Pickles and Cheese

Another Reason To Love Target

2012-02-16T05:58:00.001-08:00

Another reason for me to love Target presented itself to me yesterday. The Target near my house is in the process of turning into a super version of itself and while there are huge dumpsters and trailers in the parking lot, there is no evidence of the construction during the day when I go there to shop. They must be doing all of the work at night while most of us are sleeping. I love that. So yesterday, because I was wandering around Target, not knowing where anything was because the whole store was being rearranged, I really took a good look at all of their “stuff”.

I found this aromatherapy diffuser. They had candles too and I was able to sniff all of their scents and this yellow one called Happiness caught my eye and my nose. I swear the scent of this one is the same one that you find at Anthropology in that very pretty and expensive mercury glass candle that they sell. I love that scent. And the packaging is very Anthropology-esque too if you ask me My dilemma was whether to pick the candle or this diffuser. The diffuser won.

A very good find. :) Price: $12.99.

Colors of Provence Rag Quilt

2012-02-15T14:46:00.001-08:00

I am so happy with my latest Rag Quilt! I just loved the colors and the patterns of the fabrics when I saw them last week when I was shopping locally at Sew Heavenly here in Greensboro, NC. The cuter fabrics are found in the local specialty stores, I am convinced. I know that a lot of these kinds of quilts are made using flannel but so far I have been using regular cotton blend fabrics and they are working out just fine. I think the “rag” edges are more defined when you use flannel but I like the brighter colors and patterns that I am finding with more regular fabrics.

Here are some details on how I made this quilt:

This quilt ended up being about double the size of the first one I made. (If you missed it here is link) This one was made using 70 squares. 10 rows that are each 7 squares across. (It was about the size of two baby quilts put together.)

I purchased 1 yard each of 4 different patterned fabrics.

I purchased 4 yards of a plain yellow broadcloth for the back side.

The size of the squares I used were 8 inches x 8 inches.

I also used an 8 inch quilting square which helped make the cutting of the squares go even faster. I highly recommend getting one if you don’t have one already. For my first quilt, I used a Land’s End Catalog which happened to be 8 inches wide. Using a real quilt square like a grown up was so much better:)

The batting squares were cut to be 6 inches x 6 inches.

I found a 6 inch x 6 inch quilting square and used that and the rotary cutter and mat to cut out all of the batting squares.

I used white thread.

A rotary cutter and mat make this job fast and easy. You could use scissors but I wouldn’t recommend it!

I also cut all 4 four yards of the yellow backing fabric into 8 x 8 inch squares.

I cut out my squares using the strip method using my rotary cutter, mat, and quilt square. And isn’t that the cutest pin cushion you’ve ever seen? I have been using the same tomato pin cushion my whole life. When I saw this one, it was time to splurge. I found it at Hobby Lobby for $8.99.

A 6 inch x 6 inch batting square was placed in the center of the yellow 8 x 8 inch fabric squares that would be the back side of the quilt. I then placed a patterned square on top and set them aside in piles before sewing them together.

At this point, you will be sewing an “X” across each square so that you are securing your squares with a piece of batting in between them.

You can speed sew these together by simply stitching a seam across from one corner point to the opposite corner point, and then slide in your next square, point first, under the foot of your sewing machine being sure to continue sewing the seams point to point until you have one seam across all of your squares. They will all be connected and when you have finished all of your squares you can then snip with your scissors to cut them apart from each other.

Once your squares are all separated, it’s time to do the same thing over again so that you have a stitched seam running across the diagonal from the opposite side, point to point. When finished, you should have a nice “X” across all of your quilt squares.

The next step is to take all of your quilt squares and lay them out on the floor in a pattern that you like. I randomly placed my squares but I was careful to make sure that I did not place two of the same pattern next to each other. Once you like the pattern you have laid out, it’s now time to stitch the square together into row.

Pay attention and have your seam ripper handy if you don’t when you get to this step! Because this quilt had a different color for the back side of the square, I had to be careful as I pieced them together so that I got the rough seam allowance on the pattern side of the quilt because that rough seam allowance is your future “ragged” edge of your quilt. I had to learn this the hard way and had to re-do 2 of the squares before I figured it out. :) Also notice how once they are sewn together, the size of your quilt shrinks down a bit.

With the back sides ( yellow sides) together, I stitched together two squares side to side. Keep attaching the squares on the side edge to the row you are working on. Once all are stitched together, do a double check to make sure all of your ragged seam allowanced are on the pattern side and that your back side (my yellow side) is neat and smooth.

Once you have all of your squares sewn into rows, you can now start sewing your rows together to form the quilt. Again, you will be sewing your rows together with the back sides of the squares together. Up until this point, I really haven’t had to use pins. NOW is the time to break out your pins. I would also highly recommend you get the bigger quilting pins with a color ball on the tops, they will make your life so much easier. Be especially careful to pin and sew your rows together one at a time and match up your seams between each row so that your back side looks nice. I worked with all my rows laid out on the floor and one row at a time, I sewed them together always checking to make sure that my pattern was still in tact.

Watching the youtube video called Beverly’s How To Make a Rag Quilt is very helpful at explaining the easiest and best way to sew together your rows. It can save you a lot of aggravation so I can’t recommend it enough!

Once all of your rows are stitched together, stitch around the outer edge of your entire quilt about 5/8 to 1/2 inch in from the edge. You will be snipping that outer edge of your quilt and it will have a fringed look to it. There is no binding to sew.

I will warn you, once all of your rows are stitched together, it isn’t pretty. But it soon will be. Have faith!

The thing I love most about making these quilts is that they are VERY FORGIVING!. Your quilt will look like a mess once you get it pieced together, but in the end, it all falls into place. So don’t worry if something looks crooked, it won’t in your final quilt.

The next step after you have finished sewing your quilt together is to snip all of the seam allowances on the outer edge of each square about every 1/4 to 1/2 inch. Snip up to the outer seam that you just stitched but be very careful not to cut through it.

Do yourself a favor and get a pair of rag quilt scissors…mine are made from Fiskar’s and I love them. They have a spring and they are much easier on your hands than regular scissors. This step might take awhile. Turn on the radio, or your favorite TV show or movie and take your time and snip all of your edges. The quilt gets snipped around each square edge and the entire outer edge of your quilt. This is also a very messy step and you will have fabric threads everywhere and all over your clothes.

Once all your edges are snipped, you can pop your quilt in the washing machine. Run it through a full wash cycle. Some people recommend that you do this at the laundry mat to spare your machine. I haven’t had any problem doing this step at home but if you are not sure and don’t want to take chances, take it to the laundry mat. I did not use soap. You mostly are using the water and the agitation from the washing machine to get your edged to start “ragging” and then your dryer will finish it off. I cleaned the lint screen of my dryer after about 5 minute in the dryer. There was A LOT of lint!

These are fun to make and easy to sew. And I find it easier to work on it a little bit each day so that it’s not too overwhelming. This one took me less than a week probably because I was so excited to see the finished quilt that I keep finding the time to work on it. I just love how it turned out.

I hope this tutorial is helpful and inspires some of you to give this a try. I only learned how to do this a few weeks ago and I was able to learn how by reading the tutorial over at I Can Teach My Child. I also highly recommend the tutorial found on the you tube video Beverly’s How To Make a Rag Quilt. Good luck to you if you decide to give this a whirl!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

2012-02-12T17:16:00.001-08:00

It makes my day when I see new cookie recipe. I saw them this morning over at The Girl Who Ate Everything. Talk about some amazing recipes. This is a great site to visit if you want to find something new to try. The recipe I posted here has been doubled. They got rave reviews. Need a chocolate and a peanut butter fix? These will do the trick.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 cups flour
1 cup cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
3 cups sugar
1 cup peanut butter
4 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter. Add the sugar and peanut butter and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla and mix.

In another bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Slowly add to the creamed mixture. Mix until combined. Add the chocolate chips and mix.

I like to make large cookies so I use a large cookie scoop. For large cookies, bake for 17 minutes. For traditional small sized cookies, bake for 10 minutes. Let cool before moving to a cooling rack because they will be soft when they come out of the oven. This recipe made about 30 large sized cookies.

Strawberry Tarts : Tarte aux Fraises

2012-02-08T05:56:00.001-08:00

I pretty much like anything when it comes in a “mini” form like these Tarts aux Fraises. Mini Strawberry Tarts would make a perfect Valentine’s Day dessert. I found the recipe in my copy of My French Kitchen by Joanne Harris. She is also the author of the book Chocolat that was also made into that wonderful movie starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche.

The cookbook is filled with wonderful photos and French recipes. This one caught my eye because the pastry crust calls for ground almonds. I have a lot of almond flour because I stocked up back when I was living my obsession of learning how to make French Macarons. The almond flour I needed for the macarons wasn’t always easy to find so whenever I saw it, I bought it. I have 2 and a half bags of the stuff so I am happy to now have another use for it and I can start to use up my supply before it expires on me. And actually, there really is something nice about the flavor of something made with ground almonds.

Almond Pastry

1 1/3 cups flour

1/2 cup (2 ounces) ground almonds (almond flour)

3/4 cups ( 1 and 3/4 sticks of butter, cut into small pieces)

2/3 cup light brown sugar

2 to 3 large egg yolks, beaten (I used 3)

Filling

1/2 cup red currant jelly

2 pounds strawberries, washed and cut into small pieces.

For the pastry, mix the flour and ground almonds in a bowl. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until it resembles coarse bred crumbs. Mix in the brown sugar. Add the egg yolks until the ingredients come together into a ball of dough. Lightly knead the dough on a cool, floured work surface to ensure the pastry is evenly blended. Wrap and chill in the refrigerator to rest for 40 minutes.

Lightly butter your tart pans if you are making mini tarts. This recipe will also make a crust for a 10-inch tart. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface. Gently line your pan with the pastry dough and place in the refrigerator to chill and relax for 20 minutes.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Line your pastry shells with parchment paper. (I took the tart pan and traced the bottom of it with a pencil onto the parchment paper and then cut the shape out with scissors. Turn the parchment paper over so that the lead from the pencil does not come in contact with your food.) Fill your tart with dried beans or pastry weights and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the paper and the beans, reduce the heat to 300 degrees and bake for and additional 25 minutes until the tart shell is golden and set. Caution: if you are using the mini tart pans and not the 10 inch tart pan size, watch your tarts so that they do not overcook or burn. I would suggest you check on them after 10 to 15 minutes or so and keep your eye on them. ) Remove from the oven and cool.

Gently heat the jelly in a small saucepan over low heat or use the microwave and stir after 30 second intervals. Mine was melted after the second 30 seconds.

Carefully release the cooled tart shell and transfer it to a large flat plate. The pastry is fragile! (I actually left mine in the tart pans until it was time to serve them.) Pile the strawberries into the pastry tart shells. Spoon the warm jelly over the strawberries and coat them evenly. Let them set for 1 hour before serving.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, Bon Appetite!

Sartori Espresso BellaVittano Cheese

2012-02-07T14:30:00.001-08:00

I tried a new kind of cheese today. It’s American made by a family company in Wisconsin called Sartori Cheese. They have several varieties and flavors but the one I fell in love with today was their award winning Espresso BellaVitano .

Each wheel of this lovely cheese is hand rubbed with freshly roasted espresso! It sounds like the oddest combination…coffee and cheese…but it works and it’s delicious.

The flavor reminds me of one of my favorite cheeses Parrano. It’s similar to a nice Parmesan but this one has a slightly softer feel and it’s a bit creamier and then the subtle espresso flavor puts it over the top. Delicious and not overpowering. It’s a great flavor combination. I am looking forward to pairing it up with something made out of chocolate. Also, it would be nice with a glass of red wine.

Looking for something new? If you are a coffee and a cheese lover, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Carolina Cakes From Our State Magazine

2012-02-03T08:41:00.001-08:00

This is one of my favorite magazines. It’s called Our State and each month it is filled unique articles and gorgeous photos about the people, places and most importantly the food you can find here in North Carolina. I spotted this month’s issue at the checkout stand at the Harris Teeter yesterday and tossed it in with the rest of my groceries without really reading what was on the cover. I saw the picture of the layered cake and figured it would be an issue that I would enjoy. So last night, after cutting a new batch of fabric squares for the my next Rag Quilt (my newest crafting obsession, might as well ride it out before it passes), I sat down for a few minutes to look at my new magazine.

That gorgeous cake on the cover wasn’t anything close to what I thought it was. That is a shot of a Maple Syrup and Country Ham Cake. Mmmm hmmm. What do you think? Could you eat this? Could you serve this at your next party? This is served with a Red Eye Gravy Drizzle!!!

Or, how about this one. It’s called The Nabs Cake. Now, for everyone who wonders what the heck a “Nab” is, let me educate you much as I needed to be educated once upon a time. From what I can tell, and it’s actually my daughter who informed me, “Nabs” are Southern slang for those orange cheese and peanut butter crackers that you have probably been giving to your kids as a snack all these years. My daughter was babysitting and the Mom she was sitting for told her that when the kids got hungry to just give them a pack of “Nabs” and something to drink. Well, the babysitter called me later in a panic to ask me what “Nabs” were. Heck if I know! You better just ask the kids and let them tell you. The kind we always buy are the Lance Toastchee crackers. I wonder though if they are called Nabs all around the South or just here in North Carolina? Anybody out there familiar with “Nabs”?

The Pimento Cheese Cake (cough, cough, gag, gag,) :) Okay, enough said. I can’t even go here.

The Krispy Creme Cake Now, if calories were not such an unwelcome yet important part of my world, this might be a possibility.

And now for the grand finale, I give you The Pepsi “N” Peanuts Cake. I can’t say that I am not intrigued and would love a bite before I plunged ahead and made a whole cake. Did you know Pepsi was invented in North Carolina?

I love how creative each of these cakes are and I also love how they identify which ingredients used are from North Carolina. Need something unusual to take to that Superbowl party this year? Any one of these just might be the ticket!

All of these recipes are available on the Our State North Carolina magazine website. Just click on any of the cake names here and you will be linked to the recipes. Bon appetite y’all!

