If you have left over mashed potatoes from dinner, use them for breakfast.
I like to cook mine two different ways in my Old Mountain cast iron cookware.
One great way is to make potato cakes. Simply make the potatoes into pancakes
and fry them in your skillet in a little bit of oil. I like to season mine with a little
salt and have them a bit crunchy on the outside. Another way is to put the
potatoes in the pan and make a well in the middle. Then crack an egg and
put it in the well. Cook on low with a lid on the top. Have a little bacon or
sausage on the side and you have a great breakfast.

We have a bakery right down the road that makes the best muffins. They
have breakfast muffins and muffins for dinner. They have one type that
fits perfectly in my cast iron muffin pan. We will buy these and have them
for dinner when we have friends over. I just put the muffins in the pan and
heat them up. Everybody loves them and wants to know our recipe. I tell
them it’s an old family secret that has been handed down from generation
to generation and I can’t give it away. After much begging from our friends
for the recipe, I just tell them where the bakery is and we all have a laugh.

Boy oh boy, these 3 day weekends can sure tire a guy out. I always say I am going too relax, but the bottom
line is I don’t know how. Seems like I worked the entire time. After mowing and trimming on Saturday and
then exercising the horses, I barely had the strength to drink a beer. But being a trooper , I got it done. On
Sunday I did more work and then stayed up to late. On Monday we had friends over for a BBQ. At least we
had the food prepared ahead of time. All I had to do was take the pulled pork and the baked beans out of the
fridge and heat them up on the grill in our cast iron dutch ovens. What got me tired Monday was playing to
many games of horseshoes. I’m just glad to be back to work now.

It’s Memorial Day weekend, a three day weekend. Great leisure time for anybody that’s not
living in my house. My wife is having friends over for a BBQ on Monday and I just received
my to do list before they arrive. I figure I’ll be done in 24 hours or so. First I have to clean the
grill inside and out. Then touch up the paint on the counter tops and walls. After that, get the
horseshoe pits ready, clean the manure from the corral, move the skid steer, hang the badmitten
set up, take down a dead tree, mow 4 acres and then touch it up with the weed eater. All for a 4-5
hour party. Oh yea, I almost forgot. I also need to hang a giant butterfly on the tree. What leisure
time? Maybe if I slip her a sleeping pill at night, she’ll sleep in and I can have some bacon and eggs
in my cast iron skillet before she wakes up. If not, I’ll probably have to sneak around the barn and
graze with the horses. Can’t wait until Tuesday morning to get back to work to relax a little.

With Memorial Day coming up this weekend, many of us will be having friends over
for a BBQ. If you are, remember to keep it simple. You can do all your cooking in one spot,
the BBQ grill. If you are going to put burgers on the grill, get your cast iron flat grill and
put it on the BBQ grill. On that you can cook some onions and some vegetables. You can
even toast your buns on it if you don’t have to many people. Keep it simple, keep it fun.

We have quite a few cookouts at our house in the summer with around 6 to 15 people.
One thing I have learned is to cook all the food ahead of time. That way we can enjoy
our guests instead of cooking food. I used to cook burgers for everyone trying to see
who wants cheese and how they want their burger cooked. I even cooked veges on the
grill which took all my time. Now we just cook brisket or pulled pork the day before and
heat it up in the oven in our cast iron pots and then put it on the hot grill to serve. We cook
potato salad, deviled eggs and coleslaw ahead of time as well. If all the plates, cups and
utensils are set aside ahead of time, you can really enjoy your guests and you party.

Last Sunday I looked out the back window just to check on the
horses. What I saw surprised me. There was a small black bear
on the other side of the corral eating grass with the horses. We
watched for awhile and took some pictures and the the bear left.
Next thing we know, he is up on our deck walking around and
trying to get into the house and BBQ grill. I went and got one
of our aluminum frying pans and a metal spoon and started
whacking them together to chase the bear away. He high tailed
it pretty quick. You should have seen that aluminum pan, it was
destroyed from hitting it. Next time he comes back, I am going to
use a piece of my cast iron cookware. Oh the many uses of cast iron.

Who does the cooking in your house? Is it you the husband or you the wife? In our house, it’s me the husband.
The main reason for that is because I am a better cook and my wife just doesn’t enjoy it much. I guess the second
reason is, is because I do about 95 percent of the shopping. Why do I do that? Because I cannot send my wife to
the grocery store. She just cannot stick to the list. She will come home with 15 different items that were not on the
list because they looked good. You cannot go the the grocery store when you are hungry, everything looks good.
So, I thought I would feed her before she went so she would not be hungry. That didn’t work either. She fell asleep
on the couch and ended up going anyway. So, I go, come home and cook her favorite, blueberry muffins in our
cast iron muffin pan.

Here it is May 11th, spring has come, the flowers are supposed
to be blooming and the weather is supposed to be warmer. In the
last week at our home alone, we have gotten 2 snow storms. The
first part of May we got 6 inches of snow and in the last two days
we have gotten 4 inches. What happened to spring? Spring came in March
and now we are getting winter. With it so cold, a salad didn’t sound
very good so we pulled out our cast iron dutch oven and made chile,
a dish we normally make in the winter. Well, I guess it is winter here,
even though the experts tell me it’s spring and close to summer. I
should bring the experts up here,as I write this it is 30 degrees outside.

The other day, we went to Costco to stock up on supplies. One of the things on our list
was olive oil.  We’ll put it on our pasta or use it to make salad
dressing. We even use a little bit when frying in our pre seasoned cast iron cookware.
What we bought by mistake was OlivExtra. We didn’t realize it until we got home. We
should of known by the price, we got 101 ounces for what we would have paid for 12
ounces of olive oil in the grocery store. This was a good mistake. We like it as much as
olive oil and we got 10 times the amount for the same price. It’s a mixture of olive oil,
canola oil and grapeseed oil. If you can find it, try it. In these tough economic times
it does not hurt to save a little money.