365 Day Photo Challenge 284/365 “Great Friends-Great Food”

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Three main dishes, two desserts and home made biscuits made for a long afternoon but it was worth every minute of it.  We had a great turn out with a lot of fun and fellowship.

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The main dishes included coca-cola chicken, easy bake pork chops and easy cheesy meat & potatoes.  The desserts were apple spice cobbler and regular apple cobbler.  If any of these recipes sound good to you and if you’d like to try them out give me a shout and I’ll send them to you.

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I’m exhausted so I’m calling it a night.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 283/365 “Bragging Rights”

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I think I have everything loaded for tomorrow’s cookout.  We’re expecting to feed around 50 people.  We usually cook way more that what’s needed but I would hate to run out of food.  We’ll have a couple of main dishes, bread and of course a couple of cobblers, all made in these Dutch ovens. I’ve got my 14″ skillet to brown the meat and my Lodge grill to heat the skillet.  These are but a few of my treasures.  I have a few more but really won’t be needing all of them.  I may not use all of these but I’ll have them just in case.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 282/365 “Relaxing Weekend Ahead? Not Exactly.”

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I’m actually looking forward to this weekend.  I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow so I took the day off.  I will have a three day weekend.  Saturday I will be in my element.  For the past four years I have cooked for a Sunday School class. Last year we had over 40 people in attendance and a ton of food.  I will be getting there around 9am to set up and start getting everything prepped.  The thing is all I have to do is show up and bring my Dutch Oven’s, they purchase the food and charcoal.  Sunday will be a day of cleaning my pots and resting the rest of the day.  Pictures of the cookout will be forthcoming.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 281/365 “Sharing”

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I know I’ve shared this photo before but I’d like to share just how easy it is to make.  This is a BlackBerry Cobbler and I know being a diabetic I shouldn’t be eating it but a small amount in moderation should be ok.

All the fruit cobblers that I make in my Dutch Ovens can be made in a oven safe dish in your conventional oven.  The ingredients include 4 cans of your favorite fruit pie filling, in this case blackberry pie filling.  One box of either white or yellow cake mix.  Store brand is fine and one stick of butter.

To start off with puur all four cans of your fruit pie filling in the bottom of your pan and spread the filling to make a flat surface.  Take your cake mix powder and pour it in on top of the pie filling.  What I like to do next is to take the pot and give it a good shake to even out the cake mix to level it out.  Take your butter and cut it into quarter inch pads and place on top of your cake mix.  Put the lid on it and put it in a pre heated 350 degree oven.  I’d check on it every fifteen minutes or so but it should be golden brown on top within thirty minutes or so.  Serve with your choice flavor ice cream

Variations include Spice Cake mix with chopped walnuts or pecans with an apple pie filling with cinnamon sprinkled on top.  Peach pie filling with white or yellow cake mix with cinnamon sprinkled on top or just plain apple pie filling with white or yellow cake mix and cinnamon.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 280/365 “Just Today!”

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Just today I was able to wake up and get out of bed.

Just today I was able to brush my teeth and comb my hair.

Just today I was able to dress myself.

Just today I was able to fix my breakfast.

Just today I was able to tell my wife and kids that I loved them.

Just today because we’re not promised tomorrow.

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“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 279/365 “It’s Scientific”

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I was never good in science way back when I was in high school.  To me either I didn’t find it interesting or the teacher didn’t make it interesting to me.  However, I find this process interesting and it seems to work.  Don’t ask me to give you specifics on how this works all I know that it does.

While there are many forms of removing the seasonings of a cast iron pot or skillet this method has always worked for me.  I’ve heard that you can use Lye but you can’t leave it in the mixture for long periods of time.  There is a process that you can use Easy Off but the fumes are very harsh and dangerous.  With the E-tank method you can put your piece in the mixture and leave it in there with no consequences, or at least I haven’t found any yet.

By using a manual battery charger, you hook up the negative post to the piece you want to strip and the positive to your sacrificial anode.  As you can see in the picture I have the negative going to a piece of iron that stretches across the plastic drum in which I hang my pieces from a wire.  It works really well.  Although it’s not good for your sacrificial piece of metal.

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When it gets to this point I usually just grind it down to bare metal and reinsert the iron into the solution.  You will have to replace this piece after a while though.

