Category Archives: food

Sep8

27th year of the Mushroom Festival

Posted on by
Standard

Brian and I headed up to the next town where the mushroom festival was in full swing. It was a bit warm, but a breeze was blowing once in a while. This festival grows every year! There were rides for the kids, more than last year and lots of vendors. Not an exciting shot, but so hard to take photos

It was up and down the main drag-that walk is getting longer, but I didn’t mind it as much this year!

Almost every restaurant that lines the town on both sides was represented . Absent again was Longwood Gardens who has the best mushroom soup, hands down. I did purchase soup from another place and it wasn’t as thick and rich as Longwood’s is. We bought this sampling of food-not that cheap. Almost $33 for this:

Two cups of mushroom soup, two beef portabella burgers, mushroom/asparagus risotto (with very little asparagus) and stuffed grape leaves. Ouch right? I wanted one more thing, but we ran out of cash. The food was good, but not wonderful. I want to make that risotto and I will load mine up with mushrooms and asparagus.

Outside the Kennett Inn, Chef Antonia Lafoso was signing her cookbook. She was on ‘Top Chef’ about 4 yrs ago. We didn’t go to talk to  her as I wasn’t interested in her cookbook ‘Busy Mom’s Cookbook’.  If you remember when we saw Maria Muldaur, I do not care much for ‘celebs’ sitting or standing behind tables.  A few years ago at the festival, Food Network star Sunni Anderson was so sweet and put her arm around me for a photo. Standing up greeting people. That says a lot to me.

It’s an event we like to attend, a chance to sample food and maybe see someone interesting.

A few hours later, we had heavy rain, so it was a good thing we went when we did! I may go up again with Sean in the morning. He’s not much on moving fast on days he has to work though.

This evening I worked on some Artist Trading Cards! It’s been a few months and it felt good to be using my papers again.

Jun2

Photo Hunt-Taste

Posted on by
Standard
Mom-mom’s chili con carne, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Nothing tastes as good as my Grandmom Ruth’s recipe for chili con carne. I use celery and ground turkey with a sprinkling of cinnamon and lots of chili powder (love).

Bathroom update…I did a really stupid thing and could have saved myself a ton of time. The glass mosaic tiles came yesterday and I decided to put them up. I by mistake ordered a multi-color sample and that was glued securely on cardboard. The other two colors were on brown paper. All I really had to do was put the adhesive on in the space, cut the squares, ‘while still on the brown paper’ and push them into the space. I knew the 3/4″ squares wouldn’t need to be cut at all. So why I took them off the paper is beyond me! It meant I had to stick 100 squares on ‘individually’. So that being said, it was messy and I had a lot of cleaning and scraping today. I need to grout it now. Brian bought me the adhesive and we were in Lowe’s today to get grout and lo and behold, they sell adhesive and grout! Why he didn’t get that a few days ago.

Here is what it looks like without the grout. And guess what? Bri is hooking up the sink and it’s going to be even harder for me to grout this! I can’t get to the bottom row at all now unless he unhooks the pipes for an hour.

I got the shower curtain up and the hooks were a little tricky. I noticed Sean knocked two off the pole after showering last night. I hope they work okay.

Update-the sink is installed! Can’t wait to put the white grout in those mosaics!

It sure is more modern! Not sure if we can get rid of the soap and toothbrush holders without hurting the tiles.

I did get to work in the pond garden and got some pretty filler plants like Ornamental Pepper, a pretty raspberry color Salvia, bright yellow Lantana and a few other plants.  They should all fill in nicely around the pond. I noticed if I stand where the gazing ball is, the shape is almost heart shaped!

A few of my gardens are disappointing so far-the Sweet William/Asian garden. It’s not a good year for them.  My woodland garden was pretty when the Bleeding Hearts were blooming (and they bloomed a month or so!) My Nicotiana looked nice, but the Salvias never took off and are getting nibbled even though I used insectide soap on the constantly. I will probably pop a few marigolds in there.

Last but not least, I couldn’t resist to pick a yellow rose to enjoy. It smells wonderful!

Mar12

Crafty weekend

Posted on by
Standard

I signed up for some more Swap-bot swaps and pulled out my papers and things to work on 3 Artist trading cards for that. Then I decided to play around with some ideas and use a few items I purchased at Tinsel Trading Company up in New York. This is a sampling of what I did and I’ll show you many of them up close:

The daylight savings had us a bit off yesterday…a 11:15 am breakfast (let’s call it brunch) and then the other meals were more on time. We had delicious Trader Joe’s organic tomato soup and Kaukauna cheese on crackers for lunch. Best ever. Also had Trader Joe’s Mandarin Orange Chicken, rice and sauteed spinach, and a Blue Moon beer. ; )

More later….

