That Was A Close Call

Believe it or not, it's STILL raining in California.  Not that I mind because I like the sound of rain hitting the roof.  My ground has been pretty saturated for some time now, so I hope that means the water tables are up.  It sprinkled most of the day, making my mind run circles around the 75 cookbooks I have in my kitchen collection.

Trust me, a cookbook does not a Chef make.  I wanted to do something with all that leftover ham besides eat it straight out of the fridge because it tastes WONDERFUL.  The only thing I could come up with was Mac 'n Cheese.  I'd like to say I'm good at this one easy recipe, but I'm not.  

My mom made the best Mac 'n Cheese ever.  I don't know if it's the cheese ... a difference in the butter and flour for the roux ... or maybe whole milk versus the 2% in my fridge.  I guess I just have to keep trying.

I cut up the ham with no visible signs of blood on my fingers, before starting the water for the pasta.  I discovered this day that all pasta is not the same.  Your macaroni and MY macaroni are different in many respects.  Who knew???

I dumped half a box of Kroger elbow macaroni in the water and gave it a stir.  Once is usually sufficient.  Three minutes later I stirred it again to discover it was all stuck together.  Weird.  Another ten minutes went by and it was STILL stuck together in a big lump on the bottom and hard as a rock, in spite of the boiling water.  I stirred it again and again.

In the meantime, I made the roux and dumped in three different types of cheese.  Maybe that's the problem .... my mom only used cheddar.  I tested the pasta again.  It needed a couple more minutes, so I busied myself cleaning up the mess.  That should do it.  I grabbed the pot of pasta and dumped it in the strainer!   PLOP!!  What????  It all came out stuck together in one huge lump.  

I'm serious here .... one solid man-sized lump of macaroni.  I started laughing so hard I almost dumped the whole thing in the sink.  I can already see the shovel in my mind's eye as I dig a hole in the rain.

Since I had no other pasta in the house, I dumped it into the sauce and gave it a stir.  It's got cheese and ham, so it can't taste TOO bad!!!  Finally the macaroni separated ... sort of ... as it was drenched in ooey gooey sauce.  STILL not as good as my mom's, but it was at least edible.  That was a close call!!!!  I almost ruined my record of no burials this month.

Since I was already blowing my diet, I took some leftover hamburger and ground turkey to make a small meatloaf.  No instant pot this time, although you can use it, so they say.  I'm pretty sure it would not come out with crispy bacon if you did.  Dinner was served!!

I spent the rest of the day sewing in between constantly checking my phone messages for word on the house.  They have an offer in for their new house and are waiting to see if THAT seller will fix some problems.  Once that is agreed to, I will get the contract to sign for MY house and send along a deposit.  I have ten days for inspections, which are already set up.  It's a waiting game.

I tried hard not to just sit on the couch.  I cut and sewed the borders for this Halloween quilt, watched lots of television and played with the puppies.  Waiting stinks!!

I think for the next few days I will take my house one room at a time and make a LARGE donation pile.  I might as well get ahead of the game since I saw California legislators have drawn up some sort of law that will make them their own country.  As an accountant, one who knows what it costs since I worked in the County Offices for 21 years, I just can't believe it!  How in the world do they expect to pay for anything without all the Federal Aid they get??  Once people figure out they are going to donate 50-70% of their income to the State, they'll be leaving in droves.   

Take your foot off the soapbox Nancy ........ let's not go there until it happens!!!