Yay, it's Friday!

This week felt like it went by much faster than the last one, when Jason was away! I don't know why I get so excited at the fact that Friday is here, it's not like I go out to work each day or even that I get up early (like I do when school is in). But Friday does mean that Jason is home for the next 2 days, and life as we know it takes on an even more 'relaxing' pace for us all. Yeah, that's probably why I like Fridays. And of course once we do get back to school mornings, then I definitely like a Friday, because it means I can sleep past 6am the next day.

Connor (Kristen's friend from next door) had a sleep over here last night. It was his first one and they were both very excited about it. I've never really thought to ask if he'd like to stay over before. Sleepovers with boys is not something I want to encourage, but Connor is only 6 so I figured for another year or so it will probably be ok. They were still chatting and watching a movie when I headed to bed at 11pm! When I got up this morning at 8am both of them were already up and playing on the Xbox! One does have to assume that they both slept at some point in between those times :-)

On Wednesday evening Connor's Mom and Dad went out to pick up a new puppy at the shelter for him. This was a huge surprise to Connor so they didn't want to take him with them. He came over here for an hour or so instead, and to keep them occupied I let him and Kristen make their own pizza for dinner!


They're making 'Taco Pizza', a recipe I got from Taste of Home magazine one time. It's one of Kristen's favorites. You use pilsbury pizza dough, (bake it in the oven first for about 10 minutes) then spread refried beans on the bottom, top with taco meat and cheese then pop it back in the oven to finish cooking. Here's a similar recipe from their website.

It's my friend Cheryl's birthday today (Connor's mommy!) I knit her a lovely pair of bed socks (not something she'll need to use for a few months yet, but still) and on Monday I'm gonna treat her to 'ladies night' at The Melting Pot ( she's never been to the fondue place before) :-)

I'll add pictures to my 'knitting blog' later of the socks.... and I've also made a start on some 'quick knits for Christmas' that I'll be posting about.

Enjoy your Friday!

There's a new post over at 'The Cooking Den'
(a little confusing cos I just said I wasn't posting there any more, but you'll see why when you hop on over and read it)

All things zucchini. . . and a picture of me!

We are STILL getting zucchinis (courgettes for the folks back home!) just about every day from the garden. I love zucchini but am starting to get a little bored with just sauteing and making zucchini bread. I know there are a ton of other recipes out there (I haven't even tried stuffed zucchini yet) so I thought I would surf around for a little more inspiration this week. I came up with a winner..... Frosted Zucchini Brownies from Laura at Real Mom Kitchen.

I made these yesterday and let me tell you 1) you CAN NOT tell there are any veggies in here.... and 2) they are chocolaty and delicious!

The link to Laura above will take you to the page with her recipe on. I was rather surprised to see that this recipe did not require eggs?! I wasn't sure if that was an oversight but I followed the instructions as is, and the brownies came out fine, but a little soft to pick up. I just wonder if the texture would be slightly different if an egg or two was added? I may try to ask Laura that at a later date.

The frosting on the top was easy and tasted yummy. You simply melt butter and sugar over heat then add chocolate chips and marshmallows. Directions for making it are included in the recipe.

This week is going so fast and I find that I've been my usual busy self in the kitchen and around the house, but still loving every minute of it too. On Tuesday I made another Weight Watcher recipe... turkey enchilada casserole. I was really pleased with how this turned out too. Very tasty and just 4 points per serving (granted a small serving, but add a salad and it's a perfect size meal). I did take pictures of it so might share with you the full recipe at a later date.


Now on to 'Where's Mom'!   2 of 52

I seriously think this is going to be much harder than I thought. I mean honestly, I don't really get the camera out much each week other than to take photos of stuff I'm making in the kitchen! I may often be sharing an 'older' photo with you each Thursday .... but this week, it does so happen that I took a photo of me and Kristen . . . . . . in the bath of all places!!! Don't ask me why but she wanted to take a bubble bath with me, so one afternoon we did just that! She piled bubbles on our heads and we laughed and giggled together :-) it was priceless.

Gameroom Revisited!

The game room is just about finished! It still needs some pictures for the 'big orange wall', but it's at a stage where I'm happy enough to share photos (much to my sister's delight) ;-)

For those who haven't seen the 'before' pictures (and for any new visitors dropping in for the first time too) I thought I'd start with how the room looked after we first moved in, back in December 07. . . .

Ooh goodness, clutter...clutter...clutter! This room drove me crazy those first few months. As you can see the walls are still 'builder white' and this is our old (huge) office furniture, as well as old entertainment unit which you can just see on the left side and old sofa too.

