Who Needs a Burger and Baked Beans Anyway?

     It was so hot here in Illinois on the 4th of July, that for the first time I can remember, we didn't grill outside. We use our grill all year long and I don't mind asking my husband to stand outside in the snow for a grilled chicken breast, but when the heat index is pushing 115-I just wanted him to stay inside. I decided to cook something completely not appropriate for the 4th and much more fattening than we usually have. According to my son, it was the best pasta he had ever eaten! No recipe...I was just "winging" it.

Ingredients:

Ground beef (turkey or chicken would be fine)

Pasta Sauce (1 jar or same amount of homemade)

Low Fat Ricotta Cheese

Penne Pasta (or whatever shape you like)

Shredded Mozzarella

     In a skillet, brown the ground beef (I only used half of what was shown raw above) and drain. Stir in the jar of pasta sauce. In a separate pan, prepare the pasta according to directions. We like a lot of sauce in our pasta dishes, so I only used about half the box of pasta. Drain the pasta and add to the meat/sauce mixture.

     We love ricotta cheese, so I used a large spoon and placed "globs" of it over the top of the pasta. It almost looked like I was cooking dumplings.

Cover the top of the pasta/ricotta

mixture with a package of mozzarella cheese.

     Put the lid on your skillet and on low heat let the cheeses melt. We had ours with a salad and crusty bread. It is very easy and oh, so good!

     This is the pasta sauce I used. I bought it at Walmart and it did cost more than all the other sauces, but it was excellent and worth the extra money.

For dessert, I tried to keep it more 4th of July friendly.

I made my typical trifle. You can find the recipe for it here.

It is low fat to offset the pasta dish!

     I'm still trying to get into the mood for blogging. This heat and drought seem to have fried my brain. I don't feel creative and while I'm trying to get around to visit everyone, I am still behind on my visits. We have a trip coming up soon, so I may never get caught up...but, I'm trying! It was 104 today, our yard is dead and our plants are mostly gone even though we have watered them. Our fish died in our fountain (I think they cooked) and the cornfield behind our house is truly sad to see. I really feel for the farmers, the loss is major and the worst they have seen in many decades. I feel as if we should be stocking up on corn products now before the prices go up! I hope there is rain where you live!

    

Oh Yes She Did!

Who me?

     You may have noticed that I haven't been around lately...well, SOMEONE decided to snack on my laptop power cord and chew it in half. So, I had a dead computer. Living in small town USA, I had to order in a new cord and it just arrived, so I'm back in business. I hope to spend some time this weekend catching up with all of you! 

Food as Art

     We are in the midst of a major heat wave and drought here in South Central Illinois. I'm sure many of you are experiencing the same thing. We have had heat warnings for days and the current one runs until Saturday night. Last night we got about 10 minutes of a light rain, the first in weeks. It was funny to see the neighbors (including us) all go outside when the rain started just to enjoy the moment. I don't know about you, but decorating just isn't something I'm in the mood for right now. 

     After spending most of Saturday afternoon napping and reading, by Sunday afternoon I was stir crazy in the house. I decided to clean my already clean house just to have something to do and I put a few things away that I had sitting on the kitchen counters. Something about this weather makes me want a "less is more" look right now. We had made a trip about 30 miles away on Saturday morning for our first peaches of the season. I love how they look in my wooden bread bowl. I think the natural look this time of year is so much prettier and more artistic than anything you can buy at a gift shop. Plus, the peaches smell so good in the kitchen!

     A stop at an Amish vegetable stand Saturday and we had beautiful "tomato art" as well. There really is nothing like a fresh tomato to scream SUMMER!

     I didn't make a lot of changes in other parts of the kitchen. The cookbook is turned to a summer page, the towel has a beachy look and some colorful favorite cookbooks brighten a spot near the stove.

     You can see a couple Disney items (you can't have a daughter working for Disney and not have a little tribute to Mickey) along with signs my daughter bought me. We use the granite cheeseboard to hold some wine items. I have heat resistant cutting boards in a couple of locations in the kitchen. I don't like the look, but I do like being able to take things from the oven and have a place to put them. I also keep a few trays within reach, propped behind things during the summer months. I think summer should be all about easy. Grab a tray, grab a corkscrew, grab a little Mickey Mouse spredder knife...all within reach for a quick wine and cheese moment!

     My flowers are having a terrible time in the heat, even though we are watering daily. I love the look of a single gladiola on the counter. I'm also going to go out later and fill a vase with fresh basil, rosemary and mint...nothing smells better and it looks pretty too!

I am joining Marty @ A Stroll Thru Life for Table Top Tuesday

and

Kim @ Savvy Southern Style for Wow Us Wednesdays

Please visit our lovely hostesses!

Lemon Pound Cake...easy and so good!

