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Archive for February, 2013

Menu Plan Monday

Posted in Menu Planning, tagged , on February 25, 2013| 2 Comments »

Happy Monday to everyone!  Sorry I was MIA last week, but I had a touch of something that left me tired and weak.  I went home from work early on Friday with a fever, chills, and body aches.  Thankfully those symptoms were short lived and the rest of the weekend I was just tired and lazy.  I did absolutely nothing all weekend except lay on the couch to read or watch tv.  That is not like me at all!

After that, I have played catch-up all week with laundry, housework, etc. so this week I am back to normal.  Yay!  I did make a new cookie recipe this weekend and it was divine.  They are Chocolate Truffle Cookies and will be coming up this Saturday so please check back for a delicious treat.  This menu is actually starting with yesterday’s supper since I didn’t get to post my new recipe on last week’s menu.  Have a great week, everyone!

Country-style pork loin (new)

Hamburger stew with quick peppery cheese bread

Grilled pork chops with oven fries

Tacos with salad

Grilled hamburgers with oven fries

Pizza night

Salsa sloppy Joes with curly fries

Peanut butter pudding cake (new)

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

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Hamburger Soup

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , , , on February 23, 2013| 17 Comments »

I love to try new soup recipes, especially when the weather is cold.  Soup just warms the body and soul.  This is a quick and simple, but filling, soup from Simply Klassic which I found on Pinterest.

Even though I don’t have kids, I think this would be a very kid-friendly meal with some cheese and crackers or cornbread on the side. 

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1 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 tbsp. minced garlic

1 lb. ground beef

salt & pepper to taste

1 can condensed tomato soup, plus 1 can water

28 oz. beef broth (I used vegetable since I was out of beef.)

1 small can corn (I used Mexicorn.)

2 cups uncooked pasta of your choice

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Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.  Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion has softened.  Add the beef and season with salt and pepper.  Cook until the meat is no longer pink.

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Add the rest of the ingredients except the pasta.  Bring to a boil, turn down the heat to medium.  Add the pasta and cook until al dente.

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Thoughtful Thursday-State Of The Blog Address

Posted in My Thoughts, tagged , , , , on February 21, 2013|

Since the President gives the country a State Of The Union address and our governor gives a State Of The Commonwealth address, I thought I would give my own version, The State Of The Blog address.  As of March 9th, 2013, I have been blogging for 4 years at this little site.  When I look back at some of those first posts, I will chuckle at myself and realize how far I have come in my writing and photography skills.  I am still not the greatest, but at least I have improved.  While my dad was in the hospital and rehab facility for weeks these past few months, I worried that I would have to give up blogging for a while since there wasn’t much free time.  Thankfully he is now at home and doing great so back to blogging I go, very happily I might add.

This is my creative outlet.  The cooking of the food, the photographing of the food, and, finally, writing about all of it brings me joy.  This is kind of like my alter-ego and it is a place I can go express myself and write about what I want to write about. 

Since this is definitely not my full-time job (hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?), I try to keep my hobby as inexpensive as possible.  The most expensive thing I have bought for blogging is a new camera, but we use that for many other things.  I have purchased a few bowls, plates, and pretty dishtowels to use as props, but that is about it.  I love to look at other blogs that are professionally designed with all kinds of buttons and gadgets, but didn’t want to pay for it.  Enter my amazing husband, C! 

A few weeks ago, I needed to learn how to enter HTML code into a blog post using Windows Live Writer (another great FREE product).  While C showed me how to do it, he asked if there was anything else I wanted to add.  YES!!! Many blogs had “Pin It” buttons so readers could “pin” their posts and I wanted one.  We did a little searching on the WordPress site and found by going to “Settings” and “Sharing”, we could make those buttons a reality.  Now at the bottom of every post, there is a Pinterest, Print, Twitter and Email buttons.  Love it! 

Speaking of the print option, this is due to another freebie that C knew about call Print Friendly.  Just go to their site and click on “website button” at the top right and you, too, can have a print option on your site.  I really like it because it pulls the photos to one side so all of the text is together and that makes it much easier to read as an actual recipe.  Also, you can hover your mouse over sections and delete them so they won’t print and empty your ink cartridge.  Genius, I say, just genius.

I also added a “Follow Me on Pinterest” button right under my “About Me” info on the right hand side of the page.  I love Pinterest so please follow me and see all of the stuff I may never get around to doing or buying.  Ha!

If you are new to this space, thanks for stopping by and I hope you return many times.  If you are a regular reader, thank you from the bottom of my heart!  I love doing this and if only one person gets enjoyment out of besides me, then it is completely worth it.

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Book Beginnings

Posted in Books, tagged , , , , on February 15, 2013| 3 Comments »

Happy Friday!!  Please join in with me today for Book Beginnings hosted by Rose City Reader and visit some of the other great bloggers over there, too.  My book today is the third and last book in the Magdalene series by Kathleen McGowan called “The Poet Prince”. 

