This was something the hubs asked me to try, and who knows… maybe there is a recipe out there somewhere, but he wanted me to grill cucumbers… I know… CUCUMBERS??!! Anyway, the grill died… so, we implemented the use of the trusty airfryer instead.
I bathed them in olive oil and doused them in salt and pepper… cooked at 400 degrees until very well browned and blistered.
Here are the results!
I do think that these would have been better on the grill on high heat or under the broiler, but all-in-all, they turned out really good.
Now, for the give-a-way! I have reached 154 followers! I received no comments, so I am going to give away a ten dollar gift card to where ever the winner wants! All you have to do to enter is leave a comment and let me know what kind of gift card you would like if you win. The drawing will take place on Sunday, June 6th, 2021 at 6 pm EST (open to United States only). Good Luck!
Besides seeing the funny things about bitter taste, sneezing, and fear of heights, it taught me nothing about my family. At least not yet…
I have been doing genealogy for over 20 years. The joke is, “Just give me a couple of names and 20 minutes, and I’ll tell you something about your past…” Yet, when I got my 1500 results, nothing looked familiar! Genealogy DNA is backward genealogy… Typically, when you work on genealogy, you start with dead people and work your way back from there in history. Dead people are easy to research. On the other hand, when you deal with genealogy DNA, you are dealing with living human beings that may choose to or not to participate in the journey. Then you have to fit where these people match up…
Sounds easy, right? NOPE! Downright frustrating! Like I said, “Dead people are easy to research.” They also weren’t so truthful about their pasts!
Here are just a couple of examples…
I have someone that is listed as a first cousin. She is either a child of one of my cousins or a child of one of my aunts or uncles… I have got it narrowed down pretty closely… Silence is what I am met with…Both from the person who took the test and my family who doesn’t want to admit or discuss that we have another family member out there…
Next, my grandfather…his mother and father are not coming back to anyone in the records…adopted?? Well, he is related to two of his sisters, as I have connected them through DNA, but not his mother or father…Is a sister actually his mother? It is appearing more and more that way, but who then are their parents? There is one person to take a test, who is 98 years old, and still might know the answer… No response from the person that could make it happen.
Basically, you have puzzle pieces that have to fit because of DNA…Yet, the puzzle is holographic and looks different depending on how you look at it until you figure out the connection. Then, and only then, it clears…It has cleared with 8 people that are now connected cousins!
Solving the puzzle is the fun part as the picture becomes crystal clear, leading to multiple connections, one after another…Leading you to ask yourself, “How did I not figure it out sooner?”
Well, that says something when you can’t even make a simple chicken noodle soup in the Instapot…I resorted to ramen and canned chicken… Actually, the hubs was even down… We both knew there was no way we were going to be dicing any celery or carrots. We knew we would not be deboning a chicken. Covid…You….Win….
On a side note, it has been a while since I have done anything with this blog. I always get discouraged when things don’t go viral! I just want to be like that… LOL! With that being said, there are many things that I would like to start sharing again. So, I thought, why not? So, here I go again.
What’s coming up? Well, who knows… There are many things going on, such as attempting to buy a small farm, tent camping after not camping for years, and trying to declutter our lives and simplify things.
You all know this place is just a hodgepodge of whatever floats my boat, so let’s see what happens now!
Hey, ya’ll!!! I hope that you are all enjoying this weather that has been warming up, just in time for a big freeze that required everything to get covered up for a few days!
Yummy, just yummy!!
So, I really didn’t get any comments of what ya’ll wanted to see first so the recipe it is! This dinner was something that started out because no one really knew what to have for dinner and the Hubs said, “I want shrimp and corn soup. Is there something like that?” So, a google search later, we were having Shrimp and Corn Chowder!
This recipe was found at Creme de la Crumb…You can find the recipe here. I did not follow it exactly because I wanted it to be even easier because I was being very lazy on this day. I, of course, used my Instapot because, why not? I also used cooked shrimp and a bag of the bacon pieces that were already cooked. We made a double batch of the soup because I knew it was going to be a hit regardless of how lazy I was feeling.
This was my ingredient list:
1 large bag bacon pieces
Minced garlic
Paprika
2 cans of drained corn (next time I will use frozen)
2 cans pounds of diced potatoes
4 stalks of celery, diced
3 carrots, diced
Onion powder (next time I will add an onion)
Salt
Italian seasoning
6 cups chicken stock
2 cups heavy cream or half and half
I sauteed the celery, garlic and carrots for just a few minutes, added all the other ingredients to the pressure cooker except for the cream, and cooked it for 8 minutes with a quick release! That’s it. We added the cream directly to our bowls so the leftovers could be frozen.
I love using little shrimp in soup! More in each bite!
There were no leftovers to be frozen. It was all eaten in 2 days, people!!!!
I just had to share this happy little post with everyone I just loved it so much!! I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did! I can’t wait to get growing outside!!
Hello!! I know that it has been a minute since you all have heard from me. I am finally back into the swing of things after getting back to work after my surgery. I would like to say that I have been very busy, and I have been. The posts that I will be talking about in the near future include getting the seeds started for the garden, a delicious and healthy, but not keto friendly soup recipe that is super fast and super good, and attempting to get my sourdough starter growing (attempt #2). In addition, I have been slowly organizing around the house attempting to get our lives a little more orderly, including adding an event calendar to the front door that is getting used by only me (more on that later)!
