thoughts on cooking

There was once a day when I loved nothing more than to get out a really long complicated recipe and spend all day cooking. I even loved to cook huge meals with multiple sides and deserts. Now when scanning recipes, if they look long and complicated, I look the other way. At our house we have a tiny kitchen that is not well lit and we don't have a dishwasher. Or a disposal, as I pronounce is "dispose-ALL" which makes Brent laugh every time. And now our lovely place on the lake has some type of pipe or septic problem so we can't wash dishes at all. If you run water in the kitchen sink, it fills up the bathroom sink with black water. So lately we've resorted to fast food, the diner, or hot pockets and frozen pizza. This is a real tragedy to me seeing as cooking is something that makes me truly happy. I guess I could pretend I was still at NOLS living in the mountains and I could take my dishes out to the lake and weave myself a sponge out of grass!

I started thinking about cooking and how it comes natural to some and for others it is something hard to learn. I've been looking through my recipes trying to find some good easy recipes for a friend of mine who didn't inherit natural cooking abilities and I thought, if I put this on here how I've written it down, it could potentially be disastrous. For example, if a recipe calls for certain spices, I never write down the measurements, I just use them according to taste. If you're making lasagna and I just write down lasagna noodles and to layer them in the baking dish, someone might honestly not know that you have to cook them first before layering! For that reason I will attempt to give some fairly simple recipes and go into extra detail!

Spaghetti with Zucchini and Squash
1 Box whole grain spaghetti (I use Barilla)
4 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove; chopped
2 zucchini; thinly sliced
2 yellow squash; thinly sliced
1 jar of tomato & basil pasta sauce
Black pepper and salt (to taste)
1/2 c. parmesan cheese

First cook the pasta according to the directions on the box. This part makes me laugh. I remember when living with Lacey she yells from the kitchen "how much is a quart?!" and I asked what in the world she was doing, which was trying to boil water for pasta. I've never really read directions on the box of pasta, I've always filled a pot up with water, let it boil, add the pasta and just taste it ever so often until it's cooked. So for this purpose, read the box, and just so you know, 1 quart is equal to 4 cups!

In another saute, sauce pan, or skillet, add the 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Set the stove to medium heat and place the pan on the burner. Add the chopped garlic to the pan and saute until it turns yellowish in color. Then add your zucchini and squash and saute for 3 or 4 minutes. Add the jar of pasta sauce to the same pan, stir frequently, and add some salt and pepper.

The after draining the water and removing the spaghetti from the pot, add the cooked noodles to the same pan with the pasta sauce, zucchini, squash and garlic. Mix it all together and let it cook for just about a minute. Take the whole mess of pasta and sauce and vegetables and dump it in a serving bowl; then top it off with the 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese!

Hopefully this seems fairly easy enough. I think pasta is one of the most versatile things you can cook. If that seems too complicated, you can always go to the grocery store, buy some Buitoni pasta and one of their accompanied sauces. My favorite is their fettucini and the alfredo sauce. Delish! I actually make that a lot which requires minimal effort. To jazz it up a bit I may add peas, asparagus, and chicken, or even spinach! 

I hope this is a good starter! If I haven't explained it fully don't hesitate to let me know! :)

Happy eating!

is it 5 o'clock yet?

It's days like today that make me wonder what in the world I am doing in life. Work is almost impossible seeing as there are FOUR dogs in the office. Yes, that's correct... FOUR! Katie is here, which presents a problem in itself seeing as she can't be anywhere in the vicinity of the pups because they want to try and nurse with their huge razor sharp teeth, and Blake brought his 4 month old male black lab Tucker here this afternoon.

Good thing the office has two sides with a door separating them or I would go insane. Katie and Tucker can't stay in the same room together for very long because Katie paces between the two doors whining and waiting on someone to let her out, but when she goes outside she digs a big hole beside the steps. Tucker jumps around and plays tug of war with the bag in the trashcan, the pile of dirty sheets belonging to the truck drivers, and ultimately attempts to bite on Katie's tail. When all else fails he just removes all of the paper towels from the bathroom trashcan and takes a big poop on the floor!

