When Pumpkins Attack

You know that show called “When Animals Attack”? Sure you do. We’ve all seen those videos where some idiot gets too close to a crocodile and gets his leg bit clean off, or the ones of the idiots taunting the grizzly bear near their campsite before getting mauled to dang-near death. There are some things you just shouldn’t do. I get it; people think that since they’re the “more advanced” species they can out stealth a friggin’ bear. News flash people: regardless of how “advanced” you may be, you still can’t run from a 2 ton grizzly. That sucker’s gonna eat you and not think a thing about it. You quickly learn two lessons from watching about 10 minutes of these types of shows: A) don’t mess with wildlife, and B) acting like an idiot can get you in trouble.

A few posts ago, I wrote about how everyone in the South has a little bit of white trash in them. I also referenced how my husband and I throw our rotten fruit over the back fence “for the birds”. No judgments please. If you had an empty lot behind your house, you’d do it, too. I can’t even begin to describe how enjoyable it can be to have a mini Olympics in your backyard… Your old celery is the javelin event - your rotten oranges the shot-put. Perhaps not the classiest of afternoon activities, but fun nonetheless.

One day a few months ago, my husband finally decided to call my fall pumpkins in. They’d been serving as back patio decoration and managed to stay nice for several months, but now they looked a little over-ripe. I had given him permission to get rid of them since they were starting to smell, but I foolishly thought that since the pumpkins were so large, he would put them in a garbage bag and throw them into the big trash can. If only I had known…

I walked off to put in another load of laundry and heard the door open and close. Soon the hubs was standing in front of me asking if I knew where the hammer was. Here’s how the conversation went:

Hubs – “Hey, do we have a hammer somewhere?”

Me – “Sure, here.”

Hubs – “Be right back. Gotta fix the fence.”

Me – “What happened to the fence?!”

Hubs – “I hit it with a pumpkin.”

Me – “How did you do that?!”

Hubs – “I really underestimated the force I would need to chuck it over the fence.”

I, of course, busted into hysterical laughter. Then I knew I had to see what kind of hammer-needing damage a pumpkin could do to a fence. I walked outside and saw what looked like the gruesome murder of a pumpkin laying across our lawn, and three fence boards that had been jarred from their normal position on the fence line. One board had come darn near clean off. Apparently even a half-rot pumpkin won’t go down without a fight!

Pumpkin Devastation

Pumpkin Guts

Naturally, my husband righted his wrong by reattaching the boards to our fence, and we had a good long laugh. Now, do you think this would deter us from launching fruit over our fence in the future? Take it as a lesson in the negative effects of tomfoolery? Use the “advanced species” part of our brains to realize that was a bad idea? Nope. We just learned that next year, when launching our pumpkins, we’ve got to decrease the distance and increase the force to make sure the pumpkin makes it completely over the fence… with no ill effects or damage to our property…

It’s the South, Y’all!

The Toilet Saga: The Memorial

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you all that my toilet has officially been taken away. I’ve been hoping, unsuccessfully, that it would magically reappear, but I don’t think it’s coming back this time.

It left this world nearly two weeks ago. I should’ve known when I saw all the signs: the city trucks, the mowing crew... I should’ve been prepared to say my goodbyes, but I was in denial. It wasn’t until I drove home one day that I realized my toilet had been removed from its proud post in the median, never to be seen again. I can only assume that the mowing crew disposed of it, deeming it as “in the way”.

My one true hope now is that my beloved toilet is in a better place… Maybe on a ranch in the sky with other old toilets, where it can play Jenga and sip Mojitos all day; a befitting fate for a toilet so wonderful and mysterious. But wherever it is, I hope it’s bringing other people as much incredible happiness as it has brought to me over the past few months.

It's taught me a valuable lesson in never taking ANYTHING too seriously. Whenever life gets me down, I need to remember that some random toilet might just show up, disappear, reappear, get moved into the median of the highway and then sprout flowers. It seems only appropriate that during its last few days on the median, flowers were planted in its tank. Perhaps someone was giving it a proper send off. Or perhaps, it was just another awesome gesture by the toilet artist to put smiles on the faces of the overworked and underpaid.

Goodbye, sweet friend.

My toilet is a metaphor of sorts; a metaphor for the insane brilliance of the small things in life. Even the seemingly normal things we use every day - like our toilets - can bring us smiles. In honor of my toilet, I’m on a personal quest to find something that I can do to bring that much ridiculous joy to someone else’s life. Sort of like a pay-it-forward of ridiculously funny things.

