Christmas With The Girls

It was a little long in coming but it got here. 

Eventually. 

Let me take you through the creative process.

These are flowers made from zippers. 

I found a You Tube tutorial on how to make them. 

These were going to be simple pins. 

A pleasant gift.

But as time went by I had more time to "create"

and decided I needed to do something with this new found creation:

The basic design is to take a circle of anything, 

wrap the center over a pointy object, 

dab a bit of hot glue on the tip

and place it somewhere. 

Here I used fabric and a piece of felt as my base. 

But here Carol used paper bags and a styrofoam wreath form.

Viki uses t-shirt material and makes necklaces.

So now I had a zipper flower and fabric flowers. 

They needed a vehicle.

TaDa! 

They are Meijer, super soft and seeing as how our

Christmas was coming a bit late in the season, 

ON SALE FOR CHEAP!!

So I had the beginning of something.

But I just didn't feel like all the elements

related to one another. 

So here come the ties that bind.

AKA, decorative trims. 

And here you have them. 

The finished products. 

Who knows what they would have

 become if we had celebrated Christmas in say, oh,

 June?

Pork Stew With Ancho Chiles

Let me start by stating I have not found

Rachel Ray's food to be as consistently good

as my smiley friend Giada.

That being said, I have stumbled upon a keeper

in Rachel Land. 

Did you know that there are entire sites devoted to the

hating of Rachel Ray?

That's not even nice. 

I'm not a hater, just maybe not a fan.

But I digress.

And I haven't made that statement for a while

so that helped prompt the little 

Rachel side note. 

On to the food:

Sorry the picture is not the greatest.

The meat was not burned as this photo might lead you to believe.

The sauce you make is a bit dark and I'm not 

too great of a photographer. 

The combination of which excuses or explains this shot.

You choose.

The recipe is actually (actually) called

Savory and Sweet Pork Stew with Ancho Chiles

Kind of an excessive title. 

If you ask me.

It was really good.

I think you could substitute a chuck roast or 

maybe even chicken for the meat. 

Dried chiles come in a very large bag

in my neck of the woods so I will be looking for

more recipes that call for them.

The "pickled" onions were fantastic with the meat.

Don't skip them.

I may not have gotten the sauce as smooth as

intended. I am going to try to 

pulverize it a little more next time. 

And that's about all my observations on this one.

Oh, but one last note, I am NOT going to freeze this.

There are peanuts and almonds smashed up in there

that you would never guess. 

I am scared to death that I would pull it out of the

freezer, forget the nuts, give it to Shanna

and kill her. 

Maybe I should re-name this.

Killer Pork Stew?

Random Fond Memory

And I'll bet I didn't think too fondly of it at the time.

I'm not sure where to start this little rambling, 

at the beginning or in the middle.

I'm going to go for middle. 

We raised our children in a modest 3 bedroom

1 1/2 bathroom split-level house.

The full bath being on the top level with the bedrooms. 

The half bath on the lower level.

For whatever reason none of us were that fond of the 

1/2 bath so it was common practice if 

someone was taking a shower one of us would

knock and the door and shout, 

"you in yet?"

Once the shower-er was safely within the confines

of the tub with the curtain closed

the bathroom was open territory.

It never struck me as an odd thing to do. 

Until Rossella came. 

She would go into the bathroom and lock the door.

All the time.

I used to think that was so odd and 

isn't she lucky we aren't in that small house anymore?

Boy would we have freaked her out!

And then I got to thinking about that small 

house on Oakton Street.

There were 7 of us living in a 

two bedroom one bathroom house.

It was very common for Grandma to yell,

"shut the curtain" 

(we only took baths there)

and come on in. 

I'm sure it bugged the heck out of me at the time 

but for some strange reason the memory of sharing the

bathroom with my kids warms my heart.

Wanna know what prompted this whole thing?

Where the heck did we hang those seven towels??

Cinnamon Roll Pie Crust

Or defending my time on Pintrest

as not a total time suck. 

How cool is that!?

I found the idea on Pintrest. 

And f you don't know what Pintrest is, well

that's another story altogether.

What the picture is, is a pie shell made from refrigerator

pie dough that you unroll, spread butter and sprinkle

cinnamon on, then roll back up, slice thin

Place in a pie plate

and then smoosh down

to form the shell. 

How fun and easy is that!?

I chose to bake a cinnamon apple pie which was 

delicious

but proved to be a little heavy handed with the cinnamon

and so over shadowed the crust. 

I think next time I will try a pumpkin pie. 

Or something where the crust would compliment the pie

but not compete with it. 

So, now to keep all things in order, 

Food Network, research. 

Pintrest, research.

Margarita Fridays?

Marriage Proposal

Here's another post I never got around to posting. 

Well, actually never got around to writing. 

It's just the picture sitting in my file waiting for a post.

Michael and Michelle had decided to get married.

They had the date.

She had the dress.

People had been invited. 

They bought a townhouse.

It seemed they were able to figure out every aspect of the wedding.

One problem. 

Michael couldn't figure out exactly *how* he 

wanted to propose to Michelle. 

So rather than do it less than right, 

He hadn't done it at all.

Poor Michelle was getting a bit, um, 

anxious?

And then once he had his idea, coordinating every body's

schedule proved to be another delay.

But once it all came together it was perfect.

I couldn't imagine Michael proposing any other way. 

And this is what Michelle saw behind Michael.

Perfect.

One Year Ago Tonight

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

"Blizzard" Dinner

I'm not entirely sure I'm on board with this whole

"blizzard" thing. 

There is *some* snow and I will allow as how

it is blowing around quite a bit.

I have been photo documenting it.

If it gets impressive at some point, I'll post.

Until then, 

Dinner!

This is Martha Stewart's tomato soup.

It's so simple, 

saute onions and garlic in butter,

add 28 oz. can of tomatoes,

3 cups chicken broth,

simmer it all together for a while and then puree.

Voila!

(Wa-La?)

I usually add some red pepper for fun.

The, hmm, shall we call them,

"crustini"?

Are chibatta that I toasted, rubbed with garlic and then topped

three ways:

Tomatoes and Goat Cheese

Tomatoes, bacon and cheddar,

Tomatoes, bacon and Parmesan.

All in all not a half bad way to cozy up and enjoy a

not half bad "blizzard".

What a difference a year makes.

The Story of The Loaves and Fishes

I was looking through my old posts and came across this one
that I never published.
It's a good story.
I think I'll publish it now.
:o)

The Story Of The Loaves And Fishes

According to Merry.

And Lory.

And Kelly.

Sometimes the best parties are the ones you don't plan.
Not sometimes, ALWAYS!

This is one of my favorite stories and I'm in a story telling mood.
Once upon a time Mike and I were hanging at
Ken and Lory's.
It was a Sunday afternoon.
Kelly showed up.
Don't ask me how she happened to stop by.
Ken and Lory don't exactly live on a main drag.
But there she was.
At some point we decided we were all hungry.
Lory's cupboards were bare.
Kelly's trunk on the other hand was not.
Kelly, a single mom, had been on her way home
from grocery shopping.
Now understand, Kelly had been shopping for
herself and her young son.
We had the most interesting assortment of food.
It went something like 2 pork chops, a pound of
ground beef, random this, random that.
I can't remember what all we ate but it was the most fun.
And it seemed like the bags never went empty.

My dilemma for the weekend is trying to figure out
what new and inventive Tea sandwiches I can serve
for a baby shower in May.
Maybe I'm making this harder than it needs to be.
Who's got a trunk full of food?