Then after a good few months of mess we finally got rid of the old furniture (via Craigslist) and I painted the walls. We bought new bookshelves and a corner sofa unit from Ikea. I did eventually put brown curtains up at the window but I don't think I've ever taken a picture since then. To me the room always still had that 'unfinished' look to it because we had no artwork or pictures on the walls either.

After recently rearranging the game room so we had more room to move in front of the tv, I bought new material to 'improve' the plain brown curtains that I had from Ikea. Here is how it all looks as of today. . .

The main difference in the layout is that we've moved the two computer desks from the left side (which was pushing the sofa more towards the right and closer to the TV) to right in front of the window, and now behind the sofa. Here's a few more views of the room...

I've managed to still keep our old kitchen and chairs as you can see from below. I was happy I could do this as it makes a great area for playing board or card games. The other two chairs are in the guest room and I can just bring them out as and when we need them. Going to the right of this area leads you in to the 4th bedroom.

And I finally hung some of Kristen's pictures. . . note the wall is still white, but this will change come the fall when I finally get around to painting the rest of the top of the stairs! It will be just the same yellowy cream color as you see in the game room. I would eventually like Kristen's train table to be donated so it makes the top of the stairs look more spacious.

So, there you go! Hope you enjoyed the pictures, and I wish you all a great day.

Tickle My Tummy - again!

Yes, it's Tuesday so I'm joining in again with the 'TMTT'. Last week I was surfing a few blogs from their link and boy was there some yummy recipes out there! I loved the idea of these pizza rolls from Savin It Up. I've got to try them soon. Another one I bookmarked was this Chocolate Lover's Trifle from Holly at A Mommy's Blessings, it looks super yummy, and pretty easy to put together by the sounds of it. But anyway. . . . on to what I'm tempting you with this week -

Schezuan Chicken. I made this last night for dinner (it's a recipe from my 'Weight Watchers Take-Out Tonight' book. This is the first time I've tried it but it turned out really well so I thought I'd share it here.

Here's what you need:
1lb chicken breasts cut in to strips
3 tblsp hoisin sauce
2 tblsp cornstarch
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 tblsp rice vinegar
2 tblsp sugar
2 tsp chili-garlic sauce
1 tblsp canola oil
1 tblsp minced fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 green bell pepper
2 medium carrots thinly sliced
1/4 cup unsalted dry-roasted peanuts

1. Combine the chicken, 1 tblsp of the hoisin sauce, and 1 tblsp of the cornstarch in a medium bowl; toss well to coat and set aside. Combine the remaining 2 tblsp hoisin sauce, 1 tblsp cornstarch, the broth, vinegar, sugar and chili-garlic sauce in a small bowl; set aside.

2. Add the oil to a skillet (or wok)  and when hot add chicken and stir-fry until almost cooked through (2-3 minutes). Add the ginger and garlic; stir-fry until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Add the bell pepper, carrots and peanuts; stir-fry until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes). Add the hoisin sauce mixture  and cook stirring constantly until the mixture boils and thickens, and the chicken is cooked through, about 1 minute.


I often find that I cook my veggies a lot longer than the recipe calls for as I like them a little more tender than crisp. And as you can see from the picture the bell pepper didn't make it in there. That's because they were home grown peppers and when I cut in to one....... there was a caterpillar inside (and a load of yucky mushy stuff!), urghhhh, it totally put me off using the other two!  Instead of rice we just had sauted home grown zucchini, (with thankfully no caterpillar inside) and some frozen veggies. I added a little sesame oil and soy sauce to the skillet while cooking them.

The chicken had a lovely 'kick' to it because of the chili-garlic sauce. I'd definitely make this again, it was pretty easy once you'd assembled all the ingredients and cooks up in no time.

Tomorrow, I'll have pictures of my finished game room :-)

Mary Kay Giveaway

Mikki is having a Mary Kay giveaway at her blog. In order to up my chances of winning I'm posting about it here on my blog!

I love Mary Kay products, I use the 'tinted moisturizer' every day and their eye pencils and shadow, oh and lipsick.... actually all of the makeup I use is now MK. Not having a regular consultant now, I don't often get the facial products , so winning this would be fun.

If you'd like a chance to win, hop over to Mikki's 'The View From My Beach Chair' to enter - the winner might just be you. . . . . but I hope it's ME ;-)

I've changed my mind. . .

about having all 'those other blogs'! I know, I know, I should just make a decision and stick with it, but I gotta go with how I feel...... and right now I feel like it would be best (like I decided before) just to keep all my posts in one 'daily blog - i.e. this one! You see, I want to show you what we got out of the garden this week, and I want to show you what I cooked at the weekend, but if I keep those other blogs then really I should be posting that kind of news over there, which would leave me nothing much to post about over here - are you with me? or have I totally confused you all by now.

