Category Archives: cooking

Apr10

Easter Monday

Posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 by Dianne

This was a quiet day. Yesterday was too, but I was out in the kitchen for a while. Not that I mind, as I love that kitchen now. It will be almost a year since the remodel-hard to believe! We had Bri’s dad here, he talked our ears off and still tells Sean how tall he’s getting. I had ham and turkey-both freebies because of bonus coupons. We had the pasta salad, red potato salad, green beans, corn, rolls, coleslaw, a cool whip type prepackaged dessert and chocolate cake also from the store.

So here’s what I made with some of the leftover turkey:

You take a can of pineapple tidbits or chunks and make a sauce out of the juice. I added a little relish and maraschino cherries to make it a true sweet and sour. The other red you see are grape tomatoes and red peppers. I think I’d like it with shrimp and chicken better. You know how reheated turkey has ‘that taste’. Maybe I need to wrap it better for storage. We had brown rice and couscous too.
Hopefully off to mom’s tomorrow!

Apr3

$1.98

Posted on Tuesday, April 3, 2007 by Dianne

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is how much these gorgeous roses cost….

It was so nice outside today-71 and sunny. I got out the rake (the plastic one that doesn’t retract or expand-blah) and worked on a few of the gardens. Bri cleaned up the piles after dinner. I also grocery shopped and ran across the flowers above.
We had a nice dinner of fried boneless chicken breasts with an eggy kinda dijon sauce (followed a recipe) ,asparagus, stuffing and stir fried spinach-not bad!

Mar20

Bunnies are blushing

Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 by Dianne

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I do like my little bunnies-these are Blushing Bunnies (with other ‘friends’ like kitties and hedgehogs) all out for Easter and Springtime and will probably be there until September. I have some for Christmas cuties too.

Not a fun day as I had a sinus face ache at lunchtime. Taking a Tylenol right away saved me. Of course I’m thinking it’s the faulty heater-carbon monoxide poisoning or something. I bet I don’t sleep well tonight. Thank goodness the hunk of junk is going, but it’s kept us fairly warm all winter.

I got Martha Stewart’s newly released cookbook in the mail today that is based on her Everyday Food magazine which I love. I couldn’t really enjoy it as I was feeling so funky. I did find a recipe that utilized what I had in the frig and took some stuff out and added others. Came up with a grilled chicken and zucchini pesto tortellini dinner. It was good. Trader Joe’s sells the chicken already grilled and that’s my favorite way to eat it.

Mar19

One more day

Posted on Monday, March 19, 2007 by Dianne

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Yeah, so the furnace isn’t going to be replaced until Wednesday. The weather messed up the company’s installer’s schedule-boo hoo. I had just canceled my dental appt that day too. I decided to keep the whole week open. Bri has a few more things to move. I can’t as I sprained my right thumb and can’t lift things too well. I had hurt it a few weeks ago and then was replacing my M&M guy on my van’s antenna (stop laughing) and I pressed too hard with my boo boo and made an ouchie again. Get that?

I did get to mail some auction wins today. It took three drives around the parking lot before a spot opened up.

When I got up, I popped a pork roast in the crockpot and mixed up some stuff with the pulled pork McCormick seasoning. I had to stop and get rolls on the way back from the post office. It was really good! I had forgotten Bri had a pork sandwich Saturday night, but he liked my dinner better. Always nice to hear.

One thing I did bring up from the basement was all the clippings from when the Phillies won the World Series back in 1980. I was Sean’s age of 20. I have them in a big yellow envelope and they need to be put in a plastic box. I took the envelope out on the front step and hit it with my duster thingie-yes, it’s very dusty. I got to meet Tug McGraw, the relief pitcher who lived in my hometown. I know there’s a blog post about me getting his autograph. He use to frequent the bar up the street from my mom’s house. Tug was a great guy. If I find anything good in the clippings, I’ll share here. I plan to dump them in a clothes basket to further shake out the 26.5 yr old dust. ; )

Found this about Dallas Green’s managerial record (I see there is a singer with the same name!) Dallas may still live in West Grove, PA, a stone’s throw away and Applebee’s, the restaurant has DG memorabilia including one of his baseball shirts.

Year League Team Age G W L WP Finish
+—-+———–+——–+—+—–+—-+—-+——+——+

1980 NL East Phildlpa 45 162 91 71 .562 WS 1

Mar9

Things I made…Friday

Posted on Friday, March 9, 2007 by Dianne

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Instead of Art trading cards, I worked on this in the last few days:

A Sally Sells Seashells by the Seashore Shadowbox! It was fun to make. I bought the shadowbox at the local Dollar General for about $3 and took out what they had and started from scratch. I had that great scrapbook paper from the same store that resembles waves. The sun is from the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, PA. (remember my post a few weeks ago?) Moravian tile to be exact. I have tons of seashells too. I made the little bucket out of curved cardboard (it was a little birdhouse), red wire and the stand that came off the birdhouse. I’ll hang it out in the kitchen where this photo was taken.

Cooking for Lent can be challenging. I knew I wanted to make an egg dish for dinner as I had just bought 2 dozen eggs. This was in my great meatless Italian dishes cookbook. It’s a frittata with garlic, red peppers, parmesan, basil (frozen from my garden last year!) and capers. The basil really makes it. We enjoyed it.
Hopefully we’ll be going to the Philly Flower Show on Sunday, the last day.
Have a great weekend!

