This post involves items for the home, related happenings, a bit of cooking and an insect invasion… One issue locally is will the rain ever stop?! YTD we’ve had more rain than either Seattle Washington or London England…
This year Laurie decided to replace her old clay based planters. They were falling apart. She wanted something eye-catching and bright that would last for a while…hence these large yellow pots. They are filled with a variety of colorful annuals and perennials. Another advantage is that she found rolling bases for the planters so we can move them as needed due to the weather or just to clean the area around them.
She also
bought a hanging planter…which we may not hang.
It is easier to take care of them and they dry out more slowly when they
aren’t blowing in the wind. This flowering
plant is one of over 100 species of the genus Portulaca or Purslane. Purslane is widely consumed as an edible
plant although is some areas it is considered to be invasive. These plants are eaten with great relish by
chickens.
Laurie
and I love a good sausage gravy over biscuits for breakfast. In my case, over-easy eggs are a frequent
accompaniment. Good sausage gravy is
hard to find in restaurants. As I noted
in an earlier post, Laurie noted a recipe that was published by the Pioneer
Woman. The Pioneer Woman – Recipes, Country Life and Style,
Entertainment.
In any
case, we took Ree Drummond’s recipe and modified it…actually several
times. This time we wanted a double
batch of sausage gravy so we doubled up on the sausage. We prefer Jimmy Dean’s sausage and in this
case we used a pound each of Jimmy Dean Hot and Jimmy Dean Regular pork sausage. I cooked the sausage, breaking it up as I
went. When the sausage is ready, the
recipe states that we shouldn’t drain the grease…and we don’t.
This is
the finished sausage gravy in a deep pan.
In the past we’ve made this recipe with all regular sausage, all hot
sausage and with varying amounts of milk.
We’ve also made it with half and half milk.
In this
instance, with a double batch, we used a half cup of flour, 4 cups of whole
milk, a half cup of half and half milk and a bit of salt and pepper.
Once the
sausage is browned, we mixed in the flour, stirring it until the white color of
the flour has been blended into the meat.
Then we added the milk, the pepper (leaving out the salt), and continued
to cook on medium heat until the mixture began bubbling. We turned the burner down to low and,
stirring occasionally, the gravy thickened.
We poured the gravy into storage containers, freezing one for later and
keeping the other one in the refrigerator until its use the following day.
This photo
shows the breakfast we enjoyed the next day!
Excellent! We’ve had good sausage
gravy in restaurants a few times over our 45 years together but we’ve never had
a better version anywhere else. Off camera I did sprinkle my breakfast with Tabasco...
The
Pioneer Woman specifically states that canned biscuits are not preferred with
the gravy. Actually she states “Never
canned biscuits”. She recommends
Pillsbury Grands Frozen biscuits…and that’s what we used in this instance. They worked well but Larry, aka “Big Dude”,
at https://bigdudesramblings.blogspot.com/ had
a better idea.
He purchased
a dozen biscuits from Bojangles, a fried chicken chain of fast food restaurants
that is primarily located in the southeastern USA. The company is expanding westward and they
currently have over 820 locations. A
quick check on the internet revealed that Bojangles’ biscuits are the highest
rated biscuits of any fast food restaurant chain. To learn more about Bojangles, go to Order
Fried Chicken Now | Bojangles.
We do
have mac ‘n cheese from time to time. It’s
simple and filling, especially if I have a couple leftover hot dogs to add to
it. During a recent visit to our local Food
Lion grocery store, I spotted a vastly different ‘take’ on mac ‘n cheese. It is Guinness Cracked Black Pepper Mac n’
Cheese and it contains Cabot Farmers Reserve Cheese sauce and radiatore pasta.
This
version of mac ‘n cheese definitely imparts that bold and malty flavor found in
Guinness stout/beer. The blend of the
Cabot cheese and the malty Guinness flavor was actually quite enjoyable. Laurie ate her mac ‘n cheese by itself but I
accompanied mine with a leftover grilled bacon wrapped sweet Italian sausage. It was an easy and satisfying meal and we
will purchase this mac ‘n cheese outlier again!
FYI, I
also found that there is a Guinness Black Truffle Mac ‘n Cheese…and many, many more
Guinness related food items. Learn more
at guinness related food products - Search Shopping (bing.com).
I do have
a difficult time telling a hairy woodpecker from a downy woodpecker. I think that this pair are hairy
woodpeckers. The adult was teaching is
offspring how to eat…but from time to time the adult would still feed its fledged
offspring. Hmmm, human adults and
teenagers…an interesting comparison.
FYI,
hairy woodpeckers can be found all across North America…from Alaska to
Newfoundland and as far south as Panama.
We were surprised
that the woodpeckers would bother with the feeder giving the abundance of fresh
insects available. Perhaps they were
overwhelmed by the millions of eatable insects and they wanted a change of
diet. See below…
Here in
Loudon County and in at least 7 other counties here in East Tennessee, Brood
XIX cicadas, (aka The Great Southern Brood) began emerging around the second
week in May. This brood has been biding
its time and growing underground for the past 13 years. While the south has annual cicadas as well,
the periodic cicadas have those red eyes.
Annual cicadas have green bodies and black eyes. The brood will be with us until about
mid-June. Laurie captured this photo from the internet.
Luckily
we are not located in an area of the USA where the 17-year Brood XIII and the
13-year Brood XIX are emerging at the same time. While we hear annual cicadas during evenings
and at night, these Periodic cicadas make their noise in an effort to attract a
mate during the day. It is a hum…but not
as high pitched as the annual cicadas in their personal effort to attract attention. We also noted that the periodical cicadas
seem to stop ‘humming’ when it rains.
As we surveyed our yard we wandered over to the edge of our lot which abuts a wooded lot. That’s when we spotted these holes. With only a bit of moss here and there it was easy to see hundreds of holes that our Brood XIX cicadas had emerged from. It was a bit unnerving actually…
The
process begins with mating. Then the
females start to lay eggs by making slits in twigs of woody plants using her
knife-like ovipositor. She lays about 2
dozen eggs in each slit and a single female can lay between 400 to 600
eggs. The eggs hatch in 6 or 7
weeks. The nymphs…which are white and
ant-like in appearance, drop to the ground and bury in the soil to find
suitable roots to feed on. They suck the
sap from the roots but they don’t seem to have a noticeable effect on the
trees.
The
nymphs burrow from 12 to 18 inches into the soil. They begin to emerge when the soil beneath to
ground reaches a temperature of 64F. Once
the nymphs dig their way up from under the ground, they molt and the adults emerge…taking
flight up into the trees. Note the exoskeletons
by some of the cicada’s holes as well as the one shown on the brick wall. That wall was littered with the remnants of
the nymphs.
That’s
all for now. Just click on any of the
photos to enlarge them…
Thanks
for stopping by for a visit!
Take
Care, Big Daddy Dave