OK, suffice it to say, other blogs are 'closed' (until further notice), all news will be posted here.... except for any knitting related news (cos I'm gonna keep my knitting blog open, when I finally get back to knitting, which will be very soon) and that will be posted HERE.

So, with all that said, I can now show you the exciting thing that came out of the garden this weekend..... our very first W-A-T-E-R-M-E-L-O-N!!!

Here's Jason cutting it off the vine. . .

and nearly dropping it!

We were a little worried whether it was gonna be ripe enough, and hoped we hadn't cut it down too soon. . . but LOOK what we saw as I cut in to it. . .


Yay! IT's RIPE!

Can you tell I'm happy! (excuse the bed hair! seriously, what was I thinking, I should have taken a shower and put some makeup on before going out to 'harvest', ha ha) :-)

We are thrilled with this, and it tastes yummy. We have another one just as big lying in the watermelon patch that we will probably harvest next weekend.

Kristen is happy too. . .

she's watermelon's biggest fan you know!

My Little Picasso

A few months ago Kristen brought home from school a picture she had drawn using oil pastels. It was a self-portrait and full of fun colors. Jason and I both thought it would be nice to frame some day and hang it in our game room. That 'some day' has finally come. Here's a picture before I framed it (I thought I might not be able to avoid a glare on the frame) . .

And here it is all framed. . . (I avoided the glare from the flash)

Little Ms. Picasso poses with her portrait...

And here is a better view of where it's sitting in the room. Doesn't the wall color go well with it! (oh and look you can see I have another curtain sewn and hanging!).

Completed game room pics may be coming to a blog near you soon! (but don't hold your breath).

Getting Crafty!

Kristen and I took a trip to Hobby Lobby yesterday and got a bunch of fun stuff . . .

I tried my hand at making the cookie canister that I showed yesterday. I bought a few sheets of scrap booking paper which the instructions say to do, but scrapbook paper measures 12 x12, and my canister I found out when I got home is 13" round! I had to cut a strip of paper and match it up at the back and tape it!

I made the poinsettia top but the one on the front is a felt one. I picked a pack of these up at Hobby Lobby too, I think it looks nicer than just a paper cutout.

So inside this canister you can put the dry ingredients to cookies, or you can bake a batch of cookies, put them in a bag then put them inside the canister. Either way, it will make a great gift don't you think? You could do the same thing with Pringles cans and add home made Chex mix or caramel popcorn... the possibilities are endless.

Another quick craft I 'whipped' up was a new bandana for Boo! Kristen saw one in Walmart the other week which I let her buy because it was only $1. I told her we could buy some Christmas material and I'd make another one for Boo. She picked a Halloween one instead - look! it has his name on it . . .

And lastly I made a start on a Christmas bone for our 'doggy tree'.

As you can see I have to hand sew the opening closed. Here's what the other side looks like. . .

Next up. . . . I feel like baking cookies!

Blog Hop 09

Hi there, if you're just 'hopping in' from Robin's blog I'd like to say welcome. I just came across Blog Hop o9 this evening and because I've just started blogging on a regular basis again I thought it might be fun to join in. A few months ago I was barely blogging once a week (I was more obsessed with Facebook) but I seem to have the urge again to blog and I'm also having fun finding new blogs to visit.

My post from earlier today is rather long so I'll make this one short and sweet. My name is Denise and I'm a 45 yr old SAHM to one pretty princess (8 yrs) and a feisty Shih Tzu named Boo! I live near Austin, TX but was 'born and bred' in the North of England. I've lived in the US for 11 years with my hubby (who is from CA), the last 5 being here in Texas. I keep this blog going mainly for my sisters back home and for the wonderful bloggy friends I have made in the past 8 years or so. I'm always up for making more friends, so if you would like to leave a comment to say you dropped by, I'd love to return the visit.

Call me crazy but. . .

I am determined to be organized and ahead of the game this Christmas, so much so that I bought this from Amazon last week, and it finally arrived yesterday . . .

The Gooseberry Patch 'All Through The House' Collectors Edition. Over 600 holiday recipes, cheery crafts and easy-t0-make gifts for flurries of fun!

You can call me crazy all you like, but I've had enough of Summer! I can't remember the last time the temperature was below 95 degrees, and apart from the 10 minutes of rain we got yesterday, we haven't had a good downpour since my sister was here at the beginning of June. Christmas planning and looking ahead to cooler weather is helping keep me sane at the minute. I hope you will indulge me and let me share a few pages with you ;-)

I do know someone who will love this book, so I'm showing a picture of the inside cover. especially for S!  You can click on the pictures to see them larger.

