January 17th

Cold!

 

It's been at or below freezing for many days now. We've lost most of our vegetable plants and quite a bit of the ornamental plants as well.

Not much use in trying to save them because the constant freeze/thaw cycle would have destroyed them anyway.

I prefer to look on the bright side....

Come spring, it'll be fun to plant a whole new garden.

 

Speaking of weather.....

Its been kinda weird.

On Tuesday, on the way to bring the kids to school, we saw an unusual cloud formation.

I took this shot from my car window.

The yellowish gray area was an extremely fast moving cloud or mist that completely covered the sky by the time the traffic light, where we were sitting, changed.

I've never seen anything like that.

 

Reminded me of the cloud scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Or

Stephen King's "The Mist"!

I was waiting for some alien spaceships to materialize out of it!

It was that weird.

Then it became gusty.

The wind was picking up all the dead leaves and spreading them everywhere in little swirly eddy's.

 

It was on December 8th last year,

that we last had a snow/sleet weather thing happen to this Deep South state.

 

We are south Louisiana.

We can handle hurricanes,

Oil spills,

Tornados,

Floods,

Saints losses,

But.....

We just don't do snow.

Everything shuts down.

Schools,

Roads,

Businesses.

We just turn out the lights and put the "closed" sign on the door.

 

The hens were "Nestled all snug in their beds",

because they had a heat lamp in the coop.

Around seven am, they were still clucking softly to get out.

I guess they aren't adverse to eating flash frozen bugs.

Their little raptor feet made funny footprints in the snow.

So,

now its 10am and the bit of snow we had is rapidly melting.

I can hear it dripping off the roof.

 

Today is a great day for some French Fry Soup.

French Fry Soup you ask?

Why yes!

Classic recycled food.

LOL!

 

Recipe:

Save all the extra take out french fries or hashbrowns that would have been thrown away anyway and freeze them. That's your base for the soup. Hence the name.

Turn your crockpot on high and add a bit of olive oil, some finely chopped onions and a dash of garlic in the bottom.

When the crockpot is hot, put in a bunch of peeled Russet or Yukon gold potatoes, with your leftover French fries. (Those types of potatoes lend themselves well to becoming soup.)

Add 2 cans of evaporated milk and enough regular milk to cover them, with a dollop of butter.

Cook on high till the potatoes are soft.

About 4hrs.

Then use an immersion blender and blend the crap outta the potatoes!

The mixture will be wonderfully creamy. (might need to add a bit more milk at this point, if not you have excellent mashed potatoes)

 No need to season because of the already seasoned French fries.

I serve in an bowl with bacon bits, Ritz crackers (because its Nabisco) and shredded cheese.

Easy.

Yum.