Dec16

Cheers

Posted on by
Standard

I’m around, but incredibly busy between work, home and shopping. I’ll try to stop by when I take a few more photos. I plan to wrap a few gifts before work. I was ‘on call’ yesterday and forgot to call as I saw my name on Monday and didn’t go down the rest of the page assuming you are ‘on call’ once a week. He got me this coming week as I’m ‘on call’ 3 days. Brian and I went in last night to get him much needed shoes and got a terrific buy on Nunn*Bush. He got bogo for 50% off and then with the discount and buyer’s pass-he got both for $64 (leather). The one assistant manager had to check me out and said sarcastically that I ‘was in trouble’ as I didn’t call in. She kind of took away all the joy of buying Bri his shoes. For some reason a few of these a.m. think they are way better than the newbies. They are around my age and I don’t take crappola from them. I simply said I didn’t see my name further down. As I recall, when I had taken the schedule to my checkout, another a.m. came along just as I was writing down my hours and almost grabbed the paper and told me to tidy up. They are good at that. Anyway, the discounts are helpful to my family and me and that’s a big thing.

Sean and I took my mom to BJs Wholesale on Wednesday and then to Bertucci’s where we had a great waiter and great food and drink from start to finish.

This was amazing-white Sangria with Peach Schnapps.

We had white pizza with shrimp and an eggplant, tomato, basil and mozzarella appetizer. Sean and me had salad.

Have a great Friday!

Nov24

Happy Thanksgiving

Posted on by
Standard

Cooking at Thanksgiving, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

I hope everyone had a nice dinner!
I’m a bit late for a post as we are now finished dinner and waiting a bit for the clean up. All was pretty good-The turkey could have come out of the oven and rested longer. The side dishes were good-sauteed Parmesan Brussel Sprouts, ‘Smashed’ Yucan Gold Potatoes, Fresh Green Beans with sauteed mushrooms, Amish Sweet potatoes and Cornmeal stuffing with apple, pear and onion. This was the first time Brian ate good for a while. Sean is working overnight and is a bit anxious about that. I didn’t take any photos as we all look so blasted tired. : )
(Painting by Doris Lee)

Update-Sean left almost an hour ago for his overnight shift at Walmart. I go in from 4-8 pm. I’m still getting sore feet and knees. Ah the joy of standing so long! I go tidy up a lower shelf and sit on the floor sometimes.

Sep23

Homemade crockpot cheesy potato soup

Posted on by
Standard

I literally yanked out the crockpot and tossed about four ingredients in to start with. Mind you, many were not the correct ingredients. I ‘should have’ used southern style cubed hash browns and I bought shredded ones. Also used veggie broth instead of chicken, but tossed a packet of chicken broth into it. I also added a touch of dill, garlic salt and parsley. It’s nice to have your dinner almost ready at 5 pm. I then whipped together the flour, milk and shredded cheese and stirred that in. I had a package for cornmeal and made that quickly. It was about a $7 meal! I’ve been challenging myself that way with the tight economy.

Jun13

Greek food and veggie patch

Posted on by
Standard


Greek food, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

I just realized I didn’t post our food from the Wilmington, DE food festival. We splurged and got a variety of pastries too. Compared to what we ate at Chili’s tonight, this was diet food! (Chili’s is so salty! Since I have watched what I’ve been eating better-I try, it was hard to eat the chips).
Here’s what this photo is: Mousaka-Eggplant and potato casserole, Spanakopita-spinach pie, Dolmades-stuff grapes leaves, meatballs and Tyropita-cheese filled pie. Sean never ate his half of the raspberry tart and Baklava so I tossed them today. : (
Sean and I went to go to ‘Hidden Acres’ Greenhouse today and right when we got there, the Amish buggy was pulling out of the driveway-it was closed for a holiday! Arrgghh. : ) So we went to the thrift shop and I got a few little things, plus I asked the lady about consigning things-15 items allowed a week-60 mine/40 theirs commission. I’m going to get stuff together including that old art desk of mine. I have tons of stuff and it’s easier than having a yard sale (though I still want to have one!)
Sean and I went to Walmart too-bought a few plants and seeds, also some groceries.
My veggie patch is finally in. We bought a box of stuff-onions, garlic, rhubarb and potatoes for $2 at Lowes. I planted all that except the rhubarb today, they really don’t give you that many bulbs/tubers. I had major weeding to do first. I added zinnias and smaller sunflowers near the fence. Then tonight I planted the zucchini and cucumbers and a few gourds. I planted the potatoes in Sean’s old tire garden and tossed some gourd seeds in that too. I love to plant seeds to see what comes up. Walmart has lovely tomato plants in containers for $10 so we got one of those too. Also poked nasturtiums all around the place.
I want to do some edging in a few areas. Gotta burn off those calories!

