I am what you would call a chocolate fiend. It seems like my day hasn’t really been complete until I’ve had at least one bit of chocolate in some form or another. I try to limit my intake so it’s still healthy, but when it comes time for them to put the Halloween candy out on the shelves, I can’t resist and buy it by the arms full! But I also love to make candy and other chocolate sweet treats too. I love cooking and baking and use those skills that I’ve acquired over the years to make some fun Halloween candy for myself and my family.

I don’t develop any of those recipes myself though, I get all of them online. I was looking a few weeks ago online to find some good recipes and while I was searching, I rana cross some info on tv and internet bundles. After I looked through it a little bit, I decided to change over our home service to one of those bundles.

I found this really good recipe for DIY peanut butter cups. They’re my favorite kind of chocolate candy and so I had to try making them. They were so good nad this is a recipe that I’m going to hold on to for years.

The Waffle House Restaurants are famous for cooking up their hashbrowns to your liking. If you walk into a Waffle House one day, you will probably hear the waitress hollering at the cook, to “scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, diced, and topped” the hash browns. Well last week, a tornado in Ringgold, Georgia did that to the whole entire Waffle House restaurant. It was a sad day for the residents living and working around the Ringgold, Georgia area. This tornado destroyed their whole town. The local McDonald’s restaurant suffered its own damage, like the Waffle House and other restaurants in Ringgold. You may not be able to find a Ringgold restaurant today, but you will find a lot of grateful citizens in Ringgold. They were very lucky to only loose 8 people from this terrible storm, that just leveled their small city in Northwest Georgia.

I believe people in Alabama and in Georgia, will be getting prepared for the next round of bad weather that is headed our way. This trend is suppose to last for a couple of months, so we are a long ways away, from being safe from the 2011 storms. A smart family will invest in these new weather alert systems; which are good about detecting bad weather or alerting us to tornadoes in the nearby area. The best way to stay safe during bad weather, is to prepare for these strong winds, damaging hail, and the twisters that drop out of the clouds above. Getting a weather system for your home is a start, but remember some more key tips.

If you hear thunder, then you are close enough to get struck by lightning. Thunder is Mother Nature’s first alert system to us, to take cover, find shelter and get everyone in from outside. Thunder in the area, means lightning is close. If you have thunder and lighting, then other bad things are certainly a possibility. The best thing is to over prepare, stay over safe, and then we can laugh about it later. If we don’t, there won’t be anyone laughing after the bad weather has passed. Ringgold residents was lucky, but towns in Alabama wasn’t, if you consider the death tolls in some of the Alabama towns struck by these tornadoes in the South USA.

Americans are strong. People in the South are a bit stronger and they’re a breed of their own. We can handle tough things down here, but we have to know they are coming. So try to look online and consider buying a weather alarm or a home weather alarm, so you and your family will know when the next twister is heading your way.

Midland Weather Radio

The Midland Weather Radio is really not that expensive and it is easy to use. If you can work a radio at home or the radio in your car, then you can easily work one of these weather radios at home. You may find other weather alarms or weather radios cheaper and that’s fine. Look for the weather system that best fits your budget and the one you believe will keep your family safe. We are in a whole new world now with climate change or global warming as some people still call it. What ever its name is, we know our bad weather is worse than it was in years past. Since we know this now, we can all take time to prepare and finding a good shelter will always be the best thing you can do. Find a secure location now, while the weather is good and then you will know where to go, for your escape plan, when the next tornado warning is forecasted for your local city or hometown.

We are in a tough weather pattern right now and things are going to get worse, before they get better in 2011. The 2011 tornado season is far from being over. So please understand this and keep an eye to the sky and tune-in to the local weather channel or your local weatherman on television. This is only the calm before the rest of our storms, for the 2011 tornado and thunder storm season.

I would like to have and own a shipping company in North Carolina and fish for all of my fresh seafood. Then bring it in up there from the Atlantic Ocean and then truck it down to Georgia, where I would have my very own fresh seafood restaurant. By owning a fishing company in N.C., I would be getting the fresh seafood at the best discounted price. I could bring the freshest seafood and the cheapest prices; than any other Georgia seafood restaurants currently have in place. I don’t know how the laws work up in Carolina. I know my company up there and the employees I hire, would need to get insurance. I would probably choose Blue Cross of North Carolina, to insure my employees and my fishing business.

