Wednesday, August 24, 2011

It's Pickle Time!

Our garden is overflowing with the tomatoes, jalapeno's, anaheim chilies, cucumbers, basil, mint, rosemary and thyme, what to do with all these yummy treats?  One option is to make pickles with the pickling cucumbers that I planted.  The regular cucumbers get eaten as soon as they are ripe, I admit I am addicted to cucumbers, as soon as they are ripe, I pick them, slice them up and eat them, delicious.  Well, I was looking around for a pickle recipe and found one in my grandma's Armstrong Ladies Aid Cookbook and it just so happens that it was her sister's recipe, my Aunt Edna.  These are dill pickles, pretty simple, but I added some pepper corns and fresh garlic just to spice it up a bit.  They have to sit for a couple of weeks before I can try them, but they look pretty good to me.

First, you have to pick the cucumbers and wash them:

Then, you need to cut the ends off and cut up the cucumbers (I did spears and slices):

When they are all cut up it's time to pack them into the sterilized jars with the fresh dill, garlic and pepper corns:

Now, it's time to mix the vinegar, water and pickling salt together and fill each of the jars:

Once the jars are filled, lids are put on and the bands are tightened, process them in boiling water for about 10 minutes to seal the lids and voila! Fresh pickles!

Every year I feel the need to purge my life of any excess junk that is hanging around and every year my sister, my mom and cousin Carol come over and we have a huge yard sale (this year a realtor came by and wanted to know if I was moving, I guess we have a lot of junk).  Tom made breakfast burrito's, we should have sold them, they tasted so good and Carol always makes taco dip (Carol makes THE BEST taco dip), I think we are going on about 6 or 7 years that we have been doing this, it's a lot of fun, but it's a lot of work.  We always ask the same question, where did we have all this stuff?  When all is said and done, we load up all the goodies that haven't sold and take them to the Goodwill truck.
Tom wanted to try on one of cousin Carol's necklaces that was for sale (that is my garden over Tom's shoulder, crazy huh?).

That is my grandma on the right and her sister, Edna on the left

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Hello Summer!

Sarah graduated from the 8th grade, where the heck does the time go?  She is such a pretty young lady now, it's kind of scary that she will be graduating from high school in 4 years! I will say it again, I feel so lucky that I get to be a part of her life (and lucky for her, I remember EVERYTHING I did in high school!).  I love that kid!


Sarah's softball team had their second tournament this weekend.  Saturday, they won 2 and lost 1, it was a long day. Sarah hit two home run's and played 2nd base (instead of her usual catcher) and was just an animal out on the field!  Her dad and I couldn't have been more proud of her.  On Sundays your team plays until they lose and then your done.  Our team was down,  I think 11-0 after two inings, it wasn't looking pretty, then the girls started to rally and they came back with 8 runs!  We did end up losing, 12-8, but those girls sure gave on heck of a fight!  Sarah hit two doubles and had an awesome base hit down the the 3rd base line.  I just love watching those kids play!

Tom has been working all weekend and making time to be at the games, I know he is just beat up from the street up!  As we were leaving the softball game this morning he told me to make some dinner and I decided it would be a good time to get back to my grandma's recipes.  Tonight it is going to be a Chicken and Rice casserole.  Looks pretty easy, however I am going to try and make it a little healthier by substituting lower fat/salt soups for the original full fat ones and mixing my white rice with brown rice.

Chicken and Rice:
1 can each:
Cream of Mushroom Soup
Cream of Celery Soup
1 C. rice(uncooked)
1 chicken cut up (I am using boneless, skinless breasts)
1/2 soup can milk
Dry onion or chicken soup mix

Mix rice, soups & milk in pan.  Lay chicken over top and sprinkle dry onion or chicken soup mix.  Cover with foil and bake 2 1/2 hours at 325.  I am also going to add some fresh thyme that I have growing in the garden.

Sorry there aren't any pictures of the casserole, I didn't have a camera today.  But Tom loved it!

We are finally having nice weather!  Northern California had a pretty cool spring and lots of rain!  Last weekend it rained so much the neighbor's olive tree broke a branch and it came down in my backyard!  Thank god it missed the fence! I am looking forward to some warm temps and sunshine, but I will make sure I keep my sunscreen on!  HAPPY SUMMER!

