Party Recipes and Judgment Day

I love parties and family get-togethers. My family uses any excuse to party -from birthdays, holidays, to family game nights. With six married children, fourteen grandchildren (4 of them with spouses) and one great grandchild, it’s always a large party. I'm hoping someone is planning a Halloween party. Haven't heard anything yet, but we often hold spur of the moment parties too. Here are a couple of good recipes from our past get-togethers followed by a story. 

Some of us prefer pretzels to chips. Here’s a great dip to go along from my granddaughter's recipe collection.

SARAH'S PRETZEL DIP

5 cloves of garlic minced

1 cup give or take of Hellman’s mayonnaise

1 cup give or take of light or regular sour cream (or Greek yogurt)

Palm full of herbs de Provence

Pepper to taste

 Mix ingredients together and refrigerate.

Adjust ingredients to your liking.

Serve with pretzels.

POTATO SALAD FOR A CROWD

 My mother-in-law always made this for parties. Some think her secret is  the French Dressing, but I think it's in the home-made dressing. 

5# potatoes cooked and diced

1 medium bunch celery

1# onions chopped

1 doz. eggs hard cooked and chopped

1 small bottle French dressing

Dressing:

1 qt. miracle whip       1/2 pt. sour cream

3/4 c. milk                   scant 1/2 c. sugar

1/4 c. vinegar               salt and pepper to taste

                                   sprinkle of paprika

Boil potatoes with "skins" on. Let cool and then remove skins and dice into nice size pieces.

Marinate potatoes in French dressing for several hours or overnight, using enough dressing to lightly coat potatoes (probably not the whole bottle)

Add remaining ingredients and the eggs last. Mix VERY CAREFULLY OR TOSS GENTLY with the dressing recipe. Sprinkle the top with paprika.

Cheese ball

This is an easy cheese ball and so delicious. The combination of cream cheese and cheddar cheese along with the seasonings makes this a party favorite. My daughter makes this one.

·    6 (3-ounces each) packages cream cheese, or 18 ounces, room temperature

·    8 ounces shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

·    2 teaspoons grated onion

·    2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

·    2 teaspoons finely minced garlic

·    Finely chopped pecans or peanuts

In a mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, Cheddar cheese, onion, Worcestershire sauce, and garlic. Beat with an electric mixer until well blended. Refrigerate until firm then shape into a ball. Roll cheese ball in chopped pecans or peanuts until well coated. Wrap in plastic and let ripen in refrigerator for at least 24 hours. Take out of refrigerator at least 2 hours before serving. Serve cheese ball with crackers.

Because of the time of year, I added this one for Pumpkin Soup. One of my personal favorites. It's great for these chilly Fall days.

Pumpkin Soup

 by Roseanne Dowell

I served this on Thanksgiving often. It’s not sweet like pumpkin pie. Pumpkin is actually a squash. I’ve done it from real pumpkin as well as the can. Both are excellent.

3-4 cups mashed, cooked pumpkin – or 1 large can

1 T minced garlic

1 large mild (sweet) onion chopped

3 T melted butter or margarine

½ t. salt

Dash pepper

1 pint half and half (I use fat free)

4 T chopped parsley

Sauté the onion and celery in butter until tender Add the rest of the ingredients, except half and half. Cover and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Put in blender – one cup at a time and blend until smooth. Return to pan, add the half and half and heat through. Serve warm. Makes 6- 8 small servings. 

Here's a soup my mother used to make. Another one to warm you up on a chilly Fall day.

Corn Chowder

1 small onion chopped

1 stalk celery with leaves chopped

3 T butter

2 c. milk

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 cup cubed potato cooked with potato water

1 can cream corn 

1 can whole kernel corn

Salt and pepper to taste

Brown a onion in butter with celery

Add milk, potato, potato water, and corn. Bring to boil, add salt and pepper and serve.  


And now that everyone is well fed, a story.

JUDGMENT DAY

The crowds hustle by, everyone in a big hurry to get home after a long day of work. I almost laughed at the rude people bumping into each other, as if they had the right of way. No one cared about the person next to them. Everyone had their own agenda, thought only of themselves.   Horns honked and cars weaved in and out of traffic, trying to get ahead of the others,  their progress stopped at the next traffic light. Storm clouds threatened to open any minute. The wind had picked up, and lightening streaked across the sky, casting an eerie glow on those rushing about. I stepped out of the doorway and hurried down the street, sidestepping those willing to stampede over me.

"The time has come!"  A voice bellowed through the crackling sounds of thunder. 

I recognized the voice, had heard it many times.

Suddenly the sun shone brightly and then transformed itself from yellow to red, the color of blood. The sky darkened even more. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. People scattered, running for safety. The sky turned pitch black and opened up, spewing forth pellets of hail, ashes, and bits of bone.

