peppysis: September 2011

Sunday, September 25, 2011

The Love Goes On

While feeling as if my chores could be put off until the afternoon on Saturday, I called my sister having the feeling they were yard sailing. Yes.. I meant sailing.. you do drift from one sale to another. Luckily they hadn't embarked as of 8:30 AM which is late for them to be heading out. I invited them in for sausage, eggs and cinnamon rolls and we were off.

It was a great day for sailing. I didn't buy a whole, whole lot but what I did buy I HAD to have. Such as a lamp for fifty cents that doesn't work, a canning jar for ten cents that will work, some Pyrex saucers with tiny green flowers and, oh did I mention, old sheets! We were at a sale later in our journey where I found brand new (vintage) dish towels with cooky flowers and teapots from the dollar store that still had their thirty three cent price tags on them. I don't remember dish towels being under a dollar at the dollar store. We were about to leave this sale, had already paid my two dollars for six dish towels, a shell covered box for M.E. and an old Ball box of canning lids when I spotted a whole row we hadn't gone to. I think we almost walked off even after saying "Hey... we did y'all go down there?"

We wound up finding a table and three boxes full of old sheets. Not yucky, smelly old stained up sheets like one might think. Actually I usually only find the top sheets, the flat sheet, which is probably a good thing. I got four new sets of pillowcases and one beautiful flower covered flat sheet. These are the type things that make me done for the day, I'm ready for these suckers to be washed and on the clothesline. Which is just what we did... called it a day. And lucky for my sister, her husband was at home getting ready to put a clothesline up for her so she really needed to head in anyway.

Who are these lucky girls?!?!

The olive green at the end is terribly gorgeous.

So Ultra colorful!

Ugh the beauty! The just don't make 'em like they used to.

The red is the hair towel I got, same sale, same twenty five cent price tag.

That's one of the lucky girls!

And P.S. I did get my chores done when I got home!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Oink Oink Mmmmmm

So, we got our processed pigs back today. Shaun went and picked them up and thawed us two packs of pork chops to eat tonight. Unfortunately, two packs were needed as these chops were not near as big as the last hogs we raised and had about three fourths of an inch of fat around them which I trimmed. Fortunately, they tasted fantastic... even the small ring of fat that I left on that I don't normally eat. I soaked them in Moore's which is a marinade kinda like Dale's but less salty. Small size, big taste, "what's the problem" I asked! We have three more small hogs, well two hogs one sow, that will be sausage in the morning and if they taste anything like these chops I absolutely can't wait. I can't wait anyway.

Our supper tonight was a "totally summer" supper. We had hog that we raised all summer, tomatoes and okra that I canned from our garden this summer and sweet potatoes from our garden this summer. We also had biscuits that I technically bought during the summer seeing as how I heard the first day of Fall isn't until this Thursday, I think.

Let's talk about that honker of a sweet potato. (gee whiz, Shaun is complaining about the size of the hogs again on the phone) This is the first year we tried to raise sweet potatoes. I really bought them as a sort of after thought from Wal-Mart after we planted the garden. We always leave room for stragglers. Our plants produced the biggest sweet potatoes I have ever seen. I kid you not, I was coming down the driveway two weeks ago and Shaun was holding one up... let's just say they're huge. I cooked one... one... for supper tonight for the both of us and we couldn't finish the dish by any means.

Sweet Potatoes: wash and peel 2 potatoes and cut into chunks. Place in a saucepan, cover with water and boil for 25 minutes or until a for or knife goes right in. Drain, mash with a potato masher. Add 1/2 milk, one egg and 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Pour mixture into a small casserole. Combine 1/2 brown sugar, 1/2 stick butter, 1/4 cup flour and 1/2 cup chopped pecans with a fork and crumble on top of potato mixture. Bake for 25 minutes.

Recipe adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/10/soul-sweet-taters-step-by-step-recipe/ which by the way if you don't know how to cook or don't like to cook The Pioneer Woman WILL change your mind. Her step by step instruction of dishes makes it easy.

This isn't even the biggest one! Dang I should have weighed it.