I of course assumed one of the puppies had "gone poopy" in my side of the office and proceeded to crawl under the desks following the unpleasant scent. When there is no poop to be found I peak into the other side of the office to see Tucker, bless his heart, wildly wagging his tail, standing triumphantly in the midst of his mess. 

Now the entire office smells of dog poo no matter how much lavender spray I can put in the air. I even shot some into the air vent hoping it would filter through. 

Aside from the dogs, Brent and I are trying to get our budget in order for finishing the house. We met with our loan officer at the bank today and they want an itemized list of what we lack to finish the house and prices for materials and labor. That is proving to be quite difficult as many of our "contracts" are verbal and sealed with a handshake. They really enjoyed the scrap piece of notebook paper our heating and air guy wrote his price down on and it was contingent on trading a turkey hunt for some of the labor. I don't think First Citizens Bank in Charlotte understands how things work down here in Panola. 

On the up side, Brent has cleaned all of the weeds out of my garden for me and spread snake repellant all around my garden and the house so I need not worry about any encounters with giant rattlesnakes or copperheads today when I go to water my hydrangeas. Yesterday there were two black snakes in our house, yes, inside the house; one even had babies! And a copperhead is living in our stack of black walnut that is drying inside the shop. I think I might venture to the humane society and "rescue" a mean ass male cat to release over there to ward off any unwanted visitors. Only thing that worries me is that some of the rattlesnakes in those woods are so big they might eat the cat! Who would've thought I might have to tote a gun into my own garden for protection. I guess that's life in the country. 

                      ____________________________

To my dearest friend Lacey, I promise I will put up some recipes for you tomorrow! I surely didn't have time to do it today! And don't worry, I'll make it something easy with step by step directions! :)

Tucker and Katie in their hole, tired from all that digging!

the time is now

Yesterday after eating multiple delicious meals for Easter my MIL and Brent's Aunt Scherrie and I were talking about how much we all love to eat and how we all want to lose weight. Brent's family loves to cook, and I mean LOVES to cook. A typical line up of food here at the farm is some type of fried sandwich for breakfast; be it fried egg and bacon, fried bologna, or fried ham, I usually opt for a grilled cheese, and all is accompanied by a coca-cola. Then for lunch comes a plethora of things such as fried chicken, fried pork chops, macaroni pie, always rice, butter beans cooked with "butts meat", sometimes there's fried squash, yams, green beans, cabbage, and always cornbread or biscuits. And to go with that is a big plate of butter and some Karo syrup or grape jelly. (I'm sure your mouths are watering...)

All this sounds absolutely amazing, right? Well when you eat like that everyday and drink sweet sugary tea and coca-cola it has an effect on your body. You start to gain weight, retain water, your blood pressure goes up, and then up goes your cholesterol. Last November I was probably in the worse shape of my life so I decided it was time for a change! I changed my diet and started going to the gym everyday and sometimes twice a day. Then I started working full time. AT THE FARM! So I went back into the grilled cheese and fried chicken routine. Now here I am again at the start of the summer looking and feeling not so good!

So today is the day for a change. Brent carried my small refrigerator to the office for me so I can keep bottled water and healthy food options in it. I am going to get some fruits and veggies to keep in there and things like turkey and yogurt. That way I won't have to go up to the kitchen for any reason and be tempted by the fried chicken legs!

Side note:: Congratulations to Adam and Morgan Barwick! They just found out today that they are having a baby girl!

somebody felt left out..

After proudly showing my blog to my fiance and how I already have a follower (exciting!) he replies "where am I?" .... so here you go ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Mr. Brent Cogdill! My amazing husband to be!

I just took this photo last week during a carriage ride in downtown Nashville. Brent is currently starting a music career, aside from his farm duties. 

He started at a young age ;)

And now he's moved on up to the big time! I took these photos of him at North State, maybe you'll see them on a CD cover one day 

;)

He is serenading me right now as I write this with his guitar skills. Aside from playing the guitar he is a third generation farm boy. 

