Monday, September 20, 2010

Long time no post....

Been through some major changes in the last few days and looking for more. I'm getting the painting bug again and am really getting bored with my regular routine. Hubby and I are going to go fishing next weekend...if Granny here can get around.

We had both grandsons this weekend...we did very well except when I came in the kitchen and found Little Man with his shoes off, standing with one leg in the dogs' water bucket. I asked him what he was doing and he said "swimming". Gotta give him an E for effort.

This was the start of my goulash the other night...browned the ground beef and added onion and green pepper...seasoned with cumin, salt, pepper and chili powder. I added 3 cans of stewed tomatoes and a can of tomato sauce. After it simmered and the veggies cooked through I boiled elbow macaroni and added it to the pot.


The baked sweet potatoes were left over and I peeled them, cut them up and browned them in a little butter.  It was pretty good and filled us up. Best of all it was cheap!

Hubby finally cut the okra down and all we have left is 2 pepper plants. We were so fortunate to have such a nice garden this year. Our freezer is full and we have a bounty of canned stuff on hand. We have definitely decided to re-work the garden for next year so we can plant and harvest more easily.

Life is good!


Thursday, September 16, 2010

Which season are you?

This nice cool weather means a change in our eating habits. I tend to associate summer with fresh tomatoes and fruit...grilling outside and fresh veggies. Fall means root vegetables, beans, field peas and so on. Winter is stew, chili, thick chowder type soups, gumbo....real tummy warmers. Spring is kind of the limbo area...warm days mean grilling and getting ready for the hot days while cool days still call for some of the winter stuff. Chocolate is year round.

We've been enjoying these cool late afternoons and evenings, so I got out the old electric roaster and covered the bottom with a layer of country style pork ribs. Sliced up onion and a little Worchestershire sauce, salt, pepper and a little garlic were the seasonings. I turned it on to around 250 degrees and then had to sit there and smell it for an hour. I cleaned 4 sweet potatoes and set them on top of the pork, put the lid on it and let it cook until we were ready to eat...about 3 hours. It's very easy to adjust the heat up or down, depending when you want to dine.
The meat was falling off the bone and the potatoes came out tender. The potatoes flavored the meat a little and it was really good. A pan of stewed cabbage finished off the meal. Baked or steamed sweet potatoes reheat really well. Nuke them until they are hot and slap some butter on them. YUM!

I had a request for goulash and cornbread tonight so goulash it shall be. Haven't had cornbread in a while because I try to avoid heating up the kitchen when it's so hot outside. I have 2 different electric roasters, one small and one large that I use frequently to keep from using the oven. I also have 2 different sizes of slow cookers. I debated about getting one of the new multi crock pots...but I wouldn't use it that much and they are big. Storage is a problem right now in my demolished kitchen.

Going to have Little Man and Big Guy tonight for a while...Mom and Dad both have to work. Big Guy's first tooth came in and I can't wait to see it. I had Little Man the other day and he brought out his extra sets of hands and was into everything. I told him he was going to have to settle down. Hubby came home and was carrying on about something - Little Man came through the room and said "Pawpaw you need to settle down". I couldn't have done any better than that.  Pawpaw settled down.

Have a great day!





Monday, September 13, 2010

I Never Knowed....

that biscuits explode! So here I am in the kitchen. I was about to open a can of biscuits to fry for supper. I peeled the wrapping away from the can and POW...the can blew up. I had biscuit dough on the icebox, in the floor, on the sink and on the cabinet. After a string of not nice words, a half roll of paper towels and about 15 minutes, I finally got it cleaned up. Brave and determined, I opened another can without a problem. That stuff could be used to mine gold or move rocks.

On to supper...Hubby did a spatchcock chicken on the grill and I fried new potatoes and biscuits. Looked good and tasted good.


We've been eating late because it's so nice outside in the evenings now. Cool and breezy and lots of migrating butterflies. Some of the tree spiders are coming out late to make webs and we watch them work. Sometimes we help them out by catching moths and tossing them into the nets. Interesting to watch.

Our neighbors' dogs had pups about a month ago...registered German Shepherds...and they are beautiful. They had 8 and lost 2...but the remaining 6 are healthy and feisty. This was mom's first litter and she stays close. One is a sable color - I had never seen one and she is really pretty. Same markings as the black and brown ones, just a beautiful sable color instead of black. When the owner brings them out, she puts them on an old blanket and slides them around to the front yard. They are trying very hard to motivate...some crawl and some are learning to walk. I am a sucker for puppies. It's a good thing we don't have a farm because I guess between me and Hubby we would have at least one of every kind of animal.

Have a great Monday!

Friday, September 10, 2010

Peanut Butter Pie!

