Fried Squash

Fried Squash Amanda Style

 

 

You will need:

Yellow Squash, peeled and sliced medium thick.

1/2 cup corn meal

1/2 cup all purpose flour

salt and pepper (to your liking)

1/2 cup milk

1 egg, beaten

canola (or your favorite kind) oil

 

Heat the oil in a cast iron skillet on high heat.

Mix the milk and egg in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, corn meal, salt, and pepper.

Dunk the squash into the milk mix and then into the flour mix. You want a good coating on the squash so don't try to do it all at once!

Place several (maybe 7)  pieces of squash in the hot oil in a single layer. Let it cook for 2 or so and then flip and cook the other side for 2 minutes. If you have ever fried eggplant, then it is the same principle idea.

Pull from the oil and drain on a paper towel.

 

This is so simple but soooo good, especially when you use fresh squash from the garden. It isn't really healthy (it is fried after all!) but it is a nice treat now and again.

 

 



 



Summer Time

Whew. It has been a busy summer around the Bradley's neck of the woods.
I am attending both summer semesters at Henderson State University. Six is the maximum number of hours the college will allow a student to take in each summer session, and there are two sessions. So I will be twelve hours closer to finishing my BSE degree in August :) 
Summer I ended June 27 and I was so pleased to see that I earned As in both of my classes. Hooray!

Jason had the weekend home recently and surprised me with an impromptu trip out of town. He wouldn't tell me where we were going, just to pack an overnight bag and leave the fur kids extra food. We left on Saturday morning and drove the back highways from Benton to Harrison. The weather was absolutely gorgeous!  We made some fun stops along the way.

We stopped by Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas. Since this wasn't our original destination and a last minute decision to stop, we didn't do the tour. We did watch a video about the mission of Heifer International and selected a few items from the gift shop. If you are interested, you can find out more about the organization by going to http://www.heifer.org/ 

We stopped at several little stores and tourist sites along the way. We I wanted to go see an Opera in the Ozarks performance in Eureka Springs but we didn't want to hurry so we decided to wait and go another time. We found a Hampton Inn in Harrison, Arkansas and checked in for the night. After going out to dinner we returned to the room and were in bed before ten. We were both pretty tired.

The next morning we decided to meander back home. We stopped at a couple of places along the Buffalo River to scout out some possible camp sites for an upcoming camping trip we want to take soon.  We had swim suits but had forgotten to bring towels and really didn't want to get wet and then have a long car ride home. I elected to wade in the river in my board shorts and flip flops. There were tiny fish and they tickled as they nibbled at my feet!

 

 

 

Jason is a fan of smoked meats and cheeses. We found two places within a mile of each other on Highway 64 in St. Joe, Arkansas. We stopped at both :)    Coursey's Smoked Meats makes really awesome sliced meat sandwiches so we picked up two along with chips and canned sodas and had a picnic on the Buffalo National River at Tyler Bend. I joked with Jason that the forest ranger was going to kick me out of the park for feeding a bear. My pet name for him is Honey Bear.

We had a really good time and it was just the break I needed between summer sessions. We got home Sunday afternoon and classes started back on Monday morning.

Hopefully we will get to take that camping trip next month and I can share more of our adventures.

Deocrating for Independance Day. Part One

I like to start decorating for July 4th sometime in mid to late June. This allows time to get everything up and enjoy it before it has to come down again.  I am going to take the next week or so to share some of these ideas.

Remember those DIY apothecary jars that I made? (click here for tutorial)
Changing out the contents for different holidays and seasons is a simple way to make your home festive.  I purchased most of these materials at the Dollar Tree.  The first jar is layered color confetti paper in red, white, and blue. The second jar is open top and has red, blue, and silver star garland and has two flags that I picked up at WalMart for about a dollar each. The last jar is another red and blue garland strand.
It is really simple and cheap but is fun and festive.

Up next will be a banner to span across the opening of the doorway!

Mamaw Mae's Rice and Tomatoes

Tonight as I was chopping an onion to prepare supper, I started crying. As much as I would like to blame the onion, it was innocent of any offense. I was crying because I was making a recipe my Mamaw Mae used to make. Even though she has been on the other side of the veil since 1993, I still think about her often and miss her very much. She influenced my life in many ways and I am eternally grateful for her love.  

In remembrance of my Mamaw, I want to share a recipe that she used to make often. It has always been one of my favorites. It is really cheap to make, as were most recipes that orginated during harder times.

 

Rice and Tomatoes

You will need:
2 cups slightly undercooked white rice
1 large onion, chopped
a tiny bit of cooking oil of your choice
1 quart of HOME CANNED TOMATOES (if you are completely desperate you can use store bought. It won't taste near as good though.)
salt and pepper to taste


Heat the oil in a cast iron skillet and saute the onion until done.
Add in your canned tomatoes AND the juice.
Liberally salt the tomatoes and add a good amount of black pepper. The amount of salt will depend on whether you use home canned tomatoes that were packed without salt or nasty store bought canned tomatoes that bring shame to your Mamaws that came before you.
Let this simmer for about 15 minutes while you cook your rice in a separate pot.
Stir the slightly undercooked rice into the onion and tomato mixture in your skillet.
Let it all simmer until most of the liquid is absorbed and it looks about right.

You can serve this as a side dish with just about anything or let it stand on its own as a meatless, frugal dinner.

I hope you give this recipe a try. It is absolutely delicious and reminds me of simpler times spent in the kitchen with my best friend, Mamaw Mae.

Fun With Vinyl

I have been having so much fun since I jumped into the world of vinyl cutting on my Silhouette.

I made this beauty for my mother in law for Mother's Day:

I was surprised by how many people asked if I could make them a sign. I sat down and calculated the cost of all the materials and supplies and finally settled on a price. I am excited that I might actually get to sell some of these!

Then tonight I decided to try my hand at personalizing water bottles for some of our nieces.

I used the font Cutie Pop for the purple and pink bottle and the font Handwriting for the blue bottle. All the images are from the Silhouette store. I found the bottles at Hobby Lobby.  I am really anxious to see how well these hold up. If they do well then I will be making more, possibly to sell (with different graphics and fonts).

I am just so excited about all the possibilities of things I can do with vinyl. :)

Another finished project: Our Photo Wall

After being married for 6 months, I finally put our wedding pictures on the wall! Our photographer did such a wonderful job taking and editing the photos and I wanted to do them justice by displaying them nicely. This is what I finally decided on:

 

The view headed down the hall from our main areas to the bedrooms.

 

Close up view of The Family Proclamation

I have wanted some sort of personalized frame to display The Family: A Proclamation to the World for a while. I found this awesome, wide frame at Michael's on sale for less than $10! I ordered the proclamation from the Church website for only 50 cents in an 11 by 17. I framed it and then added Bradley Family and our wedding date in viny cut on my Silhouette. I love this personal touch that shows that we claim the Proclamation on the Family as truth and apply the teachings to our family!


I bought this frame set during Black Friday sale at Walmart for around $6. I chose to put wedding pictures of us and our families in the frames. One of the frames was for a 5x7. I didn't have that size picture printed so I decided to put our initial there instead. I had some matting paper in 5x7 and I cut a B on cardstock using my Silhouette. I just glued it to the mat and used it in the space. Love it!

 

Final view of the whole thing as seen from the hallway looking toward the living room.

 

My first Glogster and feedback needed!

I had to create a Glogster for an assignment in my Educational Technology class. We could select any topic that we wanted. Since I did a booth at a preparedness night at church on food dehydration I thought I would make my Glogster on that. I need feedback from peers for my written reflection on the assignment so please take a look and share any feedback below in the comments section! Thanks!