Warm Food For A Blistery Day

Soaking peas for split pea soup.

All ingredients added. Split peas, ham, potatoes, onions, bay leaves, minced garlic, salt & pepper, thyme and vegetable oil. Slow cooked, it took about 3 hours.

All cooked, no peas left and ready to serve with warm bread. This is the first time I've made this soup. I always remember my grammas split pea soup and my grampa taught me how to eat it with saltine crackers. I plan on eating it with the crackers later. This was such a simple soup and it made the house smell good.

Filling for blueberry and apple pie.

I completly forgot to use my pie bird, and by the time I remembered, it was too late. So I had some juicy lakes near my slits, but that's ok. Mia had fun helping me make the leaves. Sure felt like fall today. I half expected to check the scores and see how many games I was winning. Summer, you fail.

Gardens And Bellies Alike

My blueberries are producing. So begins the long harvest of fresh berries.
So I made muffins. I added too many blueberries and really should have doubled the batter. Oh well, better luck next time. I also blame it on the cups. I never use cups but have a ton of them.

My potatoes! I still can't get over that these are doing so well. Even the 2 that Mia planted all by herself, without anybody knowing are doing good. She even planted lettuce next to hers, and they're growing AND they haven't been nibbled on by anything. My fire child has a green thumb?

These are in my front yard. The whole plant is huge! My mom told me what they are but I forgot.

Pork Tender With Mushroom & Dijon Sauce

I love cooking with fresh mushrooms. Mmmm.
Brown that meat.

Make your mushroom sauce, made with a mix of white wine, sour cream,

dijon, onions, oil, and yes, a can of cream of muchroom.

Toss it in the crock, set the thermo and walk away.

Rich, creamy, and good. Although - the meat was a bit dry. I stopped the cooking 20 degrees before well done, so it shouldn't have dried up. Not sure what happened. Maybe I browned it too long? But then that only takes a couple minutes. Who knows. It was still very filling and the sauce was awesome.

I also made a daring blend of Dubliner, Pepperjack and Cheddar mac n' cheese. Very filling! It made my 38 minute workout very hard. Can't decide between making pizza, or pasta primavera for tonight.

I'm Done With Stir Fry!

All the veggies I prepped. I spent all this time cutting matchstick carrots. Got lazy at the end.

White Miso. I usually use brown miso, or red miso. I have this white miso from when I baked with it to make Apple Cobbler for Fathers Day. It was great in that, but I didn't like the sharpness of it as miso soup. I will be heading down to the Co-Op to get brown miso.

Shrimp and chicken stir fry. Bland, beautiful looking, sort of NOT filling, oh and bland. Used a recipe that did sound a bit too easy for stir fry. Now I know why. Not nearly enough ingredients for a nice coating. Maybe I should say, there was enough mix to go around, just lacking in the flavor department.

I ended the night with a small plate of cheese and crackers and a major headache. I didn't even clear off the dining table and I don't feel guilty about it.

Food

Yummy food. I didn't take pictures of everything but I got one of this dish. Cook bacon. Remove and set aside. Sautee onion, garlic in bacon grease. Then right before serving, toss in fresh green beans, cut up bacon, fresh tomato, salt & pepper. Toss well to coat. Enjoy!

We also had fresh bread, wild rice, and tarragon chicken.

Awesome!

Our Hummingbird Santuary

I was sitting at the computer and was watching this male hummingbird fly around the baskets that hang outside my bedroom window. These baskets were made specifically for these awesome little birds. He sure loves Bella Rosella - Miss Bels flower.
So I got excited when I realized my camera was right next to me, fully charged
and ready to go. So I started shooting. He went to almost every flower. These are by far our favorite things to watch.

Toys And Ugly Days

My new pasta roller. Now that I had a key tool to making my own pasta, all I needed was a rack of some sort to dry the pasta out on. It gets too sticky on a towel. So I went down to Dicks Restaurant Supply and bought me a universal rack. It should do the trick.
Too many bananas.

A large pot of potato soup for a cold and gloomy summer day. Sad.

Toss in a loaf of artisan bread and let's call it good.