Time to pull up our skirts and get in the lake!(that is my grandma on the right and her Aunt Bert in Michigan)

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Mother's Day

Tom and I had just a crazy, busy weekend.  Saturday was supposed to be Sarah's last softball game for her recreational league, but the game was cancelled, which saved us a long round trip road trip, because Sarah was camping.  Instead of staying  home and getting caught up on the laundry, Tom wanted me to go to our friend's daughter's softball game, I am glad I did, it was a beautiful afternoon (laundry will always be there, right?).  Saturday night we went to our friend's house for dinner, that is always nice because usually everyone comes to our house and my house stayed clean!

On Mother's Day, we decided that we would plant flowers flowers at my mother-in-law's house, go shopping, cook and have everyone over at our house for dinner.  Sometimes I am not really sure how we get everything done, but we do, I'm sure glad that my wonderful husband helps out, he's the best.

Our dinner menu consisted of BBQ Teriyaki Pork Tenderloin, BBQ chicken breasts marinated in a Santa Cruz Lime marinade, homemade potato salad, green beans that were cooked al dente, cooled and tossed with sea salt, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and chili. Dessert was homemade strawberry shortcake, the shortcake biscuits were made from my grandma's recipe.


Slowly, our backyard is getting into shape for the upcoming summer months, we like to spend a lot of time out there.  A few years ago, we decided to build an outside kitchen, so we could do our pickled jalapeno's out there.  We have a group of people that come over, usually on a Saturday, and we pickle jalapeno's, green beans, carrots, asparagus and whatever else we can get our hands on, we call it the "Pickling Shed", I will post more of that later when our vegetables become ripe.  That is how this all got started, one year I had a ton of jalapeno's and didn't really know what to do with them, so I pickled them and it just turned into something we do every year, lots of fun!  I will also post about jam's that I make, my mom has an awesome plum tree and I hate to see the fruit go to waste.  I have a nectarine tree, however the squirrels get most of that fruit, little stinkers and I have an apple tree that they also raid every year.  Usually if someone brings me fruit or vegetables, I will find some way of cooking it, canning it or baking it, I probably should have lived on a farm.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

I Love Spring.....

I love spring, the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming and I am sneezing.  Even though it is one of my favorite times of the year, I don't look forward to the sneezing and itchy eye's and for some reason the month of May is the WORST!  I hate taking allergy medicine, because then I just want to go to sleep.

I will be cooking some more food, however, I am going to have to re-formulate some of my grandma's recipes, to make them a little more heart friendly, since my hubby had his "incident".  We are eating a lot of chicken, chicken and more chicken, I sort of feel like Bubba from Forrest Gump - we can have chicken salad, chicken soup, chicken chili, chicken enchiladas, etc.

Tom and I did plant the garden last weekend, 2 jalapeno peppers, 2 anaheim peppers, and 11 tomato plants (La Roma, San Marzano, Beefsteak, Yellow Pear, Cherry), 1 cucumber, 1 pickling cucumber, 3 basil plants, 2 thyme, 1 mint, 1 rosemary and some green beans.  Hurry up and grow so we have have some yummy treats!
My husband is a hottie-working the soil
my herbs
Can you believe I took this picture!?!
Tomatoes and Peppers


Tom and I decided to spend last sunday at the beach, we drove to Half Moon Bay and walked around and then took a beautiful drive south on Route 1 to Santa Cruz so we could eat at our favorite restaurant, The Palomar.  We have been going there since 1992, when we were just friends and as always the food was DELICIOUS.
Half Moon Bay, CA - at the Ritz Carlton
Tom and I taking a stroll on the beach in Half Moon Bay
Downtown Santa Cruz - always lots of interesting entertainment

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Day #11 - "Healthy" Chocolate Chip Cookies and My Husband

