Arlene’s Presidents’ Day Special: Fun Cherry Recipes! 🇺🇸🍒

Hi, family. Come on in, sit down and rest with us while we celebrate today, our President’s program. You know, it’s been amazing. When I was a kid, you know, February, you celebrated President George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln. That was like- whew- school was full of that. Do you know, I was hard pressed to find things about the presidents anymore? We’re losing our patriotism. We’re losing our desire to remember these people. But, I just wanna refresh you on a couple of quotes that these men- remember why they came to America to begin with. Okay, they wanted to worship God in their own free way, but just listen to what’s what a couple of these quotes are. This one is from Abraham Lincoln. “I do therefore-” this was, he decided, you know, he’s the one that brought Thanksgiving day into reality. This was on October the third, 1863, an act of Congress designated an annual day of Thanksgiving as proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln. “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States to set apart and observe the last Thursday in November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our- beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. It is announced in the holy scriptures and proven by all history that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord. Boy, do we know that. It is seemed to be fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. Huh, I would to God, that that was true because that would be so powerful. Listen here, I have one now. I think this one is the- let see, make sure I got the right one here. I don’t of course. Go to this one. All right. This one, these are some reflections about Godly leadership. It is impossible rightly to govern the world without God and the Bible, George Washington. I wonder. The foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable pools of private morality and the preeminence of free government will be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world. George Washington. These were men who knew the importance and the significance of having God as the ultimate leader of our world and of this country, particularly. So I want you to make a concerted effort to keep the presidents, the ones that truly gave it all- Now I know that of recent, we’ve not been able to point to them as people that we want our children to aspire to, and that’s sad, but the scripture tells us- I don’t care what party line you draw- to pray for those that have authority over us, and our presidents do. The Congress, the Senate, we need to pray. It’s a prayer time. So today, I’m honoring those that had high morals. Those that knew that God was the force to get this new country off its feet and get it running. And I’ll tell you, God has truly blessed America. He truly has. So today, I’m honoring the presidents, mainly, “Georgia The Washes” my dad used to say, and good old Abe Lincoln. And we’ll be right back in just a minute. Here’s today’s At Home Hint. Onions should be dry and hard. Avoid onions with wet necks which indicates decay. Also avoid onions that have sprouted. Onions can be stored at either room temperature or refrigerated. If you’ve got helpful hint, we wanna hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone TeleVision, Wall, Pennsylvania 15148-1499. Well, hello! The first thing that we’re doing here on our President’s Day program, where we honor the men that really gave it all so that this government, this country could get started. I’m doing some things with cherries. Of course, you know that old tale about George, what he did. I’m using them as a main entrée and some as dessert. And I just thought this was something a little bit different, so bear with me here. I just have some butter that I am browning with a little bit of garlic. That’s a clove of minced garlic. And you don’t want this to get real brown because you know, it burns, and then it’s over the hill. What I’m gonna do is, soon as that starts to get like a little transparent, I’m gonna add some rosemary, just about a tablespoon. And that’s the fresh rosemary. And you only wanna cook this just long enough for it to release its fragrance. When you start to smell the rosemary, you know you’re ready with it. And that doesn’t take but just a couple minutes, ’cause the butter’s already melted. I think that’s about it. I’m gonna turn that off. Oh yeah, I can smell it. What I have here is six to eight small- get the smallest little red potatoes you can and quarter them, put them in your dish. Then we’re just gonna pour this over top like that. Scrape it out well. Now, either you really like rosemary or you don’t. If you don’t, you can use some other spice. You know, you could do basil, oregano, whatever, but