By The Numbers

I've been on vacation the past couple of weeks.  Unfortunately, handsome hubby had a "mandatory" training class and wasn't able to join me.  Don't get me started on the word "mandatory"...

Anyway, here are some stats from my travels -

Miles traveled - 2998
Cousins seen - 23 (this includes cousins, children of cousins and grandchildren of cousins)
Aunts and uncles seen - 5
Great nephews and great nieces seen - 3
Funny faces Clara made that made me laugh - lots
Lucas nieces seen - 1   (:
Lucas nieces NOT seen - 1  ):
Mesquite beans bagged - gazillion
Desserts that included peach cobbler - 2
Princess sunglasses worn - 2
Kincaid's Hamburger print ad star seen - 1
Books read - 2

Life, Lemons, Zucchini

You've heard the saying "if life gives you lemons, make lemonade"?  Well, how about "if life gives you zucchinis, make zucchini boats"?!

Slice the zucchini and scoop out the middle.  In a saute pan, mix onion, zucchini scooped stuff, ground turkey and cook until done.  Season with salt and pepper.  Transfer to mixing bowl and add 1 cup cooked quinoa, a dozen or so fresh basil leaves from your garden (rinsed and chopped) and 1/2 cup of goat cheese crumbles.  I also added some paprika to give it some color.

Heat up the grill, and place the zucchini halves on the grill; cook until al dente.  (Can zucchini be al dente?)  Scoop veggie/turkey mixture into hollowed zucchini, top with shreds of provolone cheese.  Grill until cheese is melty/toasty.

Enjoy!

(These are B.I.G.  Ted and I shared one boat, and we'll be sharing the other for lunch tomorrow.  The veggie/turkey mixture makes a lot too, so I'll be looking for what to do with the rest of the mixture!)

First Fruits

Straight from my garden...and into my belly!

My thumbs are SO green!

Before...

During...

(CRAZY tomatoes in back, zucchini lower left, red bell peppers lower center, basil lower right, and marigolds to keep the bugs away)

(Quite a few developing peppers...they should turn red in a few weeks)

(Tomatoes have gone CRAZY!  Next year I will buy much sturdier cages.  I put up a chicken wire fence today to keep them up)

(Gorgeous and aromatic basil, with a few marigolds)

(A couple of teeny tiny zucchinis starting to grow)

(I don't think the leeks are going to survive the attack of the CRAZY tomatoes)

(This tomato is as big as a lemon)

Hopefully we will have some delicious fresh produce by the first week in August!!!

I'm Such a Copy Cat

Dinner tonight...

Grilled turkey sausage with green bean fries.  I also mixed some Ranch dressing and stone ground brown mustard for dipping purposes.  Excellent.  Thanks to my blogger friend Lawst & Found for the green bean recipe!

Heart Strings in a Spasm

I received this in the mail today from my sister.  I don't know why she had it, and I don't know where she got it, but seeing this made my heart just ache (in a good way) for my Nannie.

I know that I learned to write cursive in third grade but this looks pretty advanced, so maybe fourth or firth grade --- still this has to be close to 40 years old.

"Smile, Nannie, Smile!"  Be my valentine.  I love you!!!!! 

I love her very much.  Still.  Always.  Forever. 

Cousinly Fun

Nine years separate us, and we've never really spent much one on one time with each other.  Until last weekend. 

What a fun cousin I have!!!

Cut me some slack...

I've never seen a pink poodle.
I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you this right now...
I'd rather see than be one.

Guess I can't say THAT any more.

Yard Work

We woke up to rain this morning.  When it was all said and done, we had gotten 1.5 inches of the stuff.  The day was quite breezy, and by 6 o'clock it was dry enough that I was able to mow.  Again.  Ted mowed on Saturday.  Today is Tuesday.  And it's time to mow again.  I'll probably have to mow again on Friday.  But look how pretty our yard looks...

Speaking of pretty, look what popped up in our side garden this year.  Seriously.  I've never had tulips there before, and I didn't plant them.  That bed was even tilled a few years ago.  What a glorious gift!

But, before I get too excited, we have these pop up too...

Yesterday I "built" a raised bed garden.  That consisted of putting it together and adding 17 cubic feet of soil.  Oh, and fluffing up the dirt underneath it then leveling it.  I worked hard.  I even got a bleed.  Check it out...