Rag Quilt

2012-02-01T16:56:00.001-08:00

Can you believe it? I actually made this rag quilt! I was so excited to post it here today. And it only took me about a week to do it. I saw one on Pinterest last week and decided to give it a try. Very fun and easy to do .

These are the photos that I spotted on Pinterest that inspired me to give it a try. They are from the blog icanteachmychild.com and you can find an easy to follow tutorial on how to make one for yourself. Aren’t they beautiful? I just love the gray and yellow one. And the other one is sweet for a baby. The tutorial there is great and I found all the instructions easy to follow. I also watched a video called Beverly’s How To on youtube because I always seem to do better if I can watch someone else do something first and I also picked up a lot of great hints there. One of the best hints was to pick up a pair of the Rag Quilting Scissors. They have a spring in the handle that helps make it easy to do the mega amounts of snipping you have to do the get that ragged edge. I found a pair at Jo-Ann Fabrics today. They are pricey at $21.99 for a pair but somehow I ended up with 40% off so that made it less painful.

Of course, the most fun part of any sewing project is picking out the fabric. I found 5 patterned fabrics that I thought would go well together and then later after I decided I wanted my quilt to be bigger, I went back and purchased a couple more yards of the solid green fabric you see in the finished quilt. The second most fun part is washing the quilt when you are done and pulling it out of the dryer and seeing the edged all “ragged”. Cute.

I wanted a puffy quilt so I made the one that sandwiches a piece of batting in between each fabric square. The quilt in the youtube video just used a soft flannel. I also used regular fabric and it “ragged” just fine. I think flannel “rags” a bit easier but I am very happy with how mine turned out just using regular fabric.

There is something about that aqua blue fabric next to that green fabric that I just love.

The size I ended up with would be what I would call a lap quilt size. Perfect for keeping warm while watching TV or to use when curled up with a book. It would make a good quilt to use while studying which is why I think I am going to take this over to my daughter who is away at school.

Here is a photo of the back side of the quilt. One side has the “ragged” edge and this side is smooth like a traditional quilt.

And here it is folded in half and set across the foot of a bed. I am a sewer with very basic skills and if I can do this you can too! Watch the video and take a look at the tutorial and you just might find yourself at the fabric store this weekend. That is where you will probably find me. I am definitely making more of these.

I am linking up to 2805's Potpourri Friday party today and

I am linking up to the “Get Your Brag On” Party over at Gluesticks

Can’t Get Enough

2012-01-27T08:40:00.001-08:00

I can’t seem to get enough of the following:

1. Downton Abbey- I found this quite by accident this past summer when the temperatures were blasting and I wanted something to watch in the comfort of the air conditioning. I found the first season on Netflix and I watched the entire first season and patiently waited for season two to start on Sunday nights on PBS. You can watch it on Sunday nights at 9PM on PBS.

2. The Chicken Noodle Soup at Chik-fil-A - It’s made with white meat chicken, I think a bowl cost something like $2.50, its full of carrots, and it’s delicious.

3. KMS Hair Play Spray- I LOVE this stuff! It’s a dry spray that perks up your hair. If you have somewhere to go in the evening after a long day, give your head a spray and finger fluff your hair and you’ll be amazed at how much this perks up your hair. Lock it down with some regular hair spray and you are good to go!

4. Sirius Radio- The mini van died last month. Right before Christmas the transmission blew. I wanted another mini van but my family intervened and said absolutely not. It was time to move on. So now I am now driving a new vehicle (and it’s not a mini van and I am learning to love it) that just happened to come with a 6 month subscription to Sirius Radio. So many choices of what to listen to! It makes me happy.

5. My new treadmill- It’s been a rough couple of months and somehow, somewhere I hurt my back and back trouble is something I’ve never had to deal with before. Well, I am on the mend after being a very good patient and attending all of my physical therapy sessions. Decided a treadmill would be a nice replacement for the stationary bike that was collecting dust and serving as a clothing hanger in the corner of the bedroom. I never liked riding that bike but I am enjoying the treadmill.

6. Red Dragon Cheese- This is so good. It’s a Cheddar that is made with ale and mustard seeds. Very flavorful and delicious. I know I’ve mentioned it before but I kind of forgot about it and recently re-discovered it.

7. My Kindle Fire- I love it but why can’t I find a cover/case for it that I like? I love browsing and shopping for books online at Amazon with it, obsessively checking my email, reading blogs and doing web searches while I am watching TV. I am currently reading a Kindle Single called “My Seinfeld Year” by Fred Stoller. He played an annoying boyfriend of Elaine’s in one episode and also wrote an episode as a writer for the show one season. If you google his image you might recall seeing him. He’s played quirky characters in other shows. He ‘s what you would call a struggling actor but his quick little book is an enjoyable read especially because it gives you a glimpse on what it was really like on the set of Seinfeld. If you are a Seinfeld fan and you have a Kindle you might want to give it try. And the best part, it only cost $1.99.

8. French Lemon Cake- This is a recipe worth making. I made two of them last weekend. Did you know you can get a bag of 12 lemons from Harris Teeter for $1.97?! Anyway, use fresh lemon juice if you can for this cake. It’s amazing. We ate the first one before the weekend was over. I sent the other back to school with the college student daughter.

9. Quilts on my bed- Something about cotton quilts stacked high. I have four on it right now.

10. Wine and cheese, and cooking classes at Southern Season- I took another class last night on cheese with a couple of very fun people. We got to taste wine, sample some new cheeses, and then went out afterwards and enjoyed a cocktail, split an order of sweet potato fries, and split an order of pork belly sliders. Ok, here is where I remind myself of why I sometimes think of myself as a “reluctant” foodie. The sliders arrived and mine looked suspect. I took off the top bun and picked at the chunk of meat. I pulled off a few threads of pork and the rest of the chunk jiggled. It was basically a 2” x 2” cube of fat with a couple of mini streaks of meat. I should have known and embraced the pork belly for what it was. It was pork belly! What did I expect? In the end, there was no way I was going to eat that cube of jiggilyness. Did I mention that I liked the bun? And the sweet potato fries…I had more than my share. Delicious.

Castle and Cottage Is Having a Giveaway

2012-01-12T06:08:00.001-08:00

Castle and Cottage is giving away this great Farm House Sign!

Or you can select this personalized sign with your family name and year on it if you are the lucky winner. This is a great giveaway! Stop by and give Paula a visit at her blog Castle and Cottage to enter.

Her signs are amazing. And I highly recommend that you take a few minutes and browse some of her work on her shop's website castleandcottagesigns.com. Of course, some of my favorites are the French signs like this one here below: You can take a peek at some of the other French signs here.

Tres belle, oui???

Banana Chocolate Chip Snack Cake

2012-01-03T10:00:00.001-08:00

As I was searching the recipe index of my blog this morning because I had some extremely ripe bananas that I didn’t want to waste, I realized that my recipe for Banana Chocolate Chip Snack Cake was not listed there even though I was sure that I had posted the recipe to my blog once upon a time. It turns out I did post it way back when I was a novice blogger, so much of a novice that I didn’t even know how to upload photos yet but there it was….a sad little post from June 23, 2009, in plain ordinary text,with no bells, no whistles, and saddest of all, no pictures.

This recipe is so good and I make it so often that it deserves renewed attention. It’s a favorite around here.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake

1/2 cup butter ( 1 stick), softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup apple sauce or sour cream
1 cup mashed bananas (about 2 very ripe bananas)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Cream the butter and gradually add sugar. Add bananas. Add eggs. Mix well.
Combine flour and baking soda and add to the creamed mixture. Add the apple sauce or sour cream. Add the vanilla. Mix well but do not over beat.

Pour the batter into a greased 9 inch square baking pan. (I have a square stoneware baking pan that I just love to use for this, but any square pan will work. Sprinkle the top with the chocolate chips till well covered. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes. Use a tester to make sure it is done in the middle. Cool. And enjoy. I hear it’s delicious with a tall glass of ice cold milk. Me…I like it with a hot cup of tea.

I am linking up this post to Sweet as Sugar Cookies Blog where you can find lots of other great recipes.

Peppermint Oreos

2011-12-21T07:06:00.001-08:00

Another quick and easy holiday cookie and with Christmas less than a week away I need all the quick and easy I can get!

My daughter made these and is going to give them to some of her friends all dressed up in some cute candy cane bags.

Here is all you need to make them:

1. A box of White Oreo Fudge Covered Cookies

2. Some white chocolate chips ( you don’t need a whole bag, we used about 1/3 of a cup

3. A couple of fresh candy canes.

Melt your white chocolate chips in a heat proof dish and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir, and then microwave them again in 20 second increments being sure to stir in between each time you heat them until they are smooth and melted.

Unwrap your candy canes and put them in a zip-loc bag sandwich bag and crush them. We used a rolling pin.

Spoon a small amount of the melted chocolate on top of a cookie and spread it evenly around. Then immediately sprinkle with the crushed candy canes. Turn any of the candy cane pieces over to show the color red. Set aside to cool. I suggest you do one cookie at a time so that your chocolate does not harden before you have a chance to add the candy canes. That’s it!

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!!

Tour of Trees

2011-12-11T07:06:00.001-08:00

On Friday night, it was our turn to host part of the Tour of Trees. Every year about 24 of our neighbors get together and do a progressive Christmas tour of 3 houses. We started with appetizers and drinks at the first house, dinner this year was at our house, and the night ended at house number 3 for dessert and after dinner drinks. It was a very fun night and I am glad my turn is done! We don’t have to host again for 3 more years. :)

I served a lasagna and was biting my fingernails worrying if it was going to be enough to feed 24 people but in the end it was big enough and we even had some leftovers. That lasagna was in the oven for two and a half hours and thankfully it was perfect when it was time to serve. I had visions of it being cold in the middle but it was nice and hot and I didn’t burn it! Alongside the lasagna I served a big Caesar salad, lots of bread with olive oil for dipping or garlic butter, a big bowl of my Cranberry Pecan Orzo Salad, and a tray of Rosemary Ham with some salami and mozzarella pinwheels. Beer, wine, and Pellegrino sparkling water and all was good.

I decorated three trees. Too much!! Anyway, the tree in the sunroom was fun to do. I had picked up a bunch of aqua blue and silver Christmas bulbs at Good will last year and saved them not sure what to do with them. When I saw the giant snowflakes at the dollar store the idea came to me to do the sunroom tree in aqua and silver with the icy snowflakes. It turned out cuter than I expected and was VERY inexpensive to do.

The next tree was in my dining room. Not a great photo but that is my favorite tree. It’s a skinny tree and I collect ornaments that look like food and candy and that is what I decorate that tree with. And then we got a real tree from our friends who have a Christmas tree farm. If you live in the Greensboro area the real trees you can get from Bruce Wagoner’s Nursery are beautiful and fresh. They run the tree lot at The Friendly Center outside of the Sears and soon to open Whole Foods and they have a new location at the corner of Church Street and Highway 150 in the Summerfield/Brown’s Summit area across from the new Lowe’s Foods. They sell Fraser Firs and the smell of their fresh trees will put you right in the Christmas spirit.

Now for that tree I needed a topper. I decided to make a snowman hat topper for it and added an old red plaid scarf. The hat was easy to do. For Halloween this year, I dressed as Mr. Peanut and decided to give my Mr. Peanut hat a new life as a snowman hat. If you want to make one for yourself, I found the plain black hat at Party City. I cut out a red band out of a sparkly red felt and glued it around the base. Then I cut out two holly leaves out of green felt and glued them on along with three bright red pom poms. Easy and cute.

And this is one of my favorite new decorations that I did this year. I told you I had a lot of aqua and silver bulbs compliments of the Goodwill. I added them to my terrarium and I love it.

More silver bulbs added to a tray in the dining room. You can’t get any easier than that.

And finally, my very small Santa collection. My Dad carved out four of the Santa’s and I love to put them out grouped together each year. C’est tout! It was a wee bit stressful getting decorated and entertaining so early in the season this year especially since I did something weird to my back and I have been trying to clean and cook and work and not feeling all that great. Back trouble is new to me and not much fun. Anyway, whoa is me…it’s nice now to have it all done!

Cranberry Cashew Clusters

2011-12-04T09:35:00.001-08:00

Tis the season for all things cranberry. These might be the ticket if you are looking for something quick, sweet, easy, crunchy, and chewy. And they were very easy to make.

Cranberry Cashew Clusters

12 oz. bag of white chocolate chips or vanilla-flavor candy coating, chopped.

3/4 cup dry-roasted cashews

3/4 cup dried cranberries

You can either melt your chips or candy coating in a double boiler or in the microwave like I did. I placed 1 bag of white chocolate chip in a heat proof bowl and micro-waved them in 30 second intervals being sure to stir them in between each interval until they melted. Then mix in your chopped cranberries and cashews. You can either chop your cashews or leave them in big pieces. I left mine in big pieces. And I also saved a few chopped cranberries to add to the top for more color while the clusters were still wet. Drop them on a cookie sheet lined with either wax paper or I used a silcone non-stick mat. Let them cool. Store at room temperature for up to 1 week, or freeze up to 3 months.

These are very sweet and great to make ahead of time. If you freeze them, pull them out about 30 minutes before you want to serve them.

Quick and Easy Snowflake Pillow

2011-12-01T12:51:00.001-08:00

This Christmas Snowflake Pillow was a happy accident. Yesterday, I posted my Père Noël Pillow so I must have Christmas pillows on the brain but anyway, I was shopping in Pier One Imports today, (and wow did they have a lot of cute things for the holidays!) and I came across this felt snowflake cutout placemat. Pier One is selling them for $2.95 each. I was looking at it and I thought that I might take it home and try to use it as a stencil. My plan was to take some red spray paint and lay it on a pillow cover and then paint it. Well, of course, I could still do that but after I got it home and I placed it on my pillow, I thought it looked beautiful just the way it was and thought why not just glue it on???????

A little bit of fabric glue is all it took and WOW! I think it looks great. YOU can do this! You can either make your own cover for a pillow out of Painter’s Cloth like I did or simply add it to any other decorative pillow you might have. I like the simplicity of the red on the plain canvas background. And the red felt placemat already had the sparkly rhinestone embellishments on them. This could not have been any easier!!

I am linking this post up to Funky Junk Interiors. Lot's to see over there!!

