Super Bowl Sunday

So, I feel very old today. My Dad's girlfriend and I went to a Super Bowl party thrown by a family I used to babysit for. Their two boys are now way taller than me. The eldest is driving. Ugh. It's like yesterday they were so little. Time flies huh?

Anyway, I made cinnamon sugar chips and fruit salsa for the party, and it got rave reviews. Here is the recipe:

Cinnamon Sugar Chips
Ingredients:

• 10" flour tortillas
• Butter or Pam with butter
• Cinnamon (to desired taste)
  
• Granulated White Sugar (to desired taste)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray butter (or spread melted butter) onto tortillas. Mix cinnamon and sugar to desired taste (I like more sugar than cinnamon in mine). Spread cinnamon-sugar mixture over tortillas (coat them well!) and slice into "chips" with pizza cutter. Place onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for about 10-14 minutes or until crispy. Cool on wire rack.

Fruit Salad
Ingredients:

• Green fruit
• Yellow fruit
• Red fruit
• Blue fruit
• Whatever fruit you want
• Granulated White Sugar
• Lime Juice

Chop up all fruit, add two tbs of lime juice per 4 cups of fruit salsa. Add sugar to taste. Easy - but time consuming!

Just strawberries and kiwi

Add lime! Here I had already added apples and pineapple

Because I've been watching so much HGTV lately, here is my favorite Super Bowl commercial:



Hope you had a fantastic day!

Much Love,

Treasure Tuesday

Did you know I live in the only state where gambling is allowed statewide, but lottery is not legal? That makes sense.

So, in order to participate in the Mega Millions $335 Million jackpot, I had to go to California. And wait in line. For an hour. It was crazy. But hey if you don't play, you can't win - right? Here is a picture of the front HALF of the line:


Then, we went grocery shopping. And I came home and finished another curtain. Then we made dinner:

Chicken-Okra Saute

• 12 oz uncooked boneless, skinless chicken breast
• 1 medium onion, thickly sliced
• 1 medium green pepper, chopped
• 1 medium red pepper, chopped
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 2 tbs canned chicken broth
• 1 medium garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 2 cups fresh okra, or 10 oz package of frozen okra
• 1/8 tsp black pepper

Spray a large nonstick pan with cooking spray and heat over medium heat. Cut chicken breast into 1-inch cubes. Add onion, peppers, wine and broth to pan. Saute for 2 minutes. Add garlic, red pepper flakes and chicken, saute for 3-5 minutes until chicken is almost cooked through. If using fresh okra, add to pan and continue to saute until chicken is cooked through and okra is cooked but still crispy, about 3 minutes. If using frozen okra, add frozen okra directly to pan, and stir to break apart and thaw. It will take 5-8 minutes to cook okra and chicken.

Then I made banana bread. And watched The Wonder Years and Doogie Houser. I forgot how much I loved watching those shows!

I am tired. It is time to veg and put on jammies.

Much Love,

Warble Wednesday

I just realized I didn't title yesterday's post. So I titled it today. Nothing like changing the past right?

In this post I am going to share the most fattening, decadent chocolate recipe ever. So if you don't want to be tempted, don't read the end. But you will be missing out. Know that. And everyone else will be fat and happy.

It snowed today. Blizzard like snow.

We decided to stay home.

I donated to the March of Dimes today in honor of my nephew. I hope they can figure out how to stop miscarriages due to umbilical cords. If you would like to donate in his name, click March of Dimes Bands and type in my last name in the search area at the bottom of the screen (obviously only friends and family will be able to do this) he is the only one listed with our last name. No parent should ever have to go through the pain that my sister-in-law and brother-in-law are dealing with.

NOW. On to the good part! Are you ready for this? It's almost sinful.

Say hello to Brownie Covered Oreos. Yes. Chocolate on chocolate. The full recipe came from the Picky Palate blog here.

I chose to use mint Newman-O's. As in Paul Newman. Because all the holiday Oreos were gone from the supermarket. And this recipe is one million times better with mint Oreos.

So, mine did not turn out pretty. This is due to the fact that my muffin pan was not proportioned for perfect circles. That's OK. They still tasted fantastic. Here is what mine look like:

I bet your mouth is watering.

And I will leave you with that. Sweet dreams! Literally - I hope you dream of sweets.

Much Love,

Tetrad Thursday

Hello. It's almost the weekend - yay!

Here is dinner:

Ravioli With Sauteed Zucchini

Ingredients

• 1 pound cheese ravioli (fresh or frozen)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 small zucchini, sliced into thin half-moons
• kosher salt and pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan (2 ounces)

Directions

1. Cook the ravioli according to the package directions. Drain them and return to the pot.
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the zucchini, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and cook until just tender, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes.

   

3. Add the zucchini mixture and 1/4 cup of the Parmesan to the ravioli and toss gently to combine. Serve with the remaining 1/4 cup of Parmesan.

   

Also, I have a friend who has a very tiny dog. It's a chihuahua. Sigh (can you tell how I feel about yapper dogs?). But she recently lost her dog's little pillow for her truck. She has leather seats and now the dog slides around in the seat. Giggle! So I decided to make her a new one using fleece and batting.

Cutting out the bones:

I decided to put just one little camouflage bone on each side:

Hopefully she likes it!

A tetrad is the cardinal number that is the sum of three and one..... so.... that would be the number 4.

Happy Friday eve to all!

Much Love,

Whiskerine Wednesday

Yep. I ran out of swanky W words. What is a whiskerine you ask? It's a beard growing contest. Don't think I'll be entering into any whiskerines. At least I hope not.

Well, I went to the river today. Everyday. Now that isn't even worth talking about.