I don’t think my restaurant idea would fail. I would have a fresh product and at a low price, so I believe those two things are enough. The other worry a business owner has is competition. Well the majority of restaurants are looking to serve their customers a hamburger or a piece of chicken. Not many in the seafood business, so I really wouldn’t have much competition starting out and probably would be very limited in the future.

If the restaurant does fail. I would still have a fishing company in North Carolina and I could just ship my fresh seafood to other restaurants around the Southeast United States. So I believe my original plan is good enough to succeed, if I have at least $90,000 in reserve to fall back on. If I do lose with this first seafood idea, the seafood shipping company would probably save me or at least keep me floating, until I found a buyer for my seafood restaurant and seafood shipping company in North Carolina.

Most of the time I fix dinner for us at home because I’ve always enjoyed cooking and there’s only two of us. But this year for New Year’s Eve, I suggested that we go out for a really nice meal as something special to us. We don’t really go out to eat all that often, or at least that’s what it feels like given our work schedules. My husband said that it was a really good idea, so I spent a lot of time trying to find a good restaurant to make a reservation at for the night.

I kind of wish that we had decided that we were going to go out to eat for the night because apparently people book these reservations even months ahead of time. While I was online looking up restaurants, I came across this website www.clear-internet.com/4g-internet-deals.html and after I read through it some, I signed up for a new internet service for our house through it.

We finally found this one really good local restaurant to go and eat New Year’s Eve dinner at. It’s a local one that we’ve been to once and you always hear good things about.

The kids are prepared and my husband Rob is excited, for a trip to Grandmother Walton’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. Grandmother Walton lives in New Brunswick New Jersey. Her house is three stories high and is surrounded by a vast amount of wood land for children and animals to run.

We are expected at 4:00 p.m. In the SUV the children go, along with the dog who is jubilant to take part in the short trip. My husband and I settle in the passenger and driver’s seat and we take 45 minutes to arrive in New Jersey from Brooklyn, NY. When we enter the large Victorian House we are greeted at the door with a bright smile and a warm hug from Grandma Walton. Thirty or more family members are seated at the large and elongated tables that are placed in the dining room and connected living room.

Dinner begins promptly at 4:00 p.m. The succulent and golden turkey is placed on the table, and is carved by my husband. The dinner consisted of velvety mashed potatoes, scrumptious stuffing, delightful cranberry sauce, a fresh tossed salad, and a delicate rice dish.

The desserts were amazing with choices of Grandma Walton’s famous banana split, apple pie, brownies, and a large strawberry short cake. The process of presenting and savoring each dish lasted for two hours.

When the tables were cleared away and the food is placed to the side for anyone who wanted more, family members settle comfortably in the living room to find a movie to watch on satellite television from DirectStarTV.com. The children are in the front playroom, playing with toys of various kinds. The dog lay peacefully at my feet, fully content from his portions of Thanksgiving Dinner.

The rest of the night was filled with watching the movies and talking to family members that we have not seen in a long time. It was a night of catching up on old news and reminiscing on past events. It was a night well spent with plans for next year’s Thanksgiving being made.

Once you have spent all day eating turkey, dressing, stuffing, vegetables, biscuits, and cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving Day, you don’t need this food anymore. So feel free to throw it outside for the dogs to eat Thursday night or you can throw it out on Friday morning. Then call the local pizza delivery place and order a couple of pizzas for everyone to eat on the Friday after Thanksgiving. This is what you do with Turkey Day leftovers.

Or is it? No, none of us want to throw away all of that uneaten food from Thanksgiving Day. We can safely wrap this food up and store it in the refrigerator. As Friday and the weekend after Thanksgiving comes, we can slowly take out small parts and microwave them up. It’s really just as good to eat it the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc… times as it is on that original day, we feasted on this huge meal.

There are a lot of creative recipes online, for preparing new dishes with your Thanksgiving Day leftovers. Just go to one of the major search engines and do a search for “Thanksgiving leftover recipes” and you should find a lot of different things you can prepare, with Thursday’s leftovers.

Please don’t forget about all of the hard work, our Thanksgiving Day Chef (Mom) went through to prepare this meal. We can not give Mom enough “thanks” for all the time she spent on preparing this huge and tasty feast. Mom probably started Wednesday evening cooking and preparing a few things, so she would have a head start on Thursday morning. She woke up Thursday morning and did a lot of work, to have this big meal ready to eat shortly after lunch.

