Monday, May 23, 2011

Feels Like Summer!

The weekend was fantastic even though we had some thunderstorms rolling through both Saturday and Sunday the worst of them missed us for the most part and with sun and temps in the 80's, it feels like summer is (hopefully) here to stay!!

We had a couple of my dear friends over Saturday and the hubs fired up the old charcoal grill and cooked us some steaks..yummm...he's the best! For the sides we had sauteed mushrooms and vidalia onions, baked beans (yes, from a can), homemade loaded baked potato salad, garlic breadsticks, and home canned green beans from our previous garden cooked in bacon grease (I know! NOT so healthy). What a great day that turned out to be and I hope our friends enjoyed their visit as much as we all did!


Loaded Baked Potato Salad

This recipe makes a bunch...about a gallon(more or less) of potato salad.

5 lbs. of red potatoes (scrubbed & cut into 3/4-1 inch pieces..don't peel)
1/2-3/4 cup olive oil (or you can use some bacon grease w/olive oil if you cooked it up ahead of time)

two packages of dry ranch dressing mix
1 pckg. bacon cooked and crumbled
16 oz. sour cream
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup salad dressing(Miracle Whip)
1/2 cup Bacon Ranch Dressing (I used Hidden Valley Hickory Bacon and onion)
1 bunch of green onions (sliced thin)
2 & 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp celery salt

Mix the dry Ranch seasoning mix and olive oil/bacon grease together....toss the chopped potatoes into the oil/ranch mixture and coat well. Pour potatoes into two 11"x13" pans and bake in oven at 350 degrees F until fork tender. In the meantime cook and crumble bacon, wash and slice green onions. When potatoes are done and COMPLETELY COOLED, mix them with all remaining ingredients(add more bacon ranch dressing if too dry). Best if chilled thoroughly overnight.


Sunday, my hubs decided it was time to work on trimming up some of our shrubs and trees and I cut back the old growth on my Liriope muscari now that I could actually see the clumps between our shrubs, haha! We ended up finding a nest of baby birds in one of the burning bushes and my son is becoming obsessed with them, seriously! to the point he dug them up a worm and said he would chew it up for them and feed them!!?! Of course I didn't let him!!!



Later in the morning, hubs wanted to go shop for MORE tomato plants since the ones we have planted are still dying out, one or two at a time. By the time we got back, another storm was moving in and we barely got the tree branches and bush clippings up and dumped before it hit! It was over in no time but it was too wet to plant our tomatoes in the garden. Instead, me and my boy helped the hubby work on our front porch railing, he got one panel finished then we relaxed and enjoyed the nice cool breeze filled with the lovely scent of honeysuckle for the rest of the evening. :)

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