Beaches of Mississippi

Daniel On Beaches of Mississippi

Daniel "caught" a fish......

While visiting the John Stennis Space Center, we took the opportunity to check out the beaches of Mississippi Gulf Coast. Due to the oil spill, activities on the beach were slim to none except for the hazmat workers in the green vest. Within a several mile stretch, we saw maybe 15 people playing in the sand along the beach. What should have been a beach bustling with business, was a tragic reality to the businesses and the people who make their living along our coast. Oh BTW, we didn’t see any tar balls or oil. What we did see was several clean up boats on the horizon sweeping our waters for oil. As I stood on the beach and looked out over the waters, my prayer was "Lord, heal our waters".......

John Stennis Space Center

The John Stennis Space Center is located on the Mississippi Louisiana border in Hancock County.  Construction of the 13,500 acres (55 km2). The test area is surrounded by a 125,000 acres acoustical buffer zone. The facility's large concrete and metal test stands were originally used to test-fire the first and second stages of the Saturn V rockets.
Shuttle main engine test site was selected because it was thinly populated and it was possible to create barge access to it — the rocket motors to be tested for Apollo were too large for overland transport. The chosen site also had to be between the Michoud Assembly Facility in eastern New Orleans, Louisiana, where the rockets were made, and the launch facility at Cape Canaveral in Florida. With the end of the Apollo program, use of the base decreased, with economic impact to the surrounding communities. Over the years other government organizations have moved to the facility, providing a major economic benefit to the communities. Two 250,000 gallon water tanks at the facility, used to test equipment for the Navy, were used to film the underwater sequences in the film Double Jeopardy. The facility was damaged in late August 2005 by Hurricane Katrina but seems to be in full operation now. 

Catching Up.......

Enjoying Girl Time @ Rustys Riverfront Bar and Grill

Vicksbrug MS

9 jars of strawberry figs

Cross Culture and Crossing Generations

Ain't Yo Mamma's Chow Chow

One of my favorite meals that my Mother in Law would put on the table was called "Chow Chow Meal".

It consisted of homemade chow chow, saltine crackers, mayo, ham, coon cheese (a sharp cheese) and ice tea. I can still image the smell of her house and visualize the image of us sitting at her table enjoying such fine cuisine while engaging in interesting conversation! What sweet memories!  Unfortunately, when the Lord called Mom C home, no one had made sure that she had left behind the recipe for her Chow Chow.  

Recently Tiff and Jason came to visit and brought us a jar of Louisiana chow chow, it got me to thinking that I should try my hand at making chow chow.  I can't make Mamma Courtney's recipe, however, I have affectingly named my version of Chow Chow "Ain't Yo Mamma's Chow Chow"......so 21 pints later, here is my recipe.  

Easy Chow Chow

Grind the following ingredients:

1 Gallon Green Tomatoes

1 Gallon Cabbage

8 Large Onions

2 – 6 small hot peppers (diced and seeded)

4 – 6 Bell Peppers

4 Bell Peppers

Put the ingredients listed below in a sauce pan and let it come to a boil for a few minutes. Then pour it over the ground up vegetable ingredients and let all of it cook until good and tender.  (Mine cooked about an 1 – 1 ½ hours on medium high , stirring from time to time)

1 ½ pints white vinegar

2 ½ sugar (or splenda)

*1 tsp allspice

*1 tsp dry mustard

*1 tsp turmeric

Pack in hot jars and seal.

 *****I cooked my chow chow till it was a consistency that I thought was good and then canned it the traditional way of boiling my lids and putting mixture in hot jars.

Also, I didn’t use the allspice, dry mustard and turmeric.  Instead, I used pickling spice and put it in cheesecloth and made a seasoning packet.  I boiled it in the vinegar / sugar mixture and continued cooking it in the chow chow mixture.

**Disclaimer - inside of one of those jars of chow chow you will find one of my cheesecloth seasoning packet.  Oops!

** Also, I used 4.28 lb onions, 3.67 lbs tomatoes, 10.46 lbs cabbage, 1 1/2 lb green peppers and it made 21 pints.