365 Day Photo Challenge 278/365 “CI Kind of Day”

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MY girls got in really late last night, actually it was this morning when they finally rolled in from their band competition.  We all slept in except for one of my four legged kids.  Clyde never allows my wife to sleep in.  He’s always trying to get her up around 6am or so.  Any way, most of us slept in.  I had a meeting with a scout and being that I’m the chairman of the Eagle Board I had to be there.

After the meeting I came home and got the grill ready to start putting another coat of seasoning on my recently cleaned cast iron. It usually takes about three to four hours to put one coat of seasoning on a piece of cast iron and that doesn’t count the cool down process.  The whole process can take several days to several weeks depending on how much rust and/or grease is built on the piece.  I’ve left pieces in my Etank for several days at a time just because I didn’t have time to work on the cast iron.  When it comes out of the tank it’s got to go through at least one seasoning process otherwise it will start rusting on you.  Sometimes it’s a long process but when you get the last coat on that piece of CI, it’s totally worth it.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 277/365 “Great Day!!”

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I had a great day today, busy but it was a really good day.  I got over my little rant that I had last night and decided to put it behind me.  My wife and I traveled nearly two hours to watch my daughter’s band compete.  It was cold and had a constant mist falling throughout the time we spent there.  It was after 11pm when I got a text saying that they were loading the busses to come home.

After spending some time at the competition, we went to my parents house where I spent a couple of hours with my mom and dad and all my siblings.  We had a couple of family members have birthdays this month so we met to have a small celebration.

While I’m waiting on my daughters to come home I’m watching the Alabama vs Georgia game. I had it recorded so I could watch it when I got home. I mainly watch it to see if they happen to show the band and of course they did and who do I see?  Yes, I see my son on the tube, wet and soaked to the bone but at least he looks like he’s having fun.  My son is living his dream.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 276/365 “Disappointed”

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I’m just sick to my stomach as to what I witnessed tonight.  So much so that I’m spitting mad.  Tonight was a football game between my daughters school in which they play in the band and my alma mater.  I was so looking forward to seeing some of my friends that I went to high school with but instead I had to hang my head in shame.

I arrived at the game late in the first quarter.  Corner, my alma mater, had already had seven points on the board.  I was to meet my parents there and they were sitting on the home field of Corner.  I made my way past the gate where I saw one of my cousins in which I spoke to for about ten minutes or so.  I then made my way to where my parents were sitting and sat down with them. About ten minutes from the half is when all hell broke lose.

I’m not privy to what gone or what is said between players during the game but something must have been said or done to cause one of Pleasant Grove’s players to literally attack Corners player right after he got tackled.  Of course, either the refs didn’t see it or wanted to turn their back to it.  The home team stands saw it though and they went wild.  Words like “Eject him, Throw him out and tremendous amount of Boo’s went on for nearly ten or so minutes.  Finally the refs got together and ejected not one but two of PG’s players.  This was the start.  For the next five plays, PG was penalized after every play for personal fouls.  During this time they even managed to get two touchdowns in which were called back because of these fouls.  Unbelievable.  Now I’m already having a difficult time sitting there because I’m pulling for my daughters school and to hear the crowd boo our team was a little more than I could take.

Half time came and the bands played.  Which both bands did an excellent job considering all the tension on the field.  PG came onto the field with Boo’s.  I was really expecting to see the same unsportsmanlike conduct during the rest of the game but the coaches on both teams must have had strong words with the players during their halftime break. The remainder of the game was relatively calm.  Oh there were some pushes and some unnecessary shoves but not one personal foul made during the second half but the damage was done.

After the second quarter got started, I walked my mom and dad over to the visitor side and they got to see their granddaughters.  After a while they said their goodbyes and my parents went home.  The final score of the game was PG 31 Corner 13.  Should I be proud of the win?  I’m not sure.  In all my years of my kids attending this school, I’ve never, never seen this sort of disrespect and unsportsmanlike conduct.

I don’t care what the excuse is, if there is any, there is no reason for deliberately attacking another player.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 275/365 “Holding Pattern”

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Clyde is taking a nap after playing with his mouse.

Clyde is taking a nap after playing with his mouse.

It feels like I’m in a holding pattern for the next few weeks.  Every weekend for the whole month of October will be filled with something going on.  Luckily some of my time will be spent with the family but there will be a lot of time away from them.

My next “official” day off will be for the Thanksgiving holidays.  I don’t have any doctor’s appointments until mid December.  Maybe I can use this time to build my vacation time.

“Life Goes On!”