Nov25

Happy Thanksgiving 2010!

Posted on by
Standard

We ate dinner at a ‘normal’ time around 5 and Bri and had it all cleaned up by 6:30. Actually I have the second round of dishes going. I was pretty happy with the dinner.
Thanksgiving din din
I think I need a new meat thermometer as it took a bit longer than I thought. And my cranberries were so tart they would make your mouth pucker-that’s even after adding more sugar. The highlight of the dinner was pretty easy to make-Rachael Ray’s ‘Not Your Mama’s Mashed Potatoes with Sour Cream and Chives’. The secret was adding a few turnips, some Boursin cheese, sour cream and chives. Very tasty.
Rachael Ray's 'Not your Mama's mashed potatoes
The cheesecake turned out well, though the crust stuck to the bottom a bit.
Pumpkin Cheesecake with Marshmallow/Sour cream topping
We cut the turkey like Bobby Flay did on RR yesterday. You cut off the breast in two big chucks and then slice it so it’s the perfect size for sandwiches. The guys took dinner over to Brian’s dad while I finished cleaning up and made some of my little collages.
I do have a photo I took of the guys too.
I hope all my American pals had a delightful day!
Wish Sean well as he has to be at Wally World at 4:30 am. He was Mr Grumps at the dinner table. That’s retail for you-even in this day and age. I plan to look through some catalogs and shop on Cyber Monday.

Sep13

Garden Helpers & Meatless Mondays

Posted on by
Standard

I like my collage for today as it is all about ‘working’ outside in the gardens. The children are from a 1936 reader that my mom could have used back then as she was 6 yrs old that year. The book is in such great shape, I decided to only scan some of the photos and not to cut it up.
It’s so great to dig through my art and paper stuff each day, but I need to do some major tidying. Everytime I try to tidy, I get ideas for new collages. This is #18! I really haven’t been stumped yet-let’s see how I do on #156.
Sir Paul McCartney and his daughters were on a leaflet we received at the concert about trying to go meatless one day a week, so why not on Mondays? I did eat a leftover half of prime rib sandwich for lunch, but our dinner was totally meatless. I did a Strata with Artisan bread, tomato, parsley,feta, onion and eggs-very delicious.
Strata with parsley, onion and tomato
Our salad was Arugula with white beans, red pepper and handmade lemony dressing. I got a new cookbook at The Christmas*Tree Shoppe from Food & Wine magazine. They had several editions. They review 25 cookbooks from that particular year and include several recipes from each.The ones we had were in the first few chapters!
Sean and I are taking my mom to Lancaster (that’s if she shows up as she said she’d sleep over at her brother’s and drive over). Originally we were thinking Atlantic City, but that’s 90 miles or so and it’s expensive down there. Plus we had her there on our vacation in ’08 and ’09. We can take her to the Smorgesbord. If we actually were taking her on the 23rd, she’d get a free dinner-rats. I think it will be a nice change of scenery for her too.

Sep12

A walk around Kennett Square PA’s 25th Mushroom Festival

Posted on by
Standard

It was an overcast, but not so warm day today. Sean and I went up to the next town over and got a large sampling of ‘fair’ food to bring home. We saw that Aetna and Food Network were sponsors and heard Bobby Flay had been there (after looking at the story about this, I believe this wasn’t so). Today lovely Oklahoma native Sunny Anderson from the Food Network Show ‘Cooking for Real’ was there. She was very sweet to meet.
Sean got a big frosty mug of cream (vanilla) soda that you could get ‘free’ refills on. I know he wanted one last year, but the price and the bees were bad. It was still pricey, but it was a huge drink and he brought the mug home.
The food haul-two cups of mushroom soup (for me) from Longwood Gardens. They forgot to give me a mushroom shaped cookie I paid for. I figure I am going to LG for free now and we had to park far away or I’d go get it. Got a springroll from Talula’s Table (the chef had been on Martha Stewart) which had a nice amount of lemon grass in it. We also got a noodle and mushroom dish that Sean took with him to work and he ate a huge sausage sandwich for lunch! It’s all about the food, baby!
Since we parked down a street with century old homes, I snapped a few shots of them to share.