I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, a Happy New Year and is surviving the abysmal return to work. I’m hanging on by the skin of my teeth. I need to be independently wealthy so that every week is like Christmas! ;) Ah…to dream.

Anyway, I digress.

So, believe it or not, I actually cooked stuff this Christmas. I know. SHOCKING!

I made my mom’s famous mac salad (even people who don’t usually like mac salad like this!) and cheesy taters. Yum!

While the cheesy taters are, health-wise, just this side of a heart attack, the macaroni salad isn’t so bad. Especially if you use the Kraft Olive Oil mayo. Way less calories and fat than regular mayo and I can’t tell the difference. Also, I use less than one cup of mayo (mom uses way more), so my suggestion is to start with less and work your way up if you want it creamier. I think too much mayo is pukey, but you do what makes you happy. :)

Anyway, I thought I’d share the mac salad recipe for those of you who want to eat something as fresh and delicious as watermelon on a hot summer day. Especially since it’s cold as a witch’s tit out there and we could all use a little bit of summer right now. Except me. I live in AZ and had my air conditioning on the other day. Yes. I’m a wretched bitch. :)

Here’s the recipe straight from the cookbook. Enjoy!

Mom’s Macaroni Salad

I think maybe twice in my life I’ve had good macaroni salad at a restaurant or deli. It’s either got too much mayonnaise (yuck!) or some weird spice or a gross tang that makes me want to retch. I keep trying, but I rarely find one that is palatable. What is my solution to this problem? Make my own.

To be quite frank, that solution almost never occurs to me. It does not occur to a furry little blind mole to buy reading glasses. Why would it occur to ME to cook something voluntarily? It usually doesn’t. But this is super easy and is incredibly light tasting and refreshing. It has very few ingredients (whew…) and is almost impossible to make wrong. To me, that is the perfect recipe.

Stuff you’ll need:

• 1 one-pound box of elbow macaroni
• 1 green pepper
• 4 good-sized tomatoes
• 1 large cucumber
• 1 medium-sized, sweet onion (don’t use a yellow or red, they are way too potent—look on the label of the onion for the word “sweet”)
• 1 cup of mayonnaise* (maybe more)
• Salt and pepper, to taste

*I use Kraft Mayo with Olive Oil™ as I can’t tell the difference between it and regular mayo, but it has way fewer calories and less fat than the regular kind.

Putting it all together:

1. Cook the macaroni according to the directions on the box.
2. Once it’s cooked (don’t overcook it) dump it into a colander and thoroughly rinse it with cool water.
3. Empty the macaroni into a large bowl.
4. Cut the tomatoes into bite-sized pieces and add to the bowl.
5. Peel the cucumber and cut into bite-sized pieces and add to the bowl.
6. Cut the green pepper into large pieces (I do this because I don’t want to bite down on a piece of green pepper, but it does add a nice flavor to the salad—you can cut it any way you want) and add to the bowl.
7. Dice the onion into small pieces (you don’t want any big bites of onion either, but you do actually want onion in your mouth) and add to the bowl.
8. Add about 1/2 the mayonnaise and stir. Continue to add the mayo until it’s got enough for you. Some people like tons of it, some people don’t.
9. Add salt and pepper. Taste it. Add more salt and pepper as necessary.
10. Refrigerate for at least a couple of hours so everything has time to chill. If you can, refrigerate it overnight. It is at its absolute best on the second day.
11. Before serving, make sure to stir and taste-test it one more time to make sure it has enough salt. It will be bland if it doesn’t have enough salt.

One of my favorite things about this salad is that it doesn’t have a bunch of weird junk in it. I think sometimes people get so obsessed with making food all fancy and complicated that they lose sight of what makes it taste so good—simplicity. This salad has a clean, crisp, summer taste to it. It is one of my all-time favorite things to eat while sitting in the backyard and watching the chickens play as the sun goes down.