these are, this is pretty unusual. You say Arlene, “Surely there’s no cherries in that.” No, not in this one there isn’t, but I gotta get this one on because it has to bake. Now, these are gonna go into a preheated 400 degree oven. We’re gonna give them a little bath of- this is kosher salt. It looks like it’s more than it really is, but it’s just the big granules of it, and a bit of pepper. Now, let me tell you the rest of the story. They’re gonna bake for 30 minutes. At the end of 30 minutes, you’re gonna bring them out and then you’re gonna take two cups of baby spinach. And you’re gonna mix the spinach in with the potatoes. You’re gonna give them a good bath of Parmesan cheese. Put them back in the oven for two minutes. This is an incredible, wonderful potato. So remember, this is 400, not two, not three, usually 350 or 375. But this one we’re doing 400. There they are in there. Now, let’s do our chicken. We are doing something called cherry chicken. I know it’s unusual, it’s different, but I tell you it’s gonna be good. What we’ve done here is taken six to eight chicken breasts boneless, skinless. And we did the flour, salt and pepper. Browned them off in a little bit of of oil. Now, I have to make the sauce with the drippings that’s in this pan. So, I’m removing- these have cooked about 25 minutes. After they brown, then you take the lid. You don’t put add anything to it, just put the lid on, turn the heat a little lower and then let these cook. This is what you get. Look at all them drippings in there folks. That’s what we’re making our cherry, wonderful cherry sauce with, okay? Now, we wanna turn this up. So, I’m gonna move this over to the next burner because I have a better flame over here. And to this, there’s about a fourth of a cup. That’s all you want is about a fourth of a cup of drippings in there. And that’s what we have. That’s good. Now, we’re gonna turn the heat on medium. Turn it down, you don’t want it too high. And we’re gonna add a few things to this. We have a can of dark sweet cherries. We’ve drained it and reserved the liquid that’s come off it. 15-ounce can. Just pour a little bit more of his liquid here, there we go. Now we’re gonna add our cherries right in there, like so. Doesn’t that look good? Oh yeah, oh yeah. Now, this is gonna be a part of our sauce, cherry sauce. Now what we do, we have some, let’s see, let me see- Half cup sugar. You say, “Arlene, I don’t think…” Trust me on this. I think you’re gonna like it. Mix it together. Look at those plump cherries, dark sweet cherries. Ah, yes. And you wanna stir this so that that sugar will melt. Now, those were packed in water so there’s no syrup coming off the cherries. That’s plain water that they’re packed in. You’re gonna mix that around well. And we’re gonna bring this to a boil. In the meantime, let me turn this one down. We’ve got stuff going everywhere here. I mean, you know, just all kinds of cherry stuff, honoring our presidents. Okay, we have some cherry juice and I’m gonna use some of that. And a little bit- This is corn starch. We just wanna mix that together because that’s gonna be the thickening for our sauce, ’cause you need to do that. So we’re just gonna mix it up with a fork. You wanna use the corn starch because the lumps come out of that much quicker and better than if you use flour. So let’s see, that’s pretty much coming to a boil. You can see in the pan. Larry, I hope you’re showing them that ’cause boy, does that look good, huh. Yes, okay. We mix this really well. When that comes up to the boil, then we’re gonna add the thickening. Like that, okay? And you wanna stir that. Now it’s not gonna be thick like gravy, but it’s just gonna thicken those juices. Oh boy and it’s gonna make a coating. Yes, it is. Yum, okay. And we’re just gonna let this cook until- gently because you don’t want it to break apart those big, beautiful cherries there. So, we’re gonna let that come up to a boil just like that. Mm, look at those cherries. Don’t they look wonderful? I’m gonna turn that up just a little bit because what we’re gonna do now, is we’re gonna add some, some orange slices. This is gonna bring another dimension of flavor. This is one orange cut in quarters and then cut very thin. Don’t peel it, leave the peel on. That’s gonna bring another flavor too. Like that. I like the cherry and the orange together. Wonderful, the citrusy taste with the sweetness. And you know that these oranges are gonna pick up the color of that cherry. Yes, siree. Okay, we also have some toasted slivered almonds. We toast them ahead. You know, you put them in a skillet with a little bit of butter and just let them brown off. But watch them ’cause they go very quickly. They burn, you don’t want that to happen. So again, we’re just gonna mix this. You can see, look