the coincidental avocado...

Yum!

Fran, a sweet friend of mine was kind enough to share a couple of beautiful home grown avocados with me. They were perfectly ripe, and large, and ready to eat.
Naturally, I decided to make a batch of Guacamole (yum!) and to also make croissant sandwiches with turkey, bacon, tomato and avocado.  (If you add bacon.... the husband will eat avocado)
So, after a long day, we sat down to dinner and popped in a movie. We decided to watch the movie Big Miracle.  Just as we dipped our corn chips into the Guacamole, there, in the opening scene, was a reporter talking all about avocados and Guacamole - we looked at each other and started laughing - guess you had to be there LOL but we found it to be a humorous coincidence.
Anyway, if you haven't seen the movie it's about the 3 whales stranded in the ice up in Barrow Alaska, back in the '80's, and based on a true story.  My review- a thumbs up - we thought it was a nice family movie and I really enjoyed it.
We also have an avocado tree, but apparently our naughty squirrels have eaten all the buds before they can form into fruit. Oh well, lucky for us we have nice friends.

While I was away at quilt retreat (more on that soon) my friend Karen & I stopped at one of our favorite stops. The Earthbox store, to get planting supplies and starts.
I came home with a grape tomato and bell pepper start and a new mini Earthbox to add to my collection. Come October, I'm going to try green onions and radishes in the mini box.  After speaking to the farmer, it turns out I was planting my onion seeds too early.
This morning I finally got my planting started. In one Earthbox I have snowpeas, green beans and beets.  Haven't tried beets before, so I am curious as to how they will do.

 In the other box, I have my grape tomato and bell pepper. I need to go get more soil, so my third box will have to wait a day or two. The third one will have red romaine lettuce and spinach.

Now I can't wait for harvest time, and the cooler weather ahead. Hopefully this will be a green thumb year!

puzzled?

Made another jaunt up to Wisconsin in July, my Dad had to have a pacemaker put in and I surely wanted to be there to support him and my mom. It was amazing though, how quickly they put pacemakers in. He was out of surgery in about 1-1/2 hours and is doing just great. He had to stay in the hospital just one night. Here he is in the waiting room beforehand with my sister-in-laws husband. Looking pretty relaxed huh. All went well and he is recuperating very well too.

While I was there we had the rest of the family over a few days later to celebrate my moms birthday.  We also worked on the puzzle from *H E (double hockey sticks) that I started while there.
*If you don't know what H E double hockey sticks means ask someone older.
Anyway this was a puzzle of a Gee's Bend quilt, mostly black and white with a touch of red. I would tell you the name of it but it is still on the table at my parent's house! Of course we assembled all the areas with red in them and now all that's left is black and white.

 My niece and nephew (seen here) told me I was evil for bringing it. Even though there were about 7 or 8 of us working on it - it never got finished before I had to leave the next day. I keep asking my dad if he finished it and all I get in response is a chuckle.

My mom and I went to the grocery store and picked out her birthday cake. Heve you ever heard of a Fürst Pückler cake  ???? Well...neither had we until then. We saw it in the bakery case and it looked really good. It had a chocolate glaze instead of frosting. We asked the lady at the bakery counter and she said it was mutitple layers of vanilla and chocolate with strawberry filling and marzipan under the chocolate glaze.  When we googled it there seem to be several versions. It is a German recipe and named after Prince Pückler, Hermann Ludwig Heinrich Fürst von Pückler in fact. If you are bored or curious someday, google him.

Fürst Pückler cake - no really

Turns out it was a REALLY good cake and my mom (and everyone else) was happy she choose it.

mom's birthday ( she's at the piano)

Oh, and I just have to share this pic of dad (great Grandpa) with our newest family member, Miles.. my great nephew - he is so adorable!

twas the days after Christmas.......

Ho - ho - ho - hope your Christmas was filled with delight. I purposely stayed away from the keyboard over the holidays so I would spend my time doing fun stuff like baking cookies, visiting, sleigh riding, napping, eating, watching cheesy Christmas movies......... all that good stuff that goes along with Christmas and the holiday season. Fortunately , unlike my friend Karen, (poor Karen)
I didn't catch a cold nor did my hubby.
I did try some new Christmas cookie recipes though. I LOVE baking and this year I tried 3 new recipes.

The first was peppermint snowballs. They are cookies that get filled with a peppermint cream, baked and rolled in crushed candy canes and powdered sugar. Yummy! Speaking of candy canes my D.H. made me a set of 3 candy cane decorations for the yard. He's a real handy guy.

