Thursday, May 03, 2007

More Gardening and "Stuff"

Oh the joys of Springtime.

The peony bush that I thought had been stolen last year has made a miraculous come-back and is about knee-high now. Its small red leaf clusters have unfurled into red & green leaves and there are BUDS on some of the stalks!! I know it's early yet, and it is possible that these buds will just dry up and fall off, but they're a good 3/8" diameter and nicely green, so I have some hope! If it blossoms, I may just post a picture.

The coreopsis has still not broken ground. I fear for its survival, although Jim here keeps yelling at me that it's a warm-weather plant and won't come up until the ground gets warm. My inherent negative skepticism refuses to accept this. (Yeah, I know I'm supposed to be working on that...)

Last night I finished potting in the last 2 pots for the plant stands. I stuck a trellis into the pot with the cucumbers. Hopefully I can train them up the trellis and have non-dirty cukes this summer.

The zucchini pot fell over while I was moving things around, however, which is a bitch, because the seeds fell out too. I repotted it up, but couldn't find the seeds, so I put in new ones.
Either I'll have one pot of zucchini, or I'll have a pot full and a darn "weed" one in the flowerbed. Hopefully I can catch any "weed" ones before they become an issue.

I was going to pot up the tomatoes tonite, but it was kind of chilly last night, so I may wait another couple days on those. No rush, really. The plants are strong and healthy looking. I'm a bit worried about a few of those mail-order ones, they've gotten kind of squirrely since they arrived, but I'll get them in this weekend and hopefully a little bit of miracle gro and some tlc and they'll perk back up.

I made "Stuff" last night. "Stuff" is a family recipie that probably originated during the depression. It's not "health food" by any means (especially since you never drain the bacon!), but it is tasty, it fills one up, and it costs almost nothing to make. Mom never had a name for it, so one day as a teenager I declared that its official name would forevermore be "Stuff". "Mom - can we have "Stuff" for dinner this week?" worked from then on, so "Stuff" it is!!

"Stuff"©

1 lb. low-salt sliced bacon cut into 1" pieces
2 small onions - diced
1 large sweet green pepper diced (if you like "zip", add 1/2 a jalapeno pepper)
1 very large can diced tomatoes (the can that is larger than soup cans - 28 oz, I think)
1 package "shell" macaroni
Salt & pepper to taste

Prepare macaroni shells per package directions. Drain, set aside.

While macaroni is cooking, put the bacon pieces in a large skillet and brown well. Add onions and green peppers to the bacon & drippings, saute until JUST cooked. Pour in entire can of tomatoes (DO NOT drain!) simmer until heated through. Add salt & pepper to taste.

In a VERY large bowl, place 1/2 the macaroni shells, then pour 1/2 the bacon & veggie mixture over the shells. Repeat with 2nd half of macaroni and bacon/veggies. Stir well.

This makes enough "Stuff" to feed 4 very hungry people, with a bit of leftover usually.

Serve with a green salad and fresh fruit.

627 days

3 comments:

BBC said...

My bastard apple tree that I have cut way back a couple of times is leafing out and mocking me again, as big as ever.

I swear, that tree is part rabbit.

What I call Stuff is just whatever I have sitting around and decide to toss together.

At the moment it's a dish I baked in the oven consisting of mashed potatoes, bulk sausage, seasoning, peas.

It's pretty good stuff.

Beautiful sunrise on my walk this morning. Have a great day. Hugs

Leandra said...

It's funny. My family had something like that as well. We called it Hunkey Doodle. No idea where the name came from.Rather than bacon we used hamburger. My mom sometimes added chili powder. But otherwise it was all but identical to what you have. Personally I sometimes add mushrooms and corn, but it really doesn't need it.

My grandmother had three boys and my granddad in addition to my mother during the depression, so she had four hungry men to feed. This stuff managed to fill them up.

billie said...

my mom called it goulash- but she isn't eastern european :)