I was just joking about the pizza and throwing away your Thanksgiving leftovers. However, since Mom usually does have the stove tied up on Wednesday nights and the family does have to eat something for dinner on Wednesday. A lot of families will call the pizza place, for a pizza to be delivered for their Wednesday dinners, before the big Thanksgiving afternoon dinners. I use to work at a couple of different restaurants; which delivered pizza and this Wednesday would always seem like a Friday night for us.

I have heard that deep fried turkey is very tasty and delicious. I have never tried to eat deep fried turkey before. I am going to go search for a few tips or deep fried turkey recipes now and see if I am able to fry a turkey, after it has already been oven-baked. I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving Day meals and suffered just as much as I did, with over-eating.

For those families who ate pizza the night before, your bodies sure did take in a lot of calories over the last 3 days (Pizza Wednesday, Thanksgiving Day Thursday, and Thanksgiving Leftover Friday). When you wake up Saturday morning, you might want to try and do a little yard work or go shopping this weekend. Try to fit in some exercise and work off a few of those calories, most of us took in, over the past 3 days. Don’t forget now! Your body will treat you right, if you will just make a little effort to treat it right. Be sure to come back here and let me know what you did, to work off the extra weight. Please reply back with any deep fried turkey tips too, if you know of any good ways to prepare deep fried turkey.

All across America tomorrow, families everywhere will be celebrating Thanksgiving. A time to reflect back over the past year and remember the people and things we have to be thankful for. It was special when the Indians or Native Americans and the new settlers called the Pilgrims sat down on this special Thursday in late November, to eat such a wonderfully prepared dinner; which both sides took the time to prepare. The large feast back then continues to be fixed and ate today. I’m sure there was just as many calories  250 years ago, as they are today for Thanksgiving.

A variety of different foods have become staples for our Thanksgiving dinners. The most common food on Thanksgiving has to be the turkey and it is still my favorite food item to eat on this American holiday. The dressing with giblet gravy is one of my favorite side dishes to load up on my plate, next to the pieces of white turkey meat, I will cut out for my Thanksgiving dinner. I normally will add some fried okra and fresh green beans from the garden on my Thanksgiving plate too. Once I have all of this, it is important to grab a couple of homemade biscuits and the cranberry sauce. You have to include the cranberry sauce, for it to be a true Thanksgiving Dinner. The cranberry sauce is also very nutritional and provides nutrients we don’t often get through out the other parts of the year. Be sure to eat cranberry sauce with your first plate on Thanksgiving and then later on that evening or night; when you warm up another Thanksgiving plate to eat. Be sure to add cranberry sauce again. This fruity sauce is loaded with a lot of nutritional value and eating a variety of nutritional foods, is the best way for us to stay healthy. Since we don’t normally eat cranberry sauce at other times during the year, we should make an extra effort to eat cranberry sauce multiple times.

Watching the football games on television is just as traditional as the Thanksgiving Day Turkey in my opinion. I always love to watch the Detroit Lions the most. They usually have an earlier kick-off time than the Dallas Cowboys, who plays on Thanksgiving Day a lot. I believe this year, the 2nd NFL game will include the Dallas Cowboys against the New Orleans Saints. For those of you who normally root for the Cowboys to win on Thanksgiving, don’t look for them to win this year. The defending Super Bowl champs look better this year; than they did last year. I know their record might not be as impressive, but the Saints have been winning games with their core players out with injuries. They are slowly getting healthy and I believe most NFL football experts will have the Saints as 2 touchdown favorites on Thanksgiving. I will predict the Cowboys score 24 points on turkey day, but 21 of these 24 points will come in the 4th quarter; when the Saints enter the last quarter up 50+ points to 3. I’m calling for a huge turkey day blow out in the Big D of Dallas, Texas.

Before we see the Saints slaughter Jerry Jones and the over rated Cowboys, like they were the turkey on Thursday’s NFL afternoon game. We will have the opportunity to see the high-powered offense of Tom Brady’s Patriots from New England and the Detroit Lions. The local kids from Georgia Matthew Stafford, the Georgia Bulldog quarterback, will be looking deep for his Georgia Tech teammate Calvin Johnson in the “noon thirty” game Thursday. Mr Johnson the Wrambling Wreck from Georgia Tech, might just pose a few problems for that Patriots secondary. Matthew Stafford can probably throw the ball a good 17 or 18 yards deeper than Tom Brady and this is really saying something, since Tom Brady has one of the top 5 arms in the National Football League.