The next cookies were coco-mints. You make coco wafers and then sandwich them with green mint filling. Also yummy!
The third new recipe was double peanut butter cookies. You make the dough, which is peanut butter dough, form into logs, chill, slice and then add a small dollop of peanut butter, cover with second slice, seal the edges and bake. They are super peanuty flavorful! double yum!

Christmas eve we drove around to see some Christmas lights but didn't go to our usual light display neighborhood because we go there so much we know it by heart. So we picked a different neighborhood and we did catch a few ambitious displays.

We spent Christmas eve at my D.H.'s step brothers house for a tappas party and wow did they have a wonderful assortment! There were 2 kinds of shrimp, salmon and capers, lots of cheeses, chutneys, fruit, carved ham sandwiches, 3 kinds of ravioli, the squash ravioli was awesome! They had sausages, Italian wedding soup and then of course desserts - I will post the recipe for the nut yule log in a day or two for you.  It was unbelievable and it's a super easy no bake recipe. I usually don't even try fruit cake type loafs because they are not always very appetizing. You know all the jokes about doorstops and anchors right? Well, I had 3 pieces of this one - oink -oink!
Christmas Day was going to be in laws over for brunch but my FIL was in the hospital until late Christmas eve. He was too weak still to bring on an outing, so we shared the mid day meal with my FIL and MIL at their assisted living center then came home and took a short nap and then eventually got around to opening gifts.
Our Christmas dinner was quiet, we threw some nice beef tenderloins on the grill and relaxed the rest of the evening. 
I still have a few Christmas cards to mail out - yes really. I know it's almost 2012 but that's another story.......

color my world....

Well ~ at last my DH and I decided on a new color for the kitchen walls.
Gee, you'd think I was making decision with global implications for as long as it took me to choose a new color. There were paint color samples all over the place.

Here's the boring before..... yawn....of course this was after the ugly wallpaper came down.

here's the change in progress....

and the all done....

Anyway we decided to be brave and venture out of the comfort zone with this choice. It's not really aqua and not green either but somewhere in between. It's a little darker than the pics show.
It's a nice compliment to the terra cotta color of the floor and the straw colored countertops. The first couple of days when I walked around the corner into the kitchen it was like - WOW - but we like it. Now we just have to get some new wall art and decor  to complete the new look. I came across a modern leaf print at the All Modern online store. I like that the print is only 12" tall so it would fit in the space under the cabinets.
I'll have to ponder on that a bit longer ~ LOL

had enough turkey?

So...... just how many turkey leftover recipes have you been cooking up?

 I hope that everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving with family and friends. We had half of my DH's step family and his older step brother had the other half. No....there's no bickering, just making the size of the gatherings a little easier for the hosting families. The family has grown with nieces and nephews marrying and adding wee ones and moving closer. It was a great day, the weather was nice and it was good to get together to count our blessings and share our thanks around the table. The down side was I so missed sharing the day with my family up north.  sob, sob , sniffle, sniffle :(
I am so grateful to Alexander Graham Bell so that at least I can hear their voices over the miles. Texting is great and convenient, but there's still nothing like hearing the voice of your loved ones.
Of course it goes without saying that we ate our fill of the Thanksgiving feast and yet as always there was leftover turkey. Last night we had turkey enchiladas and we'll most likely have turkey sandwiches again for lunch today.  We're also working our way through the leftover apple pie.

I promised on facebook the other day that I would post a soup recipe and it's NOT turkey soup.
So here is my recipe for meatball soup...it's easy and it is a favorite of ours on chilly days.

Meatball soup
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic - minced
2 T olive oil
4 cups water
 2 cans condensed beef broth
1/2 can of 6 oz. tomato paste (3 oz.)
1 cup coin sliced carrots
2 cups cubed potatoes
1 egg beaten
1/4 cup snipped parsley or cilantro
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 pound ground beef
1/4 cup long grain rice uncooked
1 can black beans drained

In large pot, cook onion in oil until tender but not brown. Add the garlic and cook about a minute. Stir in water, broth and tomato paste. Bring to boil and add potatoes and carrots. Simmer for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile combine egg, cilantro or parsley, salt, oregano, pepper, ground beef and uncooked rice. Form into small 1 inch meatballs and add a few at a time to the simmering soup. Bring soup to boil again. Reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes or until veggies are tender. Add 1 can black beans and simmer another 10 minutes.
yummy ~ yummy
If you have any leftover freeze it for another day that begs for warm and hearty soup.