Dragon-breath-o-meter

PS: Go easy with the onion at first and add more a little bit at a time. I love tons of onion, but just in case you don’t you can always leave it out or just use a little. :)

Since you guys seemed to enjoy the macaroni salad recipe (except Mondrak who doesn’t like macaroni–WTF my friend!? ;) ) I thought I’d give you another one. We’ve had the appetizer and now it’s time to go straight to dessert!

Below is my all-time favorite fudge recipe. I made a double batch for Christmas and gave my mom a ton of it. She was in her 7th heaven.

Again, this is straight from the cookbook as I ain’t retyping all that! ;)

Best Damn Chocolate Fudge on Earth

This recipe used to be on the side of the Domino’s™ Powdered Sugar box when I was a kid. For some dumb reason they stopped putting it on there years ago. Luckily, my mom found a copy of it that I’d jotted down in 1980 and we all get to benefit from that cheat sheet. I hope I’m not violating some horrible recipe copyright law here, but this recipe is too good to not pass along.

Oh, and the paper this recipe is written on is the same paper my mom used to write our absent-from-school notes on and the same paper on which I used to use to forge those same notes when I was a teenager. Ahh…the memories this little pink piece of paper brings back.

Goodies from the store:

• 1 pound box of Domino’s™ Powdered Sugar
• 1/2 cup of cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 6 tablespoons of salted butter
• 4 tablespoons of milk
• 1 tablespoon of REAL vanilla extract (no imitation allowed!)

Whipping up the fudge:

1. Butter the bottom and sides of an 8×8 or 9×9 pan.
2. Using a double boiler, add all ingredients and cook on low to medium, stirring until the fudge is smooth. If you don’t have a double boiler, use a non-stick pot on the lowest heat setting, stirring constantly.
3. Pour into the pan and refrigerate.

One reason this fudge is awesomely perfect is because it’s not like any other fudge you can buy. This fudge is more crumbly and velvety. Now, if you are thinking that doesn’t sound as good as smooth, creamy fudge, you will change your mind after eating this. It is amazing. I like to keep it refrigerated as I think it tastes best when it’s cold. I take a piece and let it sit on my tongue and dissolve. If I could live off of this fudge, I would. Were I single and didn’t care about prematurely meeting my Maker, I’d eat only this until I died of malnutrition.

Enjoy everyone! XOXO

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I just spent the most wonderful hour with Pamela Cummins on her fab radio show: The Love Channel!!

We dished about boys, sex, love, relationships, sex (oh, said that already!).

Go give it a listen if you wanna have a bit ‘o fun. She’s so lovely and the hour just flew by.

Thank you, Pamela, for having me on your show! Yet again, I had a blast. XOXOXOX

Click here to check it out.

If ya wanna know more about Miss Pamela, here are her details:

• http://pamelaspsychicinsights.wordpress.com/
• http://www.pamelacummins.com
• http://www.twitter.com//RevPamela
• http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pamela-Cummins/140184366053125

She’s great! You’re gonna love her. :)

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Yes, yes…I know. I’ve been gone forever. I have no good excuse (but I’m gonna give you several!) except that I needed a break.

EXCUSE 1: Sex? What’s sex?

Between twitter, FB and the 10 other sites I manage, I just had to put my foot down and realize that the hubby needed more sex from me! Too much time on the computer is not good.

KIDDING!!! He was still gettin’ it good. But I felt like I was only giving him one ear in the evenings cause my brain was in my computer all the time. That is a no-no.

EXCUSE 2: All work and no play make Jodi a raving lunatic.

The day job is killing me! I average about 65 hours a week doing nothing but using my brain to the best of its ability. My job isn’t one where you get a little brain downtime. It’s non-stop, all day long, until I run out of the house tearing out my hair and begging for the neighbors to shoot me. I thought it would have settled down by now, but not yet. Alas, the thought of even looking at a computer once the work day is over makes me rather ill.

EXCUSE 3: That mother fuckin’ Atkins diet about put me in the hospital.