I’d like us all to take this time to observe a moment of silence for my toilet, and the joy it has brought me and countless others.

It's the South, Y'all!

Back of The Bottle Recipe

I come from a long line of women who have learned how to make do with what they’ve got, whether in life or in the kitchen. My grandmother has always been able to whip up pretty much anything from the things she finds in the fridge and cupboard, but not my mom. Don’t get me wrong - my mom is a wonderful cook. She makes a mean meal. The thing is though, she’s always been a busy lady so she’s had to make do by finding awesome, easy recipes that someone else came up with. Now some people might frown on that since this is, of course, the south. However, I’m embracing my momma’s method as a busy-bee of an adult. I ain’t got time for that fancy stuff.

This brings me to the best advice I’ll ever give you: check the back of your bottles. Condiments, soups, sauces - anything with a label, you better be checking for recipes. Let me tell you, this is a fail proof method of finding some seriously delicious recipes that don’t take that long to make. How do I know they’re all easy recipes? Simple. Think of the size of the label on the back of an A1 bottle or a Campbell’s soup can. You can’t fit some long fancy recipe on there. It’s got to be good and straight to the point.

I’ve used the check the bottle method for years now, and I can’t say I’ve ever found a recipe that wasn’t easy and wonderful. I’m sure there’s one out there, but for now, I’m blissfully ignorant to it.

Most recently, my husband and I were eating dinner and I was eating A1 with everything on my plate. Yes, I will eat A1 with any and everything. That stuff is dang good, and I buy it in bulk. That evening, I was enjoying some A1 with my steamed carrots (don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it, it’s the culinary pairing of the century), and I decided to turn the bottle of A1 around to see what was listed on the side of it. See, I’m so used to employing the check the bottle method that I just do it naturally without even thinking about it. Lo-and-behold, glued to the side of that beautiful brown bottle there was a recipe for a slow cooker pot roast seasoned with A1. As an avid A1 enthusiast, I wanted to try this new recipe. And try it we did. My husband made this recipe because he was off on spring break, and I’m a 40-hour-a-week cog in the corporate machine. Plus, every so often I like when he’s my househusband. If I’m gonna work all day every day to put him through med-school, I like to be pampered housewife-style sometimes, too. Anyway, back on track. My husband, who hates to cook, actually said the recipe was easy peezy. In our household, “easy peezy” translates to “it wasn’t hard and I’d do it again”.

The best part though was the meal itself. The A1 pot roast was a huge success. The meat tasted great and the vegetables had this really great sweet and savory flavor to them. My husband and I both went back for seconds and scraped every ounce of it out of the crock pot for leftovers. Even better, the leftovers were great tasting, too! Reheating leftovers is like the culinary version of playing chicken: it’s you facing off against the leftovers in a battle of who’s going to get scared and give up first. Sometimes when you make something, it just doesn’t keep well. Some things get all congealed and the mere thought of eating it again is sickening, or sometimes you get the stuff that was great fresh but tastes like garbage once it’s been nuked for a few minutes. The icing on the cake for our A1 pot roast was that it kept great and fed the two of us for a week straight.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

½ cup A1 Original Steak Sauce

½ cup water

1 pkg onion soup mix (I used Lipton)

1 boneless beef chuck eye roast (2-2.5lbs)

1 lb. baby red potatoes (we just took 5-6 regular sized red potatoes, peeled and cut them up)

1 pkg baby carrots

1 onion, diced

Mix first 3 ingredients, place meat in slow cooker. Top with vegetables and sauce; cover. Cook on LOW 8-9 hours or on HIGH for 6-7 hours. After cooking, scoop out and enjoy!

The thing is, ladies, these recipes hide in plain sight. It’s just about training yourself to find them. And if you’re really desperate for a new meal idea, go to Walmart and scout out the back of the boxes, bottles and cans. If anyone asks what you’re doing, LIE. Tell them you’re on a diet and are checking the nutrition facts. When you find a recipe that peaks your interest, take a picture of it with your phone. Yes, I freely admit that I do this. It’s called southern resourcefulness.

What are y’alls favorite check the bottle recipes?

The Toilet Saga: Eclipse

I woke up this morning thinking it was going to be an ordinary boring day. I got in my car and was on my way to work when … DUH DUH DUH (that’s supposed to be the suspenseful movie music before something really crazy happens or the killer gets revealed) my toilet was gone. AGAIN. For those of you who haven’t been reading my blog for very long, you can read the first part of the toilet saga here.