Daughter called me and had the NERVE to tell me, Miss Sweet Tooth 2010, that she had just made a peanut butter pie.


She made it from the last of a batch of peanut butter cookie dough and scraped together what she had in the fridge. Her instructions:

Okay, so: peanut butter cookie dough (leftover), in the pie plate, baked at 350 for about 12 minutes. Pressed down after it came out of the oven cause it puffed up a bit. Beat 8 oz cream cheese til fluffy. Melt 12 oz milk chocolate with ½ cup peanut butter, add to cream cheese and beat til smooth. Scrape down sides til it’s all blended. Fold in 8 oz cool whip and a big fat squirt of chocolate syrup. Put in crust, chill till set. Tasty.

She measures like I do...a big fat squirt makes complete sense to me. She made her own cookie dough, but I don't see why you couldn't buy the refrigerated dough...lots of times you can get a coupon on that.

We finally got 3 and 1/2 inches of rain...and we missed the really bad part that came up through Texas.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

You're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy...

But this is Oklahoma and it's not a tornado but the leftovers from the hurricane.

We finally got a little rain...been waiting and waiting. And I mean little rain. Everybody is about to float off around us and so far we've had 1/4 inch.
We had a very nice Labor Day....cooked out and had Little Man over for the night. We stayed outside until after dark. The teenage girls next door got in a rousing game of football which attracted Little Man. They accidentally knocked the ball over the chain link fence and Little Man grabbed it and ran. We could see flashlights bobbing as he ran by us with the ball in his arms. I told Hubby that he had a ball that wasn't his (Hubby had given him a small ball) and we made him take it back. The girls invited him over to play since he was obviously quarterback material. He was completely exhausted when we went in.

I fixed a big pot of spaghetti last night, it was easy and we have both been tired...guess it's due to the weather and getting up way too early. My internal clock for some reason starts screaming at me at 4:30 or 5 a.m. Rather than lay there and toss I go ahead and get up. The coffee's good, the house is quiet and I collect my thoughts and do a little farming on the computer.


                             

Speaking of farming...this okra is all that's left of our garden except for 2 pepper plants. One is a habanero and they are just starting to turn orange. WHEW! I don't see how anybody can sit there and eat them, but Hubby has a friend who loves them, so that's where they're going. When the weather turns a little cooler, we're going to re-work the garden. We have plenty of cross ties so we're going to take them up, till the entire back and remake the beds into long rectangles so we can harvest from each side. The ones we have now are square so if anything is planted in the middle you have to get up on the bed to pick it.

Maybe we'll get more rain a little later on. Hope you have a good day!





Friday, September 3, 2010

Ahhhh...groceries!

Got kinda' slim pickings there at the end...meatloaf was the finale. We decided to just go local, meaning Country Mart here in beautiful downtown Glenpool. Both of us were feeling a little punk and decided to see just how well we could do in one stop.

The good thing is that the ads were all geared to Labor Day and the bargains were plentiful. We bought the usual milk, eggs and so on...still have lots of canned goods. Eggs were $.99 a dozen and I got two. Ice cream was $.99 a half gallon, and again, I got two. Tuna was $.49 a can and I got 10 cans. Hunt's ketchup, my favorite was a whopping $.69 a bottle and to follow suit, I got two. Miracle Whip, the nectar of the Gods, was 2 for $5.00 but I only got 1. Lay's chips and Fritos were 2 for $4 - we got two of each. I bought 10 pounds of ground beef and had it packaged in 1 pound pieces...$18.79. Chicken leg quarters were $5.90 for 10 pounds, a pound of chicken livers $1.15, Farmland hot dogs $.99, bologna $1.19, pork steak $7.04 ($1.59 lb.) and two packages of petit sirloins, enough for 3 meals, $10.61, and a good bit of fresh produce including cabbage, corn, packaged salad, red new potatoes and yellow onions. We bought a few odds and ends but it was all grocery so we paid nothing out of pocket.

The total bill came to $99.01, leaving me $15.99 on my EBT card. Total discounts were $18.13 using our discount card. I used no coupons this time. I don't think we did too bad...I was able to stock up on a couple of things we use a lot of.

With the stuff I have in the freezer that should last us a while. We bought 49 items at an average of $2.02 per item. The cash register receipt had 6 coupons on the back for a free small popcorn at Riverwalk Movies. We don't go out to the movies, but our kids do, so they get to eat free on us!

In addition, the catfish we were given is gone, but another neighbor brought us over two packages of bass fillets. Free is good!

Have a good Labor Day. I mock fashion and wear sandals year round. When you are my age, people just think you're being eccentric and try not to laugh when us comfort dressers walk by. I may turn up on The People of WalMart web site.