Life without Butter and Sugar....

is something we are not used to. I always have the two on hand. A week ago I ran out of sugar. A WEEK AGO! Do you know what this means? (That I am crazy? Maybe) It means NO SWEET TEA! And that is an abomination in the south. My brother comes over usually everyday for coffee or sweet tea. I think he has disowned me now that I haven't been keeping a pitcher of tea in the refrigerator. And then the unthinkable happened....I ran out of butter two days ago!!!! I bet somewhere Paula Deen just fainted. I mean really...I went to the store yesterday and bought a 10 pound bag of sugar to make sure it doesn't happen again and forgot the darn butter. Lol. I thought, okay now I can make my Grandpa his Pineapple Upside Down Cake for his birthday. (He just made 83 y'all!!!) And I can get rid of those zucchini's sitting on my counter by making zucchini bread and, since they are huge, making everyone else some too. So I sat out all of the stuff last night and thought tomorrow is going to be a little hectic....I have a routine home visit from DHS (a different county than the one the other day), a play date for my girls, making zucchini bread, making a Pineapple Upside Down Cake, mixing up 3 batches of meatballs to freeze for later days, marinating a huge brisket for this weekend when we have family over, and another post on the blog. Well, we can mark off two of these things now! Possibly 3....it's 11:07 and DHS hasn't arrived and said she would be here mid morning?
So, anyway.....I will be posting a lot of food recipes this week that I hope you will enjoy. Some our mine and my mom's recipes and some come from my favorite cookbooks and blogs. Some of these are: Meatballs over Rice and freezing meatballs, Baked Beans vamped up a bit, Zucchini Bread, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Brisket, and Macaroni Salad. And then we will all vow to run 10 miles on the treadmill together right?
In other random crazy news, since we have been having this monsoon rain weather...ants have now taken over my kitchen. (And I may have to bulldoze my front yard if it doesn't stop soon.)They kinda hang out in one spot though which is good. They have all migrated by my sink and in my sink. I have tried getting rid of them with no success. Yesterday was the last straw though!! I swear it was either the ants go or I go. So I googled effective natural ways to get rid of ants and got these suggestions: cornmeal, peppermint extract or eaves, white vinegar, chili powder, borax, cinnamon and a few others. I decided to mix together cinnamon and chili powder. It sounded lethal enough. I mixed it together and sprinkled it all over the area where they are partying at. BAM! No more ants this morning...well except one little guy who managed to survive....I took care of him though. But, guess what? Now I am out of cinnamon! It's a vicious cycle!!