It's a lovely day...

...actually been a lovely week. It's almost like we've had Summer weather early.

On today's agenda: finishing the laundry, putting the weekend stuff away and reading on the porch, before it gets to hot! Got a lot of business and personal reading I need to catch up on. I've been sipping on homemade fruit tea, this one made of Mango juice that is so thick that I had to cut it down with something, and my Princess Gray tea, an Earl Gray tea with Rose petals and lavender buds, had so much caffeine I had to cut it with something. The two marry well together. Later today I'll be making Lavender lemonade. Looking forward to that cold treat! I know I need to figure out dinner but nothing is coming to mind, and I really don't want to turn on the oven to make the Chicken lasagna I've been wanting to try... maybe just a simple pasta dish...

Chris and I did the Happy dance this morning, I received notice that I have passed the "Apprentice level one" in the the Dream Interpretation course and have been assigned the Level 2 assignments. When I attempted the course over a year ago, I was hitting walls every time I pulled up a dream. This time around I've passed the first level in a week. Timing is everything!
Today's picture was taken last week when I toured Valerie's garden.

Winner!

Anytime Chris says something is good, you know it's good. Anytime he says so, without being asked, you know it's really good. And anytime he actually likes the "hidden" vegetables, you know you have a winner! That was the Lemon cream pasta dish that used the left over Garlic lemon chicken from the other night. Here are both recipes for you, note that I added spinach at the same time I added the cream to the pasta. Next time I'll add more... I found both recipes on the My Kitchen Cafe blog -
Lemon and Garlic Grilled Chicken
from Erin W. (from the sisters cafe)
Juice of 1 lemon, approximately 3 tablespoons
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic, about 2 medium cloves
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 pound chicken breasts (I usually cut really thick chicken breasts down to thin them out and make the pieces a little smaller so they absorb the marinade better)
DIRECTIONS
Combine all marinade ingredients. Place chicken in a ziploc bag and pour marinade over chicken. Seal bag and place in fridge overnight. Grill outdoors or with an indoor grill pan.
You can double the marinade and chicken and grill it all up and freeze the extras to use later.

Lemon Cream Pasta with Chicken
adapted from allrecipes.com via My Kitchen Cafe
3 cups shredded or cubed Lemon Garlic Chicken
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
4 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1 (16 ounce) package tube pasta (I used rigatoni)
2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, shredded

DIRECTIONS
In a large saucepan, season the chicken broth with the garlic powder and pepper. Bring to a boil and add lemon juice and pasta. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until all liquid is absorbed, about 25 minutes.
Stir chicken into cooked pasta, along with the cream, parmesan cheese and lemon zest. Cook, stirring, over low heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand 5 minutes. Stir thoroughly before serving.

On the agenda for the rest of the day: breakfast and a visit with a friend, both enjoyed on the deck in the beautiful sun! Then dealing with the closing of one of Chris' house sales - YEAH GOD!, and then visiting with friends this afternoon and evening... life is good!

The week in pictures...

Been a busy week and I didn't take the time to post something everyday this week, so here's a visual log of the week:
Monday I was running into town, as I came down the hill I saw this quaint scene, turned home for my camera and pulled off to take the picture... and backed into a ditch. I couldn't get out by myself so I called Chris and then shot more floral pictures as I waited for my knight in shining armor. Forgot to get the car in the ditch though... Driving into town I enjoyed the American flags that the local Grange decorated the town with and the flowers in bloom in the medians. Took pictures of the flowers but not the flags. Came home and enjoyed the sun on the deck, and a bowl of cherries. For dinner I cooked Buttermilk brined pork chops. Chris said he preferred my regular pork chops. The recipe said to toss the rest of the brine but it looked like a gravy to me so I made gravy with it. Very good but waaaay too much salt. Not sure that I'll make them again, but I'll remember I can use buttermilk to make a gravy...

Tuesday I got together with my Friend Valerie. As I was leaving she toured me through her garden. Got lots of beautiful pictures and was inspired to plant a vegetable garden this year... not sure yet if I'll take the plunge... This is flower caught my eye while we visited.
Dinner Wednesday was another new recipe; Lemon and garlic chicken. Not only did it sound good, but there was also a recipe for any extra chicken, Lemon and cream pasta. The Lemon and garlic recipe lived up to expectations, I will make this one again! Tonight I'll try the pasta recipe.
Wednesday I mixed up a batch of overnight bread dough, today I made biscuits and scrambled eggs for Chris and an egg cup for me. To make the egg cup I cut a piece of dough, pressed it into a muffin pan, added spinach, bacon bits, cheese and cracked an egg into it. It came out pretty good. Need to find a deeper or wider cup... Chris preferred the biscuit with strawberry jam. I formed the rest of the dough into balls and froze them to be used as needed. Not a bad dough, kinda yeasty and sweet. The jam definitely made them.
So that's the week, so far, in pictures. Now I'm off to the deck, the sun and reading I've been putting off to long...

