Monday, October 05, 2009

Joining in Monday's Randomness!

Mrs. Nurse Boy at Poop on Jelly hosts a Monday Randomness which I enjoy immensely, so here's my two-cents worth of my "randomess". :-)

I worked my tookas off Friday evening AFTER taking care of Jaylon all day. I was beat when I finally arrived home at about 8:30pm. We had our monthly church dinner/fundraiser and I washed all of the big pots and pans and roaster liner pans.

AND THEN....on Saturday afternoon.....I vacuumed the vestibule, prayer room, nursery and sanctuary at church, after getting a few extra things done here at home that morning. I had planned on going to the library afterward, to my great-nephew's football game where I would also get to see my great-niece who is a cheerleader, but after vacuuming, I was just wiped out.

Sooooo, I came home....I did not pass go or collect $200....and went to bed for a couple of hours.


THEN....since our electric was out from 11am until 8pm....and electric pole caught on fire.....I stopped by a local coffeehouse/restaurant and got a LARGE coffee on my way to enjoy our local high school band festival....and who should I see but my oldest sister and her family! So I visited with them for a few minutes, then headed over to the Logan High School Football Stadium where they were having the annual Fall Festival of Bands.


The first Saturday of every October, our school district hosts this band festival. This year was the biggest event ever. There were 15 bands, including Ohio University/Athens Marching 110!!!! I loooove marching bands and they were awesome!!!


I went by myself because everyone I had planned to go with or was going with me, cancelled out at the last minute, but I didn't mind going by myself. I knew I'd see alot of people that I know and, sure enough, my neighbor, Brenda, was there, so we sat together and I also spent some time with my oldest brother, Bill and his family. Bill and I are both like HUGE fans of marching bands! We both played the trumpet when we were in school and in the band. His granddaughter plays the clarinet and is second chair! We are so proud of her! It takes a tremendous amount of dedication to be in Logan's marching band! I don't know if I would have done all that is required of them if it had been required back in my marching band days. And I'm not necessarily proud of that fact. Just bein' honest. :-)
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I got home at about 9:30 that evening (Friday) and went straight to bed. I was worn out.


Would you believe that last Thursday night, I was in bed at eight o'clock?! I've just been so tired lately.

Okay, I know I worked alot at the church over the weekend but even before that I was tired and I don't like to hear people talk about how tired they are all of the time either and here I am doing it! *yawn*
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Oh, but I made some killer vegetable soup Thursday! Oh my! I cut up a three-pound chuck roast that had some fat in it.....that makes a better broth.....and browned the chunks in oil in my big kettle. Seasoned it well, then covered it with water and let it simmer until the meat was fall-apart tender. Then I added tomatoes, tomato juice, and a plethora of vegetables and let all of that simmer for a long time. Hubba hubba. :-)

Years ago...back before the war.....:-)......when I made vegetable soup for the first time....well, I knew that you were supposed to put all of these vegetables in it and I spotted a can of spinach in the cupboard! Yes, I did! Well, I love spinach, so I opened the can and threw it in the pot. Big mistake. The spinach kind of floated on the top and looked like slimey seaweed. When we sat down for supper, everyone said: "What is THAT?" I told them what happened but it tasted really good anyway, so we just closed our eyes and ate it! LOL That story has been told on me a few times through the years.


Which reminds me of one of the first times that I made spaghetti sauce because back then you had to make your own sauce. Mmmmhmmm.....no buying the jarred, all-ready-made sauce. Well, I just didn't think the sauce looked very red. It looked pale-ish pink to me, so I thought I would add some red food coloring to it. Yes, I did. But, I didn't have any red food coloring, so I just tossed in a few drops of blue. Then a few of green. That sauce ended up looking like lumpy brown mud! BUT! It was REALLY delicious! Sooooo, once again, we sat down to supper, closed our eyes and had a really delicious supper of homemade spaghetti!!! :-)


Thankfully, I had not met Ed yet when all of these wonderful culinary mishaps took place! :-)
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Jaylon crawled from one end of the house to the other at least four times today!!! AND he finally found the cat food! The evidence:


He managed to get a couple of pieces in his mouth before I could get to him. He seemed to like it! :-)
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I baked my first batch of cookies Saturday! Well, not my FIRST batch EVER but my first since the weather has turned cooler. I made cream cheese cookies and they are the easiest cookies ever and are one of Daniel and Ed's favorites.


