What's cooking?

Hi! Here's what's cooking... as little as possible, it's too hot!

This time of year we are always buying melons, watermelon,cantaloupe,honeydew, and they only get half eaten. So the other day I finally broke down and bought a melon baller. I sliced the cantaloupe in half and the other half sat in the frig as usual so I balled it up. And it was eaten by the end of the day. I froze the balls so they weren't just a fun shape they were a cold treat as well. It's easy to do. 

After you scoop the melon to nothing, you take the little balls and spread them out, on a cookie sheet or a flat tray, so they don't touch. Then freeze. Once frozen you can put the balls into a Tupperware dish and you've got frozen balls instead of a melon rotting in the frig.

Here's another good recipe I made up. There is heat involved so some of you may not be interested at this time.But the rest of you... I had some fresh broccoli left over from putting it in summer salads and dipping it for a snack. Mmm.... fresh broccoli. I also had half a bag of egg noodles and some mozzarella left over from pizza topping but not enough to do anything with. So... I combined them! Here is the recipe give or take on the measurements

Creamy Broccoli Noodles.

Fresh broccoli-chopped small

1/2 bag of egg noodles

1/2 cup mozzarella

1/2 stick of butter

1/2cup of parmasan

1/2 cup of milk

Garlic powder 

smidgen of oregano

Put broccoli in water bring to boil. Add egg noodles cook till desired doneness of the noodles. Do not over cook the broccoli.(broccoli should be mushy but doesn't have to be you could add it later.) Drain.  Then add butter and mozzarella stir till melted. Then add Parmesan, garlic (to taste) and oregano stir. Add milk till desired creaminess. Stirring well.

Serve as a hearty side dish.

For those of you who eat chicken I bet you could stir some cooked chicken in and call it dinner!

Darnedest thing any of us have ever seen.

About three days ago our Goldfish, Goldie Charlie, ate one of the albino catfish that are in his tank cleaning it. Chris saw the whole thing. He doesn't really care for the Goldfish. It has a bad attitude.When it's hungry it bangs the thermometer, that is in the tank, up against the side making a clank sound. He is always hungry. Also if he can see you eating he will stair at you.
Any way, when Chris saw the fat goldfish swallow up the cat fish he reach in the tank grabbed the goldfish and tried to pull the catfish out of its mouth. He was unsuccessful. The tail end of the catfish was left hanging out of the goldfishes mouth. We all thought the gold fish would either choke to death or die from not being able to eat. After a few hours we wrote the catfish off as being dead. The goldfish swam all around the tank with that tail hanging out of it's mouth for three days. Every  so often it looked as though the catfishes tail was wiggling but that was obviously from the movement of the goldfish.
Once when we fed Goldie Charlie we thought he was going to choke. He started twitching and then did a fishy body slam into the large rock that is decoration on the bottom of the tank. Then kept on swimming with that wiggly tail a little farther down his throat .

We all thought he would be able to finish swallowing it soon and maybe just maybe that Goldie Charlie would survive. Secretly Chris was looking forward to getting some new fish. He could get about four or five to replace that big old goldfish. I thought for sure the tugging of the catfish to get it free would have cut the goldfishes throat up and probably logged its fins in like a hook.
But.... That smart old gold fish finally spit that cat fish out. Once again Chris saw the whole thing. The catfish lay on the bottom dead and probably rotten. So Chris got the net, reached in and that cat fish took off like a bullet. ALIVE! And the gold fish is alive. A day later and they are both alive. Maybe they were talking and reached some sort of fishy agreement. I don't know but that's the darnedest thing any of us have ever seen.

We are back!

We made it back just as fast at we got there despite agreeing to take our time and not drive like the roads going to fall apart.Chris just can't drive slow.  But the trip was great! We met up with everyone in Kansas, at my sisters. My brother John and a friend Wendy and her daughter drove up from Arkansas. Then we all headed to Oklahoma for the graduation. 

We got to see our soldier graduate basic training. 

Doesn't she look good.

That's all that army food! She said it was pretty good. Which makes me wonder about our cooking. But... the first thing she wanted was fast food restaurants so I think she was exaggerating the goodness of the army food.

She really bulked up while she was there. All muscle! Her arms are as big as her dad's now. That may not be saying all that much but she was a toothpick when she left. Yep! Heslin attitude with the ability an knowledge of how to kill people bare handed. Well, they did gave her a gun and showed her how to use it. So ya'll bad guy's better watch out. Cause my daughter is awesome!

4th of July

We spent the 4th at my sisters in Kansas. Boy was that a lot of fun. People in her city are crazy for fire works. It sounded like a war zone with all the mortar type fireworks. All we had to do was walk outside every house was lighting them off. People had attached candles to tiny parachutes they lit the candles on fire and  they flew up and over the houses all night. I asked my sister but no one there worries about their houses catching on fire. And there was definitely no forests to worry about. We had a blast. (No pun intended.)

It was very difficult but we finally got the whole crew to stand together long enough for this one, yes only one, picture. The kids were all having so much fun playing with the pool table, lighting off fireworks, running all over the place. It reminded me of Thanks givings at my Aunts when I was little and the whole family use to get together. Hope we don't have to wait another 20 years for everyone to get together again.