FIRE!

I was on the way home from work on Wednesday and got a text from Golden Boy....."The microwave is on fire!" Not alot I can do while driving around the 240 loop except call home and say "What up?"

Drama Queen had been making some Easy Mac in the microwave. I got home to find the top of the inside of the microwave all black and the macaroni and cheese in a molten pile on the bottom of it. Looked much like the ruins of Pompeii. I thought maybe she had neglected to get all of the foil covering off of the cup...no that wasnt it. Did she forget to remove the foil package of cheese powder from the bowl? No, there it was on the counter.

"Drama Queen, did you put WATER in the bowl like it says on the directions?"

.......long silence......."um........"

That would be a no.

The Redhead Goes to the Farmer's Market

Big Daddy suggested the other day that we make a trip to the local farmer's market. I'll have to admit it was only mildly inviting. Sounded like more fun than grouting tile or flossing teeth, but not quite as fun as Target. But Im always game for some shoppin.


I was blown away. It was an ant hill of people. I dont grow things (my silk plants are shakin in their pots right now) so we completely skipped the garden center. But if you are into that, it looked like it was overflowing with seasonal vegetables, herbs, yard plants and flowers. We went mainly for the produce, since we are trying to make an effort to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. Seeing the homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers and squash took me back to my grandparents house where my Papaw used to have a garden. My grandmother "Doll" always had a jar of cucumbers and onions with vinegar over it. I always thought that was the grossest thing, but I'd love to be able to try that right out of her jar. We had a lovely conversation with one seller about tomatoes, yellow ones to be exact. I tried a yellow cherry tomato, just put it right in my mouth and ate it. It was very sweet for a tomato and not acidy at all. Very yummy. We got a big yellow tomato which will go perfect in a tomato pie.

Tonight we are going to have some eggplant parmesan and I bought some yellow crookneck squash that I'll put in the freezer for later. Big Daddy and Golden Boy were salivating over some cheddar jalapeno bread that smelled soooo good, and not too spicy for me, the wimp of the family. I heard that Thursday is bread day, get there early or there wont be any left.

We also saw a big pea-bean shelling thing. Big Daddy said used to sit out on his grandmothers front porch and turn his fingers purple by shelling some purple hull peas. No way you could compete with the volume you could shell with this thing.



Oh yeah. It was hot.

Ive got shoes.....they're made of plywood

And Im loooooooooosing the soooooles........


The internet, in addition to being the FINAL authority on ALL things, is also a huge time vacuum. While nature may hate a vacuum, I'll do most anything to avoid work, responsibility, anything pretty much except breathing. So by the time I've read everyone's statuses on Facebook, and all the non-facebooker's Tweets, memorized all of the cats with captions, I have to dig deeeeep into the recesses of the internet.

www.kissthisguy.com The archive of funny misheard lyrics

You will laugh and laugh as you discover that all this time, Freddie Mercury of Queen was NOT in fact singing "The algebra has a devil for a sidekick eeeeeeeee" in Bohemian Rhapsody. Or that you only briefly thought Jimi Hendrix said "excuse me while I kiss this guy." Strangely, there are no entries for Bob Dylan. Who the heck knows WHAT he was sayin....

Slap yo momma!

One of the questions I hate to hear every day is....."Whats for dinner?" I usually say something smart back like "food" or "something." Today was no exception.

I had kinda planned in my head to have some grilled chicken, and I knew I had some frozen broccoli in the freezer (like where else?). Big Daddy could cook the chicken on the grill so I got it marinating in some Italian Dressing, no biggie. He got out a box of rice and I said "no that will take 30 mins" and so when he went to fire up the grill I stood in front of the pantry and scratched my head. Then the light came on.

We had been to Costco a week or so ago scoping out the samples (thats a whole other post, the picky eater). We picked up a jar of this:

I boiled up a pot of spagetti noodles, drained them, and put them in a big pasta bowl. Then I added about 4 big spoonfulls of the Bruschetta straight out of the jar and stirred it up. As soon as the bruschetta hit the hot noodles, you could smell the garlic. Like you just walked into Olive Garden. Let me tell you, this was yummy. It gives Grisanti's Elfo Special a run for its money. It was good with the italian grilled chicken, but it would also be great with just some sauteed shrimp or mushrooms (or both). I knew it was a hit when Big Daddy found Golden Boy in the kitchen eating straight out of the pasta bowl.

Its a keeper.

Really? Really.

Breaking News! Baskin Robbins is retiring five classic flavors to the "Deep Freeze" to make room for new stuff. And one of the flavors? French Vanilla. What? Yeah. French Vanilla. Thats like retiring Coke. So one man in Seattle has started a Facebook page rebelling the retirement. I mean, why cant they retire one of those disgustingly sickeningly sweet flavors like cotton candy or super sugar slap? So now when you go to your local BR to get a root beer float or banana split you'll have to pick something else. This just aint right. Call your congressman, start a petition, form a stand in, picket your local ice cream shop. This kind of heresy shouldnt be tolerated.

