Author: JodiLea

I don't pretend to be who/what I'm not. I will be honest here unless I publish under the category "This could be news," which is 99% fiction and a wee bit sarcastic. ;-) I want readers who come here to have as much fun as I do. Not all subjects can be fun, but most can be funny if I do my job right ;-) My inner child is reflected in my logo and will change at a moment's notice.

Happy Groundhog Day!

~ JodiLea ~ 2 Comments

That’s right. Today, February 2nd, is the big day. Punxsutawney Phil, the official predictor of Spring, will make his annual appearance and declare 6 more weeks of winter. Or not.

Groundhog
image from flickr

I’m not going to go into the history of Groundhog Day, but if you’re curious you can visit the little rodent’s Club. Instead I will tell you a little family memory….

One year when our kids were middle school age, I decided to invent “Groundhog Pie”. Like Sheppard’s Pie, but using “groundhog meat”.  It looked a lot worse than it tasted. When I cut into the crust and served the first piece, I was reminded of a childhood song that had “greasy gopher guts” in the lyrics.

They must have suspected it really wasn’t groundhog, yet everyone played along. Even my pickiest of eaters scarfed it up. These kids, who diligently removed each and every piece of onion or mushroom from their spaghetti, blindly ate groundhog pie. Go figure.

This was many years ago. I want to add the recipe to my cookbook, but I didn’t write it down in my cookbook notes. Maybe I hadn’t started the book yet. Regardless, I will let you in on what I do remember.

Groundhog Pie

  • 1 pkg. of Pillsbury rolled pie crusts (has 2 in it)
  • 1 pound ground meat (beef, pork, or chicken will work)
  • 1 bunch of fresh spinach (rinse well)
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced fine
  • 1 small can of chopped tomatoes, drained.

Remove pie crusts from the fridge and allow them to warm to room temperature while preparing pie filling. Brown the meat in a large skillet until done. Drain and return to skillet, adding spinach, garlic and tomatoes. Stir together for 1 minute at low heat.

Line a pie pan with 1 crust, making it fit tightly to sides and bottom. Poke bottom a couple of times with a fork. Leave 1/4 to 1/2 inch of crust edge above the rim of pan. Add filling.  Cover with top crust and pinch the bottom and top edges together to seal. Poke top crust a couple of times with fork.

Bake at 350° for about an hour.

You can also sprinkle cheese on the filling before covering with top crust if desired.

Strange Talk

~ JodiLea ~ 3 Comments

Kansas Farmland

My parents both came from families that had many colorful interesting sayings & expressions. My father was born into a Kansas farm family. My mother was born into a West Virginia mountain coal-miner’s family. This makes my sister and I Hickabillies. For some reason we are proud of this.

The other day one of my father’s favorite words popped out of my mouth. I had not heard (or used) it in years. It’s funny how your subconscious mind stores things from childhood that you don’t even know you remember.

did·dly·squat (dĭdˈlē-skwŏtˌ) noun, Slang:  A small or worthless amount.

Origin of word:  Too insignificant to piss on. (I don’t know if that’s true, but it makes sense.)  Used in a sentence:  “I got diddly squat for my bonus this year”;

Dad drove us all crazy with this expression:  “We?? You got a turd in your pocket?” You might be saying “What???” to your screen.  I know, it’s a strange one. It took me months to get it, and  dad had to explain it to me (hey, I was a dumb kid!)

Grandma often hollered at us when we were being rambunctious; “Too much laughing always turns into crying!” Sis and I would just snicker and roll our eyes. And damn it all, she was right. Somehow during our giggling & carrying on somebody got pinched, poked or scraped and ended up crying. One day my sister’s precious Ooffy, her old stuffed dog’s head flew off.  Her scream reached decibels never heard before by human ears. Imagine a couple of screech owls, trapped in a metal barrel. That would have been music.

I remember it like it was last week. A mind-numbing horror to witness, especially for a five-year old. They only way to get her to calm down was promising her  Ooffy would have surgery to re-attach his head and he would be OK. Grandma took headless Ooffy into her bedroom and sewed him back together. Then bandaged him up. Whew! My sister still thinks it was my fault, 45 years later.

Not only was Grandma right, but her words of doom actually came out of my mouth last Saturday when my granddaughters were playing and giggling (quite loudly). They turned to me and said, “What???”  I simply rolled my eyes and said, “never mind”.

Not a minute later both of them were crying.

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photo credit: Stuck in Customs via photopin cc