1 BOX OF YELLOW CAKE MIX
1 8oz. PACKAGE OF CREAM CHEESE
1 EGG
1 TSP. OF VANILLA
EMPTY THE CAKE MIX INTO A MIXING BOWL.
SOFTEN THE CREAM CHEESE IN THE MICROWAVE.
BEAT THE EGG AND ADD TO THE CAKE MIX.
ADD THE SOFTENED CREAM CHEESE AND VANILLA.
MIX THESE INGREDIENTS TOGETHER THOROUGHLY.
THE DOUGH WILL BE PRETTY STIFF.
YOU CAN DROP THE DOUGH ONTO A GREASED COOKIE
SHEET BY THE TEASPOON OR MAKE OUT
LITTLE PATTIES ABOUT THE SIZE OF A
FIFTY-CENT PIECE. BAKE AT 350 DEGREES FOR 12 MINUTES

OR UNTIL BROWN ON THE BOTTOM. DON'T OVERBAKE.
THESE ARE SO EASY AND SO DELICIOUS!

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A little hint I have when making soups like chili and vegetable soup is to add a few drops of Liquid Smoke. Daniel and I also add it to our hamburgers sometimes, too, mixing it into the meat before grilling. It doesn't take much so add sparingly and taste as you go until you get the amount that you like.
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Remember when the concession stand at school events only offered hotdogs, popcorn, chips and pop? Not any more! Wow! The concession stand at Logan Stadium is unbelievable. Grilled hamburgers and brats. Chicken and noodles! Chicken sandwiches. Sloppy Joes. And, of course, pizza, hot dogs, nachos and cheese. Oh, and you can have chili cheese on your nachos, too, if you like. I was really impressed with all that they offered.
Me? I chose the brat...yummo....and your standard box of popcorn. :-) It was superb!
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Hey! Daniel just brought Ed and me two sirloin burgers that he grilled out! So I am going to end this randomness and go partake of mine!!!

Hope your Monday has been wonderful!!! :-)

4 comments:

Mr. and Mrs. Nurse Boy said...

Impressive list of randomess! I love your cooking stories... I think my boys would PASS OUT if I served them brown spaghetti sauce! That cracked me up!

The post just screamed FALL to me! I love it!!!

Except pretty soon I will have to part with my flip flops and that will be very sad for me.

Mrs. Nurse Boy

Jewel said...

Flipflops are not a part of my shoe repretoire, though I have alot of friends who swear by them. :-) Noooo, I am of the comfortable, supportive, and not-so-dainty shoe variety of shoe-wearer,these days. (Did that make sense?)
I looove fall, too. I savored the changing colors of the countryside as I drove into the library this evening.

Barbara H. said...

I had a cooking mishap with food coloring. I was making gravy which hadn't browned well, and I didn't have any of the stuff that you can add to gravy to make it brown. I had heard that you could mix red and green to make brown, so I added a few drops of each. But somehow the gravy only looked green, no matter how much red I added. I'm afraid I couldn't eat it. We had a good laugh about it, and it took me a long time to live down "green gravy."

My overactive safety conscientious makes me want to suggest one of those outlet covers for that outlet there since Jaylon is so mobile now. :-)

Jewel said...

So I'm not alone in my cooking mishaps! Yayyyy!!! :-) It's people like us that make life so interesting and adventuresome, Barbara! :-)
I have outlet covers but haven't installed them yet but I will tomorrow 'cause Daniel will home with Jaylon and I'll have more free time! Thanks for the watchful eye! :-)