Category Archives: food

Sep30

Did good

Posted on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 by Dianne

I’ll have to remember to schedule my yearly appts on Tuesdays, as I was in and out of the doctor’s office in 30 minutes-there weren’t any other people in the waiting room! The young woman who checked me out heard about things that were bothering me like the tingling from my back to my front, etc. I wrote stuff down. Got the script for a mammogram. Seems if you get a benign on the biopsy, it’s like starting from scratch again. I’ll have to schedule that. (I hope you caught Oprah today. Christina Applegate was on and talked about early detection as she was only 36 when she found out she had breast cancer. 70% of women who get breast cancer don’t have a family history. So be aware of any change in your breasts, even if you aren’t 40+)

I went in a few stores on the way home- a Hallmark store and then Walmart. I wanted to look at the Halloween things in the Hallmark and got my niece the cute singing ‘trembling toads’ decoration in the black cauldron special for this year and reduced in price there. My brother and his family absolutely love Halloween. That’s why we all head there each year.

I also got Sean a birthday card that almost made me cry in the store, but when I tried to read it to his dad, I was a blubbering fool. It mentions about the first heartbeat of his to growing up to be a fine man who is my friend too. That’s how I feel about him too.

I wanted to get some cute cropped pants I saw in a magazine in the doctor’s office that were sold at Walmart, but when I got there, one of the sales gals said they didn’t get Metros in this year. I founds some others. Also wanted some spray paint to freshen up my art desk.

I’ve been cooking more from scratch, thanks to Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine. Last night we had pork and broccoli stir fry which was good, but I’d have to tweak the size of the meat cubes (I cut them too large) and the sauce. Tonight I had herb encrusted Salmon (both recipes from the Sept issue-I think it’s #55) and it was delicious! Also made the tomato and white bean salad. It called for cannellini beans and all I had was butterbeans. They are good too. Bri enjoyed the dinners, plus I am serving some heart healthy meals too. Goes to show I like new recipes, especially if they are quick to get together. That magazine is wonderful.

Jul4

Ka-boom!

Posted on Friday, July 4, 2008 by Dianne

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The above is in our driveway. Sean bought a big package of fireworks. It started to rain right as they were finishing up ‘their show’.

And my dinner:

Baby back ribs, coconut shrimp, a little drumstick, red potato salad, tomato with EVOO and fresh basil, green bean salad and cucumber salad. We had brownies for dessert. It would have looked nicer on a pretty plate. After we ate outside (just the 3 of us), it started to drizzle. Mom is over my Uncle Don’s for a few days.

Jul4

Happy Independence Day!

Posted on Friday, July 4, 2008 by Dianne

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(If you’d like this as a desktop, click on the above image and then save the largest version to your computer).

Some ATCs-I made 4 altogether:

Oh…and the tomato tepees are working-so far-that’s if they don’t get too much bigger. Bri didn’t put the mulch down thick enough and we have weeds galore. That’s his job, I have enough flowerbeds to weed. I do ‘clip’ up the tomatoes. The clips were suggested by Martha Stewart and they work really well. They are clipped to cording that is attached to the top of the tepee and a long nail in the ground.

I plan to make baby back ribs, wings, coconut shrimp (the wings and shrimp are prepackaged), green bean salad, cucumber salad and potato salad. I may toss a pan of brownies or lemon squares in the oven for dessert. Yum!

The weather is iffy, but I may go to the fireworks to try and get some photos as I was inspired by a few I saw on Flickr. We’ll see. All that cooking is tiring. : )

Have a blast!!!

Jun18

Rainbow effect

Posted on Wednesday, June 18, 2008 by Dianne

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We had a heavy downpour a little after dinner and this pretty rainbow appeared briefly. I just heard on the tv, that something similar happened after Tim Russert’s memorial service. The last song that was played was a ukulele version of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. When the guests left, they looked up to see a double rainbow in the sky. Pretty awesome.