Possible 2010 Player of the Year  – #24 Darrelle Revis Jets

If you haven’t fallen asleep after the Lions upset the Patriots on Thanksgiving Day, you can still watch more NFL football. The entertaining Cincinnati Bengals will get a shot at one of the most surprising NFL teams this year. That Darrelle Revis dude from the Jets is a pretty good ball player. The Jets will be counting on Revis to take out any endzone party celebrations that Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson and Terrell Owens (also a Georgia receiver) plan to do on Thanksgiving Night. This game will be played on the NFL Network and you will have to have this channel on the cable or Dish Network channels. Watch this 8-2 Jets team try to secure a 2010 playoff position against the 2 -8 Bengals; which we can all see now that Carson Palmer was never as good as we thought he was.

The pigskin on Thanksgiving is not the only sports entertainment that will be on Thursday. The tradition begins with college and pro football from the NFL, but NBA fans have a nice treat Thanksgiving Night too. At 8:00 p.m. time in Atlanta, Georgia, the Atlanta-based TV Channel called TNT wil feature the Washington Wizards traveling south to face the Atlanta Hawks in Philips Arena on Thanksgiving. The day right before Halloween on Saturday, October 30th, these two teams face each other with Atlanta winning. This is when the Hawks would begin getting a little worse each time out. Even though this NBA team won their first 6 games, they were progressively getting worse each game, due to them trying to win games in the 4th quarter. They just go through the motions for the first 3 quarters and try to turn it on at the end.

They escaped the Wizards comeback plans on Halloween Eve, but don’t look for the Hawks to post any W’s in the win column on this night. The Hawks only have Josh Smith to try and soar with Javele McGee; who should have made the 2010 World Games team for Team USA. Our American team lacked in size and they had the chance to take McGee over to Turkey, but cut him from the roster, due to other players getting higher NBA salaries and popularity on their side. This McGee kid can play with anyone in the NBA and he will showcase his skills on Thanksgiving Day night in front of a national audience. The Hawks did a poor job with Blatche in their first meeting and seeing the Hawks lack of effort to make changes against the Minnesota Timnberwolves, after playing them for a 2nd time this year, means they will not adjust to stop Blatche this game on Thursday. Look for Blatche to score over 20+ points against the Atlanta Hawks on Thanksgiving night and the Wizards will spoil our Turkey Night Dinners in the ATL. I will go with a 102 to 84 score at Philips Arena Thanksgiving Night, with the Washington Wiz Kids winning this one. Be sure to grab the family and huddle around the TV and watch TNT on Thursday at 8 EST.

Everyone enjoy their families this year; while you stuff your faces with all of that great food. Please keep me and my family in your holidays prayers this year. I wish you all a lovely turkey day and be sure to get to bed early, for any holiday shoppers looking to brave the malls early Friday morning or on Black Friday. I wish you all a loving and safe Thanksgiving Day!

*Pizza

*Tacos

*Hamburgers

*Nachos

*Macaroni

Those are some of the first things that come to my mind, when I think about foods that include the popular food cheese. Is there one of these foods you think is the best with cheese? Or do you have another food which contains cheese that you like better? Let me know your favorite food for having cheese.

I personally don’t like cheese on my hamburgers. I couldn’t imagine eating a pizza or a taco without cheese. So I don’t always eat cheese. Only on certain foods, will I get cheese and sometimes I will ask for extra cheese. For me, I would have to say pizza is the winner, for the best cheese food. As a former employee of a couple of different restaurants who served pizza, I know its the most expensive item for pizza store owners to buy each time. You can just look at any pizza place and get a copy of their food bill and you will see cheese is the most costly item to buy for pizzas. The pepperoni and beef isn’t really that expensive, for the small bite size pieces. Your local pizza parlor could probably make a pizza for less than $1, if you took away the cheese and just made a basic pizza with all the normal toppings. Even with the cheese, a company like Dominos can make one of their large extravaganza pizzas for about two dollars each. I know most people are amazed by this, but it is true. Not many ever order a pizza with all the toppings either. Your typical large pizza with only pepperoni and extra cheese is around $1.15. This is the cost for the big pizza restaurants, who have a chain of stores in every state. So don’t think your pizza coupon for a large 3 topping pizza for 10 bucks is that good. The pizza industry profits around 900% for those ten dollar pizzas with 3 toppings or less.