how nice that is. Ah, yes. Now, now that this has thickened, we’re going to add our chicken slices back into this. Put the lid on it. Cook about 10 minutes. When we come back, we’re gonna have the chicken. And we hope you’ll stay with us because we’ll be back in just a minute. Well here, take a picture of this. You gotta see this. Look at this. We’ve added our chicken breast back and now they’re just gonna simmer for about 10 minutes ’cause it’s fully cooked, until that all heats through. And the oranges, oh boy, that’s gonna be awesome. Do you ever think about cherries on chicken? I say, why not? Why not? So, we’re just letting that be really slow to heat through. Now, we’re gonna make some cherry enchiladas. I know, I know, you never heard of enchiladas being cherry filled, but why not? First time for everything. Okay, first of all, in this pan, we’ve put a half a cup of water, half a cup of butter, and a half a cup of sugar. This is a syrup. And you really need to make this the night before, okay? So, if you’re gonna have something like this, it could happen anytime in February ’cause the whole month we celebrate it. Here’s what you’re gonna do with these. You’re gonna put that on, bring it to a boil, just like this, ’cause this is gonna be something that you’re gonna pour over these because you’re make ’em the night before, refrigerate them, then you bring them out and bake them, okay? I’m gonna set that back because that we don’t need that. Now we start, these are our flour tortillas. These are the larger ones. And we’re gonna take a can of our- this is cherry pie filling and we’re just gonna fill these, about like that, okay? And we’re rolling them up. You have a casserole dish, a nice buttered casserole dish and you’re just gonna lay them seam side down in the dish. What’s easier than that? Oh my, very easy. Something- you know, it’s funny. You can go through all the holidays. You have all the cookies, you have everything. When it comes to February, I just want a piece of cherry pie. And I know it’s probably from like being a kid and that’s what we always did. Mom always kind of brought that truth to us about our presidents and stuff. And really, the kids aren’t getting it in school too much. So parents, grandparents, it’s up to you to remind the kids about, you know, about our forefathers and all they gave so that we could have the freedom to worship God. They were godly men, men who loved God, who feared God. And we need to keep that alive. But mom always did that. So, she’d have opportunity to make that cherry pie while we were sitting at that table at supper time, she’d say, “Now let me tell you the story.” And every year we knew it, but we loved to hear it because it was a traditional thing. Okay, now you wanna push these together so that they fit. And when you serve these, well, first of all, let me tell you, after you bring them- You’re gonna pour the juice over top of these, put them in the fridge. When you bring them out and bake them, you’re gonna combine some sugar, some cinnamon and some sliced almonds. And, what you do there, is just sprinkle them over the top of it. You bake it for 30 minutes, I’m sorry, 35 to 40 minutes and 375 degrees. Then when you wanna serve it, we’re gonna give it a little ice cream on top. You know what I’m saying? I mean, you know this crew, they could be my family. ‘Cause my family, my mother had to have a little dish of ice cream every night before she went to bed. Well, when I say ice cream, you know, you could bake everything in the world and soon as you say ice cream, “Oh boy, we’re having ice cream!” I mean, you know, from the director upstairs to clear down here. So ah, he’s so excited about the ice cream. Anyway, we’re gonna push all of these in here. Now you wanna make sure you butter your casserole ’cause that’s really important. Okay, and then we’re gonna just take this. Remember this is our half cup sugar, half butter, half water. Bring it to the boil, just like that. And then we pour, hot- pour it right over top. Now, those tortillas are gonna soak up a lot of this, especially when you get it in the fridge. It sits overnight, soaks up a lot of the juice. Say, “Arlene, I’ve never of a thing..” I said, well, you know I heard about it- that was nice. I’ve never made it, but I thought this sounded good ’cause it reminds you a little bit of what they do with the Baklava and some of the other Greek pastries when they pour that sauce over and they’re always good. So at the end of the program, we’re gonna see, we’re gonna taste it. You wanna put this- If I put the right side down, it would stick. Okay, we’re gonna put this in the fridge. Make sure it’s covered well, just like that. All righty. You’d wanna bring that out. Have your oven preheated really good and hot before you put that