Old Fashioned Caramels

1 c. margarine or butter
2 1/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1 c. light corn syrup
14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Butter a 9" inch square pan for thick caramels or a 9 x 13" inch pan for a bit thinner caramels. I prefer the thinner caramels.

In heavy 3-quart sauce pan melt margarine. Add sugar and mix well. Stir in corn syrup; cook until well blended and sugar dissolves. Remove pan from heat, stir in sweetened milk. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until mixture reaches the soft ball stage (240* degrees) about 20 to 30 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla. Pour hot mixture into prepared pan. Cool to room temperature and cut into squares. Wrap each square in a piece of waxed paper.

These are awesome caramels.

Grandma's No Fail Fudge

2 c. sugar
1 c. evaporated milk
4 Tbsp. butter or margarine
16 large marshmallow's
1 tsp. vanilla

Get 1/2 c. peanut butter and 12 oz. of chocolate chips ready and set aside. You can substitute any flavor of chip you want and make different flavored fudges. You can also add nuts if you like.

Instructions:Combine the top 5 ingredients in a heavy 5 quart pan. Bring them to a boil for 5 minutes and remove from heat. Stir very often so it don't scorch. At the end of the 5 minutes remove from heat and add the peanut butter and chocolate chips. Stir together well until chocolate chips dissolve. Pour into a buttered 9" inch pan and let cool. This is an easy and nice fudge to make.

Grandma the Fisherman

My Grandmother loved to fish. We took her on numerous fishing trips. You will see a lot of the fishing stories as time goes on. I remember one story of her and grandpa going to the canal to fish and ran into a friend that was there fishing. They got their hooks baited and thrown into the water to wait for that ultimate fish to bite. While waiting this friend seen an plastic tub sitting on the bank and out of curiousity they decided to investigate what was in it. Grandma and Grandpa were always looking for bait as any fisherman would. The gentleman picked up the plastic tub and was looking at it. Being a hot summer day and this tub had sit in the sun for God only knows how long. As the gentleman began to pop the lid on the tub it blew up. Well what was inside the tub was chicken guts that someone else had brought for bait and left sit when they left. I remember grandma belly laughing as she would tell the story. She said, "those guts must of went 10 ft. in the air and came back down and drapped around his neck and all over me." Grandma told us they were the most awful smelling and they didn't manage to be able to fish much longer because they stunk so bad and needed baths. I loved to listen to Grandma's story's they are awesome.

Grandma's Homemade Cough Syrup

I thought I would start my blog with a recipe from my Grandmother. It just seemed to be the right thing to do.

Homemade Cough Syrup for Croup

1 c. honey
1/2 c. lemon juice
1/4 c. whiskey

Combine the indgredients and bring to a boil over meduim heat. Boil about 20 to 30 minutes or until it becomes a syrup. Take 1 tsp. every 10 minutes until cough stops.

Folks this really does work. I have used it over the years with my children and myself. Yes I know it has alcohol in it but that boils away.

When ever my kids would come down with runny noses and cough grandma would always tell me you better get some syrup made.

I miss my grandma she was a special lady she passed away in 2001 four days after my significant other passed away. It was a hard year that year.

I will be sharing more of her recipes. I am a sentimental person and really hate to loose the past remedies that our grandparents grew up with and used.