Beer battered salmon

Here's a picture of last nights dinner... still working on cooking the tater tots perfectly. The fish came out great, very filling with the batter, I made 1 frozen steak for each of us, cut into 3 pieces each, more than enough. Here's the recipe, I added the Old bay seasoning because the original recipe was a bit bland in my opinion and Chris doesn't go for "spice". I'm also trying an experiment with the leftover batter, I've frozen it and I'll defrost it to see if it works the second time around. My fillets weren't skinned and it was too much trouble to skin them, but it didn't affect the taste or texture. Side dishes were left over grilled asparagus and a salad made with parsley, red onion and cucumber dressed with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper.

BEER BATTER FRIED FISH
1 egg
1 c. warm stale beer – note you will need more if the batter is too thick
1 1/8 tsp. baking powder
1 c. flour
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. paprika
2 tsp. Old bay seasoning
2 tsp. granulated sugar
3/4 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. garlic salt
Fish fillets

Mix all ingredients.
Wash and dry fish (pat with towel).
Cut fillets to desired size.
Heat 2 inches of cooking oil in pan.
Dip fish pieces in batter; fry briefly in hot oil turning as necessary.
Adjust the batter ingredients as needed so it doesn't get too thick or too thin.

Busy week...

It's been a long week... through the wonders of the internet I was able to attend the writers conference at Bethel from the comfort of my living room, or deck, whichever happened to catch my fancy. Really enjoyed it, and enjoyed hearing W. Paul Young's story about his writing The Shack and his life. See my post titled Rainy day adventure for a link to his presentation.

So I thought that not having to travel away from home would mean that I wouldn't have to deal with the post conference energy loss... WRONG. Not that it was bad, but I spent a lot of time processing everything I heard, and doing some reevaluating. And then came all my appointments the end of the week. Yesterday we celebrated Porter's (my niece) 2nd birthday. Mom and I sat and watched a Paula Dean cooking show together, for mom to sit and watch TV is unheard of, but we got some good recipes and had a good conversation. The show further fed the "cooking bug" that's overtaken me this last week as well. I've been inspired by several blogs I've begun to visit, just haven't had the time or the energy to experiment this week. But that changes this evening.

Chris has always liked the beer-battered salmon and chips the Rock Bottom brewery serves, well I found the recipe and this evening he'll get to enjoy them. Later this week I'll be trying a creamy chicken lasagna, I'll be sneaking spinach or broccoli slaw into that one! So for now, have an enjoyable day, enjoy your family and friends as we celebrate Memorial day and remember all those who have so faithfully served our country both past and present.

Rainy day adventure...

Attending the Bethel writers conference via live feed yesterday, today and tomorrow. Really enjoying myself. W. Paul Young (the author of The Shack) was the keynote speaker, excellent encouragement in his story. If you're interested in the conference you can go here for the details:
http://www.ibethel.tv/account/affiliate/3fe16

So while I'm hovering around the laptop, in between taking notes I've been doing chores, I'll show you my Barbie photos another time. Chris told me we have 4 hummingbirds hanging around the feeder, I tried to get a picture but was never able to, then he took this photo for me, there are 7 hummingbirds! And they are playing nice together! A new record for us.

Good morning!

I love days like today. When Chris and I were finishing the house, I told him I wanted an East facing bedroom, because of the way the house was laid out, we bought the house as a framed and plywood sided shell so we couldn't change the floor plan all that much, that wasn't possible so he placed two 3' square windows on the bathroom wall which is to the East, you can do that with 11' ceilings. So this time of year, about 4:30, I am woken by morning light flooding in from the East windows and bouncing off the sky and flooding in the West facing window. The birds are singing, and as a special treat this morning, the Canadian Snow Geese were honking their good mornings as well. All that is why I was up early this morning. By 8:30 I was well on my way through my morning chores, and decided to make breakfast. I've been exploring cooking blogs lately. Ran across one yesterday where she had made a new lasagna type meal for herself from leftovers in the fridge. Somehow all that flooded into my brain and I decided to make a French toast dish, of a sort. I cut up the last few inches of a cinnamon apple bread we'd picked up a the Farmers market, cut leftover sausage links into small pieces and mixed a cinnamon and egg mixture pouring it over everything. Baked it for a bit then served myself a generous portion with Trader Joes Honey vanilla Greek style yogurt. Nummy good.