In addition, I would also like to mention that I will be having a small give away when I reach 150 followers!!! I can’t believe that I am almost there!! Thank you all so much for following me and liking my posts. I am looking forward to the continued growth! Thank you all so, so much!!!! Now, I would like you to tell me what you would like to see as a gift. Would you all like to see a gift card giveaway or a cookbook giveaway? Or, is there something else you would like to see? I do hope to see some comments on this one to guide me in the right direction!!
So, please let me know. While you’re at it…Let me know what post you would like to see first!
As many of you know, I used my cast iron skillet often, if not most of the time. I have one Lodge cast iron skillet and could have continued to use this one skillet, but when I saw the Lodge sale on Amazon, I had to purchase a griddle. It was around 13 dollars on sale!!!!
I woke up telling the Hubs that I wanted french toast as we are still on our diet hiatus, as I am still recovering from my surgery. I knew we still had a loaf of sliced french bread in the bread box that needed used up. As I was getting ready to get up I heard the FedEx truck outside. It couldn’t have been better timing. My new griddle had just arrived. So, I washed it up and since Lodge preseasons their stuff… I thought let’s give it a go…
Since it was new, I made sure to use plenty of oil. This is what happened after turning the first piece…Disappointment…
So… with the use of a lot of oil… this was the final look of the skillet after cooking a loaf of French toast. Not horrible I guess, but not as good as my nice seasoned Lodge skillet.
This is after scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing…
You can’t see from the pictures, but alot of the seasoning came right off. So, what to do?
Get out the grapeseed oil and give it a good seasoning and heat it on up… It will be in shape in no time.
I just had to do a little blog blurb about this painting. The princess is an artist, which has yet to be discussed in this blog, but I love, love, LOVE this painting!
I just wanted to share this with all of you!!! Have a great day! Please let me know what you all think!
So, the princess said that we really needed to up our game and that the blog needed to join TikTok…. She said she was willing to teach me (because I am old)… So, the princess set-up the page and put out the first 3 videos!!
You can follow me on both Instagram and TikTok by adding the username withasideofdirt.
I am looking forward to seeing you all there!
What is the video about, you may be wondering? Well, we bought our house about 3 years ago now, and we have made some fixes, but things are not pretty.
So, in the kitchen when we bought the house, one of the three outlets did not work, and two of the three outlets in the dining room did not work but read half power when checked. Those outlets also had blackened and melted, as if they had been on fire. The outlets were the first order of business when moving in. (DID I MENTION OUR HOUSE PASSED NOT ONE BUT TWO HUD INSPECTIONS? Failed ours but passed HUD?!)
Back to the kitchen… While trying to figure out why the outlets did not work right as they were on the same breaker, the Hubs found an outlet that was covered by curtains. It was in the window jam?! That was the first to go.
Notice the tape that covers where an outlet used to be. Again, notice how they cut the window sill to put in the stove.
Next, he worked his way around to the garbage disposal and the light above the sink…. The light above the sink is not wired through the wall… oh, no… it is wired into the cabinet above. In addition, all of the cabinets had screws coming through because they were too long, so all of those had to be pulled out slightly so the cabinets could be used.
I wish I were kidding.
The garbage disposal lead the Hubs under the sink, where I heard cussing coming from the kitchen while I was cleaning in an other room… I go in and find him telling me…”Jesus Christ, you could have gotten shocked under here putting all your cleaning stuff away!” He found not one, not two, but three open junction boxes under the sink with wires and no caps…The hubs still wasn’t sure what that was about…. all to connect the garbage disposal….
So, he corrected all of that thinking that would correct the dining room problem…NOPE….So, he said, “The panelling has to come down… there is a fire issue, and it has to be taken care of now…. What does he find behind the panelling? Another junction box. It went to the garbage disposal even though the switch was right next to it… He corrected that…
This was the hole where the junction box was…with the hole…
Even though the main power was off to the entire house, he always double checked, and Thank God he did! Because, there was a second hole in the wall and there were live wires just hanging around in the wall with no caps, electrical tape, nothing!!! Even with the power off!!! He has no idea where that wire is coming from as we could not find the connection in the basement… It was capped and secured and left alone for now.
Sorry… I lost the photo of the live wires. Did a screenshot from the TikTok video.
He then rewired and replaced the two outlets in the dining room, which corrected the problem…. That was day one in the house!! Three years ago… After that, it was decided that we were just going to live in the house and see what needed to happen, as things got so crazy so fast as one issue always leading to another.
This brings us to the TikTok video… So, the kitchen is going to be the last room to remodel before selling the house, but I don’t want to look at the holes anymore while I cook…. so, it is only a simple fix that allows me to see something other than broken panelling, different wall paints, and holes in the wall… So, hop on over to TikTok and watch this little journey!
Please, please, please…. this is only temporary!! It is only contact paper over crappy walls, holes, and panelling.
So, we purchased some contact paper to cover the one wall. Yeah, it isn’t perfect. There are wrinkles and bumps, but it still looks alot better than before.
See, not perfect, but tell me that it doesn’t look better? My daughter loves this wall sticker, so I guess it stays… she did a poll on the video, so let us know? Stay or Go??Here is the stove… I wrapped the shelf too…lol…got carried away
So, please check out the videos. She did a good job, and it was alot of fun! What do you all think of this small short-term solution?
A Slice of Pie with a Side of Dirt 