Friday, July 11, 2008

The Giants are Coming, The Giants are Coming . . .

Ok, today I am going to tell you a rather kooky story from when I was a child with an overactive imagination. I have always loved to imagine things. That is one of the reasons that most of the time I would rather read a book than watch TV. Thataway, I can imagine on my own what the people look like, etc.

Well, when going back to my childhood home this time, I just had to take some pictures so I could tell you all this story.

I am going to start with this picture.

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These are haystacks. My Grandpa used to make haystacks like this. They kind of look like big loaves of bread, right? (humor me here, ok?) Anyway . . . here in Missouri, you don't see many haystacks like this. But in Nebraska, at least around the area where I grew up, they are quite common. And I have always thought that they looked like big loaves of homemade bread.

Now on to this picture.

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Now if you are looking at that thing thru a child's eyes, doesn't it look like a giant? He is marching across the land, up over the hills, carrying those wires.

Here is a better picture, to get the whole effect.

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Now, they have these thingies all over up there. Well, when I was a child I used to dream a lot and one night I had a dream. I had to run and tell everyone!! Quickly! The giants were coming, they were marching across the land and they were going to eat all of the bread/haystacks. They would slice them with the wires like a knife and eat it all and there would be no more hay for the cows. Of course, I never told anyone about this silly dream until this time when we went to Nebraska. Yup, they thought I was pretty silly. I can remember riding in a car and keeping an eye on the evil giants, silently warning them to stay away from our haystacks!

Ok, now you all know that I am full of silliness! Or as some folks would say, full of beans. So without further ado . . .

Baked Beans by Raquel
Serves a bunch of hungry folks

4 (1 lb) cans of pork-n-beans
Molasses
Ketchup
Mustard
1 onion, diced fine
Bacon
Worchestershire sauce
Chili powder
Liquid Smoke
Garlic powder
Coarse ground black pepper
Barbecue sauce

Get a fairly large baking pan. Probably at least a 2 quart-3 quart one. I used a 9 x 13 cake pan. Open the beans and pour them in the pan. (One of the nice things about this recipe is it only dirties up one pan!) Now over top of that put your diced onion, squirt in some ketchup, mustard and BBQ sauce. Amounts are to your preference, I probably use 1/2 cup ketchup, 1 tablespoon of mustard and at least 1/2 cup BBQ sauce. Sprinkle in some worchestershire sauce, probably about 1-1/2 teaspoons. A sprinkle of chili powder, about 1/2 teaspoon of liquid smoke, about 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Stir it all up real good. Now lay some pieces of bacon on top. I usually partially cook my bacon first in the microwave, that way they are not so greasy. I cut it into large squares. Just lay them on top and pop them in the oven and let 'er cook! Lowish heat, around 300 degrees F for at least an hour, maybe longer.

Sorry, no pics of this one either, it was gone in about 10 minutes!

5 comments:

Jan said...

Not silly, my dear. You just have a very vivid imagination. Have you ever thought about becoming a writer?

Angela said...

I love that story, we have a hill near Loch Leven, which is a few miles away from me and it is called the sleeping giant. As a child I would watch it carefully when we were going past in the car, and you can clearly see the profile of someone lying down.

Angie said...

They certainly do look like bread loaves! We don't see haystacks much any more over here, though they used to be a common sight. We do have fields and fields of giant Shredded Wheat (that's a breakfast cereal you have with milk). They're not that really of course but they look scrumtiously like them anyway.

Do you know how I can contact someone called Chris who left a comment on my blog but doesn't appear to have a blog herself?

Have a great weekend
love, Angie, xx

Nic said...

Interesting post, thanks for sharing your photos. I've not seen haystacks like that before!

Marie Rayner said...

I had a mind just like yours Raquel when I was a child. There were huge stacks of coal in a field behind our house and they always looked like sleeping giants to me and I can remember tip toeing by them because I was afraid I would wake them up! Great bean recipe!