Kristen saw this next picture and wants to do a tree like this. I have 3 small trees that sat outside our front door last year with lights on. I can use one of them (it's just 3 ft tall) to recreate this, but I don't think it will have the dog bowl and biscuits around the bottom.

HobbyLobby has the clear glass baubles on sale already. We can add white paint inside of them and the book has the template for the cat and dog cutouts. For the little photo frames (which apparently are leather luggage labels) I think we'll just make our own out of cardstock, and we can put pictures of Boo in them, and if I can get photos of our other friend's dogs we'll add those too. This will be a fun project for Kristen, she just loves anything 'dogs' :-) And of course, now that I've got my sewing machine out, the little fabric bones will be easy to sew up.

Another page I liked was this one. . .


I love oatmeal cookies so I want to try this recipe. What I love about the cannister is that it's actually made from the empty oatmeal cannister. I have two of those sitting in my pantry right now. I can put the oatmeal in a ziploc bag and have a go at making these pretty soon.

And finally, I want to try and recreate this look for my mantle this year. . .

Mainly the green swag. I have one like this but I've never thought to add the baubles and other ornaments to it. I have wooden blocks that spell out 'Merry Christmas' too so I can add those. And I like the thin white candles too (these look like the battery operated ones, not real candles, which is always safer).

Today is also 'Where's Mom' day. This is a new meme I thought I would try to participate in. Every Thursday you are to post a picture of 'you' and one or more of your children. Not sure if this means any picture, or if it has to be a current one taken that week? I may have to cheat a little with this one and sometimes post an oldie! And sometimes it might not even be with Kristen!! I'll keep the Christmas theme going for today though and show you a picture taken this past Christmas. . .

Ahhhh, look at all that lovely cold snow!!!

Can I stay in my pj's?

This week seems to be going slow, probably because Jason is away (still another 2 whole days before he's home, plus the rest of this one!) and also the fact that we have no plans to do anything this week. Most of our days have been spent indoors pottering around and playing on the computer (or in Kristen's case Xbox!). I'm not complaining about it - I'm just saying. I fear that I'm getting in to the habit of being lazy (happens every Summer really) and come September our butts will be kicked when we have to start getting up at 6am again for school. Actually school starts on August 24th here. But for now I'll continue to enjoy the lazy mornings and stay in my pj's til at least noon. Or in today's case 11am, cos we have to go out to piano lesson this morning.

Yesterday I popped next door to see my neighbor Cheryl (she's off work this week recovering from a minor surgery she had last week). I was shocked to see her painting her kitchen!!! I thought I was bad when I was recuperating, never sitting down, always finding something to do... but this girl goes all out! I did what any great friend would do - came back home, changed in to my 'painting' clothes and went back to give her a hand :-) I painted her walls while she finished cutting in. I'll pop back again today to help her finish it off.

So here's our agenda for today - piano lesson, take library books back, a quick trip to the store for milk and dog food, then home to help Cheryl.

What's on your agenda?

New post at The Farmer's Den

Tempt My Tummy!

This is my first time at joining in 'Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays'. If you're visiting for the first time "hi and welcome, thanks for stopping by."

As most of you know we are growing our own veggies this year and the ones that seem to be producing in abundance right now (still) is the zucchini. So today I thought I'd share the recipe that I use for zucchini bread. I've had this recipe for a couple of years now. It was printed in the 'womens ministry newsletter' at our old church. It's really the only one I've ever used (because before this I'd never even made zucchini bread.) I like the simple 'dry ingredients/wet ingredients, mix together and you get this, concept' . I made this yesterday . . . .

Sift together :
2 cups of flour
1 Tblsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 baking powder

Set those aside, then blend with a mixer 3 eggs until frothy (the recipe doesn't say how long to do this but I've learned from experience that you don't have to do this long, something like 30 seconds will do)

Add:
2 cups of sugar
1 cup of vegetable oil
1 Tblsp of vanilla

beat until thick and yellow (again it doesn't say how long, so just another 30 seconds should do it)

Then add to the egg mixture (stir by hand) 2 cups of raw grated zucchini (unpeeled)
Then stir in sifted dry ingredients.
Fold in 1/2 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Pour in to a greased and floured loaf pan and bake at 350 for 1 1/2 hours.


This is my hubby's favorite! He's away working this week but this freezes well, so I've sliced it up and put it in small ziploc bags. He will be able to take a piece out of the freezer anytime he wants and microwave it for a few seconds, until it comes out warm :-)

At some point this week I will add this recipe to my 'Cooking Den' with more photos.