By the way, sorry I have not been posting as frequently. Now that I am working in the outside world I have been working on juggling up my free time between, designing, blogging, stitching and all the other aspects of my pattern business and life. Bear with me, I am also working on the next post for the tortoise paced stitch -a-long. At least you've been able to keep up LOL

BOO.....pumpkin painting and finger food

Happy Halloween...watch out for zombies this weekend, you never know where they might be wandering about. I spied this one waking up in our yard.


How many of you carved or painted pumpkins already? Share your links if you have them.
Did you bake the seeds?? They are so good right out of the oven all salty and crunchy.
How are you doing with the candy around the house?
Did you eat most of it already???
Come on be honest, are you going to have to go to the store for another candy run? 
Hubby brought home a big bag of mini peanut butter cups - very dangerous indeed! I snagged a bag of  Milky Way Midnights, mmmmm

Though it's still feeling quite summer-ish here, I whipped up a batch of pumpkin spice mini muffins and also made some ghoulish finger food snacks the other night for our dinner guests.

Some dear friends of ours were at a pumpkin patch and picked out a very nice pumpkin for us last week.
We usually paint our pumpkins because it's still warm here in S.Florida (oh sorry did I mention the nice weather already?) and when we carve them they rot too quickly. So I chose to paint again this year and decided to add a bit of zentangling too. I was torn between a happy pumpkin or scary pumpkin and being a pollyanna at heart guess which won out???

 I had plenty of room left on the other side of the pumpkin so I added the zentangled BOO.

 Then I saw this adorable idea for another Halloween appetizer..... you just take little smoky sausage links, wrap them with a small strip of refrigerator crescent dough, leaving a space for the eyes. Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. Take them out of the oven and let stand a couple minutes. Then add two dots of yellow mustard for the eyes. Aren't they cute?
They were yummo little mummy dogs!

What are you doing this weekend? Are you going to watch scary movies, go to a party, have a party or just eat candy? What ever you choose to do have a wonderfully spooky Halloween.......
BOO! did I scare ya?

you say tomato....

I say - wow do I have tomatoes!
My Roma tomatoes have really taken off since the weather warmed up. Fortunately, my mom shared this yummy recipe with me and so I will share it with you. My DH really liked it too.

Skillet tomato/zucchini melt

2 cloves garlic minced

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

2 T olive oil

2 zucchini  - peeled

2 tomatoes  - sliced

1-1/2 tsp. basil

salt and pepper

1/4 to 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

approx. 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

In a 9" skillet saute the onion and garlic in olive oil until slightly opaque, don't burn the garlic!

With slotted spoon remove the mixture from skillet and set aside.

Slice the zucchini and arrange in bottom of skillet. Add the onion/garlic mixture on top of the zucchini.

Sprinkle with the basil, red pepper, dash of salt and pepper. Cover and cook over medium heat until zucchini is just tender (not mushy).

Place sliced tomatoes over the cooked zucchini and cover the skillet again. Cook about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the shredded cheese and cover again until cheese is melted. 

mmmmmm, good!

I'm going to make this again tonight along with BBQ chicken.

I have another great tomato recipe I'll share soon. Now I have to go get some work done.

I will be posting the winner of the Sweet Vintage giveaway this Sunday, you have until midnight on Saturday to leave your comment on my April 9th  blog post to be entered.

Christmas wishes

Gosh, sorry I haven't been blogging much lately.
I want to make sure to wish you all (y'all) a very Merry Christmas season.
Today is only 3 days from Christmas, (how did that happen?) so, I hope you all finish up your lists and get all your errands run so that you can take the time to rejoice in the meaning and enjoy time (or long phone calls) with your family and friends. Enjoy embracing your old or new holiday traditions and may your days will be filled with blessings.
I have been busy, as I'm sure you have been too.
I dusted off my rubber stamps (oh-oh the D word) and made a few handmade cards for close family.
This year we did something new and even sent some of our cards in the form of e-cards. Yikes, I'm not real sure about doing this. I guess because it's a change from what we've always done and I don't know if people like getting them that way. After all you can't hang them up or put them on a shelf but there are such beautiful cards to choose from and the animations are very cool. Another plus is I don't have to stand in the card isle at the store trying to decide on which cards to buy. It always takes me forever to decide. My DH sends me on my own for this purchase.
I guess another plus is it's eco-friendly, hmmmm
what do you think?
Then it was on to cookie baking! I love making Christmas cookies and yes, I love eating them too :)
So far I have made chocolate brownie cookies with peanut butter morsels, spritz cookies, sugar cookies, ginger snaps and today I am going to make DH's favorite, cream cheese pillows.
It's been quite chilly the last few days so having the oven on is an added bonus. Do you have favorite cookies you make every year?