Père Noël Stenciled Pillow

2011-11-30T13:44:00.001-08:00

I have started decorating for Christmas and I almost forgot to put this pillow out. I made it this past summer and it’s been sitting on the top shelf of my closet ever since and almost missed it’s début. I made it from a stencil that I ordered from my favorite stencil source, Maison de Stencils. I made a quick cover for an old pillow that I had out of some painter’s cloth. You can check out one of my past posts called Stenciled French Pillow to see how I did it. Then it was just a matter of stenciling the image on to the pillow cover. I am really happy with it!

And earlier today I found a great tree skirt at TJ Maxx for the snowflake tree I am working on in the sunroom. You’ve got to love the dollar store for those giant snowflakes. I am almost done with that tree. I am working on three trees this year. Yes, three and it’s about to kill me! And it’s only because I am hosting part of the progressive dinner for the annual “Tour of Trees” party. I have until December 9th to get them done. Otherwise, I would have left half of the decorations boxes in the attic! I’ll be back soon with more Christmas tree photos as I get them done. Have you started decorating yet???

Cranberry Pecan Orzo Salad with Chives

2011-11-28T13:52:00.001-08:00

This is my new winter salad. It’s just the thing to make this time of year. It’s easy, delicious and pretty to look at especially for the holidays. The deep red cranberries and the green chives make it perfect to serve at a party this time of year and that’s exactly what I am planning to do.

We are hosting the dinner part of a 3 part holiday progressive dinner party. The idea of the party is a great one. Especially since may of us in our neighborhood are not from here and most do not have family around to share the holidays with. I think the idea originally started so that we could all take turns stopping by each other’s house and see the Christmas decorations and Christmas trees. The dinner is called the Tree Parade and everybody gets to host one part of the dinner every three years. I can’t believe it’s our turn again

We will start out at someone else’s house for appetizer’s and drinks. Then proceed to our house for the main course. Then we will finish the night up at a third house for desserts and after dinner drinks. I have decided that for our part, I am going to serve lasagna, a couple of salads, and an assortment of breads and rolls.

One of the salads I am going to serve is this Cranberry Pecan Orzo Salad with Chives. I made a batch as a trial run and got the thumb’s up from everyone including my daughter who I will be send a large portion back with her when she heads back to finish up the semester at school.

Here’s the recipe:

Cranberry Pecan Orzo Salad with Chives

1 16 oz. package of orzo pasta.

1/2 cup olive oil

2 Tbsp. Balsamic Vinegar

1/2 cup of dried cranberries, chopped into small pieces

1/2 cup of toasted pecans, chopped into small pieces

1 bunch of chives.

t tsp.Salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Prepare the orzo according to the directions on the package. I added some salt to the water to help add some extra flavor. While the orzo is cooking, chop up the dried cranberries and pecans. I toasted my pecans in the oven at 350 on a foil lined cookie sheet for about 12 minutes for extra crunch and flavor. Be careful not too burn them.

Drain your orzo pasta and move to a large mixing bowl. Add the cranberries and pecans. Add the olive oil and mix well. Then add the Balsamic Vinegar and mix well. Take your chives and with a pair of kitchen shears, snip the chives into small pieces and add to the salad. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Taste and adjust the salt and pepper if needed.

And serve with, or without Feta cheese. Delicious.

Simply Truffles, A new Cookbook by Patricia Wells and a Class Luncheon at Southern Seasons

2011-11-26T06:56:00.001-08:00

I took another class at Southern Season’s in Chapel Hill the day after Thanksgiving. Talk about a food filled weekend! The lunch classes at Southern Seasons are great. Not only do you get to watch the dishes being prepared, you get a copy of the recipes and best of all you get to enjoy eating them as your lunch. This time I was excited to hear Patricia Wells talk about her new cookbook called Simply Truffles and have a wonderfully prepared lunch paired with two new wines to try. Our lunch started with a Watercress, Endive and Beet Salad and was then followed up by a Creamy Polenta with Truffles and a Poached Egg. So delicious! It’s one of the recipes in Patricia Well’s new cookbook called Simply Truffles. See the two generous slices of a black truffle sitting on top the poached egg? Adding the black pepper was my idea. :) We finished with La Maison Du Chocolat’s Bittersweet Chocolate Mousse from Patricia’s book called The Paris Cookbook. Rich and extremely chocolaty.

Patricia’s new cookbook Simply Truffles is full of beautiful photos, delicious recipes, and interesting facts and wonderful stories about truffles.

Watercress, Endive, and Beet Salad from the cookbook Salad As A Meal by Patricia Wells.

This salad was very good. Unexpectedly so. I really don’t eat a lot of beets although with color like that I am sure they must be loaded with antioxidants and be good for you. The dressing was Creamy Lemon-Mustard Dressing and it was light and the lemon was subtle and not overwhelming. I really liked it.

The white truffles are highly prized with a price tag to match. The more affordable black truffles are what we were able to taste and they have an aromatic quality and of course are delicious.

My favorite tip that Patricia gave when she was speaking was that she like to place her truffles in a glass jar with 6 fresh in the shell raw eggs and store them in the refrigerator for a few days. The egg shells are porous and absorb the aroma of the truffles and flavors the eggs. Then she prepares the eggs anyway she wants as a meal and has truffle flavored eggs. Great idea for helping to justify the price of splurging on truffles!

I had to take a photo of the container holding two golf ball sized white truffles. Yes, that price tag does say $349.75. Unbelievable!! I knew truffles were expensive but I had no idea! The black truffles however, are a lot less.

Someday, I hope to attend one of her week long classes in either Paris or Provence. I love her books and truly enjoyed listening to her talk about truffles and her life in France. Visit Patricia Well’s website and you can take a peek at her other books and get more information about here cooking schools. Who would want to go to Paris and take a cooking class?!

Thanksgiving, Boursin Stuffed Mushrooms, and Roasting the Turkey at High Heat

2011-11-25T14:23:00.001-08:00

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. We feasted all day long and with sunny skies and temperatures in the low 70’s, it could not have been more perfect. Well, maybe if the Detroit Lions had won…but other than that…perfect! My daughter insisted on making the Boursin Stuffed Mushrooms and who was I to argue? It is such a pleasure to have her happily helping me in the kitchen these days.

These mushrooms are one of our favorite things to eat and people actually fight over the last one when I take them to a party. They fit perfectly in the quiche plate and we used a new tool…a melon baller… this time to remove the mushroom stems and “hollow” out the mushrooms. It worked perfectly. We had nice and neat and perfectly shaped cavities to stuff the mushrooms.

In case you missed it, here is the recipe for :

Boursin Stuffed Mushrooms

Boursin Stuffed Mushrooms Makes about 16 Preparation Time: 10

minutes Cooking Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

1 package (10 oz.) mushrooms

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1/4 cup unseasoned dry bread crumbs

1 package (5.2 oz.) Boursin® Garlic & Fine Herbs

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Instructions:Preheat oven to 400°F. Remove and chop mushroom stems. In 12-inch skillet, melt butter over medium-high heat and cook mushroom stems and onion, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes or until tender. In medium bowl, pour mushroom mixture over bread crumbs. Stir in Boursin, parsley, salt and pepper. Evenly spoon mushroom mixture into mushroom caps; arrange on baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes or until mushrooms are tender and golden. Sprinkle with cheese.

The Stuffing

Another pleasant discovery yesterday was the corn bread stuffing. Yes, the Southerness is starting to soak it’s way into my bones! It was by far much better than the stuffing I have have been making all these years. And I used the Pepperidge Farms Cornbread stuffing mix. Imagine how much better if next year I make my own corn bread. :)

THE TURKEY

Now for the turkey. In the past I have been know to toss my turkey in a Reynolds Cooking bag and call it a day. The bags work great and there is no way to mess us your turkey. I was going for ease and convenience. Well, this year I decided to make some changes. Instead, I made a rub that I have used on my oven roasted chicken and it was delicious. I roasted the turkey at high heat the entire time with a foil tent over it. I roasted a 12 pound turkey at 400 degrees and that bird was done and gorgeously brown in 2 and 3/4 hours! And it was Delicious! And don’t get me started on how delicious the gravy was made with the drippings that was for the most part already seasoned with dry rub that was part of the drippings. So good! This will be my new turkey roasting method going forward. Sorry, no photos…forgot to pull the camera out when it came out of the oven. Take my word for it, she was beauty!

Here is a link to the roasting times if you want to give the High Roasting Heat Method a try.

And lastly, here is the recipe for the rub that I used. I rubbed the entire turkey with olive oil, cut up a lemon and inserted it into the cavity, and then I rubbed the entire turkey with this dry rub. It gave it a beautiful color and delicious flavor.

Dry Rub

This was used on a 12 lb. turkey

Olive Oil

2 tsp. kosher salt

2 tsp. black pepper

2tsp dried oregano

2 tsp dried basil

2 tsp. paprika

1/8 to 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

So, all in all it was a very nice Thanksgiving holiday. I hope your’s was as well. I know I don’t say it enough, but THANK YOU to all of you who stop by here to visit and for all the lovely comments.

Now, it’s time to wrap my head around the fact that Christmas is just a few weeks away. I’m so not ready!

Remember These???

2011-11-17T17:41:00.001-08:00

Spotting these in the Vermont Country Store Catalog took me on a mini trip down memory lane.

I ordered one of each.

I love buying my own stocking stuffers.

Wine and Cheese Class at Southern Seasons

2011-11-03T07:13:00.001-07:00

I attended a wine and cheese tasting class last night at Southern Seasons in Chapel Hill with a friend. We had a great time and got to taste wine and eat cheese while learning all about wine and cheese from the Alpine nations of France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Germany. The tasting was given by The Brothers Kast who I found out have ties to Michigan. Their father was one of the founders of American Spoon Foods in Traverse City!

Alexander Kast is the Cheesemonger at Southern Seasons and his brother Maximilian Kast is the Wine Director at The Fearrington House. They were both so personable and interesting to listen too. They both spent a lot of time travelling in the Alpine region when they were growing up and had first hand experience with some of the wines and cheeses we were tasting and with the people who made them. I scribbled lots of notes on my class program to help me remember what I liked and why.

The classroom at Southern Seasons is wonderful. A long granite counter in the front of the classroom had overhead mirrors and large video screens. Each seat had a plate of five different cheeses with glasses of the five different wines that they were paired with. My kind of dinner. I enjoyed all five of the cheeses and most of the wines. I volunteered to be the designated driver so I only indulged in a few sips here and there. I will mention the wines but my focus here today is on the cheeses since I really didn’t participate fully in the wine tasting part of the class.

We tasted five cheeses:

1. Caciotta Paesanella, Valsassina, Italy. This one reminded me a lot of Taleggio but with a slightly stronger taste. It’s a washed rind cheese which typically has a strong aroma but actually the cheese tasted much milder than it smelled. Very good. This was paired with Zilliken Saarburger Rausch Rieslin Kabinett 2009, Saarburg, Germany (which was my personal favorite of the night.)

2. Bodensee Butterkase, Amriswill, Switzerland. I really liked this one. I thought it was a nice snacking cheese. It’s called a butter cheese for it’s milder, creamy, buttery flavor and mouth feel. It is made by Daniel Studer and his sons and Alex Kast told us the story about meeting him and that the maker liked to call this one his “breakfast cheese”. This was paired with Chateau d”Auvernier 2010 Neuchatel, Switzerland

3. Marcel Petite Comte, Jura, France. This one was my favorite cheese of the night and it was a very good one at $24.99 a pound. It had been awarded the green label which is the highest possible ranking for Comte based on a twenty point scale. This one had aromas of hazelnuts, fried onions, and pasture, The flavor was nutty, sweet and herbaceous. The photo above shows where a plug of the cheese had been pulled as it was aging and being tested for taste. This one was paired with Bornard Arbois “La Chamade”, Pupillin, France, 2007

4. Spicherhalde Bergkase, Bavaria, Germany. This one was also very nice. It has been made by the Vogel family for the last three generations in Bavaria. The cows graze at 4800 feet in the Allgau Alps. It reminded me of the Comte we tried but had more onion and chive to it. This one was paired with IBY Blaufrankish Classic 2009, Mittleburgenland, Austria. (For the record, my friend liked this wine the best and purchased a couple of bottles to take home.)

5. Chiriboga Blue, Bavaria, Germany. And finally we tasted this beauty. It’s a very creamy (triple creme) blue with minimal bluing. It was made by Arturo Chiriboga who surprisingly is from Equador in South America but lives and makes his wonderful cheese in Bavaria, Germany. The mouth feel on this was was very rich, dense, and buttery. This one was paired with Movia Sauvignon 2007, Brda, Slovenia.

The class was fun and entertaining and it let me experience a variety of wine and cheeses that I would have never picked out on my own. I love learning about new cheeses and wines and especially the stories behind the people who make them. The Brothers Kast was a great class and I am looking forward to their next class which they think will be offered in the Spring. Sign me up.

End of October Randomness

2011-10-28T07:09:00.001-07:00

I am really going to miss Regis. What a curmudgeon but so loveable! And although I am sure he feels it is his time to go, I will miss him.

I miss Oprah only a tiny bit. She was a good filler in my day right before I had to get serious about making something for dinner. I thought she got a little bit too preachy for a while but I was able to take her with a grain of salt on those days. Dr. Oz is great, but I think the format of his show is already starting to get old. I mean just how many days of the week can we watch someone from the audience don the the rubber gloves and pick up and peel away the towel on the table to reveal more human organs plagued with disease? The grossed out factor is starting to wear thin and now it’s just plain weird.

I haven’t had a cold in 3 years! Honestly and I’ve been keeping track. BUT, I have a whopper today, compliments of my teenage son. I am miserable. I have been using Zicam for the last week and I honestly thought I beat it but last night it hit me like a ton of bricks. I don’t just get your average cold. I get the knock you on your butt kind. You know the ones where your eyes don’t stop tearing for days so mascara is worthless and you can’t wear your contacts so you have to wear your glasses all day and you are virtually guaranteed of having an extremely bad hair day for a minimum of three days in a row. I have also been known to walk around with a tissue hanging out of one or the other nostril. Oh, look, I have one tucked in there now. It’s a good look.