Mar4

Yucky and yummy

Posted on Sunday, March 4, 2007 by Dianne

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So what’s the worst thing that could happen to you that is house related? Not as bad as a fire, something you can clean up. What happened-Sean used too much toilet paper and I went in to use the facility. The water looked low, but I was in a hurry. I went to flush and you guessed it-geyser time! I was in my bare feet at least, but in my good dress slacks. I started yelling-get the plunger. Brian happened to have stepped outside. So Sean went running for the plunger just when the toidy let out a big gurgle and down ‘it’ went! We had water going through the floor into the basement. I had to first clean up the water with paper towels and then went over everything with antibacterial wipes-my poor back! We don’t have a huge bathroom, thank goodness. I have the little rugs to wash-tomorrow.

Bri went to the grocery store with me. He decided to go to the ‘cheaper’ store, which was really crowded. It was late, like 3:30 by that time. I decided to do a pasta salad with cut up turkey ham in it. Bri saw stewed tomatoes and wanted some. When I got home I cooked up the penne and the guys decided they wanted the stewed tomatoes and cut up ham on top of that (Sean doesn’t like mayo much). They loved it! I had what I originally envisioned-penne, ham, with mayo, dill, cheddar cheese and a bit of onion-plus a croissant. Not bad.

Tonight I enjoyed reading the People magazine about the Oscars with Patrick Dempsey and his new twin boys on the cover. So cute.

Tomorrow the snowbaby display in the big living room window is finally coming down and getting replaced with a spring display! I like the idea of switching it out every few months.

Feb18

Cooking tip for the day-oven bags

Posted on Sunday, February 18, 2007 by Dianne

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I probably mentioned this before, but when you are roasting beef, chicken or turkey, they will stay pretty darn moist in a Reynold’s Oven bag. You add a little flour to the bottom of the bag, add your meat, seasoning and veggies (like onions, celery and carrots) and tie the bag. Stick some holes in it and it’s ready to go! I have a turkey breast all cooked and we’re waiting on the potatoes.

Bri and I have had funny tummies this weekend. I woke up about 4 am suffering for garlic overload (I won’t go into details). I should have been watching my diet, but no, I had to have some white pizza last night. I can’t seem to handle yeasty foods-soft pretzels, homemade bread-doughy things in general. I’ve never really had that problem before (too much). I’m feeling better though.

I made some more ATC-I’m up to like 25 of them! These have some glitter on them! I traded 3 of these and I’ll get 3 back. I also made some St. Paddy’s ‘items’ for my crafting friends. They turned out nice and I’ll share soon.

Craft tip: You know those desk calendars printed on sturdy paper? Well I had a cat one and didn’t know what to do with it. You guessed it, I’m using some of the smaller kitties for ATC! They are cute if I don’t say so myself!

Feb13

First major snow

Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 by Dianne

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Finally, winter is showing her paler color! Unfortunately Sean had to drive the 23 miles to PSU as he had a test today. He only has 2 classes on Tuesday and Thursday. From my window, the roads look ok for now and people are traveling by at a normal speed-fast! Bri usually just goes to the closest office in this kind of weather instead of going down the twisty turny roads of Lancaster County.

I have the crock pot on with a Marie Callendar chicken noodle soup mix. I’ll be tasting it and maybe adding to it. It’s a good soup day. I also have the butter and yeast out of the fridge to try making my own loaf of bread without using a mix.

Yahoo-made from scratch-coca cola, flour, yeast and butter-that’s it!

Keep warm and cozy.

Jan31

Want some?

Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 by Dianne

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Excuse my paper plate…
Just like what my grandmom use to make-creamed dried beef. I think most people know what it is-dried beef cooked in butter and then doused with flour-you make like a roux. Finally the milk is added. Serve it over toast with lots of pepper. My choice of beverage-root beer! It’s a Pennsylvania treat for sure. Others-scrapple-made out of weird piggy or turkey’leftovers’, and I did eat it down the shore; cornmeal mush which is only sold in the winter in these parts and something Lee over at Lake Stitcher brought up-Taylor’s Pork roll. Such diet defying foods. What I made for Sean and me-the creamed dried beef had a bit of butter, but I used wheat bread and low fat milk.
The bread maker machine is on! It works-so far. I’m making Italian herb bread from a mix. It looks like it is rising pretty good. : )

Here’s the bread! It rose pretty well and had partial collapse of the top when it was baking. Sean couldn’t wait to dive in and it’s really good!

Jan31

Second Harvest Helper

Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 by Dianne

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Barilla pasta has a free ‘celebrity pasta lover’ cookbook available free here.

Kristin Davis, one of the contributors was on The Conan O’Brien show talking about it. I am printing it out-34 pages-some color intensive. When a cookbook has a Harrison Ford recipe, well I have to have it too!

The good thing about downloading this cookbook is that Barilla will donate $1 to Second Harvest to help the 38 million people (almost half are children) who don’t get enough to eat each day.

It’s a sunny but cold day here. Sean will be home soon and I will hear some complaining about Trig. He’s never had it before and is getting stuck on some problems. I hope he asked the teacher or his cousin Sierra (who is in his class) for help. He has a ‘math brain’, so hopefully he’ll catch on soon.