Saturday, September 28, 2024
Trying a Tiny House on for Size
Thursday, July 11, 2024
A Stop in the Land of Lincoln
The Colonel and I are history geeks as you know if you have been reading my blog for any amount of time. While we were visiting Missouri earlier this year, we crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois and checked out some of the bits of history there.
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
Rockin' History in the Middle of the Mississippi River
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Potluck Pitch-In
Three weeks before the wedding of Ron and Justine, The Colonel and I made a trial-run, half-batch of the Creole Red Beans and Carolina Purlow Rice that we wanted to take to the wedding reception potluck. It was so very delicious and would be perfect to take as a dish for the potluck.
The Colonel found the recipe on line from Sense and Edibility. Once we knew that the recipe was a winner, The Colonel began getting the ingredients in order (for a full batch) so that they would be easy to transport for the 16-hour drive from Florida to Missouri when the time came. First he bought the bacon and andouille sausage, cut it up and froze it. Next, he got together all of the dried herbs and spices and put them in a sealed, glass jar. He sorted the red beans and sealed them in a 2-gallon zip lock bag. The Colonel would buy the fresh ingredients, onion, green bell pepper, celery, garlic, jalapeno and tomato paste from a store when we arrived in Sainte Genevieve. He measured out the dried rice and put that in a zip lock bag as well.
We wanted to put our potluck dishes in something nice. I suggested terrines. We visited our local Goodwill store and to our amazement, found two terrines right off. They would be perfect. One of them had what looked like a crack in it. When we got them home, we filled the "cracked" one with water and left it in the sink overnight. No leaks! We also purchased serving spoons from the local dollar store. We had no intention of bringing the terrines or serving spoons back to Florida.
Time to hit the road...we packed the truck and especially made sure we had all the bean and rice fixings with us and our favorite pot to cook them in. We also packed our crockpot (and bought a smaller one for the rice at a Walmart near Ste. Gen.). Not knowing if our Air B&B would have a sharp knife and cutting board, The Colonel also packed those.
We stopped for the night about 5 hours outside of Ste. Gen. When we gassed up the truck the next morning, we also purchased a couple of bottles of water...it was time to start soaking the beans. The Colonel opened the huge zip lock bag and poured the water over the dried beans. The bag was then placed in a large plastic bowl with a lid.
We arrived in Ste. Gen. and checked into our Air B&B on Thursday. We would begin cooking the beans that evening after we had dinner at a little restaurant down the street from us. We wanted to cook the beans then, because as we all know, beans, soups and stews taste better when they have a day to meld together all their yumminess.
Time to start the beans...The Colonel began to sauté the bacon and sausage.
The rice recipe was a purlow style (a rice that starts with a flavorful base). The Colonel chose to use four rashers (a thin slice of bacon), boiled in three cups of water. Once the rashers were completely cooked, they were removed and the 1-1/2 cups of rice was cooked in the bacon flavored water.
Sunday, May 26, 2024
Night of the Werewolf
The second time The Colonel and I visited Sainte Genevieve, Missouri (that was when we first met Ron and Justine from YouTube) was in October of 2023. Because we had been watching Ron and Justine's YouTube channels, we heard, through them, about a very interesting event being presented by The Centre for French Colonial Life. When we heard about the event, we knew we had to attend.
The event was called Nuit de Loup-Garou or Night of the Werewolf. It was held on the third Saturday of October and the weather was perfect. The event is an annual, family-friendly one designed to share the lore of the early French settlers and their love of fun social family gatherings while offering some educational activities before Halloween approached.
While staying in Ste. Gen., we lodged in a very beautiful log cabin. It had been a former corn crib built c. 1840.