See, normally when I drive up over this little hill in the road, I can see the side of the toilet sticking up just slightly. I always check to see if it’s still peeking up at me every morning and every evening on my way to and from work. This morning though, it was gone again. I started to get really panicky, because I knew that I would never see it’s beautiful porcelain sheen ever again. This had to mean that the city FINALLY came to take my toilet away. I started to worry about it. I hoped they had just decided to take it to a place where it could live happily with other roadside toilets and appliances, but I knew that my toilet was probably being crushed into a thousand pieces or thrown into some dump somewhere. My only hope was that it was being taken to a dump with a view. I mean, I am not lucky enough for someone to take and return my toilet twice. It’s like an eclipse or Halley’s comet; one of those things that only happens every so many years. That doesn’t happen twice in one lifetime. It’s like too much awesomeness for one soul to bare. So this time, I knew it had to be gone for good.

Then, all of sudden, I started to see something white off in the distance. Only, it was in the median in the middle of the road. HOT SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS!!! Could it be?! Could that be my beloved toilet’s striking white glare?!

As I got closer, I realized that I was staring at my toilet proudly positioned at the end of a median in the road. “MY TOILET!” I screamed. I was driving up on the backside of it, so the first chance I got, I whipped a U-ey in the road (screeching tires, cutting other cars off, the whole thing) and drove back up as fast as I could to get a better look. It sat there, like a monument to all things weird and white trash. It was beautiful and pristine.

Glorious.

As I sat staring in awe and trying to get a good picture, I got to thinking: who is this mystery toilet mover? What possessed them to move the toilet to that median? I mean, besides the obvious delight it will bring to the hundreds of overworked people who drive down this road every day. Do they read my blog? Were they the ones who moved it before? If they were, where did it disappear to for all that time? And how can I ever thank them for the joy they have brought to my life?

Have you ever seen anything like it? Bet not.

If I ever figure out who you are, toilet artist, I will buy you a meal. But please don’t be offended if I refuse to shake your hand. Can y’all imagine the germs on that thing?! Whoever they are, I sure hope they wore gloves.

It’s the South, Y’all!

Down Here, We're All A Little White Trash

It’s a well-known fact that the South is filled with a rare breed of humans that we like to lovingly call “white trash”. White trash has been around forever and has, in many ways, plagued and enriched all of our lives. We laugh at the white trash on TV shows such as Raising Hope and My Name is Earl, but what I don’t think you all realize is that you laugh because deep down inside of you, there’s a little bit of white trash, too.

Every Southerner, born, bred or otherwise transplanted here, has something they do that is in some way considered WT. In my neighborhood, we have an entire family of people who I would consider to be WT. And it’s not just because their 3 year old son runs naked through the neighborhood at least once a day, or the fact that we see him stand on the top of their minivan and watch traffic go by, or that he uprooted the dead mini tree out of their front yard and proceeded to hit the other kids and their minivan with it. They do other WT things, too. My husband and I lovingly call their child “naked baby”. We’re sure his name is something spectacularly WT like Cletus or Jimmy Bob, but "naked baby" just stuck. They have a thousand cars parked around their house, and sometimes we drive by and their front door is standing wide open for hours while they let their pack of WT kids roam around unsupervised like little yard apes. But here’s the thing... we really know nothing about them. For all we know, the dad could be some genius nuclear engineer or the mom could be the heir to a huge old Southern fortune. Not likely, but the point is that we all have our white trash tendencies.

My husband and I are offenders, too. If you sat on the other side of my subdivision on a Sunday afternoon, you’d see rotten fruit flying over the back of our fence and landing in the empty lot behind our house. At first glance, you’d think “Wow, what white trash people. They’re throwing rotten fruit into the empty lot instead of just throwing it in the trash.” But in reality, my husband is “feeding the birds”. A lot of it has to do with wanting to chuck fruit as far as we can throw it, but we’re also helping to preserve the local bird population. The thing is, after watching us shot-put oranges, apples and pumpkins over our fence, you’d never know my husband is studying to become a surgeon and that I work in finance. Around Christmas time, when you look into our neighborhood and see the house with the MILLIONS of cheap-looking Christmas yard ornaments all strung up and shining so bright that it knocks out half the town's power, you might think “WOW! So white trash.” But again, it’s just us. Whether naturally ingrained in us or bestowed through our raising, we all exhibit some signs and symptoms.

My dad is a math whiz. He can literally compute things in his head like a human calculator, which is to be expected since he’s an accountant. But you’d never know he has a deep dark secret: he burns trash. My mother works at a school and used to teach autistic children and English as a second language. The woman’s a saint, but she also likes to shoot Starlings (they're demon black birds, don't feel bad for them) off of the back porch … in town.