     When my dad was here I was trying to come up with a light dessert to serve after a big meal. I made this slightly lemon flavored pound cake (my first pound cake) and served it sliced with whipping cream and fresh blueberries. It would be good with any fruit, ice cream or even as a breakfast bread. I know it was a hit at our dinner table.

Ingredients:

Cake

1 stick butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 large eggs (separate the yolks from the whites)

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

2/3 cup sour cream

1 tsp real vanilla

1 T. fresh lemon juice

Glaze

3 heaping T of powdered sugar

juice from one lemon

Whisk together until blended

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

     Grease a 9x5 loaf pan. I prefer to sugar a pan after greasing rather than using flour. The sugar melts into the cake and not only doesn't show, it creates a little crispy crunch.

     With a mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (see top photo). Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing after each addition. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add half of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix, then half of sour cream, then the rest of the dry and the rest of the sour cream. When the batter is smooth, add the vanilla and lemon juice and mix well.

     In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold (with a spatula, don't beat) the egg whites into the batter until they are completely incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until the cake is golden brown, 1 hour and 25 minutes. Let the cake cool and pour the glaze over the top.

     I forgot to take pictures after I plated the cake, but I simply put a large dollop of whipped cream on one corner of each slice and dropped a handfull of blueberries on top of the cream. The cake has more of a vanilla flavor with a hint of lemon. Enjoy!

I am joining Michael @ Rattlebridge Farm for Foodie Friday

Please visit our hostess!

Make New Friends, But Keep The Old

     The old Girl Scout song lyrics have never felt so true to me as they feel this week. I just spent the weekend in the company of many of my high school classmates as we celebrated our 40^th (ugh) class reunion.

Class of '72

     So many of us are struggling with words to describe what the weekend meant to us. My class has a page on Facebook and the pictures and words have been streaming in at a fast pace since Sunday. I really had no plans to do a blog post about the reunion, but as a writer…I just had to try to capture some of the feelings that this event stirred in all of us. The other thing I hope to do is to encourage all of you who skip class reunions, to rethink that idea.

     To quote some of my classmates, “Looking around, this weekend and seeing other old friends being together was all so familiar” “I feel like this weekend changed my life again” “but only the friends of our youth knew our families and where we came from”. I think it could be said that most of us were shocked at how wonderful it was to reconnect with old friends and even make some new ones. After all, at most we spent 12 years of our lives with these people and we have had 40 years of life, new friendships and experiences since leaving high school. It doesn’t make sense that when I saw my friend Elaine walking towards me, I felt such a rush of pure joy. The hug I gave my friend Liz, was genuine and filled with love even though I hadn’t seen her in 20 years.

Girlfriends!

     I think there is something to be said for people who knew you before “life happened” to us all. It was a time of hope and innocence for most of us, although I have learned that some classmates weren’t living my sheltered childhood and yet they never told us. I knew when my mom died and so many classmates sent me messages through Facebook, that there was something special about the bonds we created years ago. People who know me today, were kind and very sympathetic but those who knew me back then, had spent the night at my house, had my mom for a Girl Scout leader or been to my birthday parties. They knew her and that helped me through the worst time of my life.

     During our class picture, one of my friends who knows me the best, realized that as an extremely claustrophobic person, being somehow situated in the middle of 100 plus people for what seemed like forever, without dinner, in the heat and humidity was starting to get to me. She was standing right in front of me and probably felt my knees start to shake…what no one knows is that she stuck her hand up behind her back and grabbed mine and held on until the picture was done and quietly said under her breath, “do you need to leave”. True friendship based on years of knowing someone very well.

     We talked about our classmates who were no longer with us…and how much we missed them. We talked of those who still live in town and didn’t come and how much they were missing by not showing up! We missed many who live away and for some reason didn’t make the trip. We had people come from Oregon, Texas, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Colorado and I’m sure other states. I doubt anyone would say they regretted making the trip.

     We learned that some of the boys thought we were cute in junior high but never bothered to let us know (oh what a difference that would have made in the 7^th grade), that where you lived in school and what your father did makes absolutely no difference now that we are all grown up (it didn’t matter then either, we just didn’t know it), that the class clown is still funny and that years can drop away in a heartbeat and you fall right back into the banter that you had decades ago. We discovered that people who felt like wallflowers in school are really great people and they certainly weren’t ignored anymore (isn‘t it sad they ever were). We are a class that we has produced lawyers, doctors, business executives, teachers, laborers, housewives, mothers, fathers and grandparents…funny, smart and caring individuals. Our parents and our teachers would be proud I think of who we have become.

Grade School Classmates

     The point is, it was worth it. It was worth all the work (done by others, not me) to prepare for this event. It was worth the travel, the manicures, the worrying about what to wear (I screwed that one up on the second night-bad outfit for pictures). It didn’t matter that we didn’t lose the 20 pounds or that we couldn’t read the name tags because we all have old eyes. There was something special happening in Mattoon, IL last weekend…and I am so glad that I was part of it.