Tim’s 22 yr old son Luke did an awesome job on his eulogy. He has so many of his dad’s mannerisms.

Since I was out in the after rain, I took a few more shots:

The pretty peachy pink Hollyhock that use to be across from our front door. You can see where the deer nibbled the leaves right to the stem.

Golden Lantana with rain droplets

Red and rust colored coleus

I cooked dinner on the grill about an hour early as rain was threatening. I got the burgers cooked, then threw on some chicken and thought I’d do a few hot dogs for the heck of it. I brought it all in and the skies opened up! Brian ate all three things (I cooked more for other meals)! and Sean ate a burger and a hot dog.

Sean’s first day on the job was ok-he washed walls for most of the time. The lady from my hometown called this morning to offer him the internship! Can you believe it! If he had waited a few more days before accepting the janitorial job he would have made it easier for himself. All the ‘old’ folks want him to do the internship. It would look good on his resume next year when he’s looking for a real job. He’s stalling about it and we think he’s a big scared. Reality will have to set in one of these hours. I think he’ll do fine. Wish him well in making up his mind.

Jun5

I’m so proud!

Posted on Thursday, June 5, 2008 by Dianne

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First my lettuce!

Had some in our shrimp salad boats (hot dog rolls) for dinner tonight. Lots more left too.

And where I snipped it from, the garden in an old tractor tire:

I didn’t pull it out, I snipped it with my kitchen scissors. I plan to do that again before our heat wave arrives as it may bolt. I also have nasturtiums in there. I have nasturtiums everywhere! I just found two more packs of them and decided to add them to flowerpots and in the ground all over the yard.

Then I assembled this cross stitch flat fold for my friend’s upcoming birthday (I don’t think she reads my blog). She’s from Birdsboro, PA and I thought this was perfect. It took me about 3 weeks (exclusively, but not that many hours each evening). It’s a The Prairie Schooler design. Shrinking the photo made it look a bit distorted:

Here’s the backing material. I am glad it matched the design so well as I had bought it years ago!

My garden across from the front door is looking good. The large plant is coreopsis:

Mom suggested floating the fallen begonia blossoms (from the heavy rain) in my different birdbaths:

Peonies are so gorgeous and last such a short time, but unfortunately, both my shrubs had one only bloom this year. Any ideas why? The leaves are healthy!

And last but not least, a cool plant called ‘Spiralis’ surrounded by portacula:

Yes, we are expecting a heat wave starting Saturday-ugh! Got to be expected. I am sure it will boost seed growth. I did weed out my seed only garden of zinnias, etc. and I see more of them all then I thought. Whew.

Sean will cut the grass tomorrow. I asked him to get out the weed whacker to do a few areas. He bought it for me, but it’s for a taller person, or I just can’t handle it well. I loved my little Toro one that I had for about 15+ years and it just fizzled out.

May22

Pretty things

Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2008 by Dianne

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I had my Mother’s Day gifts in for a few nights when it was really chilly. It’s in the 50s tonight, so hopefully they’ll be fine. The red one is being shy about blooming, but the yellow one seems to have two plants in one pot-yellow and peach and the flowers are different too! I thought they were pretty enough to share.

I had some chicken tender strips defrosted and was looking for a quick recipe. I wasn’t really in the mood to look as the food photos made my tummy hurt (I’m getting better), but I improvised (green pepper instead of yellow, mandarin oranges instead of navel, bagged salad instead of Arugula) and the guys really liked it! It’s so easy to broil the tenders. I would change the spices a bit, but I do think they tasted better broiled. What a cinch to broil peppers too. I should do it more often.

Got outside between raindrops to plant yellow flowers in the Yucca bed next to the road; Victoria Blue salvia in the woodland garden; and the long looked for Pineapple sage in the pond area. Still some planting to do, but lots more mulching!