Sometimes life doesn't exactly go as planned.  Tom and I started off the week knowing that we were going to go to Southern California for his great Aunt Fray's funeral (she was 102 years old!) and we thought we would take a couple of extra days and visit my uncle Ozzie in Manhatten Beach.  I would have been happy if that's what happened, instead Tom called me on Wednesday saying he was going to the hospital because he was having chest pains!  I dropped everything I was doing and rushed over to the hospital, he was a little pale when I got there, but they had done and EKG and they thought everything was ok, but they wanted to keep him overnight because of his family's history of cardiovascular disease.  They drew some more blood at 2am and his cardio enzymes were slightly elevated.  When I got to the hospital in the morning the cardiologist was there and he said that Tom had a "small" heart attack and they were going to do an angiogram later in the day.  The angiogram revealed that he had a 95% blockage in one artery and 80% blockage in another, but there was no damage to his heart (thank God).  The doctor put in two stents to clear the arteries.  Tom had to spend another night in the hospital and let me tell you, he was none too happy about that!  Tom got to come home the day after his "procedure", just in time to see Sarah off on her East Coast trip with school. I am so happy to have him home, resting and taking care of himself.  Now "we" are on our way to having a heart healthy diet and plenty of exercise! 
Isn't he cute! 

A few weeks ago, I was at my sister's house and she had made these Chocolate Chunk and Walnut Oatmeal Cookies, I thought they were pretty tasty, so I decided that I would make these for Tom, so he could still feel like he was eating some yummy treats.

Chocolate Chunk and Walnut Oatmeal Cookies
Preheat oven to 350.  Melt 6 tablespoons unsalted butter in a small saucepan over low heat.  Remove from heat, and add 3/4 light brown sugar, stir until smooth.  Combine 2/3 cup whole wheat flour, 3/4 tsp baking soda, 1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats and 1/2 tsp salt in a medium bowl.  Combine butter mixture with the dry ingredients and add 1 egg, lightly beaten, and 1 tsp vanilla extract.  Fold in 1/2 cup chopped walnuts and 3 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped.  Mix well, and spoon by tablespoonfuls onto lightly greased baking sheets.  Bake for 12 minutes or until tops are dry to the touch.

Ingredients
Melt butter, add brown sugar
Mix dry ingredients
Add the butter/sugar mixutre, egg, vanilla, walnuts
Bake for about 12 minutes

The cookies came out really good.  I know my sister will be mad at me because I used chocolate chips, but I really didn't feel like going to the grocery store, sorry Katie, next time I will use the dark chocolate, I promise.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Softball and Flowers

Today is in honor of spring, planting flowers and getting ready for the garden.  I apologize, I didn't have any time to cook this weekend.  Sarah had a softball game yesterday afternoon, they won 8-3 and Sarah hit a triple, her dad and I couldn't have been more proud of her.  After the game we went over to the Millet's for some celebrating!  It was great company, I love the softball families, great kids and parents, it was a blast.  The kids were playing Just Dance and we even got Tom and Marty to play, let's just say, watching the two of them dancing still brings tears to my eyes, of course we captured it on video so we can enjoy it for a long, long time.

Isn't she cute.....

My sister and I have been pretty faithful to our Sunday morning workout's at the track and it was a perfect morning to do that today. After I got home, Tom and I started working in the front yard, pulled the weeds, cut the grass, got rid of old flowers.  I love this time of the year, the newness of everything.  I decided that I should put some flowers in some of the pots in the front, bring some color to the front yard.  I know my grandma always had beautiful flowers in her yard, I can't wait to finish planting the rest of the flowers in the front and get started on the back yard.



The garden will be planted in a couple of weeks and that means fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans and jalapeno's.  As I mentioned before, there will also be fresh basil, thyme, sage, mint and maybe some rosemary.  My mouth is watering as I write this!  Nothing is better than a fresh picked tomato, right off the vine, with a little salt and pepper.........as my husband would say "forget about it".


Picking tomatoes from the "crop"
From what I remember my dad telling me, my grandma used to pick cherries every year, this was one of their trips, my grandma is the one with the bucket tipped towards the camera.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Day #10 - Gravy, Italian Sausage and Whoopie Pies

It is raining, again, that means no softball, no running, no nothing!  I don't know how many days of rain we have had, but I am done, I need some sunshine! My wonderful, Italian husband is going to make some homemade "gravy" today with the rest of last summer's tomatoes. Our garden will be planted on April 19th, we plant on the same day every year, we put in between 6-8 tomato plants, some jalapeno's, green beans, cucumbers and last year I ventured into the world of herbs with some basil (NOTHING smells better than fresh basil).  A few years ago I started freezing my tomatoes so we could enjoy them all year, that way we would have them  for "gravy", chili and soups. I have never made Italian sausage, but my husband's grandma would come visit his family at Christmas and make all kinds of yummy food with Tom's dad.  I remember the deep fried cauliflower, it was dipped in some sort of batter and then fried, the funny this is, I am not a huge fan of cauliflower!  Well, one of the things they would make every year was Italian sausage, 100 lbs of sausage!  Unfortunately, Tom's dad and grandma are no longer with us to give us a little guidance in the sausage making, so we are just going to wing it and I think we did a pretty good job for our first time!

