New Carpet...

...has been laid in our yard.

 The colors are perfect.

Being from Kansas where there are few trees, the results of the change from summer to fall amazes me.  I'm not used to all the leaves laying on the ground.  I'm also not used to mountains...mountains of leaves. 

First Post

October 28, 2008 was my first blog post. You can read it here.  I would not advice it unless you are looking for something to help put you to sleep.  What a snoozefest those first post were!

When I first started this blog, I had no idea what direction it would take.  I knew I wanted it to be a documentary of my new life - an almost fifty year old emptynester transplanted from her home town in the midwest to an old, run down house in the south.  My blog was a way for friends back home to keep track of what was going on in my day to day life.  Those first posts were like letters to those friends back home.

My blog has a different look and a different voice than it did back then.  I still write for my friends back home but I also write for those I have met in blog land over the last two years. 

The next day, I posted about harvesting the herbs from my garden before the frost got them.  Those herbs were hung in the sun room off Hub's office.

This picture was taken last week before I took down and threw away the brown, crumbling herbs I hung to dry two years ago.  Some things do not change...I can still procrastinate. 

No Spam, Ma'am

Has there ever been a food product more maligned than SPAM?  Monty Python's Flying Circus used it in a skit.  Surely it was a zonk prize on Let's Make a Deal.  David Letterman quipped about SPAM-on-a-rope in case you got hungry in the shower.  

Like bologna, SPAM was another one of those "meats" I would not eat while growing up.  (I'm not about to start eating it now, either!)  The neatest thing about SPAM was the way you opened it.  There was a little key on top of the can that was used to roll a thin tin strip off the can which would sever the top from the can.  Mom would never let me open the SPAM.

Facts about Spam:

• SPAM was first created in 1937 by Jay Hormel who needed a way to package pork shoulder so it would not go to waste.
•  In a contest to name the new product, Kenneth Daigneau won $100 for his contraction of spiced ham.
• Since 1937, 7 billion cans of SPAM have been sold.
• People living in Alaska and Hawaii buy the most SPAM.
• 100 million pounds of SPAM were issued to the US, Soviet and European troops during World War II.
• Waikiki, Hawaii hosts the annual SPAM Jam. 
• SPAM has its own museum in Austin, MN.

 This is a cookbook of mine.  The copyright on it is 1953.  I love looking at the vintage pictures and reading the recipes used back then.  This is a picture from the cookbook.  Crown Roast Dinner from the Jiffy Cooking section. 

Here's the recipe.

  Crown Roast Dinner?  Really?  How can you think SPAM could look like this?

 from simpleanddelicious.com

Maybe that is why in this cookbook copyrighted some time in the mid-1970's (I lost the cover page!)...

the recipe was reworked and renamed.

The 1970's cookbook also has this recipe using SPAM.

It doesn't matter how you slice it - I'm not eating it!

SPAM facts gathered from www.butlerwebs.com/recipes/spam.htm and www.spam.com/

It has been a long time since I have joined my vintage loving friends at Vintage Thingies Thursday.  I'm going to join the party this week.   If you like vintage things, you will like what you see at Suzanne's.

B-O-L-O-G-N-A

Sunday, October 24, is National Bologna Day.

Are you a bologna fan?  I am not.  If I were starving, like I hadn't eaten in three days and bologna was the only thing to eat, I could maybe eat it fried well done with lots of mustard, cheese and bread...maybe...  More than likely, I would do what I did when Mom but a bologna sandwich in front of me when I was younger - remove the bologna and eat the bread.

 Maybe Hardee's will be handing out their bologna biscuits free.  Probably not.

  

On one of our first trips to the local Lowe's after our move to North Carolina, we saw this lunch wagon sitting in the parking lot.  I was intrigued.  Just what is a bologna burger?

(I felt like such a private detective/FBI agent taking this picture with my zoom lens while parked across the parking lot.)

I pictured it being something like this:

from Fun Playing with Food

Several weeks later, we went to a local cafe for dinner.  They had a bologna burger on their menu.  I had to ask our server to describe it for me.  "Yer not from 'round here, are ya?"  She was practically salivating as she was telling us about their bologna burger.  It was similar to the picture below.  

I am told that the Wilkerson's Famous Bologna Burger is two or three thin slices of bologna grilled, then tossed on a bun with some grilled onion.  Still have not been hungry enough to eat one.