We all seem to enjoy cheese in one way or another. I know if you like the different tastes of cheese, you have a lot of tasting you can do. Not sure the ball park figure, but I know there is more than 100 different types of cheeses and that my friend is a lot of cheese. And for the record, the moon is not made out of cheese. Only a false report and cheese is only found on the planet Earth.

If you been on another planet or something, you may not have heard about a famous McDonalds sandwich that comes out for a limited time only. I am talking about the McRib; which McDonalds Restaurants only sell for about 6 weeks a year. Fans of this popular sandwich, can begin buying the McRib again on November 2nd of this year. I’m not for sure if it will go on sell at midnight on November the 2nd, but after the breakfast menu gets pulled around 11 a.m. you should be able to get your first 2010 McRib sandwich. I know in my local area, we have not had the McRib sandwich in the last two years, but that’s all about to change. For the first time ever, the McDonalds company is going to be selling the famous Mc Rib sandwich in every U.S. store. This is good news for McRib lovers; who line the counters and pull into the drive-thru’s to order this very tasty product. Not everyone likes the McRib, but for those who do, it’s become a food craving that is hard to cure.

Why Doesn’t McDonalds Sell the McRib All Year Long?

Well according to the McDonalds chain of restaurants, they feel that people get sick of the McRib after a certain length of time. This product only does well; when the company sells it in short spurts and usually for just one time period during the year. Depending on where you live, will determine the normal dates your McRib usually gets sold. I know in my area, it seems to usually come in November and this will be the month, when the famous McRib makes its comeback. I do agree with Ronald McDonald officials and I get sick of the McRib taste, after I eat a few of them in a short period of time.

There are websites online that track McDonald Stores, to see where the McRib sandwiches are being sold. Not all reports are accurate, so McRib fans should be cautious, that the McRib might not be at a certain McDonalds restaurant; when someone states it is available at a certain location. If you do see someone claiming that the McRib is available at a McDonalds restaurant that isn’t close to you, try to get that store’s phone number and make a phone call to confirm it. This can save McRib fans from being disappointed, after driving a long distance, just to eat the historic McRib.

It was back in 1981, when McDonalds debuted the McRib. I can still remember my first encounter with this great-tasting product. It was me and my Mom who pulled up to a drive-thru and before we could place our order, there was a McDonalds employee, who was giving out free samples. These were just small portions of the McRib sandwich, but my Mom and I both liked it very much. Now 29 years later, we will get to sample that great taste again, when our local stores bring back the sandwich on November 2, 2010.

What Comes on the McRib?

It’s a pretty simple combination, but each ingredient is important for the overall taste. I can’t think of any other items that would make the sandwich better and couldn’t imagine ordering it and asking McDonalds to remove an item. It starts out with the pork meat that is only shaped like a slab of ribs, but is really just processed pork scraps. They dip this pork meat in a very tangy barbecue sauce and then will add pickles and onions; while serving it on a oval-shaped bun. Most fans of McDonalds will know that the restaurant offers two types of onions. The dehydrated onions; which can be found on the small hamburgers and cheeseburgers; as well as the famous Big Mac. The other onions are your more traditional cuts of garden onions, like you get with the Quarter Pounder with Cheese. It’s the Quarter Pounder onions that get served on the McRib. I know a lot of people don’t like to eat onions, so this is probaly the number 1 thing that gets removed for customers who like to eat the McRib. I would like to see more onions on the sandwiches I order, but hate asking for extra onions. Sometimes they put a generous portion of onions on the sandwich, but most of the time, there is just a few onions that get placed on the McRibs, by McDonalds employees.

So the McRib is not out officially being served at most locations, but should be on the lunch menu November 2nd. Do you plan to show up at your local McDonalds restaurant on this date, to order your McRib? Is there anyone who has never tasted the McRib, but have been hearing some stories about it and plan to try it for the first time in November? The company does plan to sell the barbecue pork sandwich for about 6 weeks, but I don’t think supplies will last that long. Just plan to do all of your “McRib eating” during the month of November and consider each day, the sandwich is being sold in December, a blessing from Ronald McDonald.