So, we'll talk about dinner. I need to learn to read recipes all the way through. Or, I need to find a better cookbook. Anyways, I somehow missed that fact that I needed a pressure cooker for dinner tonight. And noodles. Le sigh.

Luckily my Mother-in-Law has a pressure cooker. We borrowed it. As for noodles, we had to substitute spaghetti. Here is our interesting dinner:

Beef Burgundy

• 2-4 pounds beef round steak
• 1 cup Burgundy wine
• 1 medium onion finely chopped
• 1 large clove garlic, crushed
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 pkg. dry-onion soup mix
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbs finely snipped fresh parsley
• 1 cup water
• 1 can whole mushrooms, drained
• Cooked noodles (I would say wide egg noodles go best)

Trim meat of fat and discard. Cut meat into bite-sized pieces. In a pressure cooker, combine soup with water, dried soup mix, Burgundy wine, onions, garlic and mushrooms. Mix well and stir in beef. Add bay leaf and parsley. Cover with lid and bring cooker up to 10 lbs. pressure. Cook for 25 minutes and then serve over cooked noodles.

Meat!


Cooking!


Eat!

The spaghetti wasn't awful or anything, just didn't go as well as wide egg noodles would have.

Hope you had a great day!

Much Love,

Scorching Saturday

What does one do when it's forecasted to be 100 degrees outside? Go dig in the dirt of course! We decided to start digging out portions of the backyard for decomposed granite. We decided to start in the most difficult part of the backyard: the rock wall. There are 75 million rocks buried in the dirt next to the rock wall. It took forever just to dig out one half circle area. In the sweltering heat. Oh boy!

But I did start us off with a fantastic breakfast. Drumroll please....... today I made cinnamon rolls from scratch! AND they tasted amazing! Go me! Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup margarine, softened
• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 (.25 ounce) package instant yeast
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 egg
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup margarine, softened
• 1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Directions

1. Heat the milk in a small saucepan until it bubbles, then remove from heat. Mix in margarine; stir until melted. Let cool until lukewarm.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine 2 1/4 cup flour, yeast, sugar and salt; mix well. Add water, egg and the milk mixture; beat well. Add the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. When the dough has just pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes.
3. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, cinnamon, softened margarine.
4. Roll out dough into a 12x9 inch rectangle. Spread dough with margarine/sugar mixture. Sprinkle with raisins if desired. Roll up dough and pinch seam to seal. Cut into 12 equal size rolls and place cut side up in a lightly greased 9 x 12 pan. Cover and let rise for about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes, or until browned. Serve warm

Here is the rolled dough with the filling ready to be cut:

Here is the finished product:

Now you can top these off with icing (I didn't have any cream cheese or powdered sugar so no icing for us), but I made a melted butter/cinnamon/sugar topping for ours. These of course, are completely fat free and calorie free **In la la land**

Hope you had cooler Saturday than me!

Much Love,

Summer Saturday

I'm exhausted. I've been up since 5:00 am. Why does one get up at 5 am on a Saturday? To go grocery shopping of course. Have you ever tried to shop at WinCo on a Saturday? It's insane! Luckily WinCo is open 24 hours and you can shop there at 6 am when there are hardly any other people there. It's nice.

Also, I cleaned my house today from top to bottom. All the fun little things like cleaning cabinets to shining up the leather on the furniture. The hubby mowed the yards and pulled weeds.

Then the hubby's family came over for dinner. We had a DELICIOUS dinner. London Broil, mashed potatoes with bacon, grilled zucchini & green pepper, cucumber in vinegar and fruit pizza for dessert. Yummy!

Here are some pictures from our day:

These GIANT birds landed on the fence. I about fed the cat to them. Almost.


The boys playing X-Box.


Here is the hubby slicing his london broil. It's his specialty on the grill.


London broil.



And here is what I made:

Ingredients

• 3 cups finely crushed pretzels
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups cold butter or margarine
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened

Directions

1. In a bowl, combine pretzels and 2/3 cups sugar; mix well. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Press into a 14-in. pizza pan. Bake at 375 degrees F for 8-10 minutes or until set. Cool on a wire rack; refrigerate for 30 minutes.
2. In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spread over crust. Arrange the fruit as desired. If you use bananas, soak them in lemon juice for 5 minutes prior to placement on pizza. Refrigerate pizza for at least one hour prior to serving.
   

You'll notice I had to put foil under my pizza pan because it has holes for venting.

Surprise! My great aunt just called me to let me know she was in town. I'm so excited to get to see them tomorrow!

Hope everyone's day was as good as mine.

Much Love,

Temptation Tuesday

Every month, the hubby craves sweets. Sometimes in the form of cookies. Sometimes in the form of cupcakes. Today was a cupcake day. He LOVES the ones I make from scratch. Here they are:

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 cup milk
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour or add baking cups to a cupcake pan. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream sugar and shortening until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Add flour mixture alternately with milk, beating just to combine. finally, stir in vanilla. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Frost and enjoy.

I didn't have any powdered sugar so I couldn't frost them, but here is what they looked like from batter to baked:

Notice my awesome Le Creuset rubber spatula. I picked a package of these the last time I was in Portland from the Le Creuset outlet. YES. That is right. Le Creuset has an outlet! I would have brought home a whole bunch of pots had I not been traveling by plane. Dang it. Road trip to Portland anyone?

On a more somber note, I found out that my grandparents had been robbed today. This is how horrible our society has become. I hope their insurance covers everything that was stolen. People who do this sort of thing are extremely desperate - how much can you get for a kitchen sink? Ugh.

I hope everyone else had a good day.

Much Love,