I am hoping I feel better for the BIG Halloween party tomorrow night. Our friends go all out and have a band and a bartender who makes spooky themed drinks that you select off of a menu. They host it every other year. And this is an “on” year. Still working on our costumes. I can’t reveal just yet what we are going to be. It’s still a secret. Let’s just say for now that feather boa’s are required for one and a top hat for the other.

I can tell you that we made a cupcake costume for my daughter last weekend that turned out cute. She took it back to school with her for the big street party on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill where she goes to school. We took some shiny/silvery fabric and backed it with some iron on interfacing to help make it stiff and then we folded it accordion style so that when it wrapped around her it looked like a cup cake liner. We then took a piece of cardboard that we cut to look like the icing on top, wrapped quilt batting around that and glued it down, then wrapped that with a pink satin fabric and glued that down. Glued on some colored mini pom poms to look like sprinkles. Then we took a bright pink puffy shower sponge thingy, glued some twisted green pipe cleaners to make a stem and then attached that to a head band to be the cherry on top. It turned out cute! No pictures yet but I hope to have some next week after the big party.

I am taking a wine and cheese class next week at Southern Season’s in Chapel Hill next week with a friend. Wish we didn’t have to drive so far to do fun things like this but that’s just the way it is.

I am amazed every time I vacuum and see just how much dog hair and dirt gets sucked out of my carpets. It’s repulsive really.

Oh, I am getting a cleaning lady! We are in the early stages of negotiation (with my husband). My sad little wrists were thrown into carpel tunnel braces two weeks ago from the combination of scrubbing the shower, carrying too many grocery bags at one time, and playing tug of war with the dog. This is going to be such a luxury to me. I think I want the kind that sends a “team” in and gets in done in a few hours. The company I am looking at has someone with a vacuum strapped to their back!

I still haven’t bought any Halloween candy. If I wait much longer I’ll be forced to pass out little boxes of raisins. I always thought that was the worst treat you could get when I was a kid. Raisins! Who gives out raisins? That and pennies. I hated getting pennies too.

Marinated Pork Tenderloin

2011-10-26T05:17:00.001-07:00

It felt good to be cooking something that everyone in my house likes. And lately I have been in the mood for grilling. We are having some beautiful Fall weather these past few days. The days are bright and sunny with Carolina blue skies, temperatures in the 70’s, and the leaves are beautiful right now. Last night was a nice night to light up the barbeque.

I marinated a pork tenderloin yesterday and thankfully it was a “protein” day for my body building son although I tried to cover my bases by offering up both a pan of roasted potatoes and a pot of jasmine rice in case it was a “carb-loading” day. Typically, I only barbeque a tenderloin on the weekends or when I have a crowd to serve so this was a nice change for a Tuesday night dinner.

I LOVE my grill basket. Do you have one? They are great for grilling vegetables and I like to use it for grilling shrimp too. I also use it when I make pork tenderloin. I don’t know about you but it was ingrained in me to never eat undercooked pork. The threat of trichinosis looms large in my memory.

Now I know that really nice restaurants serve their pork tenderloin slightly pink in the center but I don’t! After cooking the tenderloin on the grill, I bring it in and let it rest for about 10 minutes. I then will place my grill basket on the grill to get nice and hot while the pork tenderloin rests and I slice it. I like to slice it on a diagonal and then take any of the pieces that are still pink in the center and place them in my grill basket and finish them off. Usually it only takes an additional two or three minutes on the hot grill. Another one of my many cooking quirks but safe and delicious and no pink pork.

Marinated Pork Tenderloin

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup honey

2 garlic cloves, pressed

1/4 tsp. Kosher salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

Place all of the ingredients in a large gallon size zip-loc bag. Mix well and the pork tenderloin and marinate in the refrigerator for several hours. The longer you marinate the better. Place on a hot grill. I usually will grill them for about 8 minutes and then flip them for another 8-10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Back In The Saddle Again, (Or At Least Trying To Be)

2011-10-25T11:31:00.001-07:00

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Nothing too terrible but it just seemed like it was one thing after another. My husband travels a lot on business and was in China for the last two weeks. Naturally two days after he left the cable (which now is our umbilical cord to the mother ship of Time Warner Cable and basically runs our whole house), decided to check out for a few minutes and when it did it took out our phone, our TV, and most importantly to my sense of security, my well being, and my overall general happiness…access to the internet.

The wireless router blew when the cable came back on line and for some silly reason it defaulted back to factory settings. Yep, factory settings. I am clueless when it comes to hardware. A husband in China isn’t much help at resetting a wireless router and with the 12 hour time difference my 3:00 in the afternoon crisis does not equate to an emergency at his 3:00 in the morning to his Chinese hotel sleeping self who has a big presentation to give when he does wake up. My internet access troubles don’t even register in his world right now. The only saving grace was that my son had an extra cable from his old Xbox that he was able to use to hard wire me directly to the router. But that required me to move my laptop upstairs to where the router was. I don’t want to use my computer upstairs! I want to use it in my kitchen as nature intended! So, long story short, two weeks with limited computer access revealed to me just how much of a major stressor not having “access” is in my life. That, and the fact that I was basically forced to confront my internet addiction cold turkey.

Add to that a son sick with a major cold who then passed it on to me and who “forgot” that he had a major project due in two days in his AP Government class and needs help along with a tri-fold poster board and it’s 11:00 at night and the printer isn’t working, a daughter home for a couple of days on fall break from school who wants help making a Halloween cup cake costume so she can dress up for the big Halloween party on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill and take it back to school with her, Furniture Market in High Point and many wheels of cheese begging to be cut and wrapped and attractively displayed, my car leaking something and making a funny noise, and the same son who I found out has been tardy to school so many times that his parking pass was suspended for two weeks and I now have to drive him in the mornings and pick him up again in the afternoons, toss in a painful case of Carpel Tunnel and braces on not one but both of my wrists, and the house keeps getting dimmer because every time I turn on a light switch another light bulb blows, and I have Halloween costumes to make for a fabulous party that we are invited to and I haven’t even started making them, and the same son who is now body building and I can’t keep straight which days he is “carb loading” or doing “protein” and I keep serving the wrong thing for dinner each night, and the phone call from my Dad saying that he is only 2 hours away driving on I-40 near Asheville and could they come over and visit for the weekend, the lawnmower that won’t start and we skipped mowing it the week before and the grass is getting knee deep and looks terrible and we are in the middle of college application season… shall I go on? (Because I could!)

I am exhausted. :)

Check back with me tomorrow though, I am currently marinating a pork tenderloin to throw on the grill for dinner tonight and planning to post the recipe tomorrow. Husband is home safe and sound, my laptop is back in the kitchen where it belongs and I am keeping my fingers crossed that tonight isn’t “Carb-Loading”. If it is , I’m in big trouble.

The Burning Mandarin Martini

2011-10-08T13:35:00.001-07:00

Found a new cocktail just in time for your Saturday night. Love these! Have you ever heard of a Burning Mandarin Martini?? I found the recipe recently when I was browsing the Petitechef.com. It’s fresh and a bit more citrusy tasting than a Cosmopolitan. The Serrano Chili adds a bit of an “after burn” and I loved it. I added an extra slice of the chili to amp it up a bit. Using just one like the recipe calls for is very subtle. If you like a lot of “heat” I would add the second slice. And then see how you like it and if you need more “after burn”, live large and add a third.

The Burning Mandarin Martini

Yield: 1 martini

2 slices of Serrano Chile
1 1/2 ounces Absolute Mandarin
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup*
1/2 ounce orange juice
1/2 ounce cranberry juice

*Simple syrup can be made by mixing equal parts of water and sugar. Heat them till the sugar is fully dissolved. I made a small batch by mixing 1/4 cup of water and sugar in a Pyrex Heat Proof mixing cup and heated it up in the microwave in 30 second increments until the sugar was dissolved.)

Muddle one slice of Serrano Chile in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add vodka, lemon juice, simple syrup, orange juice, and cranberry juice, along with one large handful of ice.

Shake vigorously until well-chilled. Strain into a sugar-rimmed martini glass. Garnish with remaining chili slice. (I didn’t sugar the rim of my glass as I don’t like my drinks too sweet. But I do think sugaring the rims do make them a tad more festive.)

Recycled Halloween Votive Candle Holder

2011-10-06T14:45:00.001-07:00

Today I made a quick project and recycled an empty salsa jar and turned it into a Halloween candle votive holder.

A strip of burlap, some twine, some cute number plates that I found in the scrapbooking section at Michaels, a votive candle, an empty jar, a pair of scissors, some Tacky Glue, and a handful of candy corn and I was in business. This is so quick and easy to do.

Here’s how I did it:

I took a piece of twin about 60 inches long and dabbed a dot of Tacky Glue on one end and attached it to the jar. I held my finger on it as I wound the twine around the top of the jar. Then I did the same with the second piece to fill in any gaps left by the first piece. The twine covers up the top of the jar where the grooves are for the lid. Then I cut a scrap of burlap and glued it around the center of the jar. I threaded my number plate with a piece of twine and tied it around the jar on top of the burlap. I got lucky with the numbers and there was a “31” for Halloween. Although a lucky “13”would have been nice too.

I filled the bottom of the jar with some candy corn and added a votive candle. Then I scratched a match stick across the Trick or Treat Matchbox and lit the candle. That’s it! Easy!

French Breakfast Muffins

2011-10-03T13:43:00.001-07:00

I made these last night on a whim thinking that they would be good the next morning with a cup of coffee on top of being portable. It’s my son who could benefit from the portable part. I just want to drink coffee. He cuts it way too close in the mornings time wise if you ask me. And he is usually hungry in the morning but runs out of time to eat breakfast. Now I am not saying these are the healthiest muffins you could eat but it just might be one of the tastiest. Even better hot out of the oven.

I found the recipe over on the blog Velvet Lava Cafe after first spotting it on Pinterest where it is getting a lot of attention right now. And besides, with a name like French Breakfast Muffins, how could I not give them a try?

Here is the recipe:

French Breakfast Muffins

1/3 c. butter, melted
1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1/2 c. sugar

1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Topping
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 stick of butter, melted
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Pre heat your oven to 350 degrees. In a medium-large sized bowl, sift together all dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and stir until combined. Batter will be lumpy. Do not over mix. Scoop batter into muffin tins that have sprayed with cooking spray or line with cupcake paper liners. I used a large ice cream scoop to get them into the muffin cups and I got 10 medium sized muffins out of this batter; Bake for 20-25 muffins, or until they just start to turn a bit golden at the edges.

For the topping, mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Place melted butter in another small bowl. Dip the warm muffins in melted butter, then in cinnamon sugar. ( The original recipe called for 1/2 cup of sugar and a whole stick of butter. That seemed like a lot to me so I cut it in half and used 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/2 of a stick of butter and was glad I did. It was the perfect amount.)

Basil Pesto

2011-10-02T06:26:00.001-07:00

The basil in my garden has gone crazy. I suddenly have tons of it. I thought it was all pretty much dead and burned out from the heat and lack of rain. But in the last few weeks we have had a lot of rain and the temperatures have dropped. The evil Bermuda invaded and pretty much choked out my tomatoes and peppers, and radishes. And the deer ate every bit of my Swiss chard down to the nub. The view from my kitchen window told me the basil was all dead but once I actually walked out there and took a closer look, the basil was anything but dead. It regenerated itself and it’s the lone survivor of summer. And there is lots.

Lots and lots. I went out and picked a big bowl full and brought it into the house and washed it and laid it out on a fresh kitchen towel to dry.

I decided to make Basil Pesto with all of it and got to work shredding a wedge of Parmesan cheese. Basil Pesto is one of those things that I kind of just put together in my food processor. But today I took some notes so that I could write down some measurements. The big bowl of basil that I picked ended up making two batches.

I took about half of the basil leaves and put them in a 4 cup measuring cup. I packed it in. I used a whole grated wedge of Parmesan cheese per batch. I used the juice of 1/2 of a lemon, 1/4 cup of pine nuts and about 5 peeled cloves of garlic with about 1/2 cup of olive oil.

I did not add salt which I usually do but the Parmesan cheese was salty enough and so I left it out. I would taste your pesto and if needed add the salt in then.

Here is the recipe:

Basil Pesto

4 cups of basil, washed, dried, and packed into the measuring cup.

5 cloves of garlic, peeled

1/4 cup of pine nuts

1 wedge (about 8oz or half a pound) of Parmesan cheese, grated

1/2 lemon, juiced and seeded

1/2 cup olive oil

Add the basil leaves to the bowl of your food processor. Add the garlic, pine nuts, grated Parmesan cheese, and the lemon juice. Turn on machine and slowly add the olive oil through the top in a slow stream as the machine is running. Scrape the bowl down a few times in between processing. Process until you have a nice spreadable consistency. Add more olive oil to thin it out if you need to.

For each batch that I made I was able to get about 5 mini jelly jars of pesto.

I filled each jar with the Basil Pesto and then I drizzled some olive oil on top to help keep the pesto a bright green. (basil pesto will oxidize and turn brown and the olive oil helps keep the air out.) Then I put the lids and bands on them. Store it in the refrigerator and I would use it up within a week or two. Freeze the rest.

Basil Pesto is great on pasta and chicken. I have added it to the top of soups like Minnestrone, spread it on hot Italian bread and of course its fabulous on bruschetta. You can either spread some on your bread slice and then add the bruschetta topping or prepare your bruschetta and then add a dollop of pesto on top. The bruschetta at The Village Tavern is made this way with a dollop on top and shards of Parmesan cheese with capers scattered on top. I LOVE their bruschetta.

I still have a bunch of basil still out in the garden waiting to be picked. I’ll probably be making Basil Pesto all week long now. As long as we don’t get an early frost, I still have lots of time to get to it.

Basil Pesto freezes well and so this winter we should be well stocked. And I have more than enough for friends and neighbors. How about you? Do you like Basil Pesto? Ever made it? And how to you like to serve it? I would love to hear your ideas.

Pumpkin Carving Ideas

2011-10-01T07:57:00.001-07:00

I was browsing around online looking for some new ideas for Halloween costumes and decorations for around the house when I came across these pumpkin carving ideas on the Country Living Magazine website. They have 29 pages with great ideas. Here are just a few of my favorites.