I have NEVER felt worse in my life. I, and I kid you not, was falling unconscious at 6pm and sleeping like I was in a coma until the alarm would wake me up at 7am. It was horrible. And my poor tummy…man, my body does not like all that protein! Total suck.

So, please forgive my Exit Stage Left without warning. I feel like a schmuck as I love you guys and really have missed you. I just need work to calm down a bit so that I can happily embrace my computer after the workday is done.

Oh, and I’ve had two chickens die in the last month…one of old age and another one (one of the replacement-so-wifey-isn’t-sad-about-dead-chicken chickens) who drowned when our back yard had its monthly irrigation. Poor little critter. So yes, I’ve been a bit off lately. But will be back soon enough and then you’ll wish I’d stayed hidden! ;)

In an effort to say I’m sorry I’m going to do another Kindle book giveaway this upcoming Friday-Tuesday. I’ll post details later, but since you all live so far away from me I don’t know what else to do to say LOVE YA except give you free stuff.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Okay, I promised that I’d do another book giveaway and the time is nigh! ;)

You can download to your Kindle, or any other freaking device on earth onto which you can download the Kindle reader, any or ALL of my 3 books (download the reader by clicking HERE).

Just go to my Amazon age (yep, click HERE to get there) and let the downloading frenzy begin!

Last time I did my Kindle giveaway all of the books went to #1 (HOLY SHIT CAKES!) on the Kindle Free Top 100 list (my mom was very proud!). Totally freaking cool! I was quite delighted, to say the least. I have to admit, I wouldn’t complain if that happened again.

If you like any of them, I’d be forever grateful if you’d leave a great review. I’d offer you my first born, but as I’m a childless old bat that would be an empty promise. Will eternal gratitude suffice?

Here are the 5-day freebies, in case you have no clue as to what I spout on and on about. ;)

Horribly sarcastic, naughty and full of curse words. NO ONE should read this, unless you like that stuff. ;)

Maybe slightly less mouthy, but still full of piss and vinegar (and tons of heart too)

A cookbook? Where the hell did that come from? It is chocked full of goodies though. TOTAL YUM!

Anyway, I hope you guys love them–that they make you laugh and help you to have the most joyful lives and happiest taste buds.

Oh, maybe telling you when this is going to happen would be a fine and dandy idea… Duh… Drool…

Friday, May 2nd – Tuesday, May 6th.

I picked those days as my dad’s birthday falls during them so it’s kinda a shout out to pops for his birthday. Good grief, I’m a sentimental old fuck. ;)

Love you guys! Enjoy! XOXOXOXO

PS: Tell all your friends to get their free copies too. Who couldn’t use good food and happiness and maybe even some naughty nookie?

Hot damn! The lovely Bernadette from Rants from My Crazy Kitchen is posting 2 guest posts from me this week with some easy and delicious food you can make for Labor Day (for those of you in the US).

For the rest of you, it’s still dang good yum yums!

You may recognize her from both her awesome blog and she contributed 2 recipes to my cookbook Darn Good Eats.

Go check out the first recipe by clicking HERE.

Then later in the week she’ll post the dessert recipe.

HUGS!

TGIMFS! Yes, that’s my spin on TGIF with a few extra choice words chucked in. ;)

Here’s another bit of yum for you guys this weekend!

Move over fancy schmancy desserts that take 19 hours and 4 chefs to make.

I have something even better.

But you have to visit the awesome and amazing Bernadette at Rants from My Crazy Kitchen to get the recipe!

That lovely lady has just posted my second recipe designed to let you spend less time cooking and more time enjoying your holiday weekend.

It’s sooooooooooo yummy! It has 4 ingredients. That’s my kind of cooking.

And while I took many wonderful pictures of this batch of yumminess, I forgot to put my stupid memory card into my camera. Can we all say it at the same time? “Duh….” What a dumbass I am! Yep, wiping the drool off my chin right now.

Anyway, I procured a picture that’s similar to what this delicious concoction looks like when finished. Here it is. SLURP!