Today I planted my leeks and a few marigolds.  I also have two tomato plants, a red bell pepper plant, zucchini and basil that need to go in.  Oh, and I bought a blackberry bush.  Not for the raised garden, of course, but for somewhere in some garden.

Is it weird to remember what you cooked for dinner one day in 1999?  Well, I remember because it was the first time I used my new Weber gas grill that I had purchased.  I had filet mignon (rare) and ranch style beans.  I have been waiting to use my new Weber grill to cook the same meal, but, well...things happen.  I ran out of gas from the old grill and ended up cooking Italian sausage on the new grill.  They turned out just as good as the filet all those years ago. 

Finally, speaking of food, I made a menu for the week and I have stuck to it.  Today was Italian sausage with pasta-y stuff (spaghetti, tomatoes, black olives).  Tomorrow is Julie's crock pot chicken with the carrots and sweet potatoes.  I'll let you know how it turns out!

Happiness Abounds

Happy April!  We are nearly half way done and rounding the corner to spring...  Time flies when you are getting older!

Here are some things that make me happy...

Look at that lazy bones puppy!  He loves morning pats...

This was a very fun surprise!  One of moms' friends painted a lovely watercolor of Levi from a picture I took of him on his one-year birthday.  She painted some others too, but this one is my favorite!

The LOML (love of my life) on our anniversary!

A hand-cut and hand-painted anniversary created by Bryan and Marie.  She even added bluebonnets (even though she didn't know I am originally from Texas)!

Redemption

Cookie redemption, that is!

I gathered my ingredients.  Once the cookies were mixed, I sandwiched a Reese's peanut butter cup in between two scoops of cookie dough.  Baked them at 375 degrees for 12 minutes.  Absolute beauty coming out of the overn!

Nom-nom-nom-nom-nom!

Cookie Challenge

Okay, so my sister challenged me to a cookie bake off.  Well, it's not really a bake off, but a cookie bake.  We each made Double Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Pretzel Cookies with a touch of sea salt, then we were to share those cookies with three different families and then blog about it.

Here goes...

I gathered my ingredients.  Things are looking good at this point.

Between this picture and the end, something went wrong.  It always does.  I am not a successful cookie baker.  Usually my cookies are thin and flat, either over done or not done enough.  Edible, sure, but not anything to look at or even enter into a bake off. 

So here is my first batch pre-oven.  They are a crumbly glop of round bricks...

Once they are out of the oven, they look about the same...round bricks. 



Oooh, the batter must be too dry.  I will add some milk to the batter.  The remainder of the cookies looked like this...

So that's my tale.  I took a batch of flat cookies to Ted's coworkers, then I shared a dozen with a man who I thought was moving in across the street but he was really the brother of the man who is moving in across the street (his name was Jay; the new neighbor will be Matt), and I shared the dozen thick ones with my neighbor Diane and her family who said the salt on top was funky.  I called them fancy.  Ted's coworkers encouraged another bake off...maybe NEXT Thursday!?

Will I bake cookies again?  Absolutely!  Will I participate in another bake off?  Absolutely!  As a matter of fact, I am thinking about a chocolate chip cookie stuffed with Reese's peanut butter cup, a la the choc chip with oreo cookie Ms. How Sweet showed us yesterday.  What do you think about that?!

Randomness

It's the last day of February already! 

Happy 83rd birthday to Aunt Marilyn in Arizona!  Who knew I would marry into a family with a Marilyn AND become part of a church with five Marilyns?! Korn, Neie, Wood, Green and Foster.  Marilyns of the world - unite!

Random thought #1 - It takes a long time for coconut to go from point A to point B...a long time.

Random thought #2 - Nothing says love like bacon...

Random thought #3 - I got a Weber grill for Christmas.  It's all fancy schmancy, with a gas burner on the side.  What's the first thing I cooked on the new grill?  Fried coconut!

Random thought #4 - I got a request a while back on "Words with Friends" from BeefJerkyDiet to play scrabble.  I assumed it was my cousin Steven.  (He is a big beef jerky fan.)  The note said "Yeah!  I got a good one mom!"  Obviously it wasn't Steven.  It ended up being a young lady in Los Angeles who thought she had sent the request to her mom.  We're still playing...