How clever are these lantern pumpkins with a lantern painted on the outside and cutouts to show the glow of the candle? And I love the Trick or Treat display complete with cornstalks and crows. I had a terrible time finding cornstalks last year. Hope I get lucky finding them this year.

Now this pumpkin looks like someone used an etching tool on it. I love the crescent moon on the second pumpkin here. I think it would take a hammer and maybe a thin metal tube or pipe to make this one after tracing the shape of a crescent moon onto the pumpkin.

Now I wonder how they secured these pumpkins to the tree branches? And I still like the idea of painting a pumpkin white and then painting a scary silhouette on it. The spider web with a spider is a cute idea. Not really into zebra though.

I love how they did the tree silhouette through the bookshelves on this one. And they recommended this “Speedball” Linoleum Cutter set for all your carving and pumpkin etching needs. I have never heard of a tool like this but the best thing about it is the price. They said it sells for around $10.00. I’ll be looking for it next time I hit Home Depot or Lowe’s .

And finally, how creepy is this?! Is this putting you in the mood for Halloween? I held off posting this till today. I mean it is October 1st and all. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I am already thinking up ideas for this year’s costume party. How about you? Do you dress up? What was your favorite costume?

Victory Junction Camp

2011-09-29T04:50:00.001-07:00

I had the pleasure of touring the Victory Junction Camp in Randleman, North Carolina yesterday. What an incredible place it is. It’s part of the Hole in the Wall Camps started by the late actor and race car driver Paul Newman.

Seriously ill children can come to these camps at no cost to them or their families and spend time with other children just like them and have a carefree week of FUN.

Victory Junction opened it’s doors in 2004 and was started by Kyle and Pattie Petty in honor of their son Adam Petty who was killed when preparing for a NASCAR race. Adam’s name and smiling face can be seen throughout the camp. If you are a NASCAR fan you know that the Petty family is racing royalty. Their work and dedication to Victory Junction and the children who camp here is extraordinary. Other drivers, team owners, team sponsors, and NASCAR itself have given substantial donations to the camp.

The camp has it’s own water park which I am sure is one of the highlights for the kids in the summertime. All the water in the various pools and in the Lazy River are temperature controlled to be a consistent temperature in all the different pool areas for the health, safety, and comfort of the children.

The Victory Junction Camp is a year round camping facility that serves children from ages 6 to 16, with chronic medical conditions or serious illnesses. Their busiest times are in the summer when they offer disease-specific sessions with up to 128 children per session. On the weekends in the fall, winter, and spring they offer family weekends and can serve up to 32 families per weekend.

We got to walk around the entire camp with a tour guide and got to see all of the the facilities and go inside them all to take a peek and of course take pictures.

The camp has it’s own bowling alley complete with the equipment needed to help assist kids in wheelchairs. It had it’s own putt putt golf range too.

Here is a shot of the Art's and Crafts building sitting right next to their very own movie/stage theater.

The camp has a “Racing” theme and here are some of the wood cars the kids can paint in the Arts and Crafts building.

I especially enjoyed seeing where the campers stayed while attending camp. The cabins or sleeping quarters were in brightly colored buildings and each of the buildings had a name on it for each of the major NASCAR race tracks. The one above was named for Phoenix and the one below was named for Bristol. The entire camp was immaculate! Clean and well maintained. We saw several workers maintaining the buildings including a couple of buildings that were being power washed.

Once inside one of the camper’s dormitory, I saw a small sitting room and then behind that there were two large rooms with beds. On one side were the beds for the campers and on the other side there was an identical room for all the camp counselors. Remarkably, the camper to counselor ratio is very low. Often times it’s one camper to one counselor depending on the needs of that particular child. The campers and counselors are all housed under the same roof.

I love how the night stands between each bed look like gas pumps. And at the foot of each bed is a metal tool box to serve as a trunk for each camper’s things. Also, at the foot of each bed is a hand made knitted or crocheted blanket. At the top of the bed on each pillow is a hand made bear. The kids get to take home the blanket and the bear as a souvenir of their time spent at the camp. Volunteer opportunities exist for sewers who might want to make and donate the bears. You click here to go to the Victory Junction Website for more information on which pattern to use and they like for the bears to be made with a black and white check fabric.

Here is the indoor baseball diamond.

And here is the riding stable with horses and some other animals. We saw some sheep when we were there and usually they have llamas but they were not there the day of our tour. I was sad I missed them because I was told the llamas at Victory Junction have personality plus. :)

The stables were so neat and clean! And friendly horses too.

Here is one of the horses inside the barn in a horse stall.

And here is the outdoor amphitheater. Everything is designed to be so….cheerful!

This is where the campers in the audience can watch the show. Right behind that purple and yellow building is a tree stand for the zip line. I’ll bet the older kids love that.

There were sweet sculptures throughout the camp like this one.

The camp has it’s own marina and it’s called the Catch, Kiss, and Release Marina. They encourage all the kids to catch at least one fish during the week they are there, kiss it, and then release it. Such a cute memory maker.

We peeked in window in one of the boat houses and saw racks of kid sized life jackets. Cute.

The camp even has it’s own fully equipped medical center available 24 hours a day. I love how they named it the Body Shop.

And here is where the campers eat their meals.

Here is cute snack shop that even has a Krispy Kreme Neon Hot Now sign in it. And next to it is the Fab shop which is the beauty/shop barber shop.

There is one building on site that looks like a giant race car and when you get inside it looks like the garage where real race cars get built and serviced.

This car is a real sized car that the kids can sit in and there is a simulator inside so they can really get a taste of what it’s like to drive a real race car.

What an amazing and heartwarming place Victory Junction is. Thanks to Triad Moms on Main for organizing the tour of this wonderful place. I had no idea how special it was and I am happy to do what I can to bring attention and support to such a wonderful organization. If you would like more information on Victory Junction, just click for a tour of their website.

Plans are underway to build a second camp in Kansas City, Kansas so that children in the Midwest can benefit from a life-changing camping experience too.

Kale Chips

2011-09-22T14:54:00.001-07:00

Have you tried Kale Chips yet? I’ve see them a lot lately on the web. And since I am always happy to l try out a new and healthy snack food, I decided it was time to give them a try. I found an easy recipe to follow over at Kath Eats Real Food and I picked up a bunch of organic Kale from the supermarket.

This was easy to make. I lined a baking sheet with foil and preheated the oven to 375 degrees. I washed the kale and tore it into small bite sized pieces and then dried it all really well with paper towels. You want your kale to crisp up in the oven not steam. So make sure you get it nice and dry before you put it in the oven.

I drizzled about 1 Tbsp. of olive oil over the kale and mixed them all together really well so that there was olive oil on most of the pieces. I then sprinkled kosher salt over the kale and slipped it into the oven and set the timer for 7 minutes. At seven minutes I checked on the kale and it was just starting to crisp. I rotated the pan so it would all cook evenly. Then about 3 minutes later I checked on it again and it was done. You can tell when you can see the edges of the kale start to brown and it makes a scratchy sound when you shake the pan. Out of the oven to cool and ready to serve. Easy.

The two biggest things to be careful of is to NOT over cook it. It can burn easily if you don’t watch it. And be careful not to over salt. A little goes a long way. Some recipes even add shredded Parmesan Cheese which I didn’t do but I think might be nice to try next time.

Did I like the Kale Chips? Surprisingly, yes I did. And even more surprising was that my husband did too. Give them a try. They are about as healthy as healthy gets and they really do ”crunch” like a chip when you eat them.

Fall Pumpkins and Porches

2011-09-21T11:59:00.001-07:00

Pumpkins are starting to pop up at the markets around here and I’ll probably be picking up mine this weekend. While browsing around the web I came across some pumpkin decorating ideas. Most of the ideas here today are from Martha Stewart Magazine’s website.

I like the idea of sticking a pot of Mum’s in a hollowed out pumpkin like in the photo above although this couldn’t be done until a day or two right before Halloween.

I just love these witch pumpkins. Looks like they were painted black and a small gourd was attached for the nose. The hat would be easy to make and actually I have a couple of witch hats in the Halloween box that I think I would use for this. Cute idea!

I like the simple black silhouette shapes. I think to do this I would stencil on the shape using black paint and then it looks like the dark orange skin of the pumpkin was “etched” away.

I love the idea of using a bird bath as a pedestal for the pumpkin in this photo.

These next few images were found on the Better Homes and Gardens website.

Love these black bats on the mini white pumpkins and suspending them on the mini shepherd hooks is a great idea. I think I would get one of those picture hanger loop hooks that screw in and thread the twine through it instead of tying to the stem. I know from experience that the stems often break off.

Now if I could just find a small wooden wheelbarrow…..

And this is a great idea. The first photo is from Better Homes and Gardens and the second is from Sunset. I would guess that you would need to use a dowel rod to attach them all together. Chop stix would probably work here. At least that’s how I would do it. :)

You can’t go wrong with a combination of pumpkins, gourds, and mums lining the steps to your front porch and a wreath on your front door.

And finally, witch’s feet! Cute. Easy to paint I would think. And how about putting some masks on your pumpkins. Simple and cute. It’s still early for Halloween but the way our weather has been lately I am definitely in a Fall-ish mood. Did you get your pumpkins yet?

Notting Hill Stenciled Pillow

2011-09-20T04:41:00.001-07:00

A new stencil from Maison de Stencils arrived not too long ago and here is the pillow that I decided to make with it. This was the first time I used more than one color on a stencil. And I got lucky with picking out paint colors I think. I found some old acrylic craft paint (and I do mean old) out in the garage. Both bottles of paint were colors from the Apple Barrel line of colors for Plaid. Honestly those paints could be more than 10 years old! But they were just fine after giving the bottles a few shakes. The blue I used was called “Liberty Blue” and the red I used was “Burgundy”.

I had made a few pillow cases out of Painter’s Cloth a while ago. If you would like to know how I made the pillow case you can click over see my brief tutorial on how I did it. Don’t worry, I had some help and in that post and you’ll find another link to a great sewing tutorial.

I removed the pillow insert before I started stenciling and I placed a magazine inside of the pillow case so that the paint didn’t leak through to the back side. I found it VERY helpful to use three different stencil brushes…one for each color of paint. I taped the stencil securely to the pillow case and worked on the flag first. The edges between the blue and red on the flag were tight so I had to work slowly and carefully so that I didn’t get the paint in the wrong areas. I find it best to use an up and down pouncing motion. This helps insure crisp edges. After I finished the flag, I started stenciling the letters with black paint.

When all areas of the stencil were complete, I carefully lifted the stencil. My favorite part of the process!

When the pillow top was dry, I inserted the pillow form back into the case. I could easily be accused of being a Francophile and I have to admit a large majority of my projects have a French flare to them but I have a fascination with England as well and so you might see a few more Anglophile projects in the future too.

The stenciled pillow Hall of Fame. :)

That second French pillow was originally a Graphics Fairy graphic that I fell in love with and I sent it to Maison de Stencils and had a custom stencil made from it. The wheat in the center had to be modified a bit for the stencil to be easy to work with and Laura at Maison de Stencils was very nice and worked with me till we had something that would make an easy to use stencil. (If you are new to my blog, I just made the witch pillow a few weeks ago from a stencil that I made myself. You can link back to my post Halloween Stenciled Pillow and see how I made that one.)

It turned out better than I expected. I love it when that happens!

Covering A Table With Metal Flashing?

2011-09-19T04:46:00.001-07:00

I spotted these tables at the Harris Teeter in High Point, NC the other day. I just love them and it’s killing me that they are not for sale! They are being used in their floral department as their display tables. Can you see how nicely they nest under each other? But it’s the tops that have me wanting them. They are charming to look at and the best part is the tops are water proof! I think they are covered with some kind of thin metal flashing.

What a great project this would be. I am sure a pair of tin snips and a heavy duty pair of gloves would be in order. I will definitely be keeping this in mind next time I am out junking. You never know when you might cross paths with a table that needs a new look. And when I do, here is a link to eHow home with the instructions needed to make it happen. :) Have any of you tried a project like this one before?

Stenciled Halloween Hand Towel

2011-09-18T05:53:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, I posted a Hand Stenciled Halloween Pillow that I had made. Well, I liked it so much I decided to shrink the same stenciled images so that it would fit on a hand towel. I might be changing the name to a “bar towel” since I kind of like it hanging on the copper beverage drink stand I use whenever we have a party.

Here is the Hand Stenciled Halloween Pillow that I was talking about. For the towel, I decided to add a bat and the number “13”. Hmmm…I wonder if I should go back and add a bat to my pillow? Anyway…

First thing I did was pull out my stencil burning tool and let it heat up while I printed out a smaller version of the witch after I sized it smaller in my Word program. I found a smallish bat that I liked and made a copy of him too. I cut the stencils out and also pulled out my number stencils and some washable fabric paint.

I stenciled on the “No. 13” first and then after that was dry, I used the top of a spray paint can and traced it with a pencil on the towel to make the moon. When that was dry I then stenciled on the witch and added the bat.

I made the towel out of some painter’s cloth that I had. I used another hand towel as the pattern and cut out my painter’s cloth to the same size. After ironing it, I turn each of the four edges in about 1/4 inch and ironed it in place. Then I turned it a 1/4 inch again on top of itself so that I have a double turned hem. Then I stitched down all four sides with my sewing machine and ironed it one last time. Ready to stencil!

I think it turned out cute and I am glad I added the bat. I might have to make one more to hang in my powder room.

Buttermilk Pancakes

2011-09-17T05:38:00.001-07:00

I never really liked pancakes when I was growing up as a kid. I blame it on Bisquick. Pancakes made with Bisquick were tough and heavy. And I never felt good after eating them. Heavy and bloated is a good description of how I remember feeling after eating them. So, pancakes were never a first choice for breakfast even later on when I was older until I tried this recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes.

They come out light and delicious every time and I have been making pancakes with this recipe for years. When my kids were smaller I would double the recipe and then keep the leftovers in the refrigerator for a few days or freeze them.

Do you ever make breakfast for dinner? This recipe is good for that. I think the secret to why these taste so light and tender is a combination of the buttermilk and to not overbeat the batter. The fewer strokes/whisks the better. The batter will be lumpy but that is okay.