Just imagine a bit of pineapple at the bottom of the rest of the lip-smacking goodness and there you have it.

Okay, so time to go over and get the recipe.

Check it out HERE.

It’s also in my cookbook, Darn Good Eats, so if you have that, you have the recipe whenever you want it.

Enjoy!

Have a great weekend! Love you guys!

If you don’t already have all 3 of my books, you can download them for FREE on Kindle this Tuesday through Saturday.

Since I’ve tortured all of you with my Christmas decorating pics (here’s one in case you missed it–note the new Christmas Teddy Hammock on the right side!), I thought I’d give you Christmas presents too, starting tomorrow.

Remember, if you don’t have a Kindle, no big deal as you can download the Kindle reader to almost any device. Click HERE to download the Kindle reader. And then click HERE to download my books.

If you do have a Kindle, click HERE and download away!

Love you guys! Your friendship and support mean the world to me, so I hope you enjoy my Holiday presents! XOXOXOXO

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We all know I love Bernadette from Rants from my Crazy Kitchen. Not only did she contribute 2 recipes to my cookbook, but she pretty much just kicks tons of ass. (Go follow her. Go now. Well…after you read what’s below. Then go follow her.) ;)

So, she sent me to a “blog translation” page that takes a webpage and translates it into hilarity. If you thought I had bad language, you ain’t seen NOTHIN’ yet! She picked her favorite post of mine, “I Gots me the Buzz Muff.” and had it translated. Total riot!

It’s so damn funny that I about puked laughing. It’s called gizoogle and in its own words it describes itself as: “Fo’ all y’all biotches who wanna find shiznit!” Nope, I kid you not.

Now, this is HORRIBLY POLITICALLY INCORRECT. It’s offensive and wonderful and appalling and that’s why I like it.

If you offend easily, do NOT click on the below link. I don’t want no guff from easy-to-offend people. 

Of course, easily offended people don’t usually come to my blog as it’s just awful and perverse and wrong most of the time! (But you know my heart is always in the right place.) :)

God bless Snoop Dog for creating the “izzle” factor. Gotta love Snoop. :)

Enjoy!

CLICK HERE AT YOUR OWN RISK

PS: My McAfee says the page is safe to visit, so you should be good to go and not get spammed by non-stop, two-girls-and-a-cup-type porn. ;)

PSS: I’ve never seen that and never want to. I don’t want to know what it’s about–though I have some ideas. Please don’t tell me or I’ll have to wash my brain with lye. ;)

How do, everyone? I hope you guys are having a great week. It’s hump day! Yay!

So, as I may have mentioned one or a hundred times, I’ve been SWAMPED at the office.

Good grief, it’s like we have 10 minutes to run a marathon. And you guys know I’m not big on the running. ;)

But, I was lucky enough to carve a half hour out of my day today (I am allowed a lunch break at least once a year…right??) to go on SiriusXM with the wonderful Kim Power Stilson. She was so much fun to talk with–we dished about food for 30 minutes–no pun intended. ;)

Not only was she great, but her production staff is so nice too. It was just a great time.

So, because I’ve got nothin’ but food on my mind (which kinda blows as I’m on a diet, but I did lick the top of a cupcake today–I just couldn’t resist!) I’m going to do two things.

First, here is a link to the radio show. Click HERE to listen.

Second, I’m gonna share a recipe from the cookbook. Mmmm…food…yum…

This is straight out of Darn Good Eats, story and all. I hope you like it. It is my very favorite cake on earth. And, believe it or not, I’ve actually made it one or two times myself. Shocking, I know. ENJOY!!

Happy Birthday Coffee Ice Cream Cake

When I was 5 years old I met a wonderful little girl in kindergarten named Eden. Who would have guessed that meeting her would lead me to my all-time favorite cake? Her mom, Edie, hooked up my mom with this recipe and my sweet, precious mommy has made it for me many times over the years for my birthday.

