In the Crooked Acres kitchen this weekend:
Made zucchini chocolate chip cookies. Neither of us cared for them, so after we each ate two (the second one to make sure our first impression was correct, of course) I packed them into a freezer bag ’til we have pigs again.
Made St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake (not the Paula Deen version). Neither of us cared for it, so after we each took a few bites, I packed THAT into the freezer bags for the future pigs, too.
Made Cheese Straws. We both liked them – Fred liked them more than I did, I think. I do believe that I’ll mess with trying different kinds of cheeses and more crushed red pepper, in the future. They were very simple to make, and I recommend them.
Made blueberry muffins batter. I love blueberries, and I’m always willing to try new blueberry muffin recipes, and I really liked the idea of keeping the batter in the fridge and making one or two muffins fresh, each morning (or whenever I’m having the hankering for fresh blueberry muffins). I made the batter on Saturday and then Sunday morning scooped out some batter and made fresh muffins for breakfast. I did forget to sprinkle sugar on the top before I baked, but I found my muffin just fine without the extra sugar. Fred gave his muffin two thumbs up, as well. As a note, it’s a stiffer dough* than I expected, especially after sitting in the fridge overnight. Makes a damn fine muffin, though!
Canned four quarts of green beans. Last year I froze all our green beans; this year I’m canning them so we’ll have more room in the freezer. We’re estimating needing about 40 quarts of green beans for the year, and I’ve got about 2/3 of that already.
Diced and froze ten tons of yellow summer squash and zucchini. None of the usual sites online, none of the canning and freezing books, no one nowhere recommends saving yellow summer squash or zucchini. What I’ve found, however, is that you can dice both, put them in food saver bags and then freeze them. Then you can thaw them, toss them in a pan with chopped onion and garlic, add cherry tomatoes (which you’ve also frozen in food saver bags over the summer) and maybe chopped okra (ditto), sprinkle with salt and pepper and maybe a pinch of crushed red pepper, and it’s a perfectly good side dish. Not as good as fresh, but it’s certainly good in its own right.
Also, last weekend I made a Butterfinger Cake, and holy COW was it good! Fred took one bite and declared it in the running to take for Christmas dinner this year (last year’s #1 candidate was Paula Deen’s Not Yo’ Mama’s Banana Pudding, which is not what he ended up taking, if I recall correctly). Because he can never leave well enough alone, he’s declared that it would be even better if we made Devil’s Food Cake from scratch, and used real whipped cream instead of Cool Whip. We’ll see about that. (One year when we were at Fred’s father’s house on Christmas Eve. Fred’s sister asked her son (L0gan) to pass the “whipped cream”, meaning the Cool Whip, and her son responded “That’s not real whipped cream!” Fred looked all proud that L0gan knows what fine quality food really is, when L0gan went on to say “Real whipped cream comes in a spray can!” HA.)
*Snicker.
Saturday night, Fred and I were in the big chicken yard trying to get some chickens out from under the coop. Recently we moved a bunch of younger chickens from the maternity yard to the big yard, and about a dozen of them have taken to sleeping under the coop at night, instead of going into the coop with the rest of the chickens. We’ve been letting them sleep under the coop because we figured they’ve got George and Gracie to protect them, but we talked about it Saturday afternoon and decided that’s probably not a good habit to get into. It’s entirely possible that George and Gracie could be at the back of the back forty, and something could get inside the fence and go after the chickens. Not likely, but possible.
So when it was mostly dark Saturday evening, Fred used the hose to spray water under the big coop, and I stood at the front of the coop, waiting to herd the chickens into the coop. George and Gracie stood and supervised, and occasionally gave each other looks like “What are these idiots doing NOW?”
Fred and I were both standing in front of the coop (the herding of the chickens wasn’t going well, because the little shits would come out to escape the water from the hose, then zip back underneath the coop) when both dogs started barking their serious take-no-prisoners bark. We turned and looked, and someone was walking toward the big chicken yard.
It turned out to be one of our regular egg customers, stopping to see if we had eggs. Fred told him that we were sold out, and when George and Gracie stopped barking once Fred started talking to the guy, but they were agitated the entire time the guy was there.
Our dogs are awfully sweet and it amazes me that anyone could be scared of them, but I have to admit that when they bark with their serious bark, they can sound kinda scary.
“We was gonna mess that guy UP!”
“FIRST I was gonna jump up and down right in front of him! Then I was gonna sniff his butt! And then I was gonna lick behind his knees! He didn’t have no chance!”
On Friday, I covered for the usual Friday morning volunteer at the pet store. When I was done there, I went over to Sam’s Club to pick up the stuff on my Sam’s list. Nothing important, just a few things I’ve been needing to pick up.
I spent LESS THAN $100 at Sam’s. I had no idea that was possible, much less allowed! I was half afraid that they’d stop me on the way out and force me to go back and buy a 30-count pack of toilet paper just to get me over that $100 mark.
They just glanced at my receipt and waved me on through, though. It’s a miracle!
As I type this, Dwight is running around with a toy in his mouth, growling at any other feline who so much as looks in his direction.
What’s cuter than a growling kitten? NOTHING.
Phyllis gets in her recommended daily allowance of cardboard.
“Hey! Leave some for the rest of us, wouldya?”
Dwight flops down on Fred for his nightly ear-rubbing and chin-scratching.
Pretty Phyllis.
“Someone is going to PAY for this.”
Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Gives new meaning to the term of endearment “shithead”, doesn’t it?
2006: No entry.
2005: I said “You shut up, motherfucker, or I’ll unleash my wifely instincts on you” and he said “Shut your unmaternal mouth, woman.”
2004: Wound report: It’s sensitive and weepy. Just like me!
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Have you ever felt like your hair looks like a really bad wig?