Rather Quiet in Clampett-ville for a Few Days – March 2, 2022 – at the Clampetts

The weather continues to yo-yo back and forth.  Tuesday was cold and dreary.  Today is warmer and sunnier.  The sun sure makes a difference.   Read on.

Hello Folks,

B & I have had a couple of quiet days this week.  I am not sure why exactly, but for whatever reason, life has been rather mellow around here.  That is, as you know, quite unusual.

When I finished the previous blog, I was making hearty tortellini soup.  In the end, I decided it had to sit overnight, so Sunday supper was ham and cheese sandwiches.  I also am using up the second loaf of rye bread I made a while ago.  Something went terribly wrong with the batch and it is dry and not so great, but we are slowly eating it up.  It is now time to make another loaf of some kind of bread.  But not today.

Anyway, the tortellini soup is very hearty and I had to scrape off quite a bit of grease.  And then again last night.  We have enough for a third night, but I am giving it a rest.  Tonight we are having my own baked sweet potato fries, and I thawed out a couple of pieces of ham from our Christmas ham.  I have already made a banana cream pudding, as we have leftover bananas this week and leftover milk that needed to be used. 

I have a few more cooking pictures to show you.  The first one is a piece of the French topped apple pie.  The second picture is the pie “dressed” by B.  As you can see, he added vanilla ice cream AND a hunk of cheddar cheese.  By the way, it is a long-standing New England tradition to eat a chunk of cheddar with apple pie.  We both really like it!  We always heat the pie up first, too.

Anyway, the pie came out very well and was very tasty.  I had a mixture of MacIntosh and Cortland apples.  Those are my two favorite apples.  How about you guys?  What are your favorite apples?  I don’t think you can go wrong with either of these two apples for either cooking or eating.  Perhaps my New England upbringing makes me feel this way!

Another cooking picture is a plate of deviled eggs I fixed on Monday to go with the soup.  My girls are doing well and it is not unusual for me to get 3-5 eggs a day.  In fact, I had so many eggs, we sent one dozen to Dr John and Sandy (not that unusual to do that, as we get “paid back” with veggies and fruit from them in season), and B took a dozen to our local food pantry this morning.  We have almost another dozen for the Mason’s breakfast on Sunday, plus I keep two dozen for us.

So, fixing deviled eggs was a no-brainer.  B loves them and would eat them all if he could, so I ration them out to him.  Today, I made the vanilla pudding using another egg yolk.  Keep them coming, girls!  But back to the deviled or stuffed eggs.  I use a little mayo, a few drops of hot sauce, and dry mustard mixed in my egg yolks.  Just for practice, I ladled the egg yolk mixture into a baggie, cut one corner off and “stuffed” the whites as if I was frosting a cake.  Then a swirl of paprika to finish the job.  What do you think???

By the way, I love my egg plate.  My mother started a collection of these dishes many years ago.  My mother was always buying a new set of dishes as she aged.  But this set was special to her and to me.  When I got married, almost 18 years ago, she gave them to me and bought us a large platter to go with them.  I have since added to the collection and purchased this egg dish a number of years ago.  The dishes are called Botanical Garden by Portmeirion.

And what’s B been up to you ask while I have been cooking?  B, too, seems to have had a couple of quiet days.  Yesterday was so cold and overcast that he didn’t do much outside.  Neither did I.  He tried to do something out in the garage, but his hands got so cold, he had to come inside.  We ran the wood stove all day yesterday. 

In the evening, B decided to go down to the basement and see if our bank of 20 batteries needed water.  They did; badly again.  He is supposed to check them every 2 months, but time got by him and it was almost 4 mos. since he last checked them.  Our new solar panels are producing so much energy that our batteries gas off the water much more quickly.  B says he has to remember to check them every 2 mos. from now on.

Today B has been doing some odd jobs.  Part of the snow came off our roof, so he had to shovel that out of the way.  He is also pondering what to do about cutting more wood.  We have quite the pile of chunks building up, so B is unsure as to how much more he needs to cut and haul home.  All these chunks need to be split!  Yikes.  We both figure we already have more than enough for next winter.  Here’s a picture B took of yours truly in front of the pile this afternoon.

There is a lot of work here for B this spring/summer/fall to split all this wood.  We are hoping we can hire some help, but we both say this with a smile.  Finding good help around here is about as scarce as hen’s teeth.

So, that’s about it from Clampett-ville today.

Stay well.