Anna Patterson's Blog, page 157
February 9, 2014
New Book is out!
I have a new book out, Cleopatra's Last Wish.
Cleopatra's Last Wish by Anna Patterson. Amazon.com
It is available in many countries throughout the World, and is on Barnes & Noble!
On Amazon.comhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I81HA9C/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_gu59sb09PZS2P
January 24, 2014
Working and Home made Cooking Can Work together!
WORKING FULL TIME, COOKING ALL OF THE TIME
I have worked outside of the home all of my life, but I was raised old fashioned. I love fast food restaurants and yet, I could not always use them. Many times after a fourteen hour day at work, hard work, I might add, I still had to go to the kitchen and "whip something up".
It is wonderful to have the luxury of cooking a special meal all day long, and I have many dishes which I just can't make if I don't have that kind of time to do them.
But everyone knows that balancing a job and raising a family, and cooking and cleaning can be seriously a problem. So along the way of raising children, working my own way through college, helping rebuild cars, volunteering various places, well, like everyone nowadays, there just wasn't enough time at all to do this, but it all had to be done!
So I learned to many times fix a good meal with limited time. I have meals which take all day to fix, and meals which take ten minutes and a microwave to fix. I have learned to use a crockpot to the point I have used one for years, and bought another. Ovens are a blessing also. So I could go on and on, but won't. I still don't have time to spend on many things. Right now, I need to clean house, put the trash out, and see if the kitchen sink really is frozen due to the arctic cold blast we are suffering in.
I thought of all this when people asked me to tell them how to cook this or that. They really needed to know, so I began to write things down. That is how the Hard Times Cookbooks were born and continue to be out there today.
Have you ever worked seven days a week, and seriously thought you couldn't put the family Holiday dinner or Sunday dinner together because you didn't have the time, and you didn't want to stint. I have done this more than once.
Sometimes a Holiday dinner meant baking for days, sometimes it meant going by the local bakery for four cakes, two pies and doughnuts. Then I would cook a big meatloaf, fresh bread rolls, a huge salad and open a few cans of vegetables. I have farmed. I know my own self fresh vegetables aren't always available, or if they are, I couldn't always afford them, much less have time to cook them. So in a pinch, I would open a can of green beans or other vegetable and spruce it up, maybe with a slice of fully baked ham, cut in pieces and heated in microwave or the stove.
It is not always the most elaborate meal which gets the family's attention, it is how good the food tastes and that you went to the trouble to prepare it. This still works today. Happy cooking. And also buy a manual can opener and food you can prepare even when the electricity goes out in a storm.
Meanwhile, God Bless You all!
I have worked outside of the home all of my life, but I was raised old fashioned. I love fast food restaurants and yet, I could not always use them. Many times after a fourteen hour day at work, hard work, I might add, I still had to go to the kitchen and "whip something up".
It is wonderful to have the luxury of cooking a special meal all day long, and I have many dishes which I just can't make if I don't have that kind of time to do them.
But everyone knows that balancing a job and raising a family, and cooking and cleaning can be seriously a problem. So along the way of raising children, working my own way through college, helping rebuild cars, volunteering various places, well, like everyone nowadays, there just wasn't enough time at all to do this, but it all had to be done!
So I learned to many times fix a good meal with limited time. I have meals which take all day to fix, and meals which take ten minutes and a microwave to fix. I have learned to use a crockpot to the point I have used one for years, and bought another. Ovens are a blessing also. So I could go on and on, but won't. I still don't have time to spend on many things. Right now, I need to clean house, put the trash out, and see if the kitchen sink really is frozen due to the arctic cold blast we are suffering in.
I thought of all this when people asked me to tell them how to cook this or that. They really needed to know, so I began to write things down. That is how the Hard Times Cookbooks were born and continue to be out there today.
Have you ever worked seven days a week, and seriously thought you couldn't put the family Holiday dinner or Sunday dinner together because you didn't have the time, and you didn't want to stint. I have done this more than once.