Chop up the meat

Send it through the meat grinder

Add the seasonings and mix together

We needed to sample it to see if it needed any additional seasoning, so we fried up a patty.

Then we decided to add some sauce and parmesan cheese and a meatball, it was delightful!

I decided we needed some sort of sweetness to eat, so I decided that I was going to make some Whoopie Pies.  This isn't totally my grandma's recipe, except for the frosting, she call's it "Mock Whipped Cream Icing" and the funny thing is, I saw this recipe on The Pioneer Woman's web site!  The Pioneer Woman was making "Devil Dog's", she used a Chocolate Sheet Cake recipe and the Icing to make these, both of these recipe's are in my grandma's cookbook!  When we go visit our friends, Andy and DeAnn in Oklahoma this summer, I am going to make these "Devil Dog's", I can't wait!


Ingredients for the Whoopie Pie cake/cookie portion

Mix all this together

Drop by tablespoons onto a cookie sheet and bake

I have to admit the first time I read the Mock Cream Cheese Frosting recipe, I was a little skeptical, the ingredients seemed a little strange to me, but when I saw it on the Pioneer Woman's web site, I thought, "it has to be good" and I have to say it was tasty!


Cook milk and flour, until it is thickened, let cool completely
Then with a mixer, cream the butter and granulated sugar and then add the cooled milk/flour mixture and beat for about 10 mintues.
To assemble the Whoopie Pies, take one of the cakes, spread some frosting on the bottom and top with another cake.  They are like big Oreo cookies
By the way, the gravy was wonderful!  My husband out did himself again!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Day #9 - Bars, Hamburgers and Golden Parmesan Potatoes

This past Thursday was St. Patrick's Day, of course for us that means we go to the Redi Room to eat Corned Beef and Cabbage, this has been our tradition for the past 6 or 7 years and every year it is delicious.  We got an extra dose of fun because the Redi Room has regular Karaoke on Thursday's, nothing like watching drunk people sing (I should know, I am usually one of them).  We had a great time, cousin Jody came and my sister and B, however I drank a couple too many adult beverages, let's just say I wasn't feeling 100% on Friday, but I made it through my day at work.  Tom and I were invited to attend a grand opening of a new BBQ place (the company I work for did the remodel work), our plan was to go to the grand opening, have a little food and go home to sit on the couch, of course things never work out that way.  First, the owner of another local pub/restaurant was at the same grand opening, he is also one of Tom's customer's, he and Tom decided to take a walk and look at another bar in this same complex, when they came back, I noticed the Rockstar (a friend of Tom's) was with them, we then decided to leave and go to to the the pub/restaurant and have some dinner and more drinks. Dinner was good (Shepherds Pie), we had a couple more drinks, the boys played a few games of darts,  but Tom and I really just wanted to go home and relax, we finally did at 11pm.  Tom had to work the next day, which means he has to be in a bar most of the day running a dart tournament and I was going to a birthday party at a place called the Saddlerack.  The Saddlerack has been around forever, we used to go there in our twenties, there is a mechanical bull, bands, just like the movie "Urban Cowboy" (best movie EVER).  Well, I knew I was not looking for love in all the wrong places and I was the designated driver, I decided that watching all the drunk people would be fun, most of these people (mostly women) really need to learn how to dress appropriately for their size, and I guess that when you are drunk these days, these women all turn into wanna be pole dancers (believe me, they ALL needed to take a few lessons).  It had been raining all day and since I was the designated driver, I was trying to be careful on the freeway for the ride home, staying in the slow lane and going the speed limit, I was just saying to the other girls in the car that with all the rain, it was hard to see the lines in the road and the next thing you knew, my car started hydroplaning, scared the you know what out of me!  I remember Tom telling me not to break if that ever happened, how on earth did I remember that! I said a quick prayer and I got the car straightened out and thank god we were fine, the only thing I wanted to do at that point was go home and pull the covers over my head! Finally, we made it home, I told Tom what happened and fell asleep. Today we had to go to another bar for a baby shower, there was no way I could drink again, so I stuck with diet pepsi, I think I'm done with being in a bar for awhile. 

