Payday is three days away, so what to cook for supper, using ingredients on hand? Mac-n-Cheese. None of that boxed stuff. And look, I eyeballed this recipe. Cooking is an art. Baking is a science. Feel free at the stove to add whatever you Iike.
Ingredients:
2 cups shredded cheese- I had Swiss and Dubliner, combined
1- 5 oz can evaporated milk
2 slices crisp bacon
3 slices Brioche, toasted and cubed
2- 1/2 sticks of salted butter
3 qt pot of salted water
Enough elbow macaroni to feed 3 people
What to do:
Bring water to a boil and dump in the elbow macaroni. Cook till tender.
While that’s boiling, combine 1/2 cp shredded cheese, bacon and toasted Brioche cubes. Butter a casserol dish.
In a 2 quarter pot, pour in the can of evaporated milk and heat till its just about to boil. Add half a stick of butter and melt. Then add in the rest of the cheese. Whisk together for your cheese sauce. Drain the cooked macaroni and pour the cheese sauce over the elbows. Combine well and put in buttered casserol dish. Top with the cheese and bacon and Brioche mixture. Melt the remaining 1/2 stick of butter and dribble all over the top of mac-n-cheese. Bake at 350° till the crust is crispy and browned. Won’t take long.
The only thing that would have made this easy supper better, would have been if the temps outside were a little cooler. Heat index was 100°. Maybe a little white pepper or hot sauce to your liking. Or Pepper Jack cheese instead of plain ol’ cheddar would be good too. The Swiss and Dubliner cheeses made for a mild flavor.
Nine out of ten butterflies will say they prefer zinnias… Oh, who am I kidding? Ten out of ten butterflies prefer zinnias over any other flower in the garden. Here’s proof.
I promise there had been a butterfly on these zinnias, but it shied away just as I snapped the pic.
Wait! Is that a bumblebee? They don’t care; they are indiscriminate in their flower tastes and will party wherever their fanciful flights may take them.
Swallowtails, both yellow and black, Gulf Fritilaries, those greenish/yellow Sulfur (no pic, as they are too quick) have been the big tourists this summer to the cutting garden. Still waiting to see the Monarchs parade through. Summer isn’t over by a long shot, so I’m certain they will arrive.
Butterfly Blessings from the garden at Flowers Proper.
I’ve made my mayhaw syrup for our ice cream tomorrow (the 4th). Not all of it would fit in the jar. So, it went in the bottom of a tall glass, along with ice and a cola. The mayhaw syrup added a little sumpin sumpin. Nice!
Here are a few pics of the drink plus some photos of out and about.
Happy Independence Day Blessings from the Exile’s Kitchen.
The conversation between my grandmother and me went thusly:
“Amanda, I know you are very capable of learning to drive the tractor, but as long as you don’t have to, well, don’t.” That was thirty-six years ago, right before I got married. This year it has become necessary for me to learn to drive the tractor.
The little orange Kubota was my father’s and now it’s mine. She- yes, she- has a name: Tilly. My daddy named her way back in the mid-1970’s.
When I bought my property, I knew Tilly would be utilized. My middle son has been asked to cut around Flowers Proper, to till up the flower/garden patch. Different farm implements have been added to Tilly’s accessories. She can do whatever a bigger tractor can, just on a smaller scale. My place isn’t huge.
Bamboo had been growing really close to my farmhouse, plus several trees. So, this spring I had that cleared. However, debris was left, about a foot deep. The bamboo had been growing since about 1997…. I hate bamboo. It’s not native to our part of the world. I would like to go back in time and convince the lady who thought she needed it for a natural fence to plant something else, anything else.
It’s taken forever to get the mulched bamboooo up off the ground and dumped in a designated area. Our state is way above average for rainfall this year. To make things go quicker, my youngest son asked if I could try to drive the tractor and work the new rake, while he loaded the trailer. I said, reluctantly, Grandma’s words sounding in my head, “Yes.” I climbed up into Tilly’s seat.
“Okay,” my youngest son began to explain, “it’s a lot like driving a car with a stickshift.”
“I don’t know how to drive a car with a stickshift,” I admitted.
My son’s blue eyes got a little more round behind his glasses, but he continued to explain. “Clutch on the left, break on the right, excellerator on the right, wiggle the shift to put it in neutral, straight down into first, over to the left and down for reverse, the arm on the right to raise and lower the rake and most importantly, the little lever in front shuts her down. Got it?”
“We’re about to find out,” I said with a nervous chuckle. In my head I explained to my grandmother’s memory that the time had come for me to learn to drive the tractor.
Now, there’s about a ten foot drop to the road where we were working. I cranked Tilly up, put her in gear, eased off the clutch and she jerked forward with a learch and, yep, headed straight for the precipice. I know, I panicked! I screamed! I reached for the little lever and pulled. Mercifully Tilly sputtered to a stop, before I hurt myself. As I climbed down, my son came jogging up.
