A MODERN DILEMMA

OK, now this is definitely today's conundrum by so many; save yourself or capture the moment for posting to social media or instant viral fame...

It's Friday.  We can't believe we're already a week out from Thanksgiving and another week closer to Christmas.  

PORCH TABLE AND CHAIRS INSPIRATION THURSDAY

Every Thursday we like to post a picture of something we've found online that inspires us to do something similar at the farm. Sort of our own blog bulletin board so that we can eventually look back and someday, hopefully anyway, recreate it...enjoy!

Porch table and chairs in white, image via Southernliving.com

Our porch floor is natural wood.  

Our house is white.  

As much as we like color, there is something oddly satisfying in the simplicity of this.  And let's face it, for now anyway, it's just us there.  No guests.  So a small table for two, with two chairs, monochromatic in white, it just seems peaceful.

Not much involved in this, we just need to find a small wooden table and a couple of simple chairs, paint it all white (in outdoor paint of course) and then we can just sit and relax.  Now I'm going to be on a mission to find a little table like this.

Be inspired!

SHEET PAN STUFFED CHICKEN AND ASPARAGUS RECIPE

Here is one of my favorite things to do, cook a meal on a sheet pan.  This one was born out pure necessity.  We didn't have a lot left in the fridge and it was a rainy weekend evening.

Sheet pan dinner of chicken breasts

I dug around in the refrigerator and came up with a couple of chicken breasts (boneless skinless), some cooked bacon, cheese slices, and some leftover delis style slices of turkey and ham.  Surely I could come up with a meal from that.

Chicken breast stuffed with cheese and bacon

I sliced the breasts open to make a pocket and stuffed in a couple slices of cheese and some of the cooked bacon (two slices in each breast).

On the outside I sprinkled with salt and pepper.

I pulled out the deli slices of ham and turkey.  Based on the size of the breast, I used two slices on each breast. 

Then I decided to spread a little mayo on the outside of each breast (adds a good flavor).  As you can see in the picture above (sort of a step by step), after the mayo, I next put on a slice of cheese, slices of turkey (to cover the breast) and then a slice of cheese on top of the turkey (cheese makes everything good).

Then on top of the turkey I put a slice of deli ham.  Two to cover the size of the chicken breast.

I put them on the sheet pan, used toothpicks to hold it all in place and then drizzled with just a little bit of olive oil.  Just to get the ham crisped up.

I put them in a preheated 425 degree oven to roast.

Chicken breast roasted on sheet pan

I roasted them for 20 minutes.  They look yummy but not quite done yet!

Time to add the vegetables!

Asparagus

I trimmed some asparagus we had in the fridge, drizzled it with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper to taste.

Sheet pan dinner

I put them around the chicken on the sheet pan and popped it all back in the oven for about 10 more minutes.  You want to make sure the chicken is done and to temperature.  For these sized chicken breasts at this temperature it was about 30 minutes total cook time.  That's why we used the last 10 minutes for the asparagus. 

Sheet pan stuffed chicken breast and asparagus

Just dish it up and enjoy!

It was done perfectly and tasted great.  The cheese is melty and the ham has crisped up.  For something I sort of just made up with what we had on hand, 2nd Man said "you need to make this again".  Of course he might have just enjoyed the night off from cooking, ha. 

THE GREAT SPIDER SCARE OF 2018

OK.  So this happened...

I was at the farm and was sitting in the rocking chair taking a break.  I saw a spider near my foot (I was wearing my work boots).  I moved my foot and it reared up on its legs and held up more legs in front.  

Bold little thing.

I stopped moving my foot and it started walking toward me again.  I moved and it reared back again. I started to stand up and it literally ran toward me and the rocker and jumped up on the seat where I had been sitting moments before.  It then ran really fast up the side arm of the chair and seemed to be after ME.  When I stopped, it stopped.  I pulled my phone out of my shirt pocket to try and get pics.

It got to the top and then proceeded to run across the top rail of the rocker...