While I was searching information about National Bologna Day, I found some interesting uses and recipes at Southern Angel.com  Have you ever thought of using bologna for a lubricant on squeaky hinges or rusty bike chains?  You will also be able to find recipes for Bologna Gravy, Bologna Spaghetti, and Bologna Stew at there.  I know you have been searching high and low for recipes like that to add to your menu.

Throughout this post, every time I spelled B-O-L-O-G-N-A, I thought of the song...You know the song I'm talking about...

Happy Bologna Day!  May you have all the bologna you can eat, including mine!

Cooking Like a Pioneer Woman

Yes, I've been slaving over an open wood fire to cook our meals.  Or not...

Meet my best friend, Ree, the Pioneer Woman.  No, I've never met her, but she IS my best friend.  This is her picture from her Facebook page.  She would probably consider me a stalker instead of her friend.  

Ree has a blog, The Pioneer Woman, where she shares her life as a rancher's wife, a homeschooling mom, and what she is cooking for her family and ranch hands.  

Her recipes make my skirt fly up.  She uses that phrase, "make your skirt fly up" a lot in her blog.  I've got some of her recipes to show you but first I must caution you.  If you are seeing a cardiologist, are married to a cardiologist, have a friend or a relative that is a cardiologist, you do NOT want to tell them you are eating like this.  These recipes contain lots of cheese, butter, cream and sometimes (I need to whisper this) lard.

These are Three Cheese-Stuffed Shells with Meaty Tomato Sauce.  The recipe makes a huge amount.  This picture just shows the small casserole dish.  There was another LARGE casserole dish in the kitchen.  I served this dish with The Bread.   

 

  
Her cinnamon rolls are some of the easiest rolls I've made and they are awesome.  The ones pictured below are not frosted yet.  Just wait until you taste the frosting!  Before you make these, read her post Notes on Cinnamon Rolls.  If I had read that post before making these, I might not have had such a mess.  It definitely helps to let this dough rest and cool in the refrigerator before working with it.

Crash Hot Potatoes and grilled steak with Onion-Blue Cheese Sauce was on our menu last weekend.  I didn't have time to get the onions in this sauce caramelized but it was still yumm-o. 

Last night we had Sloppy Joes.  Hubs doesn't like sloppy joes, but he really likes these.  They make his eyebrows fly up.  That's how I judge our meals.  If Hubs raises his eyebrows, I know it's good.  When I've made a PW recipe, they usually fly up so high it actually looks like he has hair on the top of his head.

Other recipes I've tried but didn't snap a photo are pot roast and Grilled Chicken with Lemon Basil Pasta.  This pasta dish is one of the easiest to prepare and best tasting pasta I have EVER cooked.  It is on our menu a lot!

Fixing PW's recipes might not take slaving over an open fire all day, but they sure taste like you did!

PS - If any of my family reads this, I would love to find Ree's cookbook under the Christmas tree...

A Perfect Afternoon

 A beautiful fall afternoon with temperatures in the high seventies under a clear Carolina Blue sky spent at Hillridge Farm with two special people...

It seems like it was just last week when we where there last and he looked like this.

Training

We've taught them to sit, stay, down, heel...

We just can't seem to teach them to pick up their toys.

Cooler Weather Quandry

It is so nice to have cooler temperatures.  However, the change in seasons sometimes creates fashion dilemmas.  

We had been invited to an open house and equestrian apparel fashion show at one of the daughter's workplace on Friday evening.  As I was dressing the thought of shoes popped into my head.  I have not thought of what shoes to wear since April.  You see, I have worn a pair of Nike flip flops since the weather got warm.  I had to ask Hubs what shoes I wear when I don't wear flip flops.  Of course, being a man he had NO idea.

It was a good bet I couldn't go looking like this.  (There's that funky tan line again!)

I finally went to my closet to search for a pair of cold weather shoes.  Oh yeah!  When not in flip flops, I am wearing a pair of these...

 

I should get out more often AND I should do some shoe shopping...

One Year

It has been one year since we sent our Ashley to the Rainbow Bridge. She is thought of and missed every day.

Her favorite place was in the sun.

The sunnier the better.

Her second favorite place was on anyone's bed.

All the toys in the house were hers, whether she wanted to play with them or not.

The ONLY dog she ever shared with was Emilio.  He had her wrapped around his dew claw.

She was a great watch dog.

And she could be a good administrative assistant in a pinch.

We are sure that Ashley is lying in the sun, hogging all the toys and keeping all the other animals in line at the Rainbow Bridge.

Today also ends National Vet Tech Week.  Thank you to all who chose this profession.