Saturday, May 3, 2008

Mr. & Mrs. Hawthorne Take A Road Trip.

Middle Hawthorne just finished his second semester at college, so Mr. H. and I drove the truck up to school to pack up the larger items that wouldn't fit into his 2-seater - which is basically everything he has. The back of my truck is filled to the gills with his drum set, wide screen TV, and numerous other large items.
He has entirely too much stuff.
Then Mr. Hawthorne dropped me off in Danville to visit Mama Hawthorne and Maxine, while he drove on to visit Mr. Mama Hawthorne-in-Law.




Soon after leaving the beach, we crossed Alligator River Bridge and we passed this sign.
We were tempted ... NOT.
Now Alligator River Bridge is kind of neat. If you ever have a chance to go across it, check out your compass. You're going due west and all of a sudden the compass jumps to north and north east. You're going due east and the compass jumps to south and south west.
I think the Mother Ship must be under that bridge.

In Plymouth, we stopped at our usual place for lunch.
Now, I generally don't like to go to buffets with Mr. Hawthorne because he's been known to knock down small children and old ladies with walkers to get to the buffet,
but he controlled himself today.
Good Mr. Hawthorne.

Now, I'm at Mama Hawthorne's, it's Saturday morning, and I'm fixing her lunch.


After prepping for a while, I thought to myself, "Self, you should be taking pictures of this and blog today, since you didn't tell anybody you were going out of town, and people get antsy when you don't post within a reasonable amount of time."
So I went into the trash to retrieve the Hunt's Meatloaf Sauce can
and the Lipton Onion Soup Mix box.
(Aunt Sandy would be proud of me.)
I finely chopped 1/2 an onion and 1/2 a pepper, added 2 aigs, 1/2 the can of Hunt's sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper and mixed it all up in my meatloaf mixture of ground pork and ground beef with my impeccably clean hands.

And here's Mr. Meatloaf in the 350 degree oven.

While this is cooking, I decided to make a broccoli salad for a side dish.

Drop trimmed and chopped broccoli into a pot of salted boiling water.
Bring back to a boil, about 3 minutes.

Drain, and immediately put the broccoli in ice water to stop the cooking and set the color.



Drain the broccoli and add chopped red onions, raisins, walnuts, and bacon.



Next, I made a dressing: mayo, a bit of sugar, balsamic vinegar, and salt and pepper and tossed it all together.

Here's my finished meatloaf.
Throughout cooking, I was draining the grease out. After about an hour, I added the rest of the Hunt's Meatloaf Sauce on top and cooked for about 15 more minutes.
Let it set about 15 minutes before slicing.


Next up, chocolate covered strawburries.
Mr. Hawthorne and I stopped at Vollmer Farm
and bought two 5-pound boxes of beautiful, just picked, huge strawburries for $11.00 each.



I just melted some semi-sweet Nestle's morsels with a bit of vegetable oil and dipped the strawburries in it.



Here's our lunch - meatloaf, broccoli salad, and mashed taters.



Mama Hawthorne proclaimed her lunch, "Divine."

I must say, it's terribly difficult to cook in someone else's kitchen. I couldn't find proper utensils. I couldn't find ingredients that I have as staples. I only made three trips to Food Lion within a two-hour period to get stuff I needed. Plus, I can't see in this kitchen cause it's so dark. Even the little focusing illumination light came on on my digital camera.
In spite of these obstacles, Rosie still made a decent meal.

Here's our dessert - strawburry pie.

You could use a pastry crust, but I decided to use a graham cracker crust.
I just combined crushed graham crackers, melted butter, some honey, and brown sugar.

For the filling:

1 quart strawberries
1 cup sugar

1/4 cup cold water
2 TB cornstarch

2 TB butter

Slice the strawberries and bring to a boil with the sugar, mashing and stirring.
Boil for about 9 minutes.

Then add the mixture of water and cornstarch.
Cook until thickened

Add the butter and stir until melted.

Mix a few tablespoons of strawberry mixture with about 4-5 ounces of softened cream cheese.

Spread the cream cheese mixture over the bottom of the crust.

Pick out some of the larger, nicer shaped strawberries and place in the cream cheese.
Then pour the rest of the strawberry mixture over top.
Refrigerate.

Slice of strawburry pie with chocolate covered strawburry.



Uh oh. What's this??!!!??
Mama Hawthorne is a closet Fandra.
She Semi-Ho'd my pie!



While Mama Hawthorne checked her email,
I went back to the kitchen to make tonight's dessert-
Pineapple Cake.




Here's the cake - one of the simplest, quickest, and tastiest cakes I've ever had:

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 can crushed pineapple

Mix together dry ingredients and stir in eggs, pineapple, and pineapple joos.
Pour batter into a greased 9 x 13 inch baking dish.

Bake 30-35 minutes in a pre-heated 350 degree oven or until edges come away from pan.



While cake is cooling, prepare the icing.

1 stick butter
1 package cream cheese
2 cups confectioner's sugar
1 TB vanilla

Mix all together and spread on top of cake.


I cut the cake in half, since Imonna take half to Maxine for dessert tonight.
The toothpicks are there so the plastic wrap won't get all in the icing.

Here are the roses from out of my garden which I brought to Mama Hawthorne.
Aren't they pretty?

Mama Hawthorne gave me explicit directions on where to place the roses on top of her piano but
I wasn't following directions very well, unfortunately, and just didn't put them
exactly where she wanted them.

Move the pictures on either side. Not that way! That way.
No, no, no. Move that one to the left. NO! The other left.
Now, move that one back to the other side. No, not that side. I said the other side.
You get the picture.

Oooh, ooh ... Roses on your piano ...
That reminds me of a joke:
What's better than roses on your piano?

Go no further, Mama Hawthorne.


Tulips on your organ.

Mama, I told you not to go any further.



3 comments:

Lane said...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
ohhhhhh mama
ohhhh granny poo hahahahahaha
rotf,lmeao.


...um the e is for "effing" duh

Anonymous said...

Mama Hawthorne sounds like a hoot. My mama would never say that. She doesn't even like me to say 'fart'.

Rosie Hawthorne said...

Ticky, Mama Hawthorne did not say the joke. I was telling her not to go further and read my punch line. And we have never used any word to describe any type of bodily function in front of Mama. That's just not done. Since we acknowledge no bodily functions. Period.