in when you go to bake it. And I think the dishes we’ve done today are really, really good. We’ll be back in just a minute with more of At Home. Well, we’re here at the table for our Happy President’s Day celebration and I think it smells great. I wish you had that smell-o-vision stuff going on, but I’ll tell you, the chicken down there in the front is succulent. I tell you, it’s tender. The cherries and the oranges- Those oranges, the rind on that gets real tender, and the acid, the citrus from that blends with those cherries. That is a fabulous, fabulous chicken dish. I know you’re gonna want to try that. And the almonds in that, that’s really something special. Next to it, we have our roasted potatoes that has, you know, the fresh rosemary and the garlic. And then we just, at the end, like I said, you take your spinach and you just mix it up with the potatoes, stick it in a little bit of Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Put it back in the oven, just about two minutes. And then, it’s amazing how that spinach just welts down. And boy, that’s your vegetable and your potato right there, together. We’ve got fruits, we’ve got vegetables, we’ve got potatoes. And then we got the big enchilada over here, the big cherry enchilada. And this is what it looks like after you have baked it with that topping of the almonds and the brown sugar. Oh yeah. And then we’re just gonna- I’m gonna serve them in a bowl, just like that. You wanna cut it ’cause it’s gonna be easier to get it out if you do, like that. And then like, since in honor of of the Presidents, I mean, can you have too much cherry? I don’t think so. We’re gonna do cherry vanilla ice cream right on top of the big enchilada, okay? And this is nice to do this when these are still warm, don’t bring them like right hot out oven to the table. You want to set this out, like bake it right before you sit down to eat and then let it just sit because it’s still warm enough. Oh my, I tell you what, this is a meal fit for a president, if he were here. The only thing we’ve added was we did a little wedge of lettuce here for our salad because that’s kind of plain and we did a French dressing on that. And the next to it, we stuffed celery. We took our cream cheese. It’s not in your recipe because you know how to do this, but I’m just showing you that we did cream cheese, walnuts and Maraschino cherries and softened our cream cheese, mixed that together and then stuffed our celery. That is always refreshing. That’s a great snack for kids. You can do the low-fat cream cheese and just put a little bit of the cherry juice in there to give it some flavor. That’s a really nice thing. Sometimes Paul and I will do that in the evenings with that or some peanut butter, or just plain celery. It’s wonderful. Really, really good for you. Well, I hope that today I have encouraged you to keep alive the memory of our Presidents who gave a lot so that we could live in this wonderful country. I hope that I have have stirred up some thought. Sometimes we tend to forget them. You know, if we don’t hear them. I looked everywhere for- I remember as a kid, there was a silhouette of George Washington. There was a silhouette of Abraham Lincoln. Do you know I couldn’t find them anywhere. I searched and searched ’cause I wanted to put up a graphic as a reminder, I could not find them. That’s the way today’s society is like, pushing the memories away. But you know, these were men who were full of strength and they knew where their source was. It was not in what they were able to do or their capabilities. It was what God helped them to do. And they were quick to acknowledge it. That God had to be the source of their strength, their help. Bowing down on their knees to thank God, and to pray and ask God. One said, “I would never dream to sit in this position and think that I would have all the answers without consulting the one who made us all.” That’s powerful. So I encourage you please, please, please, please keep these men’s memories alive. Let your kids know what these people paid for so that we could have the freedom to worship God and His fullness. Thank God for America. We have problems, but we’re still the best place in the world. Thank you, George and thank you Abe. And I hope this honored you to day. And I hope that you enjoyed it today. Don’t forget our prayer lines are always open. if you have a situation going on in your life, you dunno what to do. you don’t know what to do, our prayer number is on the bottom of the screen. 1-888-665-4483. Somebody is always there day and night to help you. Well, we’re glad you dropped in. And please, don’t forget to come by next time because it just wouldn’t be the same without you here at home. We’ll see you then.

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