I've been feeling sick lately. And tired. Getting the motivation to do anything more than feed the kids has been hard. The past few months have been a roller coaster filled with ups and downs as far as energy. It's terrible!

Delicious With A Taste Of Delish

Fresh, warm bread.
Husband prepping the filet mignon. Letting it sit at room temp for a while helps the grilling of such a thick piece of meat. Drizzle some good oil over them and season.

Yummy corn.

Dear PETA - your so missin' out on this. Also served was creamy mashed potatoes topped with sour cream and grated cheese. This was the most filling meal we have made in a while. We barely finished what was on our plates.

Panick Much?

I feel panicky. I have less than a month left until Isabels 1st birthday party. It's the most important birthday ever, and Mia's didn't go so well. Although I'm pretty sure that my pipes won't freeze the day of the party and I've already tested out the cake recipe I'm using, so I'm sure that will all go fine. I'm also confindent that people won't be snowed in this time around.

What's got me panicked is food. I'm comfortable doing the cakes the night before. No problem. What's trippin' me up is my bold dare to make enchiladas, the highly top secret family recipe enchiladas. My mother gave it to me a couple years ago and I've taken special care to make sure nobody see's it, myself included, j/j! Do I dare make it for the very family it came from? When will I have the time to do it? Should I pull an all nighter the night before prepping, baking, cooking, grinding, simmering, and drinking? Maybe I should stock up on Kahlua and just get er' done!

Oh boy.

Stuff

Yayy for me I found some time to spend with my dresser project. Whom ever painted this, sucks. They painted right over old finish making the sanding very time consuming. My whole body was buzzing when I stopped for the day. Very nice wood though, can't wait to see it finished.
Sun tea time! I added some fresh mint from the garden.

A First

Today I finished my first baby blanket. It's very simple, and anybody could do it, but I can't help feeling proud of myself for not ruining it.

It's so soft - both sides of it. It will be great during the winter months. I will be gifting this this coming Sunday at a baby shower.

I didn't really cook today. My husband went into work early and so I made a small quick dinner for the girls and I. Fettuccini Alfredo with chicken and veggies. I'm loving my new Kindle. It amazes me how much faster I can read a book with it. Maybe because I look for time to read more often than at night while I'm laying in bed.

Happy 4th!

Today I..picked a few handfuls of Peonies from the garden. This is one of the vases I filled. They're so fragrant, my kitchen smells heavenly.

Then I baked a double batch of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. The chocolate chips are few and far between. No thanks to me for sitting and eating a "few" the night before. It's kinda nice to get one once in a while instead of a mouthful.

My husband BBQ'd today. All I did was some prep work for the burgers and threw some steak fries in the oven. Classic American for a classic kinda day. Now for a relaxing evening of hearing other peoples fireworks.

I did buy what I though was "kid friendly" fireworks for the girls. I tried to hand Mia a sparkler and she freaked out. And then I set Isabel up, at a safe distance but with a good view to watch some simple "showers"...she freaked out. So, my relaxing evening will involve thoughts on how to de-traumatize my girls for next year.

Happy 4th All!

Getting My Shit Together

Slowly baking bacon in the oven, partially cooked and ready to be wrapped around chicken.

Chicken wrapped. Topped with fresh red onion, sliced tomato, minced garlic, and canola oil. Then you bake for 30 (ish) minutes.

Yumm. The chicken was cooked perfectly and soo juicy.

I made mac n' cheese. I wanted to do cheddar and mozzarella. Out of mozz. What? I hate being out of mozz, I use it for so many different things. So I used Dubliner cheese. Although I grated little of that compared to the amount of cheddar, because it's very strong cheese and I was happy with the result. Nice and cheddary with a spot of Dub. I made too much, and me and the girls ended up eating the rest with lunch.

I feel like today I got my shit together. I managed to do laundry, clean the house, vaccuum AND clean the floors. I kept my kitchen cleaned and even had it cleaned, again, before dinner was even ready. Thanks to the long oven time. So when my girls were full, bathed and tucked into bed, I had ZERO guilt about sitting to watch a show with a handful of chocolate chips. Zero!