Trivia-well-sort of-I saw in my pal Barbara’s blog that her son was doing a walk and the one Dutch word had ‘Avon’ in it. Now not sure if I ever looked this up, but I live in Avondale-Avon meaning ‘river’ and ‘dale’ meaning valley dweller. So this is true as we live in a valley not far from the Brandywine River. : )

Mar25

Dinner review

Posted on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 by Dianne

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Brian and I went out to dinner to a new place and weren’t really impressed by what we ate. We weren’t satisfied like we usually are after eating at The Olive Garden. I had a steak dinner called Bistecca Franceshe-it was NY strip covered with a mild pesto (I couldn’t really taste it) and accompanied by stringy broccoli rabe and cannelloni beans. Beforehand, we had a salad-it was just a large pile of mixed spring lettuces with ‘one’ sliced cherry tomato and served with vinegar and oil. We also had crusty bread served with a bowl of plain olive oil for dipping. Brian had a Salmon dish and they were nice enough to substitute asparagus for the mushrooms it is usually served with. He had a small pile of spinach too. I gave him almost half of my dinner as I could tell he hadn’t had enough of his own. That left room for me to get the Chocolate flan-which was like a thin brownie with warm chocolate inside served on top of vanilla custard. The presentation of the food was really nice and I told our server I wish I had brought a camera. She was a nice girl, but you couldn’t help to notice that she has a pierced tongue as you saw a turquoise ball there everytime she spoke.

I don’t think we’d go here again. It has a fancy Italian name and we were thinking The Olive Garden on a grandeur scale and it wasn’t.

When we got home, Brian ripped through his gifts in about 5 minutes. He got mainly clothing. His one non-clothes item from me didn’t arrive yet. He had a quiet birthday, but it was nice to send some alone time together-the restaurant was very low key with some interesting belly dancing type music in the background. There were other patrons, but they were very quiet.

Mar24

The day after Easter and Happy Birthday Brian!

Posted on Monday, March 24, 2008 by Dianne

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What I made for dinner Gramma’s Pineapple side dish:

This is similar to what my late mother-in-law use to make. I believe she used bread cubes, I cut up Pepperidge Farm white bread. Can you see the butter oozing on the top there? It’s like a stuffing for ham.

I haven’t made scalloped potatoes for a while. They were pretty good, I like them a little crisper on the top. I used fresh dill and dried parsley. I kept having to ‘zap’ them in the microwave because my mom was ‘hogging’ the oven with a 12 pd ham! So this presented a problem as we couldn’t wait until 6-6:30 to eat as Brian was taking food to his dad. So we sliced some off and stuck it back in the oven for a bit. I found a meat thermometer about as old as me and it said the meat was at the right temp to eat. I thought it was ok, a little salty. Mom didn’t care for hers and said she wasn’t crazy about scalloped potatoes. Spending Easter with people over 75 is interesting. We got to the point where my uncle looked up Bentyl (the med the dr prescribed for me last week that I didn’t take) in a ‘bad pill’ book. Said not to take it! And my uncle has a habit of lighting his pipe all the time and by the time we went home, I was really stuffed up. I’m not saying I don’t like to be with mom and uncle, but old habits sure die hard. I was glad to see him chow down. Mom hardly ate anything. We did sing ‘happy birthday’ to Brian and had some cake. We will go out to dinner later. Bri’s been in a funk, not sure what’s up-work, his car, his dad? He complains about holidays being a money making thing and didn’t want anyone singing to his when it wasn’t his birthday (before went to my uncle’s house).
Back to Easter-I spent an hour or so downloading mostly Sean’s photos to a keychain for Bri’s dad:

I guess he liked it (I didn’t go to his house), but his 1989 Lincoln is probably on it’s last legs and he was worried about that.

On the home front, I picked up an African Violet sampler last night to work on for a change. I was also looking at the real violets in the window and they need repotting and trimming. Many have flowers! A few are on their last legs and I moved them to the kitchen to see if I could maybe root any of their leaves. Also on the stitching front, I was looking at my neighborhood round robin from last year and I need to add another house, so that will be fun. I do want to get it framed, so need to save up for that huge frame.