Everyone scurried about like lost rabbits. A great upheaval shook the earth. The ground cracked, separated, and erupted, opening graves in the nearby cemetery. Bodies, dead for centuries, spilled from their tombs and rushed forth into the crowds.

 Someone reached a hand out and snatched the heart from a young man’s chest. Another plucked out the eyes of an old woman. Body parts floated everywhere. Hearts, lungs, kidneys, and livers flew about as if they had wings. A young man reached for a heart, but it didn’t fit into his empty chest cavity. Tossing it aside, he reached for another, and yet another, throwing them aside, in a desperate search for his own.

Clumps of ash swirled around with bits of bone and materialized into a body. I slunk back out of the way and watched it run off down the street, screeching. People scrambled to get out of the way of deteriorating bodies that poked and prodded, removing body parts from others. I guessed they were reclaiming their own missing parts, which they had donated to others after their death. Everyone rushed about in panic and frenzy.

A form appeared in front of me. A young lady, wafts of long blond hair clung to her skull and bits of a pink dress still hung from her shoulders. An evil grin appeared in her bony skull when she turned to face a man. He stood immobile, fear pasted on his face. He dropped to his knees in recognition. "Please," he begged, "Please, no."

She approached him, arms out stretched. He tried to crawl away, but she was too quick. Showing no mercy, she grabbed him around the neck and squeezed the life out of him. Guttural sounds came from her mouth. She raised him effortlessly above her head, bowed as if to offer him up, and carried him to a bridge. Spinning around two, maybe three times, she flung him over, then turned away and hurried off.

I ran to see where he landed and looked down into a fiery inferno. Tongues of flames licked its hungry mouth, swallowing the man into the bowels of the earth. He had killed the young girl, and she sent him on to his just due.

Other  featureless creatures rose out of their earthly internment and pursued their killers. Like the  girl, they murdered in the fashion they had died.  One kicked his predator to death. Another stabbed repeatedly in a murderous rage. Yet another carried his victim to the top of a building and flung him down like a rag doll. Their victim’s pleas for mercy, ignored. One - a headless creature converged on an elderly man. It threw him to the ground and, with an axe that appeared from nowhere, chopped off the old man’s head. It rolled away and stopped in front of me.

A new head grew from the headless creature's neck to complete the body of a young boy. All these creatures lifted their victims’ bodies over their heads and carried them to the bridge. They repeated the ritual, like the girl had, each bowed in front of me, then spinning around several times they threw the victims into the fiery pit below. The massacre and brutal assault of thousands continued.  The stench of burning bodies saturated the air.

 More and more forms appeared from the clumps of ashes and bones, reclaiming the shape of their earthly beings. People raced wildly about, screaming as bony hands ripped their innards from their bodies. The skeletal creatures removed kidneys, livers, and hearts, and repossessed them.

Across the way, a serene scene with masses of people manifested itself. . They floated on a bed of clouds, surrounded by a brilliant light that illuminated the blackened sky. They were the good ones, the believers. The young blond girl, her body no longer a skeleton, took her place among them, a pure and innocent look on her face.

Other creatures followed, after they had achieved their revenge allotted to them by their God, and took on angelic forms. The musical sound of a flute and a harp filled the air. Many of the mortals that had, moments ago, been rushing about looking to replace missing parts were now renewed.  Their bodies united with their souls.

 Perfect images rose above me with virtuous, peaceful faces. Laughter and love abounded among them. They began humming with expressions of pure joy as they rose higher and higher to their final reward above. A floral scent of roses mixed with other unidentifiable sweet aromas.

I turned back and watched while bedlam still raged on the other side. Thunder continued to rumble, mixed with terrifying screams of the bewildered lost souls. Cadavers chased humans, pushing and stampeding over them as they searched for their body parts. The evil forces reached out, trying to grip the victims of time past. The innocents rushed past me, eager to join with the host of angels.

It was time.

I went back to them and beckoned to my lost sheep. Flames emitted from my hands and smoke swirled around my mouth as I reached out to claim the evil ones I called my own. I denounced them as they fell to their knees, begging for mercy from a God that they had long ago forsaken.

A flood of water gushed over the earth, sweeping their bodies into a wild rush of current. Arms and legs tangled, thwarting the onslaught of water, as they swam for their very lives. Just as quickly, the blackness and water disappeared, replaced by a sudden flash of orange. It burst forth into the eternal flames of hell.

We were home.

Look for my books, Stranger on the Shore, Double the Trouble, Another Day, May I Have this Dance, and Connection of the Minds in the MuseIt Up Bookstore.
To find out more about me check out my website www.roseannedowell.com or my blog http://roseannedowellauthor.blogspot.com