Happy Cold Monday!

Mr Ladybug moved a couple of feeders to the front window and now when I am blogging this is my view. We are so enjoying having these red breasted nuthatches visit out feeders. They love peanuts. They love them so much that Mr Ladybug was holding the feeder in his hand and they landed on it. We are definitely going to try to get a picture of that when its not freeze your face off temps outside.

In its first grow the oyster mushroom log produced about 10 oz of mushrooms. We let the log rest and have now started spraying it again to get another round. They are so tasty. We had some a week ago in fajitas and I put them on steaks last night. I have just enough to make a quiche with the remaining ones. We will definitely look into growing more of these through out the year.

I try lots of recipes off the internet and it makes me crazy at the amount of ones that just dont taste good, like the peanut butter cookies from last week. Yesterday I came across a cheesy scalloped potato recipe and he was using seasoning mixes that I could not find anywhere. Then when I looked through his pictures he definitely had paprika top of his potatoes but nowhere in the recipe did he state to put paprika on the top to help get the brown color. So if you dont like the way people do things you should do them yourself. So here is my recipe and you should have to struggle to find the ingredients or be missing any ingrdeients.

Mrs Ladybugs Semi Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes

2 pounds of peeled and thinly sliced potatoes
3TBS butter
3TBS seasoned flour, all purpose will do but seasoned gives it a bit more flavor
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 cup of vegetable broth, chicken broth works too but I have a vegetarian in the house
2 cups milk
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
paprika


Preheat oven to 400 degress. Melt butter in a sauce pan over med hi heat. Once melted add flour, garlic and onion powder. Mix well until everything is mixed in with the butter, Add broth and stir until there are no lumps. Add milk and parmesan cheese. Stir well and continue stirring until cheese is all melted. Once its melted it should be thickening up so remove from heat.

 Layer half the potatoes in casserole dish. Top with half the cheddar cheese and half the sauce.

Add remaining potatoes, sauce and top with cheese.Sprinkle top with paprika.

 Cover and bake 30 minutes. Remove cover and bake 20-30 minutes more making sure potatoes are cooked.

Did you get outside last night to see the Blood Moond Lunar Eclipse? I did and it was so beautiful. I didnt think my fingers or toes would ever thaw but it was definitely worth it. Even standing and sliding on the ice with my twisted ankle thats bothering me this morning was worth it.