Robber alert

There is never a dull moment at Many Branches. So much has been going on since July 4th that I forgot to tell you the latest.  One morning a couple of weeks ago we got up and there were garden tools strewn around the yard and some even in the pool.  But the glaring thing was the absence of our golf cart which we use to get to the far reaches of the property and to use as a garden cart.  It was gone, key and all, of course.  The double wrought iron gate was open and away the robber went on a stealing spree covering several miles.  What he did not realize was there are cameras everywhere and they caught him driving up in a golf cart, getting out and shining a light inside various cars to see what he could steal.  He had loaded a 24 pack of water that he had stolen on the back and it made for an entertaining video which shot around Columbus and on Facebook like crazy. At 7:00 am I called Clinton Township police and they sent a guy out almost before I could get dressed for the day.  Within four hours they had located the golf cart sitting incongruously in front of a dilapidated apartment complex and the policeman who found it drove it to the police station. (How it still had power is amazing because we are talking miles.) They called to let us know they had found it and I then called Eric, our yard man, who owns a flat bed to ask him to pick it up.  Then I thought I had better not send two strangers to a police station with a flatbed truck to pick up a stolen golf cart.  So Andy rode with our Mexican friends to the police station and now it is home safe and sound and we got 24 bottles of free water which we are afraid to drink...never know where it has been.

Note:
I just finished The Secret Letter by Debbie Rix.  It was a beautiful and compelling story.

BLTs, leaves, and blue cheese dressing

Andy is wild about BLTs.  There is no other way to write it.  When tomatoes are in season I don't have to do much cooking because there is always bacon in the fridge and tomatoes at the ready. (Maybe not as many this year but still enough to please Andy.) Any way you cook bacon it makes a mess.  The oven is the least intrusive. However, for some reason some of the flavor is  missing. Well, there is bacon in the oven this morning, the tomatoes are sliced, the toast is in the toaster, the fresh basil leaves are plucked, and the mayo is ready to spread...it's BLTs this Saturday lunch.

Already Andy is grinding up the leaves with the mulcher.  The leaves are dropping really early this year and that is sad to see.  I do get sad in the autumn for some strange reason. I shouldn't there is so much to look forward to such as another great-grandaughter, a trip to Italy and a trip to visit Beth's family for Thanksgiving in New Orleans. (My motto is do all you can while you can.)

I have been making and testing some really tasty salad dressings.  I made a good one with blue cheese, lots of blue cheese because usually, the blue cheese is sparse in the ready-made dressings.

From an old August post:

I had a former student who grew up to become an HER realtor. She kindly sent me the HER cookbooks each year and the recipes are just fabulous. Today, while I was looking for a recipe for peanut butter pie with streusel for a requester from Cook's Corner I ran into a recipe that I had requested on Cook's Corner many years ago. While I did not find the peanut butter pie recipe, I grabbed the cherry-pecan loaf recipe to try today! Someone told me about this but would not give me the recipe, so now I am about to try it. It uses buttermilk and maraschino cherries. If it is good, I will add the recipe to this entry.

CHERRY-PECAN LOAF: (I MADE IT AND IT IS GOOD!)
This is from the HER holiday cookbook from many, many years ago.
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs (I use jumbo)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all- purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup chopped pecans
1-10 ounce jar maraschino cherries drained and chopped (If I were doing it again, I would use more cherries.)
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/4 tsp. vanilla
milk to drizzling consistency. Drizzle over cooled loaf.

In large mixing bowl cream together butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy. In medium mixing bowl stir together flour, soda and salt. Alternately add dry ingredients and buttermilk to creamed mixture, beating just until blended after each addition. Fold in nuts and cherries. Pour batter into greased loaf pan and bake at 350 for 55 to 60 minutes depending on your oven. Let stand10 minutes before removing from pan. Cool and drizzle if you like.