Buttermilk Pancakes

2 Cups of flour

2 Tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 1/2 cups buttermilk

2 Tbsp. canola oil

2 eggs, beaten

Preheat your griddle to 350 degrees or medium high heat. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Make a well in the middle and add the buttermilk, eggs, and canola oil. Mix well by hand with a wish but be careful not to overbeat. If the mix is unusually thick, add some more buttermilk and even a small bit of water if you like until it is a thinner consistency.

Use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to pour your pancake mix onto the hot griddle. It will almost time to flip them when you see small bubbles form in each pancake. Take your pancake flipper and lift up the side of one of your pancakes and take a peak at it underneath. If it’s a nice golden brown, flip them all over to cook on the other side. Serve hot or stack on a plate to cool. Let cool completely before freezing them.

When I double the recipe, I only add one additional egg for a total of 3 eggs and I only increase the canola oil from 2 tablespoons to 3 tablespoons. The rest of the recipe I just double.

Don’t forget the syrup and the bacon! (And drizzle some syrup on your bacon. So good!) Enjoy.

Pet Memorial Stone

2011-09-16T13:30:00.001-07:00

I was out to dinner last night with some girlfriends and had a very nice evening at a restaurant called A Taste of Thai. The food was very good and it was fun to do some catching up. We laughed most of the night until the ride home when I learned that Jane’s sweet cat named Sam passed away a couple of weeks ago. They were very attached to that cat. He was a very handsome cat with fluffy white fur and a whole lot of personality. He would take a walk each night around the yard with Jane’s husband and he actually used the toilet instead of a litter box!!

Anyway, they miss him terribly and Jane said she thought they needed some kind of marker to remember him by for their garden and asked if I would be able to make something simple. I was more than happy to do so.

I took one of my stones that can be found at Lowe’s or Home Depot and spray painted it black. I wanted to add a simple silhouette of a cat and I found one on Google that I copied to a Word document and sized it the size that would fit my stone and printed it out. I then took my stencil burning tool and taped the picture to the back of the plastic stencil and I “burned” it out of the plastic stencil.

After that I was ready to stencil the stone. I used my letter stencils to add the name and then when the letters were dry, I added the stencil of the cat silhouette. It’s very simple but I think they are going to like it. Sam was an OLD cat. He was already in his 20’s which if you have ever had a cat, you know that is old! He had a very good life but will be sadly missed. I hope the garden marker helps them feel a bit better.

Sautéed Spinach with Blue Cheese

2011-09-14T14:33:00.001-07:00

A new favorite. Sautéed Spinach With Blue Cheese. I have been making and eating this for days. Yes, days.

Sautéed Spinach With Blue Cheese

1 bag of fresh spinach

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 clove garlic, pressed

salt and pepper

Small piece of blue cheese, crumbled.

Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the pressed clove of garlic and Sauté spinach for about 1 minute. Be very careful not to brown or burn the garlic. If you do, throw it out and start over. Burnt garlic is very bitter. I know from experience.

Add the bag of spinach. It will seem like you can’t get it all in. Use tongs or a large spoon and move the spinach around in the pan until it wilts down. You will be amazed at how much it wilts down. Stir and flip the spinach so that it is nicely coated with the olive oil and garlic. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Move to a serving dish. Sprinkle with crumble blue cheese and serve. Serves 4.

Re-heated leftovers are tasty too.

Delicious and healthy. Go wild and add some chopped walnuts. I’ll have to save that addition for another day. I still have braces on my teeth and nuts are a big no no. And you know how everyone is so afraid of getting caught smiling with spinach on their teeth? They are afraid with good reason. I am the poster child for that these days. Having braces as an adult can be a very humbling experience. :)

French Lemon Cake

2011-09-13T15:52:00.001-07:00

I finished reading a very sweet memoir the other day called A Home Made Life by Molly Wizenburg. In it Molly writes about the memories she has of her father when she was growing up, how she met her husband, and about the twist and turns in her young life. And all of it is tied to food. And at the end of each chapter, she gives the recipes for whatever food might have been mentioned in that chapter. There are fifty recipes in all and I want to try almost all of them.

The first recipe that I decided to try was her recipe for a French Style Yogurt Cake With Lemon.

French Style Yogurt Cake With Lemon

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

Pinch of salt

2 tsp. grated lemon zest

1/2 cup well-stirred plain whole –milk yogurt (not low fat or nonfat)

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil, such as canola

For the Syrup:

1/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted

1/4 cup lemon juice

For the Icing:

1 cup powdered sugar, sifted

3 Tbsp. lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 inch round cake pan with butter or cooking spray. Line the bottom of the pan with a round of parchment paper, and grease it too.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the lemon zest ad whisk to mix thoroughly.

In a large bowl, combine the yogurt, sugar, and eggs and stir to mix well. Add the flour mixture and stir to just combine. Add the oil and stir well. ( I used my Kitchen Aid Mixer but was careful not to over beat or over mix so that I wouldn’t get a tough cake.) The batter will become pale and yellow. Pour into your prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 35 minutes. Do not over bake.

Cool the cake on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a thin knife around the edge of the pan and invert the cake and remove the piece of parchment paper. Place the cake back on the cake rack and set the cake rack on a baking sheet. This way any of the syrup that drips off of the cake will catch in the baking sheet.

In a small bowl, whisk together the syrup ingredients. Spoon the syrup slowly over the top of the warm cake and let it soak in. Cool completely.

In a small bowl, combine the icing ingredients. Make sure the sugar is well dissolved. Spoon the icing over the cooled cake.

Wonderful served warm. Wonderful served cold later on.

This cake is just plain lovely.

So very lemony and delicious. The book and this recipe are highly recommended . Molly also writes the blog Orangette. It’s just as lovely as this recipe.

French Lavender Eye Pillow

2011-09-12T04:34:00.001-07:00

Quite some time ago, I saw an idea for how to make your own soothing eye pillow filled with lavender over at Centsational Girl. I am talking about one of those pillows you hear about that you can put in your microwave to heat up or place in your freezer to cool down. Either way, they bring soothing comfort and if filled with lavender…well, relaxation. :)

Recently I saw a technique on how to transfer an image from your printer using freezer paper over at the blog called Home Frosting. I thought it was a great idea and had to give it a try. And then when I saw a graphic for a French Chocolate Label over at The Graphics Fairy, I knew that was what I wanted to use. I wanted to transfer that graphic to some leftover “Painter’s Cloth” fabric that I had and then I wanted to take that fabric and create a microwaveable/freezable pillow with it. And of course I had to add some lavender to it. So I was able to combine all three of these ideas into one project.

First thing I did was read the Home Frosting tutorial on how to transfer an image from your computer onto freezer paper. It wasn’t too difficult. It required me to cut a piece of freezer paper exactly the same size as piece of regular printer paper. I am in the process of making another bag and since I didn’t take pictures of the French Chocolate Label after it printed out onto the freezer paper I thought I would show you here with this Graphics Fairy graphic of some old fashioned eye glasses.

I just laid the printer paper over top of the freezer paper and cut around it. I used some tape to keep it secure while I cut it out. Be sure to leave the waxy side of the freezer paper exposed. It is the waxy side that you will be printing on. Then carefully load that into your printer so that when it prints it prints on the waxy side.

I used the French Chocolate Label from The Graphics Fairy as I said. Karen made it so easy by already giving you the mirror image graphic you will need for this project. If you use some other image, you will have to flip it in your word processing program so that it prints out backwards. It will look right side up after you transfer it.

When your printout comes out of the printer, be careful not to bend or smear the image. It will be wet. Then immediately turn it over and carefully place the image on your fabric. Tape all four corners to secure it. Then take the back of a spoon and burnish or rub it firmly and to completely transfer the image from your waxy paper to the fabric. When you are sure you are done, carefully lift up the paper and reveal your transferred image.

Now, to make the actual Lavender/Rice filled bag, I followed the great tutorial over at Centsational Girl. She actually ran her fabric right through her printer. I wasn’t brave enough to do that quite yet. :) Click and go see how she made hers. It’s a great tutorial and very easy to do.

After I transferred the image to my fabric I cut out two pieces about 1/2 inch larger than I wanted my finished bag to be and then I sewed the fabric right sides together with my machine and left a small space open. I used a funnel to get the rice and the lavender into the bag after I sewed it the fabric together. I think I used about 3/4 rice to 1/4 lavender. I found my lavender in the spice and herb section at The Fresh Market here in Greensboro. I have seen other tutorials that mixed their lavender with some essential lavender oil. I did not do that and really my bag still smells wonderful. Now, I am not sure how long that will last but for right now I am okay without using the essential oil. Then I sewed the opening closed. It looks better if you hand sew your opening closed and that is what I will do if I make one of these for a gift. But for today, I zipped it closed on my machine.

And here it is! It has a old vintage look to it don’t you think? It smells heavenly and it really does heat up in the microwave. I micro-waved mine for about 20 seconds and it was nice and warm. This will work nicely all warmed up in the wintertime. I can see myself climbing into bed with it on cold winter nights. And in the summertime or when a sore muscle is calling I’ll be pulling it out of the freezer.

I think the new eye pillow I am working on with the old fashioned glasses is going to turn out cute. I’ll keep you posted. :)

I am linking up to Brag Monday over at The Graphics Fairy!

The Pentagon Memorial

2011-09-11T05:44:00.001-07:00

On this 10 Anniversary of the events that took place on 9/11, I wanted to link to a post I did last year when we visited the Pentagon Memorial in Washington DC. I have never seen anything on TV that talks about this memorial. I think many Americans might not even know it’s there. It is an incredibly moving tribute. Please click here to re-visit my post on The Pentagon Memorial. Never forget.

Garlic and Herb Dipping Oil

2011-09-08T12:57:00.001-07:00

God Bless Souffer’s and their Lasagna! That is what we are having for dinner tonight. Quick and easy and now that school has started, everyone is suddenly starving when they get home from school and work. Tonight we are having lasagna and Caesar Salad. And I also picked up a French baguette and mixed up a dish of Garlic and Herb Dipping Oil.

Lot’s of restaurants serve a dipping oil in place of butter with their bread. It’s easy to do at home and while I like my butter, this is a very delicious and healthier way to go.

Garlic and Herb Dipping Oil

Olive Oil, approximately 1/4 to 1/3 cup

1 to 2 cloves of garlic, pressed

Dried Basil, a pinch

Dried Oregano, a pinch

Dried Red Pepper Flakes, a couple of shakes

Salt and Pepper, a couple of shakes of each

Pour the olive oil onto a small serving plate. I like to use a salad sized plate. Press the garlic and stir it into the olive oil. Add the “pinches” and “shakes” of the basil, oregano, salt and pepper. (Scientific I know.) :)

Stir all ingredients in the dish so they are evenly distributed. Serve with fresh, sliced French or Italian Bread.

Then dip away. Careful, you’ll be tempted to eat more than you should but don’t do it! There’s salad and lasagna still to go.

Trick or Treat Match Box Cover

2011-09-05T13:34:00.001-07:00

I love this Halloween Trick or Treat image from The Graphics Fairy! So, I came up with a project to recover a box of matches so that I could use it. I was originally planning to decoupage the image onto the matchbox but when I remembered that my printer is an inkjet and that I would have to make my copies a on a “real” copy machine and have to get in my car to visit my local Kinkos, I came up with a different way to make it. (If you want to decoupage, you need to make your copies from a “real” copy machine otherwise the ink will run when you apply the decoupage medium. ) Anyway, since I didn’t want to have to make a car trip and I wanted to get started right away, I came up with the idea of using Scotch clear Shipping Tape and a Black Sharpie Pen. It worked!

Here is what you will need to get started:

A box of matches, Scotch clear Shipping Tape, Scotch tape, a Black Sharpie Pen, scissors, and printed copies of the image you want to use.

Here is how I did it:

1. Using my Black Sharpie Pen, I filled in the white space on each end of the box. Then I took the Pen and outlined the edges of the front and back of the match box (almost like coloring in a black frame ) to cover the bright red and yellow color on the edge of the box in case any of the edges were exposed after I attached the image.

2. I copied my image into my Word program and then played with the sizing by holding the box over the image on the screen to get it as close to the exact size of the top and bottom of the box that I needed. The match box is covered with the same image on both sides so print out two once you get it sized. Cut the image out with your scissors. I then Scotch taped the image onto the box by rolling a piece of tape onto itself, tacked to the back of the image and then centered it and fastened it to the front of the box. Repeat for the opposite side. This will help keep the image in place while stretch the clear shipping tape over it.

3. Next I covered the image with a stretch of the Scotch Shipping Tape. Slide the inside box of matches out of the cover so that you are only working with the outside cover. This way you do not “accidentally” tape your match box shut. Carefully apply the tape over the image and smoothed it down over the edge of the box so that it is “tucked smoothly” inside of the match box cover. I then applied a second stretch of the tape and butted it up right next to the edge of the first piece of tape and smoothed it down. Trim any excess tape if you need to with your scissors.

That’s it! The clear shipping tape helps protect your image and your newly covered matchbox.

I still might try making some more of these match box cover by decoupaging them to see if I like the finished product any better. I just have to make sure I have the right kind of copies made when I do.

This was quick and easy. Cheap to do too which is always a plus!

I am linking this post up to Brag Monday over at The Graphics Fairy. More projects to be seen there! Stop by.

Giveaway Winner

2011-09-05T06:05:00.001-07:00

Thanks to all who entered the Giveaway! With the help of the Random Number Generator at Random.Org, the winner of the one year subscription to Country Living Magazine goes to:

Erin from the blog The Fierce Beagle! Congratulations Erin!! Check out her blog, she is truly a gifted writer. Erin, I’ll be sending you an email shortly to get your mailing address.

Enjoy the last of this three day weekend and have a Happy Labor Day. We’ll be relaxing and I’m sure there will be a grill involved at some point. :)

Country Living Magazine Giveaway!

2011-09-02T05:40:00.001-07:00

I am giving away a Free Subscription to Country Living Magazine!

I don’t say it enough but Thank You to Everyone who reads my blog!

Summer is almost over and my favorite season starts (at least for me) on the other side of Labor Day. To win a one year subscription to Country Living Magazine, simply leave a comment here and tell us what was the most fun thing you did this summer.