It kept turning toward me and then would move to get to a higher spot.  

This was the last picture I got of the spider because as I was standing there to take this one...

THE DAMN THING JUMPED STRAIGHT UP IN THE AIR AND FLEW AT ME LIKE AN ATTACK SPIDER.

I screamed gasped freaked out almost dropped the phone.  I hit the rocker and broke off one of the slats in my escape.  The spider bounced off the phone and repelled down via a web back to the porch and then hurried back to the rocker.

OH HELL NO.

I decided it was live or die, me against the spider and in the end there could be only one...

I tried to chase it. 

It jumped. 

It chased me.

I jumped.

  

A couple of things were overturned on the porch before it all came to an end...as the spider jumped off the porch into the abyss of the flowerbed. 

We both lived to fight another day.

Except I don't want to go through that again. I'll admit, that little spider scared the crap out of me.

When I got back into town, I regaled 2nd Man with the story.  He just shook his head and said "great, just great..."

THANKSGIVING DINNER 2018

OK, I took pictures during the cooking process and then forgot to take some of the food on the plate.  I guess I was too hungry to wait for photos once I got it all plated up, ha.

So here is what I did manage to photograph:

Turkey before

Our turkey.  A 13 1/2 lb all natural fresh (not frozen) turkey.  Two nights before Thanksgiving, we rubbed the turkey with our seasoning blend, put it on a rack over a baking sheet and kept it in the refrigerator.  It allowed it to sort of dry age a bit and the skin tightened up.  Then the morning of Thanksgiving, we took it out of the fridge so it would come to room temperature and we rubbed it all over with olive oil.

Turkey after

We roasted at 350 degrees for about 2 hours or until the internal temperature was 160+.  We think it came out beautifully golden and boy was it delicious!

Homemade yeast rolls

He also made two pans of a homemade yeast rolls.  SO freaking good.  I could eat two at a time. 

French bread stuffing with apples, sausage and cranberries

2nd Man made a pan of dressing (we don't stuff the turkey).  This is French bread, apples, cranberries, sausage, pecans and of course herbs and seasonings all held together with eggs and vegetable broth. 

 Brussels Sprouts with bacon and balsamic 

Here is a pan of Brussels sprouts, cut in half, sautéed in a pan with bacon fat and crumbled bacon.  Then we put it in a dish and pop it into the oven for about 30 minutes.  To serve, we drizzled it with some balsamic vinegar.  This side dish is one of my most favorite things.

Canned cranberry sauce

We also had the good old fashioned cranberry sauce from a can.  What can we say, it's part of our childhood and we like it.  I've made a homemade sauce in years past that we enjoy but this year we just wanted to do something simpler.

O'Leary rosé wine

We had to have some wine so we pulled out a bottle of O'Leary rosé.  Yes, Kevin O'Leary from the TV show Shark Tank.  His wines are really good!  And rosé was a great choice with our turkey.  Sort of a great combination of red and white that balanced nicely with the flavors of all the dishes.  

Homemade pumpkin pie

And for dessert, 2nd Man made a pumpkin pie.  We used one of the bags of pumpkin that we roasted a couple of years ago.  We vacuum sealed them in 2 cup portions and froze them.  It worked out perfectly.

We also had mashed potatoes and gravy.  The plates were too full for anything else, ha. 

We ate too much, we had leftovers Friday and will finish them all off today, but hey, isn't that the point? 

DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING

Hope you all had a great holiday.

We had a quiet one, just the two of us, but of course we cooked for ten.  Pictures later!

Today is not only Black Friday, but leftovers day for all that food we all cooked.  How many of you went to bed last night saying "ugh, I can't eat another thing, I don't think I'll eat until Saturday..." and then woke up this morning craving leftovers?  LOL.

Rainy day here today so we'll stay in town.  We'll see how the weather is tomorrow.

Here is one last holiday food horror (we've posted one every day this week, check back each day for the others).  This one is using those above mentioned leftovers

So what do you think?