My mom was shocked that as a little girl I liked it because it has coffee ice cream in it. I barely like coffee as an adult, but this coffee ice cream cake is perfection. And it doesn’t really taste like coffee. You know you are tasting something beyond chocolate, but it’s hard to put your finger on what that flavor is.

I hope that you love it as much as I do. Every time I take a bite of it, I’m pulled back down memory lane to my childhood where I’m blowing out candles and devouring this wonderful creation. I hope it becomes a birthday staple in your family too.

Ingredients:

• 1 stick of butter
• 1 cup of white, granulated sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract (the REAL stuff…no imitation vanilla)
• 1 can (16 ounces) of Hershey’s Syrup™ (use the stuff in the can if you can find it, it tastes much better than the syrup in the plastic bottle)
• I cup of flour
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• A dash of salt
• 1/2 gallon, or slightly less, of good coffee ice cream
• 6 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips (use Nestle™)
• 2 tablespoons of Crisco™ Shortening

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 °F.
2. Cream together the butter and the sugar in a large bowl.
3. Add the eggs, vanilla and Hershey’s Syrup to the bowl and stir until well mixed.
4. Add the flour, baking powder and salt to the bowl and mix everything together until well blended.
5. Pour into a greased 9×13 baking dish and bake at 350 °F for 25 – 30 minutes.
6. When it’s done, remove from the oven, let it cool and then cover it and put it in the freezer (not the fridge, but the freezer).
7. Once the cake is frozen, let the ice cream sit on the counter until it is soft (not melted).
8. Spread the ice cream onto the cake and put back in the freezer.
9. In a sauce pan over low heat or in a double boiler, melt the chocolate chips and Crisco™ Shortening together, constantly stirring until fully melted and smooth.
10. Take the cake out of the freezer and drizzle the melted chocolate all over it.
11. Put the cake back in the freezer.
12. Serve frozen (it will be hard as a brick when you first take it out of the freezer but it will be perfect after the slices have sat out for a couple of minutes).

Not only is this cake simply fantastic, but it is so rich that it lasts for quite some time. As much as I love this cake, I only cut about a 2 inch x 2 inch piece when I eat it. It is incredibly flavorful and a small piece is usually all it takes to have a full belly and happy tastebuds.

TGIMFF!!! (Yeah, there’s more than just TGIF in that statement.)

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Kindle eBook Giveaway, so I thought I’d do one in time for Valentine’s Day (too many dang holidays all bunched up on each other!).

I’ll do another post when I have the exact dates for the giveaway–it’s looking like towards the end of next week.

I made some teeny, tiny, almost unnoticeable tweaks, so technically they are all 2nd editions, but you probably won’t even notice them. I’m a crazed and insane editor and I simply had to tweak!

If you don’t know about my books or are curious, click on any of the book covers below to get the scoop.

You guys know that for me, it’s all about spreading the love, not about the bux, so enjoy the gifts next week when the promo starts.

XOXOXO

PS: I also had the price lowered for print version of the Cookbook and for the newly formatted print versions of the How to Have a Happy Life relationship books (Sex and Intimacy), so that regardless of your financial status, they are all affordable. HUGS!

Horribly sarcastic and naughty. NO ONE should read this, unless you like that stuff. ;)

Maybe slightly less mouthy, but still full of piss and vinegar (and tons of heart too).

Yum yum yummies! Slurp! This is for people who both HATE cooking with a passion and LOVE it to death.

Have a wonderful weekend! Luv ya!

Hi everyone.

I just wanted to say thank you because the ebook giveaway has just started and LOOK AT THESE RANKINGS as of a few minutes ago. YAY!!!

Get ’em here: FREE BOOKS or by clicking on the image below.

Thank you!

Love you guys!

Hi again!

So, now you have to suffer hideously through me to learn a little about each book and why free stuff rules.

You also get to hear me complain about my neighbors honking their horn too much.

Love you guys!!!

Have a good one and go download some free stuff!