Good Monday Morning

+++ My Simple Daybook is updated!

It's a beautiful day... it's overcast and we might get rain :-) There was a 40% chance yesterday but we didn't see any, I'm hoping today is the day.

We had a fun filled weekend doing nothing in particular. I didn't mention in my last post on Saturday that I had gotten up that morning at 6.45am and went out looking for yard sales! I just felt in the mood for doing it for some reason. Actually the reason was probably because I had taken a box of stuff to Goodwill the day before and ended up browsing around in there, coming home with a couple of baskets and pillows, (the pillows being the inserts for the ones I showed you in my last post, that I made). Well the yard sales were pretty disappointing really. To be honest I think they are better in the Fall, I mean who wants to be in their garage clearing out stuff and organizing stuff when it's 100 degrees. Usually when the weather starts cooling down is when people feel more like doing that. So perhaps I'll hold off another month or so then start going out again in the Fall.

Jason was over at our neighbor's yard (Cheryl's Dad's) for most of Saturday afternoon, sort of helping him dig posts. I say 'sort of' cos he was sitting there having a beer for the most part. But look, he did help - I have the evidence to prove it . . . ha ha!

While he was over there and Kristen was playing on the Xbox, I got on and made the pillows. I still need to make 2 more curtains, but I keep putting off! Later in the day I popped over to chat with my neighbor Cheryl.

Yesterday Kristen and I went to church, and Jason packed his bag to head off to Denver for the week. When we came home he'd already left for the airport. He'll be gone til Friday. It's going to be a quiet week for us but that's ok. We are still enjoying the relaxing mood of this long hot summer. It's 10am as I type this, and Kristen only just woke up! And yet other mornings she's up before me at 7am. It's going to be hard getting back in to an early bedtime routine when school starts, but we won't worry about that right now.

Also this weekend, I played around on the computer alot. You'll notice my blog is now 3 columns (or perhaps you won't!) and I have made little links to my other blogs on the left hand side. I have created a NEW blog for our 'Farming' news. Lest I bore you with the same ole talk about what we're growing every day I decided to keep our farm news in one blog and just update once or twice a week.

I'll let you know here when I've done that so you can pop over and read it if you want. I did opt not to do this a few weeks ago, thinking it was easier just to keep all the news in one blog, mainly this one, but I don't want my posts to become too long. Posting about the garden, then other stuff that we are doing might just create huge long posts so I'm trying to avoid that. Same goes with the cooking blog. When I make something I'll post it there. The knitting blog is not updated much at all these days because I'm not knitting much. That might change in the Fall when it gets cooler and I have Christmas gifts in mind!

One other thing I've added is a couple of new buttons for 'memes'. I've never really joined in with these before, but now that I post more often I thought it would be nice to follow along with a couple so I don't' run out of ideas about what to post. On Tuesday there is 'Tempt my Tummy Tuesday'. You'd think this post would be on my cooking blog, but I'm going to use that blog for more in depth recipes with pictures. The tempt my tummy post might just be a picture of something I made quickly that we enjoyed, kinda like the acorn squash I baked. No recipe, but they were yummy and it was nice to show the picture.

On Thursday it's 'Mom is missing' day, where you have to post a picture of yourself. So often we mom's find ourselves behind the camera and are never seen. I don't know if I'll keep up with this for 52 weeks but I'll try my best.

This post is now getting seriously long, so I will end it here and wish you all a happy Monday.

The Domestic Goddess

I think I should change my name ;-) I feel like a domestic goddess right now, what with all the cooking and sewing I'm doing. Yesterday found me back in the kitchen making our favorite 'butternut squash' soup with the little guys we got out of our garden. I didn't take a picture cos I've made that before and it looked just the same. You can CLICK HERE if you want to see the post from last year about the soup I made. I did take pictures of the acorn squash though. . .

Ya know, I've never even tried acorn squash! I just realized this yesterday when these came out of the oven. These were simply baked upside down on a cookie tray on 400 until soft, about 45 minutes, cos they are just small. Then I added a little butter in the middle and sprinkled brown sugar on top and put them under the broiler (grill) for just a few seconds.

They taste delicious. Of course the butter and brown sugar has a lot to do with that, but I actually had one with nothing on, just scooped out the lovely flesh and it's got a buttery taste all of it's own. At least I think it has.

And today, I've been sewing some pillow covers. Thought I'd take a picture and show you the curtain (and there is only one so far) that I have up in the game room. It's not finished yet, I need to make a sash to wrap around the middle to 'pinch' it together. But


It will look much better when the whole room is done, but I know a few of you have been wanting to see at least a peek of what I'm doing, so there ya go.