Friday, July 17, 2009



We have had a week of high temperatures in the triple digits. For all of you that don't understand, 100+ temperatures. There have been some severe thunderstorms coming across our country. This is a picture I took of a thunderstorm at sunset. Luckily, we have not had much hail. My garden is just going good, I would hate to lose anything to hail damage. The storms have been very spotty, so some people are getting some, others not much. We have not gotten much, as you can see by the grass.

It is Friday!! We are ready for the weekend. Everyone needs a little time off now and then. We can go the country and relax in the peace and quiet. That is if the kids and animals will keep it down! Somebody is gonna have to shut up the rooster that crows at least fifty times a day if we are going to have any peace! Have a great weekend yourself!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Apparently my husband thought I was giving away too many of his secrets. Writing about his hand mixed steak rub was just going too far. Maybe he thinks he will make his secret rub and sell it across the U.S. So you are not going to get his secret recipe for steak rub. I can tell you that it had a lot of different seasonings in it. It was very flavorful and not hot.

Anyhoo, back to the farm. We will move along. Everyone has a basic hot roll recipe, so I won't bore you with another one.

This last weekend we had some friends that came to visit that like to camp. We have the perfect place to camp. There is a stand of mulberry trees that have been there since the homestead days. There are some large tree stumps underneath that are used for seating. We have dug a nice fire pit surrounded by rocks. We can then put a grate over the rocks and cook most anything. This time we had a campfire breakfast. We made biscuits with sausage gravy and scrambled eggs. I did cheat and make the biscuits at home. I took them along in disposable pans covered with aluminum foil. That way I could heat them up on the edge of the grate and not have the cooking time of a dutch oven. I always make gravy over the campfire with canned milk. I don't have to worry about carrying milk in the cooler. Just make sure you have some water.

Sausage Gravy

2 lbs. pork sausage, mild or hot
1/2 cup all purpose flour
3 cans evaporated milk
2 cans water
Salt and pepper to taste

Brown sausage in deep skillet breaking up all large pieces. Do not drain fat. Add flour to sausage and fat in skillet. Cook until all sausage is coated with flour. Add milk and water. Bring to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over split hot biscuits.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

For the seafood boil, we put about 1/2 cup of Old Bay Seasoning in a large pot of water. Bring to a boil. Add smoked sausage, about 1/4 lb per person, and boil for 15 minutes. The sausage will help flavor your water. We added two small new potatoes per person and boiled for another 25 minutes. Then we added an ear of sweet corn per person, broken in half, and boiled another 15 minutes. Then we added easy peel shrimp, 1/2 lb per person, and boiled 5 minutes. The trick is to make sure everything else is cooked before adding the shrimp. They do not take long and will turn to rubber if overcooked. We then dipped a strainer into the water and removed all the contents and served large trays in the middle of each table. You could add any kind of seafood you would like. We served with butter, cocktail sauce, tartar sauce and ketchup (mainly for the kids that don't like cocktail sauce).

We covered our tables with newspaper for easy cleanup.

Enjoy!