Random thought #5 - the progressive dinner went off without a hitch!  The theme for the evening was tropical flavors.  (We are all tired of the gloomy gray skies and dirty snow.)  Ours was the first house and we served prosciutto wrapped cantaloupe, bacon hearts topped with sweet and spicy chicken, and fried coconut.  We then went to David and Leslie's house for a crab/pasta salad and a mixed greens salad with fruit bites drizzled with raspberry vinaigrette.  Next we drove to Lisa and Scott's house for a Caribbean-style chicken with brown sugar-peanut spice rub and a Caribbean salad with black beans, corn, cilantro and red bell pepper.  Oh, and this.



Get some.  Seriously.  Add a little Bailey's to it.  I also added a splash of milk.  You won't be sorry.  It's 9:30 on a Monday morning and I'm thinking about pouring me a glass right now!  (But I won't.)

The last stop was Dana and Jeff's for dessert.  They served a yummy fruit medley with whipped cream, macadamia nuts and shaved chocolate.  Everyone had a great time and we have agreed to do it again very soon.  Maybe a Mexican or Italian theme the next time.  It's the perfect way to share some laughs, make some new friends and not have to be responsible for an entire meal.

Random thought #6 - I'm thinking of changing my blog name.  I'm leaning towards either Merrily Merrily Marilyn OR Prime-Marilyn.  Which do you prefer, or do you have a better suggestion?

Final random thought of the day - we are going to see these guys on Wednesday.  I'm looking forward to it!

Finding My Own Sunshine

Gray.  Gray.  Dirty Snow.  Wind.  Gray.  Gray.

That's been our reality for a while now.  Ugh.  Come on Spring!  Wake up, daffodils!  Elbow your way through the snow and dirt and bring us some of your glorious sunshiny yellow happiness!!!

However, yesterday was Valentine's Day and I was finding sunshiny happiness every where I looked!  Here are just a few happiness-makers from the past few days.....

This lady's visit made me VERY happy!  We went to a dairy and were

about to see a baby calf being born.  Shhhhhhhhh.  (It was a boy!)

Oh, my handsome hubby is definitely a happiness maker!

And a pie-maker to boot.  Shoo-Fly Pie, anybody? 

Makes you want to sing that song, doesn't it?

Va-va-voom!  Worked all day in a flower shop then got the last delivery of the day...

Hubby got some happiness, too! 

But the sweetest, most loveably precious rays of sunshine came at the end of the day.....



Those smiles say it all! 

Come to my house.....NOW!

Are you hungry for a little breakfasty/brunchy something?  Well get ready. 

But first I want to say something. 

I was introduced to a sweet blog not too long ago.  How Sweet, you may ask?  Anyway, I've made two of her recipes and I am on the fence with her.  The first dish did NOT taste like chocolate chip cookie dough.  It was sweet, buttery, cheesy and chocolately, but it was no where near CCCD.  I had to give a thumbs down to the recipe, simply because she had me salivating for some CCCD and none was to be found.  The second dish was definitely all it is cracked up to be.  As a matter of fact, it is better than it is cracked up to be, and I have a stomach ache to prove it!   

So this third recipe was a test.  If it doesn't trip my trigger, I may have to be done with the little Sweetie.  So here goes.

Chop up about four slices of bacon (or pancetta if you have it).  Add a little olive oil to your skillet and saute your bacon bits.  Lop off the head and tail of two leeks (you DO have leeks in your fridge crisper, right?), wash, dry, then thinly slice .  Toss in with the bacon and stir around. 

Check out this close up...

While the bacon is browning and the leeks are carmelizing (about 6 to 8 minutes), rinse and drain a can of Cannelini beans.  These are white kidney beans.  What?  You don't have Cannelini beans in your pantry?  Well I do.  (Well, not any more because I just used them to make this dish...)  Mix together and allow the beans to warm.  I added a little salt and pepper at this point.

Push everything over to one side of the skillet.  Add oil, butter or whatever you want to keep an egg from sticking to the pan, then crack open an egg into the skillet.  Fry that baby up, being sure not to crack the yolk.....like I did......because I didn't add oil, butter or whatever. 

Once the egg is done, spoon some of the bean, bacon, leek mixture onto a plate and nestle the egg on top.  Add a little more salt, a little more pepper.  Behold the finished product (please do not judge me by the looks of this one egg)......



And the verdict? 

Major success!  Brava!  Deliciouso!  The best breakfasty/brunchy thing I have ever had - dad's breakfast excluded.  My plate is so clean I can just put it back in the cabinet. 

Ewwwww.  Okay, I won't do that.