(Sorry but this is only open to residents of the US, and I must be able to get your mailing address easily for the subscription so sorry to any “anonymous” comments.)

For a second chance to win, go to my new Facebook Page for Pickles and Cheese and click on “Like” and come back here and leave me a second comment that you did so. See……EASY!

I will announce the winner on Sunday, September 4, 2011

Upside Down Parmesan Biscuits (Also Known As Parmesan Pull Aparts)

2011-08-29T14:48:00.001-07:00

I made some Parmesan Pull Aparts for dinner this evening and they were quick and easy and well received! I spotted them over at Life as a Lofthouse which is where you can find lots of great recipes. Go ahead and take a peek at the recipe over there. Holly’s are prettier than mine are because her kids must not mind eating food with little green flecks of herbs. My son, sadly, is not into green flecks of anything no matter how much I try and tell him that he won’t even know they are there. Holly also added some shredded mozarella cheese to her recipe…I only used Parmesan. Here is how I made my fleckless Upside Down Parmesan Biscuits.

Parmesan Pull Aparts (also known as Upside Down Parmesan Biscuits)

I used 1 can of refrigerated biscuits. I used the 10 biscuit sized can of Pillsbury Grands Buttermilk Biscuits.

Melt 2 TBSP. of butter in microwave. Pour into a round non-stick cake pan. Sprinkle with 1/2 tsp. garlic powder. Add green flecks of parsley, basil, oregano, etc….. or just leave plain if you have picky children like I do.

Sprinkle grated or shredded Parmesan Cheese over the butter mixture.

Individually place the biscuits in the pan so that they are all touching each other.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. (Check the baking directions on your can of biscuits)

As soon as they come out of the oven place your serving plate on top of the cake pan and carefully flip the pan over so that the biscuits turn out onto the serving plate.

Serve. Eat. Enjoy.

Half Gallon Size Canning Jars

2011-08-28T12:34:00.001-07:00

Who even knew they made canning jars this big??! I picked up a box of half gallon sized Ball canning jars the other day. I found the giant half gallon sized jars at my local ACE Hardware. (You can order them from Amazon.com too.) I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do with them at first but I couldn’t leave them there. I had never seen a canning jar that big before. And now I have six . I estimate that there is the equivalent of 4 pint sized jars in that one half gallon sized jar.

Not sure what I am going to do with all six of them but I can’t wait to see the look on the face of my biggest pickle fan when I give him a jar this size filled with pickles!

Here is my jar collection. The new gallon sized jars next to quart jars, the ever popular pint sized pickle jars and then we have the quilted jelly jars and my favorite mini jam jars that I like to put my Jalapeno Pepper Jelly in. I have a big bag of Jalapenos from the Farmer’s Market sitting in my fridge right now waiting for me to turn them into jam.

So I have been thinking. What else can I do with these gigantic jars? Here is what I came up with so far:

1. Luminaries at Xmas. I think these will make great luminaries. The bigger the better right? Fill the bottom with white sand or I’ve even seen Epsom Salts used because the white crystals look like snow. Add a small candle. Maybe tie some holly on the outside.

2. Store food like sugar in the pantry. Stay one step ahead of the %^&%$# pantry moths! Dried beans, pasta, and rice.

3. Soup storage in the refrigerator. Glass is supposed to be safer than plastic for storing anything especially if it’s hot.

4. Make baking mixes up in advance. I have a great recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes that I will have to post later this week. It might be nice to have the mix pre-made and then only add the wet ingredients whenever the pancake mood hits.

5. Baking Mix for gifts. I’ve seen those premixed cookie mix jars a lot around the holidays.

6. Vase for flowers.

7. Mix up cocktails like Margaritas, Sangria, or Cosmopolitans in advance and store in fridge.

8. Moon Shine. (Just kidding. Not really.)

Got any other ideas on what to do with these monsters? I would love to hear them.

Mozzarella Cheesemaking Kit

2011-08-26T11:34:00.001-07:00

Look what I brought home from work with me today! It’s a Mozzarella Cheesemaking Kit made by a company called Roaring Brook Dairy. You can make authentic mozzarella cheese at home in under an hour! All the ingredients that you need, except for the milk, are provided in the kit. It comes with a dairy thermometer, cheese salt, rennet, citric acid and gloves. And as far as the milk goes, you can use whole or 2% milk. The fresher the better and pasteurized is fine but it cannot be Ultra-Pasteurized. That’s it!

You can find a kit at Harris Teeter Supermarkets if you live in the South East part of the country and right now they are on sale for $9.99. After the sale they will cost you $15.99. Or you can go Roaring Brook Dairy’s website and order one from them through Amazon (for $18.50).

This would make such a fun gift for someone you know is a Foodie or loves cheese. And how much fun would this be to make with your kids? Great holiday gift and stocking stuffer.

I’ll be back soon with an update and let you know how it goes. I’ve got a nice piece of mozzarella that I brought home from the market yesterday sitting in the fridge that I have to use up first. It’s going to be a tomato and mozzarella filled weekend for sure!

One last thing….I started a Facebook Page for my blog Pickles and Cheese. It might make it easier for some of you to follow. Just click here: Pickles and Cheese Facebook Page and be sure to click on “LIKE” when you get there. Thanks!!

Stenciled Halloween Witch Pillow

2011-08-23T15:44:00.001-07:00

It’s been awhile since I did any stenciling but today I had the day off and in between earthquakes and hurricanes, I decided to make a pillow. I was in the kitchen with the dog when my house started vibrating and the water in my glass started moving just like in the movie Jurassic Park! The dog looked at me like “what was that?” and I looked at her and said “Oakley, I think we just had an earthquake.”

About 5 minutes later I saw them announce it on the news. Of course I was watching the weather channel getting the latest information on Hurricane Irene. ( That’s my Mom’s name….Ha!! I wonder if she is keeping up on Irene’s progress?) :) Anyway, that hurricane looks like it’s going to hit us here in North Carolina sometime on Saturday. I’ll be watching The Weather Channel all week now!

So, back to my pillow. I am so happy with how it turned out! I looked around on Google for a silhouette of a witch and printed it out on my computer. I have a stencil burning tool that I found at Michael’s Craft Store for about $15.00 that lets me make my own stencils. It works like the old wood burning kits from when we were kids. For the moon, I took a round rubber jar opener and traced it on my pillow and then hand painted it. After the moon was dry, I stenciled on my witch. Then I used my letter stencils to add the word “WICKED”.

If you want some more details on how I made the pillow case out of Painter’s Cloth and how I stenciled it you can click here to see a post I made earlier this year on a Hand Stenciled French Pillow that I made.

I just love it! And it’s kind of funny that after I finished it and started to work on my blog post of it today, I saw that The Graphics Fairy posted a free witch flying over the moon graphic on her blog today. Go take a peek for yourself! Now I know it’s kind of early to start thinking about Halloween. But, today felt like a gorgeous Fall day complete with sunshine and low humidity and before I knew it I was digging around for something to make for Halloween. Sorry! I am usually the one complaining about the stores rushing the holidays. :)

I am linking up with Gluesticks Get Your Brag On. More to see there!

And I am linked up with Tales From Bloggaritaville for Thrifty Thursday.

And stop by Domestically Speaking for a Countdown to Autumn Party.

Tomato Tart

2011-08-22T04:56:00.001-07:00

I have been wanting to make a tomato tart since forever. I struck out twice yesterday. The heirloom tomato lady was missing from the farmer’s market and the local shop with the Tomato and Mozarella cookbook that I was so excited about in my previous post was sold out of the book forcing me to order it from Amazon….at least I tried to support my local business!)

Anyway, I went ahead and made my own version of a tomato tart with regular farmer’s market tomatoes. There are lots of Tomato Pie recipes down here but most of them call for mayonnaise which is something I can’t even look at! Huge mayo aversion. So I was excited when I saw a recipe which called for Marscapone Cheese instead! So delicious! Here is what I did:

Tomato Tart

12 oz. Puff Pastry (I used Pepperidge Farms)

3 Tomatoes, all sliced evenly in about the same size

Marscapone Cheese (I used about 1/2 of a tub)

Parmesan Cheese, finely grated (Freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano if you can get it)

Basil (Fresh would be great but I didn’t have any so I used dried)

Salt and pepper

3 Tbsp. olive oil

Directions:

Thaw out your piece of Puff Pastry according to the directions on the package. Roll out your pastry dough and carefully fit your puff pastry dough into your tart pan. The puff pastry dough is so buttery that you do not need to spray with non stick spray. I used a rectangular pan for my tart but I am sure a round tart pan would work just fine. Spread a thin layer of Marscapone Cheese over your pastry dough. I used about 1/2 of a container.

Add your tomato slices. I placed mine in 3 rows and overlapped the edges just a bit. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and basil. Drizzle with olive oil. Top with finely grated Parmesan cheese.

Here it is before I popped it into the oven. And here it is after.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 400 degrees for 30minutes. Then, lower the temperature to 300 degrees and continue to bake for an additional 45 minutes. (The additional 45 minutes seems like a long time and I kept checking on it every 15 minutes. You really do want to bake it that long as the goal is to have almost no liquid left in the tomatoes and the crust should be crisp.) Let cool. I used a pizza cutter to slice it. Worked like a charm.

Tomatoes and Mozzarella

2011-08-21T06:44:00.001-07:00

I am not sure how I missed this cookbook because it only came out in 2006! It’s called Tomatoes and Mozzarella by Hallie Harron and Shelley Sikora. There is a wonderful local gourmet kitchenware shop here in Greensboro called The Extra Ingredient. I am on their newsletter e-mail list and received something from them today highlighting some of the recipes that can be found in this book. The photo above is for their Flaky Tomato Tartlets and Crackly Basil. I have to make these!

So the plans for today are to hit the Farmer’s Market for some tomatoes. Last time I was there I found a vendor who sells the most unusual heirloom tomatoes. Incredible flavor and they came in all kinds of colors. (The tomatoes in my garden are pitiful! The deer finally found my garden and what hasn’t been munched down to the ground by them has been choked out by the $#%&^-ing Bermuda grass. That stuff is evil!) And then I plan to stop by The Extra Ingredient and get a copy of this book. It also has a recipe for making a Balsamic Vinegar reduction. I am going to be all over that too!

Desk Chair Make-Over

2011-08-18T06:40:00.001-07:00

I did a very quick update on the desk chair in my daughter’s bedroom. It was a Goodwill find from many years ago when purple was the center of her world. Dull and boring before. Grubby too I might add. A coat of Rustoleum Spray Paint in Aqua from The Home Depot and some new fabric for the seat and a bit of it’s charm has been restored. :)

Spa Party Appetizer

2011-08-12T13:38:00.001-07:00

How clever is this?! Check out Hungry Happenings to see how it was made. The dip itself is taco flavored and I especially like the hair turban made out of mozzarella cheese. Fun!

Sangria in Jelly Jars

2011-08-07T06:59:00.001-07:00

Saw this over at the Tea and Cookies blog. A few weeks ago I put Margaritas in jelly jars for a small party I was having and they were a huge hit. And when I saw this I knew it was another great idea for my “Beverages in Jelly Jars” list. You don’t have to worry about salted rims for theses. :)

Apron is Finished!

2011-08-01T05:17:00.001-07:00

I finished the apron and here it is! It turned out cute and took me between 3 and 4 hours to complete. A more experienced seamstress could whip this out in no time but as I am an extremely rusty sewer, I thought 3-4 hours was pretty good. I usually stick to straight seams. Sewing pillows and very simple curtains are about as complex as I get. But, I have to say this was a lot of fun and the directions were clear and very easy to follow.

Want to make one of your own? Visit Jodi over at Pleasant Home to take a peek and some photos of other completed aprons from her pattern kits and then pop over to Pleasant Home on Etsy and pick out a fabric combination you like. She does most of the work for you (except the sewing :)) and the fabric combos she offers all work perfectly together.

Randomness

2011-07-31T07:57:00.001-07:00

Found some Pimm’s! The last thing I wanted to do was drive up to Virginia looking for it so I did some google-ing and made some more phone calls and I finally found it much closer to home. Shame on the guy in the Battleground store for telling me “nobody in Greensboro carries it.” For anybody living in Greensboro, you can find Pimm’s No. 1 at the ABC Store on Market Street in the Marshalls and Food Lion shopping center.

So, we brought home the Pimm’s and made up a pitcher from a recipe found online. It really is like a sangria. A British Sangria. The recipe called for a sliced up cucumber which I thought was unusual and I thought I would love. But really, not so much. Husband hated it! Next batch I made will be sans cukes!

The deer have finally found my garden and seem to come while we are sleeping and select something different each night to feast on. Last night they ate almost all of my Swiss chard. And trampled two tomato plants. :(

It’s been so hot and humid that I just can’t make myself go out and tend the garden. It’s starting to look like a deer-chewed jungle. And the evil Bermuda grass is invading big time.

I went to a party last week and the hostess served individual cups of dip with crudites/sliced veggies. It looked so cute and that way everybody was allowed to double dip!

I’ve taken to adding 2 shakes of cinnamon to the filter basket when making my coffee. It adds just enough cinnamon for me to know it’s there and I hear cinnamon is good for you. Even better.

Progress on my braces is good. The Ortho said I was heading into the “final detailing stage” and put stainless steel wires on both the top and bottom. My teeth are very tender right now. But, I can see my new smile emerging!

Mike’s Hot Honey

2011-07-30T06:45:00.001-07:00

I saw this over at Hip Hostess last week and knew this could be something very good. I went to Mike’s website Mikeshothoney.com and ordered a bottle. It cost $8.00. It came yesterday. It’s better than I expected. It really is hot. And sweet at the same time. He has a list of food pairings on his website. The first thing I am going to drizzle it on is a slice of pear with a piece of blue cheese. I have neither in the house. Fresh Market here I come. :)

Apron

2011-07-29T13:03:00.001-07:00

How cute is this? And I am going to sew one thanks to Jodi over at Pleasant Home. She has an Etsy Shop and she puts together the cutest fabric patterns and color combos. You can buy just the pattern or the kit that includes the pattern and all the fabric you need on her Etsy site. Here is the set I picked out. It came in the mail today.