  

A plague on the classiness of the Old South, or a natural instinct passed down through generations of Southerners? I say, look inside yourself and decide.  Perhaps you’re a garbage burner, an I-like-to-use-my-yard-as-a-parking-lot person, or even one of those people who walk into Walmart wearing pajamas and fuzzy bunny slippers.

Or you have a car that looks like this.  

Whichever white trash poison you choose, accepting and embracing it may be the first step towards the full growth of your true Southern roots. What are your white trash tendencies?

Now if you’re sitting there thinking “I don’t do anything that’s even remotely white trash,” you are a dirty rotten liar … and probably not much fun.

It's the South, Y'all!

My First Recipe: It Ain't Rocket Science

There is nothing I love more than some good, warm comfort food on a rainy day like today. And what better comfort food is there than mushroom steak with gravy and mashed potatoes?! Okay… fried chicken, but for the purposes of this post, it’s MUSHROOM STEAK! Go with it, y’all.

Anyway, this is my momma’s recipe (which means it probably came off of a Campbell’s soup can). I know traditionally this kind of thing is made with ground beef, but I’m not a super huge fan of meat that looks like brains, so we always make it with round steak instead.

For those of you who don’t know me personally, I am quite possibly the most particular eater you’ve ever met. I’m not picky per-say, because I will try everything once. However, if I don’t like it, I will never touch it again. I also won’t eat anything with <insert nasty food> in it. For example: you will never convince me that something made with mayonnaise is good, because mayonnaise in itself is vomit-inducing. Sorry to use the word vomit in a recipe post, but it had to happen.

The great thing about this recipe is that it’s a man favorite, because it’s literally just steak, potatoes and gravy. That’s all 3 of the main man food groups. It’s definitely a husband/boyfriend recipe. And for you women, it uses the three secret weapons of quick home cooking – onion soup mix, cream of mushroom soup and a crock pot.

For those of you who want to add a vegetable, try adding some fresh mushrooms to the gravy mixture or make a side of steamed broccoli/carrots. Now on to the recipe…

It Ain’t Rocket Science Mushroom Steak and Taters

Ingredients:

1 packet of onion soup mix

1 can cream of mushroom soup

2-3 round steaks

¼ to ½ cup of water

If you’d like – half a package of fresh sliced mushrooms

5-6 red potatoes

For the potatoes – the norm: milk, butter, salt and pepper

You’re going to make this recipe in a crock pot, so make sure yours is clean and sprayed with a little Pam.

First, pull your round steaks out of the package and place in the bottom of the crock pot. It’s best if they aren’t touching, but they can be squeezed in there pretty tight if you’ve got a smaller crock pot.

Next, mix the cream of mushroom soup and the packet of onion soup mix into a bowl. If you’re adding fresh sliced mushrooms, mix those in too. After mixing thoroughly, pour the mixture over the top of the round steaks in the crock pot. Make sure to cover each steak. Pour the ¼ to ½ cup of water in the crock pot but not on top of the steaks. Depending on how long you plan to cook this or how hot your crock pot heats, you’ll want to adjust the water. For hotter crock pots, or if you’re leaving it in a little longer, use ½ cup. I just pour my water down the side so it gets in the bottom but doesn’t disturb my gravy mixture on top of the steaks. Put the lid on and cook it on high for 4 hours. You could do it on low for 6 hours if you choose, but make sure to add extra water so that it doesn’t dry out.

Also another note on making the gravy: if you are like my husband and LOVE gravy then you can double the amount of mushroom soup, mushrooms and onion soup mix. And make sure to add extra water!

After your meat is finished cooking or 30 minutes before it should be done (for those of you with a crock pot timer), start making your mashed potatoes. Southerners should already know how to do this, but for those of you who don’t…

Peel and cut up about 5-6 good sized potatoes (disclaimer: I make a LOT of mashed potatoes). When I cut up the potatoes, I try to cut them into about 1 inch chunks, but this is not an exact science. Once they’re cut up, place into a pot/pan that’s filled with water up to about 2 inches below the rim to avoid overflow, and add a few shakes of salt to the water. Place the potato chunks into the water and turn on the heat to about high to get the water boiling. Once the water is boiling, turn the temperature down to about medium (or to whatever temperature doesn’t foam up and overflow for you). I don’t know the exact time of how long you should cook your potatoes (I just let them go, checking periodically with a fork to see if they are soft), but my mom says around 20 minutes. You want them to be so soft that they fall apart whenever you stick a fork in them. Once they reach that consistency, drain the water off with a colander/strainer and then put the potatoes back in the pot/pan. Add about a ¼ cup of milk and 2-3 tablespoons of butter (this is taste specific, so add or remove as you like). You can also add salt and pepper to taste. To mash my potatoes, I use a hand mixer to beat them into a smooth consistency. It makes them ULTRA creamy. My grandmomma just puts the milk/butter/salt/pepper in there and then stirs it up real good with a spoon. If you get your potatoes good and cooked, this makes for a chunkier mashed potato. But they’re great either way.