Does a cranberry jello ring filled with leftover turkey and dressing sound wonderful?

I'll catch up on comments this weekend, thank you all for the kind words!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2018

2nd Man and I would like to say thank you to all our wonderful friends who come here and visit.  It means a lot to us that somehow, whatever we're doing seems to interest you enough to come back and check in either regular or from time to time.

We are grateful and thankful!

Now eat up, be with friends and family, watch parades or football or old movies and have a wonderful day!

TWAS THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING

Short post today, we know lots of you are busy prepping for tomorrow's festivities!  Of course, I have to work today but 2nd Man is off.  

________________________

Since Sunday, I have been putting a vintage gross food idea from the past at the bottom of each post.  Check the previous days to see some awful ones.

For today's yucky Thanksgiving food... 

Anyone up for a "Holiday Vegetable Loaf"?

WE HAVE SPROUTING

Napa cabbage.  Getting bigger.

Also looks like my "centering skills" were lacking when I planted a few of the seedlings.

Did a little better job of spacing these out.  Here are the collards.  Doing nicely.  We have had a freeze so they should be sweeter now when we do get to harvest them.

And here are the two garlic beds.  Wait!  What are those?  Do you see them there?

Maybe this will help...

We have sprouting!!

Yep, both beds have little green shoots coming up through the straw.  I guess this means good things are happening underground.  I checked the blog entry for last year and it was the 13th when they came up.  I got them in the ground a few days later than last year so we are right on track.

_________________________

And for today's Thanksgiving yucky foods...

Anyone up for a wonderful treat called

"Frozen Jellied Turkey Vegetable Salad"?

Anyone?

FIRST FREEZE UPDATE

Well it was our first (and one of the earliest on record) freeze of the season.

The house pipes were fine.  The lowest temp at the farm was 29 and pipes are usually good down to mid 20's before we need to worry.  Usually, in January or so, we drain the pipes and blow the water out until danger of hard freezing is over.  

The grass is officially dormant.  It hasn't even grown.  This is two weeks post mowing.

Pineapple

The pineapple survived, yay!  Good thing too, I forgot to cover them.  But they are on the porch, in the corner up against the wall so were probably shielded from the harshest blowing cold. 

Texas lilac in the freeze

This is the Texas Lilac (Vitex) next to the porch.  They all look like this but they are fine, they are hardy down to near zero.  Just going dormant now for Winter.  I'll prune them next year after the last frost and we'll get some beautiful new growth.

Citrus trees

Here are the citrus trees and they did fine as well.  The third one is just out of camera shot.  All three made it.  The first real hard freeze forecast though and I may bring them back into town to protect them until Spring when I can get them in the ground.

Raised beds

The grass is starting to turn the same color as the straw mulch on the fruit tree beds, ha.

Banana trees

These took it the hardest.  They are the two banana trees.  I never planted them because I was letting them get bigger before planting them and of course finding the right spot for them.  I didn't cover them and the blowing wind hurt the leaves.  The plants themselves seem fine so hopefully they will bounce back.  The "parents" these came off of (my coworker gave these to us last year from her parents' plants) freeze every year and come right back and still produce bananas.  Fingers crossed they make it!

Checked the forecast for the next 10 days and we're good for no freezing so nothing to worry about..yet.

__________________________

Today's Thanksgiving yucky foods mention...

What about this?  This was touted as a wonderful side dish to serve at Thanksgiving that would have all your guests raving.  Yeah, we think "raving" is probably not the right word.  

Ham and Hollandaise sauce covered bananas? 

Would you dare?

SUNDAY UPDATE

It's raining today.  Supposed to be a rainy week ahead too.

Crazy looking clouds. I believe these are called "mammatus clouds".  

It's been a weekend of getting things ready for Thanksgiving.  

No, we're NOT having Spam birds, ha!  Found some hilarious vintage Thanksgiving food horrors, will share one each day this week.

So what about it, do Spam birds sound good?