Both mom and I have goodies for Brian, mostly things he needs. Something he asked for hasn’t arrived from Amazon yet-rats! I didn’t really wrap things but may do a bit of a quick tissue paper thing in a bit. I think he threw out all my saved gift boxes anyway.

A fragrant lily Bri gave me:

Jan9

A giftie

Posted on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 by Dianne

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Here’s a few of the pages from my friend’s collage book I made as a gift for her graduation from culinary school. I wanted to use all vintage prints and such. The middle is the baking section and I made a pocket to hold a Swann’s flour baking pamphlet from about 1917 and some bookmarks to save recipes (Brian gave me these and I gave some to her). It was fun to make to get my mind off my sinus cold. I hope she likes it (and doesn’t see this!). I’ll probably mail it today.

The tabs say ‘eat, drink and be merry’; ‘Food’, ‘fun’ ‘friends’, etc.

She just got married this past June so the one cake is a wedding cake. I’m from PA., so that’s why I chose the Hershey cookbook cover.

So I want to go to the post office and maybe Sean and I will head to Kohl’s as they sent me $20 in coupons (if I spend increments of $50) for buying my galaxy ring. This is a good time of the year to check out the winter clothing too. Not to say I’ll buy anything. I do need a change of scenery, though most of my tree ornaments are laying on the dining room table right now! I broke a pretty one today too. : (

Dec25

Merry Christmas one and all!

Posted on Tuesday, December 25, 2007 by Dianne

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The big day is finally here-well half over. My pot roasts are in the oven and I decided to take a breather. I wanted to see if my friend Barbara was home from the hospital with her new baby, and she was briefly and had to go back again until his blood levels are normal. He’s a precious baby!

I also wanted to upload some Christmas Eve photos. My nephew was hamming it up last night for us all and most are silly shots. My niece had her hair cut shorter and now has Shirley Temple ringlets-so sweet!

We went out to dinner up the road from my mom first. We sat next to a loud table of about 20 which put a damper on our meal. We couldn’t hardly talk to each other and my mom has had hearing issues for a few years and I almost had to shout to her. I noticed one of the owners came and talked to them (like to see how everything was doing), I bet they were getting complaints. It was like a noisy cafeteria in there instead of a nice restaurant. Mom, Sean and I had lobster tail (mom and I had surf and turf) and Jim had chicken and Brian had flounder. The food is really good!

We headed over to my brother’s and visited for an hour. He really did himself proud with the decorations inside and out. Then we went back to mom’s and we opened gifts. She cried when she saw her HP digital camera and printer bundle. She really wanted something special and I am glad I could make her happy. She is suppose to come here today for dinner.

We went to a beautiful midnight mass service in Delaware. The alter and music were truly divine. We hit the sack about 2 am and I was up with the cat at 8:15 and remembered to do the guy’s stockings at 9 am. I am a bit bushed.

My main gift was an emerald necklace in it’s natural form! It’s cool. I’ll have to have Bri take a photo of it. He saw it in a magazine ad while he was waiting on me when I had my procedure done. He also got me a photo frame that is a slideshow of your digital photos. Neat! Sean got me a Celtic cross stitch book, the Sarah Brightman DVD of her Vegas show, and lovely postcards of Pennsylvania (in a book form).

Sean’s main gift was a HP digital camera and he was totally surprised! Yeah! Bri’s main gift was a West Bend coffee/ cappuccino/espresso ‘station’.

I hope you are having splendid days. OX

Christmas cookies:7 layer bars, chocolate chips, coconut cherry, orange macadamia, apricot walnut bars, fudge tarts, Rum raisin cheesecake bars, lemon bars, Russian teacakes and peanut caramel bars (that really didn’t turn out, but they are good).

Then: me and my girl

Sean, Tori and Mom

Ta-da! It’s Kenny and Bri!