Tom and I always love talking about what we are going to have for dinner, so this morning he had my mouth watering when he mentioned the Bacon, Blue Cheese Burgers he wanted to make.  I decided that some Golden Parmesan Potatoes would be a good companion for these. The potato recipe was something my grandma must of clipped out of a newspaper at some point, they sure sounded good to me.

Golden Parmesan Potatoes:
6 large potatoes
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
3/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/3 cup butter
Chopped Parsley

Cut up the potatoes in chunks.  Combine, flour, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper in a bag.  Moisten potatoes with water and shake a few at a time in bag, coating the potatoes well.
Melt butter in 13 x 9" baking pan, place potatoes in pan, bake 375 for about 1 hour, turning once during the baking.  When golden brown, sprinkle with parsley.


Some of the things I love about cooking my grandma's recipes, is that there are very few ingredients, the recipes aren't fancy and they are good comfort food. 


I can't give out the recipe for the hamburgers because Tom doesn't usually write things down, he just starts throwing things together and everything always turns out good.  I have been bugging him to cook the hamburgers in the cast iron skillet for awhile now, that is how I remember eating a burger growing up, can't wait to taste it!

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Day #8 - Sugar Cookies and Sarah's Birthday

Sarah's birthday was March 10th, she wanted to go to Original Joe's, which is a local Italian restaurant that we love, so Tom and I took her to dinner for her birthday and we ate some yummy Italian food.  We also decided that we would make dinner for her on March 12th and invite some family and friends over to celebrate, we wanted to keep it "old school", we let Sarah pick out whatever she wanted to eat and she decided she wanted her dad's enchilada's and I asked her if I could make her a cake.  The menu consisted of chicken enchilada's with a delicious chili verde/limey sauce, ground beef enchilada's with a red sauce, spanish rice, corn salsa and salad.  I decided to make homemade Devil's Food cake with a chocolate glaze. Instead of a traditional layer cake, I thought it would be fun to make "little cakes" with a bundt cake pan I had gotten years ago.  I think Tom and I cooked all day, well Tom cooked all day, I made the "cakes" and cleaned the house. By the time everyone ate dinner, drank a few adult beverages and ate birthday cake, Tom and I were exhausted and it was only 9pm!  After cleaning up the mess, Tom sat in the big chair, I went and took out my contacts, by the time I got back to the living room, maybe 5 minutes later, he was sound asleep.

Tom's yummy enchilada's:

Sarah's Birthday "Cakes"

Tom and I knew we had leftover enchilada's to eat for dinner, so he suggested that I make a dessert or something sweet to eat for after dinner.  I threw out a few suggestions and we decided that I would make some sugar cookies.  Tom suggested that I put some lemon icing on the cookies, like his grandma used to make for him.  We had a bag of lemons in the garage, thanks to Buttercup's dad from last week.

Here is the recipe:
1 cup sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt(I don't use this much because I use salted butter)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar
4 cup + 2 TBSP flour

Cream butter and sugars, add eggs, then oil and vanilla.  Beat until fluffy. Combine dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture.  Chill dough for 1 hour.  Roll into 1 inch balls and flatten or roll and cut. Bake 375 for about 11-13 minutes.




One of the things Tom and I agree on, we actually agree on a lot of things, but we love to have our friends and family over for dinners.  When I was in the process of getting divorced from husband #1, my house was under construction because it was being remodeled.  Tom and I had re-connected at that time, we probably hadn't seen each other in about a year, he came over and helped me out with some painting and the only thing he wanted in return was for me to make him my chili enchilada's.  I didn't get around to making those chili enchilada's for a few months for other reasons I won't get into right now, but when I did, I thought it would just be Tom, Sarah and me for dinner.  Well, it turned out that my sister and B stayed for dinner and Tom and Sarah brought Uncle Shakey and Sean Sweeney.  Tom asked if there was enough for everyone and my reply was "If we don't, we'll make more".  That has been the motto around here ever since, we'll always have enough for whoever shows up.