This one time....at band camp...

Well its that time again. Time for me to get my head out of my you-know-what. Band camp starts today for GB's school and another school in our town. Its gonna be brutal, y'all! The heat, the standing, the marching, the music. But hey, its worth the hard work and sweat by the end of marching season. GB is really geeked up about it, too. And I get to play water girl on Thursday this week and one day next week!

And with the end of band camp comes school supply shopping, which I LOATHE. Id rather go to the dentist or grout my tile. But that wouldnt do much good for the kids. What I love is getting everything bought and sorted and their names on it and then they come home from school with a whole other list. Woo. Hoo. One year we had to get composition books for science lab and there Werent. Any. To. Be. Found. So I bought enough for all of Shelby county when they finally got some in at Walgreens. And what is up with getting all new stuff every year? I need new undies too, ya know. Moms always get stuff last.

Im sure school starting will bring new blog fodder. My poor readers (all 7 of you) have been so neglected! I got the smackdown Saturday night. I'll do better I promise.

Ok, carry on!

Super Sonic

Every Sunday (and I mean EVERY) we stop at Sonic to get a drink on the way to church (no not the alcoholic kind but hey that might make church go by faster JUST KIDDING). And to my kid's horror we have kind of become, um, friendly with the Sonic girl. There is this one girl who works every Sunday (maybe she is stalking us, no wait, we are the ones stalking her)and over time she got to know us, yadda yadda. I try to always tip her and we gave her a Christmas present one year. You know, the things parents do JUST to horrify the children.

Mellow Mushroom

My friend Stephanie and I had the opportunity to get away without kids recently and found ourselves fumbling around for something to do. So we headed down Germantown Parkway, making a few stops to shop (of course). Then of course it was time to eat! We really wanted to go somewhere we usually wouldnt go so we headed to Mellow Mushroom in Germantown (last time I went that far I almost took my passport and toothbrush). This one is located on Poplar just east of Forest Hill Irene across from Target.

It was a little after 5 on a Sunday night and we got a table right away. The place was about half full, I can imagine the same time on a Friday or Saturday night the place would be packed. Mellow Mushroom is mostly known for their pizza, but they have plenty of other selections if you arent in the mood for a piece of pie. They do have pizza available by the slice, but only on weekdays from 11-2 which I suppose is to make selections quick for people who are in for a quick lunch during the workday. I was disappointed because I would have loved to have tried a few different types of their concoctions. Their menu includes a good selection of appetizers, salads, and sandwiches. The appetizer pretzels we heard are pretty good by take 20 minutes to prepare. So we passed on that.

I picked the 10 inch Gourmet White pizza. A 10 inch was a little too much for one person, but would be great to share with someone if you each have a salad. Im not a big fan of greazy pizza and this one is right up my alley. It has olive oil, garlic, sundried tomatoes, provolone, mozzarella, feta, tomatoes, and onions. The hand tossed crust was buttery with just a hint of garlic and had the right amount of crunch to it. The pizza was veeerrrry cheeeessssyyyy. But it was light and very tasty and didnt leave me feeling like I had a brick in my stomach when I got done. I could have done with a few more tomatoes and a few less onions (they were sliced not diced which I thought was strange but whatever). I only ate 2 of the pieces and took the other 2home in a box for later.

Life Imitates Food Network

This weekend while we were at Pop's for the fireworks, some Ripley tomatoes jumped out of a box and into my car. I brought them into the house and put them on the counter. They looked all pretty. Then I remembered Saturday morning watching Down Home with the Neely's on Food Network, and seeing Gina's Summer Tomato Pie. Mmmmmm. I love me some Ripley tomatoes. Grandmother used to bring us some in a bucket every summer about this time and I would make some salsa. I have a Ripley Tomato Cookbook, and one of the things I saw in there that is so yummy is a baked stuffed tomato. But that is for another post!

Copied straight from the Food Network site, here is the recipe:

Ingredients
Flour, for dusting work surface
1 (9-inch) ready-made refrigerated rolled pie crust
2 large yellow tomatoes, sliced 1/4-inch thick
1 red tomato, sliced 1/4-inch thick
8 ounces mozzarella, sliced
1/4 cup chiffonade basil leaves
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (I omitted this!)
Extra-virgin olive oil
Directions
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Sprinkle flour on a work surface. Roll out pie dough to form a 10-inch circle and place on baking sheet. Overlap and alternate the different tomatoes and mozzarella slices in the center of the dough, leaving a 3-inch border. Scatter the basil leaves on top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and red pepper flakes. Fold the uncovered edges of the dough inward over the filling to create a pleated crust. Brush edges and top of pie with olive oil.

Place in the oven and bake for 35 minutes. Remove from the oven to a cutting board. Slice and serve.

So here is my version....
Before


After


Got 3 thumbs up! You didnt really think Drama Queen was gonna eat that, didya? At our house we would call this recipe "a keeper."