I haven’t sewn anything really in years. Can’t wait to get started. :)

Our Anniversary Dinner

2011-07-28T04:46:00.001-07:00

Here is the round about way we picked a restaurant to celebrate our wedding anniversary this year. You see, for quite some time, I have been in search of the ingredients to make an adult beverage called a Pimm’s Cup. It’s a British drink made with Pimm’s No. 1 and it looks like this:

It cannot be be found anywhere in the Greensboro, NC area. We’ve searched. The ABC Store here tells us the only way we could get it is to order it. But of course they will only order it for you by the case. I am not willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a case of a liquor that I have never tasted before! We looked online. I could order a bottle online but between the cost of the Pimm’s and the shipping it would be about $60.00. Again, not willing to pay that much for something I just want to taste to SEE IF I like it.

My husband has a friend he works with who lives in the UK. He said he would send us a bottle. We told him to wait and give us some more time to see if we could find it cheaper and closer to home. So, my husband started google-ing Pimm’s No. 1 and lo and behold it turned up on the menu of a restaurant in Chapel Hill, NC where our daughter happens to live and go to school. A restaurant there called 411 West serves a Pimm’s Martini! So, that is where we headed for our Anniversary dinner.

We took the son (and let him drive….that was a hair raising experience for me…my husband handles that better than I do) and we picked up the daughter when we got there and we dined at 411 West on Franklin Street in the quaint section of Chapel Hill.

And here is my Pimm’s Martini! It was very tasty and refreshing just like I had heard. So now that I finally got to taste it and like it…the hunt continues. (We heard we can get it in Virginia, so in the next couple of weeks we are going to take a road trip up to Virginia to see if we can buy a bottle there.)

We had a lovely dinner. 411 West was very nice and the food was delicious. Here we are toasting with our kids to our 26th Anniversary. Cheers!

To start our dinner off, my daughter and I shared a cup of Tomato and Watermelon Gazpacho. So good! Sorry no photo. And then we all nibbled on the Caprese Salad. It was made with local heirloom tomatoes and was delicious.

Then the entrees came. I enjoyed Chicken Marsala with mashed potatoes and grilled vegetables. My husband and son each enjoyed a Wood Grilled Filet Mignon.

And our daughter had a Crab Pasta dish. She said it was fabulous. (Tasted better than it looks I guess. ) :)

And then the Filet on my husband’s plate started looking like the state of Michigan so of course we had to take a picture of that! Kind of like when the image of Jesus appears on a potato chip. People want proof!

And we were all so stuffed by the time dessert came around that we all shared this delicious piece of Carrot Cheese Cake. The carrot cake was on the bottom, cheese cake on top with candied almonds and a caramel sauce. Two bites of bliss were more than enough.

My husband and kids all got a kick out of the 52 Reasons Why I Love You deck of cards I made for my husband and he surprised me with a gorgeous anniversary band ring! It’s just beautiful. It was a wonderful evening. I got to finally taste the elusive Pimm’s No. 1, we saw the state of Michigan in a piece of meat, we had a delicious dinner out with our kids, and I came out of the restaurant wearing diamonds! Does it get any better than that??!!

52 Reasons

2011-07-27T05:32:00.001-07:00

It’s our Anniversary today and this is what I made to give to my husband tonight at dinner. Another idea that I picked up on Pinterest which pointed me to Cutout and Keep where it looks like the idea came from. It’s kind of goofy and kind of fun. I think he’ll get a kick out of it and I had fun making it.

It’s filled with happy memories and all the quirky things he does that make me love him so much. There is a lot of quirk. :)

You can make one too. Just sit down and think up all different ways your special someone makes you smile. This isn’t just limited to anniversaries but would be fun to do for a friend or for your kids. For any reason really.

You will need:

1 deck of playing cards

Printout from your computer with all the reasons, play with the font and the font size. Leave space between each reason to make cutting them out easier. I did a twisty/curvy cut with my scissors by moving the paper as I cut.

1 hole punch, scissors, Tacky Glue, small paint brush

10'” piece of ribbon or a large key ring

1. After thinking up at least 52 reasons, print them out on your computer. You might have to play with the font size and experiment by cutting them out to make sure they are going to fit on your playing card.

2. Using a paper punch, you want to punch a hole in the card in the top left corner. This is where you will thread all the cards on the ribbon when you are finished.

3. I used a small dish with some Tacky Glue thinned out with a little bit of water and I used a very small bristle paint brush to brush the back side of my cutouts with glue and I carefully attached them to the playing card. Let all the cards dry.

4. After the cards are all dry. Lay them out and decide what order you want them to be. Take your ribbon piece and tie 5 or 6 knots on top of each other on one end to make it big enough that the cards won’t slip off. Then start threading your cards onto the ribbon. Your first card should be your title card. After all the cards are threaded on, tie another set of 5 or 6 knots to secure all the cards. C’est tout! That’s it!

This took me about 3 hours to complete after I had my list of 52 reasons. Start jotting down those reasons today and give yourself a head start.

Chocolate Chip S’more Cookies

2011-07-24T15:59:00.001-07:00

Chocolate Chip S’more Cookies! And they taste as good as they look! I first saw these on Pinterest which took me to a blog called The Girl Who Ate Everything. I found some fun recipes there including this one. I noticed that the recipe looked very close to a chocolate chip cookie recipe so I decided to use my own favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe instead. I added some cinnamon and some mini marshmallows and voila!

Here is how I made mine.

Chocolate Chip S’more Cookies

1 box graham crackers

6 Hershey Chocolate candy bars ( I bought a 6 pack in the candy section)

1 bag mini marshmallows

1 Cup sugar

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup butter

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 cups mini marshmallows

12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream the butter and the sugars together. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well till light and fluffy. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, salt, and baking soda and cinnamon. Slowly add to the creamed butter mixture. Mix well. Add the chocolate chips and the mini marshmallows and mix until incorporated but be careful not to over mix.

Line your baking pans with parchment paper. (I used foil and sprayed it with Pam which worked fine but I did have some cookies stick a bit to the sides of the foil around the edges of the pan. I think parchment paper might be the better choice.)

Take your graham crackers and break them into squares and line your cookie sheets with them. Using a small cookie scoop (approx. 1 –2 Tablespoons) place a scoop of cookie dough on each graham cracker square. After all of the graham squares have cookie dough on them, use your fingers to slightly “smush” the dough down to fill out the graham square. (See photo below.) (I ended up with two large baking sheets.)

Place them in the oven for 5 minutes.

While the S’more Cookies are baking during this first 5 minutes, take the time to unwrap at the Hershey Chocolate Bars and break into individual pieces. (Each cookie sheet used about 3 candy bars broken into pieces.)

When the first 5 minutes is up, take the baking sheet out of the oven and gently press into each cookie square one of the Hershey chocolate pieces. Return to the oven and continue baking for another 5 to 7 minutes. Take them out of the oven when the edges start to brown. Let cool for about 10 minutes and then remove to a cooling rack to continue cooling.

These really do taste as good as they look. And I just love how you can still see the word “Hershey’s” on the chocolate pieces and that you can see melted bits of marshmallows. They taste wonderful warm or cold. And when you bite into them they are soft and chewy and you can taste the cinnamon and the graham cracker along with all the other wonderful chocolate chip cookie gooey-ness. These are too good!

Sarah’s Summer House

2011-07-20T16:02:00.001-07:00

Did you watch any of the program Sarah’s Summer House on HGTV?? Sarah Richardson transformed her husband’s “bachelor shack” into what I would call the perfect cottage. Try and catch the re-runs if you missed it. The transformation is amazing.

Country Living Magazine also did a layout of this gorgeous property in this month”s issue. My copy of the magazine is already getting dog eared from me pouring over the pages.

How gorgeous is this family room? So many windows overlooking that beautiful lake.

It’s even more amazing when you see that this cottage is situated on it’s own mini island somewhere in Canada! It is totally off the grid. Their energy needs come from wind, solar, and propane. And everything including building supplies and the workers all had to get there by boat. Unbelievable.

Notice the wide stripes painted floor in the master bedroom. And it’s a smart idea to have that quilt hanging from that towel bar in one of the guest rooms. It’s all so cheerful and cottage-y. :)

After the kitchen, I would have to say this is my favorite room. It’s one of the guest rooms and actually it is separate structure that also has incredible views of the lake. Wouldn’t you love to wake up here in the morning?! This would make the perfect getaway. I just love it!

Dill Pickle Spears

2011-07-17T15:14:00.001-07:00

After dropping my husband off at the airport for a business trip to Europe…this time he is headed to Germany and The Netherlands (someday I’ll get to tag along), and with the son at the beach in Wilmington, NC, and the daughter spending the summer in Chapel Hill, NC, I suddenly found myself with a wide open weekend. Yep, it’s just me and the dog right now. But don’t feel sorry for me yet, I did manage to squeeze in some lunch and shopping before I headed home. Pickles is how I decided to spend my afternoon and I made them with the bag of cucumbers a friend gave me from her garden.

I mentioned in a post about a week ago that I wanted to try a recipe that Country Living Magazine published in their April 2011 issue for Pickle Spears from Judith Fertig’s Heartland book. Well, here they are. Love this recipe almost as much as I love my own for Dill Pickle Chips! :) These are a lot sweeter.

This recipe makes about 3 jars. (I doubled the recipe and got a total of 7 jars.)

Here is the recipe:

Dill Pickle Spears

1 cup white vinegar

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 pound pickling or baby cucumbers, ends trimmed and quartered lengthwise (about 4 or 5)

8 garlic cloves

2 teaspoons black peppercorns

2 large see heads fresh dill, with some stalk. ( I used dried dill.)

In a medium saucepan over medium high heat, combine 1 cup water, vinegar, sugar, and salt and bring to a boil. Stir until sugar and salt dissolve, about 2 minutes. Let cool to room temperature, about 15 minutes.

Divide cucumber spears, garlic and peppercorns between two sterilized pint size canning jars. Stuff a dill seed head into the center of each jar. Pour cooled vinegar mixture over jar contents to cover. Screw lids onto jars and refrigerate for at least 24 hours before using. Keeps refrigerated, for up to 1 year.

This recipe is for another great pickle that does NOT require canning. They say they will keep up to a year refrigerated.

I don’t think we have to worry here. They won’t last the month . :)

Margaritas in Jelly Jars

2011-07-14T05:45:00.001-07:00

I was inspired not too long ago when I came across the post 50 Foods You Can Put in a Jar over at Under the Table and Dreaming. This is a great one-stop post for food ideas for jelly jars. I am always looking for new ideas and with a small party coming up I was happy to have a new idea to try.

How refreshing does that look?!

I used a 1.75 Liter sized bottle Jose Cuervo Golden Margarita. (Cost was $16.95. ) The tequila is already in the mix and it’s made with Grand Marnier. Mmmm. :) This sized bottle was the perfect amount for 12 jelly jars. I filled each jar up about 3/4 and added ice for the last 1/4.

Salted rims optional. Lime wheel mandatory.

I made these ahead of time and then kept them in the refrigerator until party time. When it was time to serve I pulled them out, took off the lids and added to some ice cubes and a wheel of lime. You can also serve them with a salted rim. To do this you wouldn’t want to pre-fill your jars like I did. Simply salt the rims and fill with your Margaritas at serving time. Cheers!

Ham and Cheese Pinwheels

2011-07-13T14:48:00.001-07:00

Now before I jump into the Ham and Cheese Pinwheels, let me start off by saying that I realize that my blog seems to be morphing into a Food Blog. It’s not intentional but it does seem to be that way lately. It’s just where my head is these days I guess. :) I seem to do everything in spurts. I get obsessed with certain things. A new stencil….BAM….5 blog posts in a row about stenciling. French Macarons…BAM…post after post of my macaron baking attempts. One found piece of junk from Goodwill transformed and BAM…10 trash to treasure posts. Stick with me….something besides food will grab hold of my attention. And and if not that’s okay too!

So, back to the post at hand. It was my turn to host the Mah Jong group this week. The last time it was my turn to host a snow blizzard (and I do mean blizzard, which is very rare for these parts I might add) hit and only two people who live in the neighborhood were brave enough to come. Boy, did I have leftovers after that night! Well, this time things turned out much better. Click HERE if you want to see what I made that night. The Feta Dip alone is worth the click.) :)

One of the things I made this time were these Ham and Cheese Pinwheels. I tried making them for the first time a few weeks ago for a Happy Hour we were invited to after seeing them in Ina Garten’s Back to Basics Cookbook. I thought I would get fancy and brushed them with an egg/water mix thinking it would make them look better when they came out of the oven. Big mistake! The egg/water wash actually made them so brown that they looked burned. This time I left them alone and I had much better results. They were very good.

A few weeks ago I was at a cheese seminar and was given a few very nice pieces of cheese to take home with me. Lucky me! One of the cheeses I brought home was a nice piece of Emmentaler. Emmentaler is similar to a Swiss cheese and is often used in Fondue and melts nicely. I grated up the whole piece and used it in the Ham and Cheese Pinwheels. Gruyere is also a wonderful choice to use here too.

HAM AND CHEESE PINWHEELS

1 package of Pepperidge Farms Puff Pastry (2 pieces of Puff Pastry)

Grey Poupon, Country Dijon Mustard

Sliced Ham from the Deli, sliced very thin

8 oz. shredded cheese ( Swiss, Cheddar, Gruyere, and Emmentaler work well)

Thaw the Puff Pastry according to directions on package. Flour your counter surface and rolling pin lightly roll out one piece of your puff pastry until it’s about 9 x 11 inches. Spread the sheet of puff pastry with Dijon Mustard. Lay pieces of the sliced ham on top of the mustard. Sprinkle with about half of the grated cheese. Roll up the pastry/ham/cheese along the long edge and roll it into a log. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour. Repeat this process for the 2nd log and place in the refrigerator.

After the logs have had time to chill, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Slice each log in half and then keep slicing each half in half until you have about 16 pieces from each log. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for approximately 18 minutes checking on them to make sure they are not getting too brown after 14 minutes. (Mine actually took 20 minutes.)

Makes about 32 pieces. Best served warm.

Delicious!