 2 teaspoons 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar Salt and Pepper Shredded Sharp Cheddar to sprinkle on top A Tablespoon of oil Directions: Note:  This dish requires constant attention and stirring. Crumble and brown ground beef...do not drain Add a little oil if you are using lean ground beef. Add seasoning, garlic, chopped onion and cabbage, stirring often.  After veggies wilt a bit, Add diced tomatoes,  half of one can of tomato sauce and water. Bring to a boil and cover. After skillet reduces a bit, add the remaining tomato sauce, vinegar, brown sugar and rice.  Bring to a boil and cover, stirring oft...

We ate at a Japanese restaurant in anothertown last weekend, and we had an appetizer of Crab Rangoon.  I never expected my husband to love them!  I made some tonight, combining a couple of recipes to get ones like we had. (The ones we had did not have green onions like most recipes.) Crab Rangoon Ingredients: One 6 oz. Can of crab meat not imitation Two bricks of cream cheese Splash of soy and a bit more than a splash of Worchester Sprinkle of dried minced garlic flakes A bit more of a shake of minced onion flakes Two tablespoons of powdered sugar Two pinches of salt Package of 20 wonton wraps Oil for frying Kraft Sweet and Sour sauce for dipping Instructions Drain crab meat and add to bowl Add powdered sugar, salt, onion and garlic. Cut up softened cream cheese into crab Add soy and Worchester. Stir well.  (Pop bowl into microwave for a few seconds to make stirring easier.) Place a Tablespoon of mixture in center of Wonton wrap.  Fo...

"It was the best of times and it was the worst of times," ....really.  Now that it is over, we have laughed harder and longer than we have ever laughed in our lives. Yet, we could easily have been shot or, at best, arrested. It all started Saturday when we went on a spur of the moment little trip to Small Town, Virginia, to source some unique jewelry items for our Thursday night costume jewelry AUCTIONS on YouTube. We had hit a few antique malls and thrift stores, and we were headed back home. We had just pulled back into Tennessee when I spotted an "Estate Sale" sign in an older, unfamiliar neighborhood. Ken, who was in the wrong lane, hit his signal light and whipped into the right lane and turned.  But, he drove past the road where the sign was and we had to circle a hilly block to come back to the house with several cars parked around it. So,  Ken parked in front and we walked a steep incline. With each step I felt my sciatica knee pain worsen....the past fe...

Yes, this was the guest bedroom at my house. One too many jewelry jars from Goodwill!!! I have been weeding through jewelry bought in jewelry jars from Goodwill and getting rid of what I didn't want.  It has been exhausting to the point that I actually told my husband I didn't think I EVER wanted to see jewelry again.  We had cleaned it out, gone thru it, and sold it on Youtube in auctions and pop up showcases. The auctions would sometimes go 6 or 7 hours, and they were loads of fun.  However, then came all the paperwork, sorting, weighing, billing, packing, etc...  Trips to the post office were the final step in cleaning out this mess. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I did keep several baskets of jewelry for myself that I intend to clean and wear.  As we sorted through the jewelry, when Ken would look with the jeweler's loupe and say there was an "M," (MONET) I informed him it stood for MINE!  I love Monet jewelry.   I have a "fe...

Red and yellow, black and white: They are precious in HIS sight. OK, so this is not the article you expected to find on my jewelry blog.  Of course, I never signed a pledge to only write about jewelry jars, etc....But, this article was prompted by the experience of a friend shopping for jewelry in a thrift shop.  I will not name the thrift shop because I don't know for sure, although I have a suspicion.  I do know that what she did say made me cry.  Really. Growing up in the South, I have seen racism in many forms. As a white person, I have heard other white people refer to African-American folks as though they were almost animals, but, thankfully, not as much as the years have gone by.  However, I would be less than honest with you if I said that racism was "Dead in Dixie."  It's not, and I assume that is true in other parts of the country, too. The lady who related the following offensive behavior toward her daughter is one of the most lovely, int...

A Sarah Coventry Broach If you haven't been to a Youtube jewelry auction, you have been missing it.  Even if you don't buy, they are absolutely captivating to a jewelry collector like me. They show the item in great detail, describing the marks, etc... It may be something you already have at home, and you might be surprised how much people would pay for that old vintage brooch. Below you will find links to some of the more popular Youtube jewelry auctions.  Some of these folks are serious resellers and some, like me, are just trying to get rid of the costume jewelry they got in jewelry jars and can't use. (AND...recap some of the $$$ spent on jewelry jars, too! LOL) If you click subscribe and then click the little bell, you will be notified on Youtube when they go live with a jewelry sale. Some have a set night that they are on, and others just "POP-UP" randomly with little sales. If you like costume jewelry, I guarantee you will enjoy watching.  I am list...

That face has "MONET" written all over it! It had been a few weeks since I felt the thrill of reaching into a jewelry jar. Recently unemployed and looking at big car repair bill, I had been selling off a lot of my excess and unused jewelry to friends on Youtube. I had bags and wrapping materials spread all around the guest bedroom amidst the already-big explosion of jewelry in sandwich bags, sorted into tubs and flowing over. The thought of bringing in more of it just seemed preposterous and overwhelming. But I did.....I bought one for $19.95 that turned out to be the biggest dud you ever saw.  I was heart sick and disgusted with myself.  lol! But the next day we were in Goodwill and I bought another one I could not turn down at a very cheap price.  Well, it was the best I ever bought! Tons of Monet, which is my very favorite jewelry in the entire world! Well, the next day, I got another jewelry jar. It was $12.50, and it came from the same place the dud ...