Chops marinating in Moore's... aaaaahhhhhh.

Sweet Potato Chunks.

Beauty, Goodness, Truth... even though they are small.

Hey Jenn.. what do you think about this one?

P.S. The Antiques Roadshow and Dancing with the Stars was a wonderful whirlwind of channel changing that my husband got a tad dizzy from but it was fantastic. Luckily the garden has played out because after months of no T.V. watching for me, I am front and center on Monday night. You should see my dance moves! Ciao!

Monday, September 19, 2011

Well.. Here's to Best Friends

It's Monday evening. A very exciting Monday evening IF you are an Antiques Roadshow watcher like me. This evening's shot is called Jackpot! I just know, and hope, that the most expensive item ever to hit the Roadshow is going to be on there... I just know it. On the downside, my other favorite show and Shaun's, Dancing with the Stars also begins tonight and they are both aired at the same time. Boy.. these networks really know how to torcher a gal!

I have already made chili. But not just any chili. Chili made with a fantastic mix made by friends of ours at Tennessee Hills. It is a Black Bean Chili Mix which only requires the maker to brown one pound of meat and have water and two cans of tomatoes on hand. The first time I made this chili I knew I had to have more. I made it with ground venison and tomatoes canned fresh from our garden. You absolutely cannot beat it. It has dehydrated black beans for crying out loud! That part really stumped me until I could ask J.T. how all that happened at the Dove hunt. You can find them at http://www.sulfurforkstation.com/ or give me a hollar and I'll put your order in for you and make sure you getcha some girl!

Luckily I was the "Good Girl" at work today which means I got to leave at 1:00. So I went to the library where I checked out seven new books, three of which are Christmas books because I am pouring over what I am decorating my Christmas Tree with this year. I'll let you in on a little secret.. it is going to have a Bird theme. Saturday I collected eighteen feather from a woods and creek walk on our farm. That was a good haul! I did however have to finally return a book that I have had a hard time letting go of. It's so good I found one on Amazon and sent it to my darling sister Marty who promptly ordered it for me for my birthday. As I was giving the cover of the book a soft goodbye pat I made my mind up to take my sister up on her offer of an early birthday gift. I called her and popped by to get my very own copy of the 1974 book A Naturalist's Guide to Cooking with Wild Plants by Connie & Arnold Krochmal. Remember the May Pops story? Did I tell the May Pops story here? If not I will another time. Point made it was simply fate that brought this book to me... sniff, sniff.

After I picked my fabulous new, perfect condition, with dust jacket in tact, book I headed to have my fifth round of fertility acupuncture. No it doesn't hurt and if you want me to tell more about that... well just let me know. I don't normally get that personal here but I know there are more people that have and could benefit from this. I will say that it sure is waking up my thirty seven year old reproductive system... I know that much.

With the smell of County Fair Cake battling Black Bean chili in my kitchen I have forty one minutes to eat and get situated, remote in hand, to flip back and forth for an hour between two awesome shows.

Good Night and Good Luck!
Laurie

Thursday, September 8, 2011

A Make-It Box Birthday

When I was growing up one of my favorite gifts, and gifts to ask for, were Make-It boxes from Grandmother Brown. She would find a good sized box and fill it with all sorts of school supplies, office stuff and crafty things. I would open it on my birthday to find a plethora of construction paper, pencils, new scissors, paper clips, etc. You name it.

This year I have made three Make-It boxes for three nieces, two birthdays and one college Make-It box that kind of added a different meaning to the name Make-It. It more had extras in it. Back up stuff so to speak. Pens, a spiral, bottle of aspirin, minis, roman noodles.. that type of stuff you know. But these boxes are so fun to make and also fun to shop for. I thought I'd share my most recent Make-It box for my niece Katelyn who turned sweet sixteen today!

I used an office box that envelopes come packaged in. I covered it with vintage wallpaper that I spray glued on. Then added goodies that I have been collecting just for K.K. You can go wild and shop for all kinds of stuff and miss the point of things. We keep a birthday budget most of the time of twenty five bucks and under since there's so darned many of us! Here's a look at the loot.