After you finish making the mashed potatoes and your meat is done cooking, go over and break up the meat inside the crock pot. It should be pretty easy to do. Mix the chunks of meat and gravy together in the crock pot and then serve on top of the mashed potatoes. It’ll look a little like beef stroganoff over mashed potatoes. In fact, my husband wants to try it with egg noodles some time… but being Southern, I can’t give up my taters.

Finished Product - Tastes better than it looks. Promise.

Hope you enjoy it! And don’t forget to let me know what you think!

The Toilet Saga: I can't make this stuff up...

Part of the reason I started my Twitter account and this blog is because I find myself, more often than not, seeing/doing things that make me say  “Oh yeah, it’s the South”.

Let’s be honest - this place is the most wonderful, beautiful place in the world. It’s filled with the most respectable hospitality, the thickest accents and the absolute BEST food (times infinity). Can I get an Amen? But we also have our fair share of just plain bizarre stuff. Maybe it’s the diet of fried food or the fact that we’re all hopped up on sweet tea 99.9% of the time, but you run into some weird folks and see some weird things here. And if you’ve read my previous posts, you know I quite like it that way.

Every time I walk into Walmart after dark, it’s like a zoo of people who I’m not sure have ever even seen the light of day. They’re weird. But god love them, I know I do, they make my trips to the grocery store so…. well… interesting. I can almost guarantee you that all of those pictures of “People of Walmart” came from the South. The robust girl in tight leopard pants, yeah, it happens here. The crazy old man who forgot to wear pants in public, I’ve seen it. And if you live in the South, I’m sure you have too.

I say, let your freak flags fly, Southerners. I love you for your pant-less wrinkled old legs and your strange aversion to loose-fitting clothing. You make life here interesting.

Most recently, the odd thing that’s caught my attention is the random full porcelain toilet that sits on the side of the road on my way to work.

The first time I laid eyes on it, I thought “Wow, this gives new meaning to the term Port-o-Potty (or is it Port-a-Potty?).” My second thought: Sigh… “It’s the South.” I mean, really? Who leaves a full sized (I’m sure used) potty on the side of some road? I would’ve at least taken the time to go dump it off in a random dumpster behind a business or apartment complex. Isn’t that what everyone does when they need to get rid of some big appliance/piece of furniture? No…? Just me… Okay. Anyway, the reason I know the toilet was intentionally placed there is because for the first several weeks of its existence on this road, it was standing upright and was fully intact. If it had fallen out of some guy’s truck bed, it would’ve been on its side and probably in a million tiny porcelain pieces. So every day as I drove by, I would wonder about that lone commode’s story. Until one day…

After standing proud on the side of the road for at least a few weeks, I was driving to work one morning and it was gone!! I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was sad to see that it had mysteriously vanished, but I was a little disappointed that I wasn’t going to be able to marvel at its weirdness everyday as I drove by anymore. I wasn’t kidding myself either. I knew at some point the city was probably going to send a garbage truck to come get the “eyesore” off of the side of their beautiful new road. I was just hoping I would get to enjoy it a few weeks longer. Or get a decent enough picture to prove it was there, but driving and photographing on an iPhone is IMPOSSIBLE.

But here’s where it gets weird. My toilet had been gone for at least a solid 10 days, long enough for me to move onto a fixation with the Junkyard Man’s new keyboard, when it REAPPEARED!!! Shock and awe does not even begin to describe what I was feeling. Where did it disappear to for TEN WHOLE DAYS? Did someone come get it, try it out, and then return it? First off, gross. And if they returned it, why did they bring it back to the same spot? My head was spinning with all of these questions. I think I even got a little faint at one point from all the excitement. Luckily for you all, I managed to snap a few half-decent photos of the traffic-side toilet. 

Toilet View 1- From the Road

Toilet View 2 - Close enough to touch. But that would be gross.

Anyway, the morale of the story is this: take time to appreciate the craziness of the things you see in the South… and then, take out your camera phone out of that purse/pocket and send me pictures.  

It’s the South, Y’all!