Merry Christmas to all.

Sweetness squared

OMG, Stitched With Prayer, I am so happy to have made you do a happy dance! I got your e-mail and your prize is on it's way to you. Thanks for the hug, you are sweet.
In fact you were all such sweet and gracious guests.
I wish I could share a cup of tea and the ginger snaps I made with all of you.
I will at least share some sweetness by sharing the recipe with you. As a matter of fact, several of my friends have been after me to give it to them so they will be happy to see this post... and I won't get scolded anymore. LOL
These really are great ginger snaps. I found the recipe in an old Wisconsin Electric Power Company Christmas cookie recipe book that my Mom gave me. There is no year printed anywhere in the book but the photographs on one of the pages show the women in the kitchen wearing high heels!
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Don't know about you but I liberated myself from high heels a long time ago.
I used to wear them every day - yikes. Now I can only handle a few hours at best and it has to be for a darn good reason. How about you?
Anyway...here is the coveted recipe....enjoy and share the sweetness.

Ginger snaps
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark corn syrup
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
(extra granulated sugar for rolling)
Cream butter: add sugar gradually. Blend in corn syrup and egg.
Add in dry ingredients and stir together.
Chill a few hours.
Shape into 1 inch balls and roll in sugar. Place 2 inches apart on cookie sheets. Bake @ 375 degrees for about 9-11 minutes. Cookies become crisp when cooled (unless it's really humid out)
Makes about 5 to 6 dozen.

Hint ~ I use the air bake cookie sheets and they turn out really nice on them.

mmm...macs, meatpies & mini-cakes

It's been a busy yet productive week and I have been meaning to post this from last weekend.
We celebrated our 35th anniversary (yes I was married at age 4) and we also celebrated my father-in-laws birthday. We always offer them the choice of going out or to cook something at home.
My father-in-law opted for home cooked, which meant a day in the kitchen. But I made the most of it and decided to get creative with it. You know if you have lemons...blah, blah, blah.


Anyway ~ I saw a recipe for spicy meat pies on the food channel one day and decided to try them. They looked like fun and sounded tasty. Everyone loved them.
I then needed a simple side dish and so whipped up the macs& cheese recipe from my friend Marti. Oh-oh, come to think of it, I believe I promised you this recipe a while back, so look at the end of this post for the recipe - no really.
Then I decided to make a cake, then thought maybe cupcakes would be fun, then decided mini-cakes would be even more fun!
I baked the cake (devils food) in a larger then normal pan and adjusted the baking time so it wouldn't burn. After the cake cooled I cut it into about 3" squares. Then I made little individual layer cakes. I put cream cheese frosting in the inside, frosted the outside with chocolate, and then frosted the tops with cream cheese frosting and sprinkled them with grated dark chocolate.
I don't think I will win any awards for my frosting skills.

No, this is not a low cal meal but tomorrows will be.

So here is the super easy yummy macs & cheese recipe.

CAUTION; could become habit forming - use with care
Marti's Macs & Cheese
1 can cream of mushroom soup (undiluted)
1 large jar of Cheese Whiz - yes I said Cheese Whiz (I think the jar is 12 oz. )
6 oz. milk
2 cups of elbow or small shell macaroni (measured uncooked)
1/2 cup bread or cracker crumbs - I used both because I ran out of bread crumbs
2 T. melted butter
Cook the pasta til al denté. Drain and rinse under cold water.
Spray a 2 qt. casserole (I used a 1-1/2 qt.and it bubbled over) with cooking spray.
Mix the Cheese Whiz, soup and milk together in the casserole. Add the cooked pasta and mix well. Bake in a 350 degree oven til bubbly and golden. About 40 minutes or so. Mix the bread crumbs and butter and sprinkle over the top about 10 minutes before it's done. (so after about 30 minutes)
That's it...told you it was easy and it's a crowd pleaser too.
Now off to nibble on some celery...... crunch, crunch, crunch

Parmesan Potatoes

I promised you I would give you the recipe for the Roasted Parmesan Potatoes.
My hubby (and I) really like these and they go so well with just about anything and they are super easy to make. You don't want to take up too much precious quilting time after all. Here you go.....

Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons flour
2 Tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon salt
dash of pepper
new potatoes (4 large or about 6 -7 small)
cut potatoes into 1/2" thick slices (leave the skins on)
2 to 3 Tablespoons melted margarine or butter
1 Tablespoon chopped parsley

Combine the flour, Parmesan, salt and pepper in a plastic bag. Moisten potato slices with water and shake off excess. Drop potatoes a few at a time into bag and shake to coat well.
Pour melted butter into a 9" x 12" x 2" baking dish ( or close to that size)
Place potatoes in the dish in a single layer. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes, turning once (halfway through) Sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve plain or with sour cream or applesauce.
Let me know how you like them.
Now back to quilting........

Happy New Year Squirrel

We have a new friend for the New Year, a new squirrel friend that is. This baby fox squirrel showed up with it's mom and a sibling last week. It seems as though it's mom is cutting the apron strings and is ready to take her leave of them. She has reluctantly let them nurse a few times but we can tell she's ready to be done with it. Anyway, this little one seems to like hanging around the deck, but the sibling must have found better diggs. Fox squirrels are larger than gray squirrels and are colored much differently as you can see. I have seen all black and all blond fox squirrels but the normal coloration is like this little one here.
Speaking of apron strings, I tied my apron on today to make some homemade applesauce. The apples are so good this time of year and it's just so easy to make it fresh. I usually use 3 different kinds of apples. Today I have 2 McIntosh 2 Gala and 1 Granny Smith. I peel and core them then cut into a large dice and toss them in the saucepan with a dash of lemon juice. I add 1/2 cup water, cover and cook over medium low heat. I stir every few minutes and mash them up with the spoon as they cook. At the end I add about 1/4 cup of sugar and cook about another 5 minutes. I usually buy the cinnamon flavor applesauce when I buy applesauce, but when I make it fresh I leave the cinnamon out because the apples are just so scrumptious without it.
Well tomorrow I head to the printer with two new patterns, my distributors should have them by the middle of January at the latest. I'll post the pics next year - speaking of next year... Yes, of course I have a New Years resolution. It's the same one as last year, get more organized and stop procrastinating. Oh well, what can I say.
What resolutions, if any do you have and are they also the same as last years?
Wishing all of you a Happy, Healthy and Creative New Year.

Florida Christmas

Yes, we decorate for Christmas in Florida, and yes, that's our bright green front door. In fact, sometimes I think we Floridian's tend to decorate a bit more to help jump start the mood in the absence of snow, ice, and frigid temperatures. In one popular downtown area we even have "snow" (actually soap bubbles) that comes floating out of the street lamps once a week. In Florida Santa may show up on a boat, a motorcycle, in a convertibles, on water skis or even on a hang glider. Santa is obviously still in pretty good shape. Today I started baking cookies. I have always loved making Christmas cookies. I pass them out to family, friends, neighbors, the postman, the UPS guy, etc. and my husband helps by taste testing every batch. Of course I always leave a few out for Santa. My favorite cookies are the old fashioned sugar cookies cut out with all sorts of cookie cutter shapes, (I'm a cookie cutter junkie) and then decorated with colorful frosting ala Martha Stewart. Except they somehow never look like hers, but I have fun doing it, she would probably faint if she saw the mess I make while baking.
Another favorite are Spritz cookies that are put through the cookie press. I loved it when my mom got out the food coloring and the cookie press and put in a disk and then out popped the prettiest cookies. I may have to go test those again before bed. I like to try a new cookie each year, this year I made chocolate mocha sticks and they are quite tasty if I may say so. They got the nod from my husband, and I've noticed quite a few missing already.
My husband suprised me one morning by setting up the tree before I got up in the morning. What a wonderful way to start the day.
It made putting the light and ornaments on that much more enjoyable. The tree skirt was a gift made by my dear friend Marti and we absolutely love it. The pattern she used is from the December 1999 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting and the designer is Karen Comstock, what a great pattern.
I spoke to my parents in Wisconsin today and my Dad had just finished coming in from blowing off the driveway with the snowblower after their 14" snowfall, brrrrrrr. Well, it seems that our Christmas day weather is obviously going to be drastically different from theirs.
They're going to be having quilt and hot cocoa weather, while we'll be having lemonade and shorts weather. We wish we could all be together for Christmas, but we will make do with numerous phone calls and e-mails and hopes that perhaps next year we will be. We did receive a package from home today filled with all kinds of goodies - cheese popcorn and fudge, my husbands favorites. Christmas cookies and butterhorns with apricot jam that my Mom made - my favorite. A tin on Pistachios and mixed nuts, no the squirrels won't get these, and a beautiful homemade Christmas card.
Well, I hope wherever you are, and whatever the weather, you have a very happy Holiday filled with family, and/or friends, laughter, good health, and the wonder of the season.
Merry Christmas to you and yours,
Linda