Jan 17, 2012 | Texas, Travel, United States
Weekend before last my girl and I went on a fast and furious trip to Dallas.
She had an audition for an ABT summer dance intensive and we thought we’d just make a “girl’s trip” out of it! (We had never been on a trip without the boys!)
We stopped by my grandma’s before checking into our hotel and had a fast but nice visit with Grandma, my aunt and uncle and “little” cousin. I gauge the age of my marriage by how old he is because he learned to walk at our wedding! Let’s just say he’s mid-way through college and a handsome fellow so I remembered our 20th anniversary is coming up this year…
Emily and my idea of a good time always involves really good food so we went to Zorba’s, our favorite Greek restaurant, and had a truly marvelous meal. I might have embarrassed Emily a bit when I asked the waiter how to say avgolemono a few times. Divine soup it is. We topped it off by getting some baklava to take back to the hotel for breakfast!
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| Greek Heaven |
Before the auditions we walked a mall to work off some nervous energy, and then had to head to Coppell. It was a great studio. There were so many trying out (including several of her friends from here) that they ended up starting an hour late so we didn’t get out until five. On the way home we found another great restaurant called Tiramisu’s in Coppell. Great food and we had the place to ourselves. Then it was on the road again for home. (Only a five hour drive home…)
It was our first “girl’s only” trip and it was so much fun to do what we wanted to. Hope to take a longer one soon! NYC maybe?
Jan 13, 2012 | Uncategorized
I am not making resolutions but…
I do feel the need to make a new beginning in 2012.
What is it about the New Year that makes us feel the urge to change?
A few changes around here:
- I have four “new” chickens we inherited from a friend. They lay the biggest eggs!
(They’re picking on my sweet chicken so not sure I like them yet.
Mom is going to take a few once she has a coop to put them in, so I
think I’ll give her “Meany” or “Big Red” as the kids call her. Then
maybe my old girl will come out from under the deck.) You learn what “pecking order” means when you have chickens!
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| “Big Red”, “Spotty” and “Special” begging |
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| The Girls Pecking (Pillow is under the deck of course) |
- I’ve only gotten one parking ticket this year! (Oh, it’s only been 13 days?) Well, I’m making a pact to get a roll of quarters today so I’ll maybe avoid another (before February anyway.)
- I want to lose the baby weight. It’s only been 2 months so I’m not pushing it, but watching what I eat- doing “Lose It” again (iPhone app) and have lost one pound already. Yesterday I used practically half of my calories eating a bowl of oatmeal- did you know there are 500 calories in a cup of Scottish Steel Cut Oats? Yikes. Gave the chickens the leftover Christmas cookies to get them out of my reach. Need to go back to yoga.
- After getting the estimate to add on to this house I’ve decided to
purge. In this market I
don’t know if it’s worth adding up, and we can’t find anything we like that isn’t a fixer-upper or crazy expensive. I started on my desk area yesterday and
ended up making a much bigger mess but I figure it’s a start. If I can do one drawer or shelf each day it shouldn’t be too bad…
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| Desk (Mid way done) |
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| Yikes! All this fit on the bookshelf? |
- Going to attempt stick to a budget and menu AND use my coupons. (We’ll see how long that lasts.)
- Want to start something creative this year
What plans do you have for 2012?
Happy Friday the 13th!
Jan 4, 2012 | Green Living, Recipes, Sides & Salads, Uncategorized
In November, before the first frost hit us,
Mom decided we should pick all the peppers and tomatoes we could from her beautiful garden.
She has a beautiful garden, and I didn’t realize how many she was talking about until I went to help her pick!
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| One of many trays… |
There must have been four large baskets of tomatoes and probably two full trays like this. As for peppers we couldn’t even pick them all- habaneros, hot Chinese, jalapenos, and more.
We scoured the internet for recipes for green tomatoes and peppers, and ended up mostly just winging it anyway…
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| Pickled (Dill) Green Tomatoes! |
For the pickles we just followed a basic pickle formula (with regular vinegar, not cider) and then added fresh dill, some hot peppers, garlic, peppercorns and sliced green tomatoes then processed them.
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| Upside Down Pepperoncini! |
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She had enough banana peppers to make about five or six jars of pepperoncini (our fave.) We just pickled these too (with no dill.)
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| Green Tomato Salsa! |
We had so many tomatoes left over and wanted to make a salsa of some kind. Our favorite salsa is Herdez Tomatillo/Green salsa and we thought, “Why not make a green tomato salsa?” We only made about three jars of this and it came out so yummy! Basically it was chopped green tomatoes, jalapenos, chopped onion and garlic, cilantro, a bit of cumin and salt, some lime juice and touch of vinegar and then we cooked it. I should have written the recipe down!
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| Our Green Bounty |
Our next day we made THE HOTTEST pepper jelly from basically all habanero (aji chombo) peppers and a few jalapenos and Cayenne peppers. We had to cook it outside on the grill because it was so hot, then processed it inside. It came out a beautiful golden color with red and green flecks. I just used the pepper jelly recipe on the pectin package. I swear it’s the hottest goodness you have ever tasted.
Mom still had a ton of peppers at her house so she made aji chombo sauce (Panamanian hot sauce) basically just aji chombo (habanero) peppers chopped up, vinegar, mustard, chopped garlic, chopped onion, and salt and pepper put into a bottle to sit in the fridge. Very, very, hot so be wary.