And an avid outdoorsman and duck hunter....

He is the love of my life and my inspiration for writing this blog. After all, he's the reason I moved down here to become a farmer's wife. 

Rainy day

It's a rainy day at the farm today. If paychecks were finished I would go home and get in the bed and watch movies all day BUT I have to wait around to pay the truck drivers. Since I don't write the checks anymore I have to wait until the new girls prints them, Chris signs them, and then I have to go pick them up and bring them back to the farm to be dispersed. Since my job is finished for the moment I thought I would share some neat things I've found while browsing the internet this morning!

First an amazing breakfast recipe for Scotch Eggs:
1 lb. breakfast sausage
1/2 c. breadcrumbs
8 eggs

Hard boil the eggs (roughly 10 minutes), drain water, and peel the eggs.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Grab a chunk of sausage and flatten it out in your palm, then place the egg in the middle and wrap the sausage around the egg until it is completely covered. (Repeat 7 more times)
Roll the sausage/egg in breadcrumbs and place on cookie sheet.
Bake them for about 30 minutes until the sausage is cooked.

Next are some amazing mason jar lights I found on Etsy by BootsNGus! I'm trying to figure out how many I can fit into our house! :)

They make them in all different sizes, shapes, and colors. Very unique and definitely a conversation piece!

This weekend is Easter also, so the scotch eggs would be fun for an Easter brunch! Normally I go to the beach every year for Easter with Mom and Dad but this year, for the first time, I don't think I am going to make it. I've been gone pretty much every weekend for the past month and after my tour of the midwest last week I don't feel like getting in the car again for longer than 30 minutes. So thankfully I will have a weekend to clean my house and catch up on laundry. (And hose off the greenish yellow film that has enveloped our house now that Spring has arrived in full force!)

Happy Good Friday!

Let me introduce you to my life...

We have two new members of the family I want everyone to meet! 

Brent's dad has a yellow lab named Katie that has become very near and dear to my heart so when Katie had a litter of puppies, we couldn't keep just one... :)

We had to keep TWO! 

Meet Hank & Miss Birdie, our sweet little monsters! Don't let them fool you, they have razor sharp teeth and they LOVE to bite your feet! (and hands, and each other, and my plants, the garden hose, the fence, their dog bed.... and the list goes on! but hey aren't they adorable!) 

Soon we will also introduce Jane. (yes, three dogs) Oh yeah, Bailey.. well she has moved to Iron Station with the grandparents. Since we lost Lilly, Lucy, and Belle, Mom and Dad wanted some puppy company that they didn't have to train so little Bailey Purvis moved to NC! 

Maybe I should have called this thing "Tales from the Dog House"

Welcome!

After much long debate about this blog, I am pressing ahead into the unknown! As you can see I know nothing about web design but luckily everything on this site is very dummy proof. I read a tutorial on how to make a header using powerpoint and although there isn't much to it I am proud of it! Eventually this blog will be tied in with another website (I hope) .. seeing as I purchased the domain name! (Whatever that means..) 

I've been looking forward to this for so long I now feel like I have stage fright and I'm not even sure what to say. The only people reading this will most likely be myself and a few of my friends, so what am I worried about?! 

I wanted to use a blog as a way to keep up with my friends and family and let them know whats going on in my life down here in the middle of nowhere. Eventually I will figure out how to post pictures on here too. 

I feel like there was a time when everyone had iPod's and I was still burning CD's and now not only do I have an iPod, I have two Mac computers, and iPad, iPhone, Facebook, Twitter, and now a blog! Boy have I become technologically advanced or what!? 

I think this is enough for a welcome post. I could write a few essays worth of info but I'll wait. Especially seeing as I am at work and supposed to be "working." 

Thanks for stopping by and look for more posts to come!

(my regards to Ina Garten for using the word "contessa" but it sounds so much more regal than plain ol' "lady" .... if I do become famous with this thing I reckon' since she lives in the Hamptons she wouldn't be too worried about some crazy farm wife from South Carolina!)