“You alright, Mama?”
“No!”
I couldn’t make eye contact with him. I was embarrassed. I was scared, too. (I knew a lady who had a terrible accident with a tractor, lingered in the hospital for a week and then died.) But during the last seven years, there have been so many times I have had to square back around, tell myself that I am George L. Ellison’s daughter and try again. So, I climbed back up on Tilly. I wiped my tears away, as my youngest son again went through instructions.
The short of it is, I learned to drive Tilly. Up and down the the rake lowered to put the bamboooo debris where it would be easier to load. I am not strong enough to change out farm implements. I will still need someone to do that for me but I can drive her.
My daddy, I like to think, would be proud of me. And I know my grandmother would understand.
Here are some pretty pictures from my garden work this morning.
A pail full of little yellow squash and new potatoes. At the big store with the “W” on it, I found a small basket of seed potatoes and on a whim I bought them. Planted Easter weekend, the squash seed and seed potatoes have started making. Recipes are coming to mind. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than sitting down to a homegrown supper.
Have you planted anything this spring? I have two rows of vegetables and eight rows of staggered plantings of zinnias, sunflowers and cosmos.
I love this time of year. It’s hard work, but so rewarding.
There are joys of small town life not capable of being found in bigger cities. Unique shops and country stores way out in the middle of nowhere give you just what you need and want.
I got up early this Saturday morning and was out the door at 7am. A mile down the road got me 2 gallons of lawn mower gas: non-ethanol. The lady at the counter at Dexter Grocery knew what I wanted before I could tell her.
A few more hilly and winding miles to Tylertown and I stopped in at The Blue Store. It’s another mom and pop country convenience store and has a bakery counter. Beautiful baked goods. I picked up a dozen oatmeal cookies to go with homemade Mayhaw Ice Cream tomorrow.
I had to go to the co-op. Does your county have one? Stop in if they do. Ant poison and cotton seed meal was added to my shopping finds.
Coming back through T-town, I hung a right at the post office and stopped at the Lagniappe Cafe for coffee and strawberry muffins. So good!
All those errands run in less than an hour. Try that in a bigger city.
While we ate breakfast, I made the mayhaw syrup. About two cups of juice and 1 1/2 cups of sugar slowly reduced.
After working in the garden and planting more flowers, I made up my recipe for Mayhaw Ice Cream. Try These Two Together I swirled in a few tablespoons of cooled mayhaw syrup, then wrapped the dish in plastic wrap and placed it in the freezer. Such a pretty color and will be great with the oatmeal cookies.
Blue tarps are spread on the ground to catch the falling mayhaws. When the little red fruit hit the tarps, their sound is not unlike that of a kickball smacking someone up side the head. Peh-tunt!
When I was in junior high, one very cold P.E. class, we were told to dress out anyway. 35° wasn’t freezing, after all, was the coach’s reasoning. So, we dressed out and headed to the grassy field for kickball. Yeah, you guessed it. I got the bright red ball right up side my head and the nearly freezing temperature magnified the pain. I hated P.E.
The mayhaws hit me in the head yesterday, as I gathered them from the blue tarps. I like mayhaw season a whole lot better. Two gallons of berries netted juice in the freezer. Mayhaw jelly, mayhaw syrup for tea or homemade soda or mayhaw ice cream. Yes, yes, way better. Peh-tunt, peh-tunt….
I cannot let strawberry season go without contributing to the list of recipes.
Easy Strawberry Cinnamon Rolls
Take a can of crescent rolls and roll it out. Mix together 1/4 cup of sugar and a 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon and sprinkle over rolled out dough. Layer fresh sliced strawberries over cinnamon sugar. At long end, roll up dough and strawberries. Cut into 8 to 10 individual strawberry cinnamon rolls. Place in a casserol dish spritzed with vegetable spray. Bake at 350° till golden and no longer doughy. The strawberries will cook down, almost like jam. Yum! While the rolls bake, in a small bowl, mix a 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar and one Land-o-Lakes Mini Moo for a glaze. When rolls are baked up and cooled slightly, drizzle glaze all over the top. Oh, boy!
We had snow, a very rare occurrence, in February, right before the azaleas started to put on their buds. The snow and ice hung around for a week. Snow and ice put nitrogen into the atmosphere. Plants need nitrogen to be healthy. The timing of this freak weather event brought on such a beautiful Springtime. These lovely flowering shrubs highlight a hope for a better year than last.
Spring is springing out everywhere. A walk through the old gardens netted a big basket of blooms. Azaleas, camellias, wisteria and one daffodil filled a foot tall vase. As these beauties have only just begun to bloom many more bouquets await.
theexileskitchen 