Sometimes a Holiday dinner meant baking for days, sometimes it meant going by the local bakery for four cakes, two pies and doughnuts. Then I would cook a big meatloaf, fresh bread rolls, a huge salad and open a few cans of vegetables. I have farmed. I know my own self fresh vegetables aren't always available, or if they are, I couldn't always afford them, much less have time to cook them. So in a pinch, I would open a can of green beans or other vegetable and spruce it up, maybe with a slice of fully baked ham, cut in pieces and heated in microwave or the stove.
It is not always the most elaborate meal which gets the family's attention, it is how good the food tastes and that you went to the trouble to prepare it. This still works today. Happy cooking. And also buy a manual can opener and food you can prepare even when the electricity goes out in a storm.
Meanwhile, God Bless You all!
January 5, 2014
CALL ME OLD FASHIONED
CALLED BACK BY HIS TANGLED PROMISE
A man she couldn't forget, called back to a place she didn't want to remember!
This book is available on Matchbook at Amazon also and is available in paperback. But cover was modified on paperback to fit space.
http://www.amazon.com/Called-Back-His-Tangled-Promise-ebook/dp/B008C5XIFE
December 26, 2013
December 11, 2013
CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS WITH SHORT STORIES IN THE VAMPIRE DIARIES KINDLE WORLD
http://www.amazon.com/The-Vampire-Dia...http://www.amazon.com/The-Vampire-Diaries-CHRISTMAS-SURPRISE-ebook/dp/B00H5A2XGC/ref=zg_bs_6305066011_2
http://www.amazon.com/The-Vampire-Dia...http://www.amazon.com/The-Vampire-Diaries-Kindle-Worlds-ebook/dp/B00FOB3WEQ/ref=zg_bs_6305066011_18
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GDDIKGY/r...http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GDDIKGY/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_WdsDsb0S3FG7F
December 7, 2013
Happy Holidays this Winter Time
Merry Christmas!IN CELEBRATION OF GOOD COOKING
It is very cold here and we are just struggling with this heavy snow fall and terribly low temperatures.
This is a record breaking Winter for us, and it isn't even Winter.
So I am getting to spend some time at the computer. Right now I have a cup of coffee here and a bowl of homemade soup. I just like to cook, but the roads are pretty hazardous, so the pantry is looking a little empty.
This is a good time for simple cooking for me. I learned to cook when I was not quite in grade school. And I was short for my age, but in my family, you had to learn to cook young.
Some of the boys I knew were learning to drive a tractor out in the field or a truck and I envied them somewhat, but I did learn to cook from scratch is what people called it.
All of my life I have seen people who prize their family recipe more than anything else they have in their kitchen. I have tried to pry some of these out of a person before, and it is impossible to do.
So when I thought of writing a cookbook of my own, with no experience at this at all, I thought of the years I had cooked, the people I had taught, and the numbers I had fed at one time, from two to three hundred!
That is what happened. It took a while, but I did write my first cookbook with no other reason than this:
Hard Times
From my own experience and tales people have told me over the years, I know we can't always go to the grocery store and buy whatever we want. Many people have really had to cut down on grocery buying, even when their own families which they had to feed got larger. I have been there.
The second reason I wrote my first cookbook is many people kept asking me to show them how to cook this or that. You would be surprised how many times that can happen. I have even shown a would-be cook how to crack an egg.
There is a third reason I wrote my first cookbook. I wanted to share some recipes which I had developed myself over the years. I would have loved to have had some of those recipes people sometimes carried to their grave, seriously.
But now, people through the Internet have access to all sorts of how to books and there are recipe books galore. I think that is wonderful and a service to mankind.
But I still had this nagging desire which wouldn't quit, to share some of my own cooking knowledge with others, so finally I gave up my own fight against doing this, and started writing.
I have written three cookbooks so far, and thinking of a fourth. And I am grateful this Holiday Season that I was able to get these out to people I can share this simple, frugal, cooking handed down to me.
Again, Happy Holidays!