Here is the first line:

“The Roman emperor Antoninus Pius was not a butcher.”

Hmmm…really?  This makes me wonder what, exactly, is going on that he has to make that distinction.  I won’t give too much away, but Pius has to make a grave decision about something that starts the ball rolling for this book.  Again, this is a FICTION book, but Ms. McGowan is excellent in combining fact and fiction.  The historical and art references are right on (I have been burning up Google while reading these books), and the weaving of the fictional story into these facts is outstanding.

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Exquisite Chocolate Cherry Cake

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , , , on February 13, 2013| 19 Comments »

Lady Behind the Curtain Dessert Challenge

I usually post a new recipe every Saturday, but this week’s recipe is part of new special link party hosted by The Lady Behind The Curtain.  It is the first edition of her “Behind the Curtain Dessert Challenge”!  She will give all of us participating bloggers two ingredients to use and we will either find or create a recipe using those.  This month’s ingredients are chocolate and cherry and this is my contribution…The Southern Lady Cooks’ Exquisite Chocolate Cherry Cake.

I had never used chocolate and cherries together so I went on an online hunt for a recipe to try .  The Southern Lady Cooks is one of my favorite food blogs and when I saw she had this cake on her site, I knew it would be good.  I wasn’t wrong…this cake is so moist and flavorful.  Most of the other chocolate cherry cake recipes I found were made with a cake mix and there isn’t anything wrong with that, but I had a feeling that Southern Lady’s would be better since it was from scratch.  This would be a great special occasion cake especially for Valentine’s Day.

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For the cake:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup baking cocoa

1 1/4 cups white sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup buttermilk (I used 4 tbsp. dried buttermilk & 1 cup water.)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 (21 ounce) can cherry pie filling

For the frosting:

3/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk

3 tablespoons butter

3 tbsp. milk

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

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In a large mixing bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa, sugar, and dried buttermilk.  Mix well with whisk. Add eggs, melted butter, water (for dried buttermilk), vanilla extract and cherry pie filling mixing well each time with a spoon.

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Prepare a Bundt pan by spraying with non-stick spray and sprinkle in cocoa to coat. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven 55 to 60 minutes until center is cooked. Let cake cool for 20 minutes before removing from Bundt pan.

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Combine sugar, sweetened condensed milk and butter in pan on top of stove. Bring to boil and cook for 1 minute. Remove from heat and add regular milk, vanilla and chocolate chips. Stir with spoon or whisk until chips are melted. Pour over the cooled cake.

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Menu Plan Monday

Posted in Menu Planning, tagged , , , on February 11, 2013|

It’s Monday all over again and can you believe that we are almost halfway through February, because I sure can’t.  We have been blessed weather-wise here in South Central Kentucky with fairly warm weather and a few beautiful sunny days.  I feel so sorry for the people in New England.  First Sandy the Hurricane comes barreling through and now a huge snowstorm.  I guess if you live up there you expect the snow, but this much?  It is not for me.  I will keep the wild wacky weather of Kentucky, thank you very much.

This week looks to be another busy one around here.  My dad has minor surgery on Wednesday to remove a few wires that were put in his wrist after his auto accident.  They can now come out so we get to travel to the big city a couple of hours away for that.  Hopefully it is quick and relatively pain-free.  A very close friend of mine is starting to sell Mary Kay cosmetics and she is having an open house on Friday afternoon and I will be stopping by to try a few products and probably purchase a little as well. Don’t worry though…there will still be plenty of kitchen action going on at home.  I hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed week!

Leftover shredded pork bbq with oven fries

Chili and grilled cheese

Cheesy steak sandwiches with oven fries

BLTs with chips and fruit

Sausage bake

Chubby Hubby Truffles (new)

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

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Easy Slow Cooker BBQ Roast

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , on February 9, 2013| 4 Comments »

This simple recipe is mainly my own creation that came to mind after using other slow cooker roast recipes and wanting to use ingredients that I had on hand.  Usually I just use BBQ sauce on pork roasts, but I decided to give it a shot on a beef roast and the results were really good.  The roast was tender since it cooked for hours in the slow cooker and the BBQ seasoning and sauce gave it a great flavor.  The leftovers made excellent sandwiches the next day.  Just shred the beef and layer on buns with a little extra sauce.  Yum!

EasySlowCookerBBQRoast

1 beef roast (approx. 2 lbs.)

BBQ seasoning (I used Penzey’s BBQ 3000.)

BBQ sauce of your choice (I used Kroger’s honey bbq sauce.  Cheap & good.)

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Sprinkle the seasoning on the roast and rub in well.  Place the roast in the slow cooker with just a enough water to cover the bottom of the crock.  Pour about half of the bottle of sauce over the roast.

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Cook on low for 6 to 7 hours until the meat is tender and cooked through.  Enjoy!

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Thoughtful Thursday-Travel Edition

Posted in Fun, My Thoughts, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on February 7, 2013|

Way back in October before my dad had his accident, C & I spent a couple of days in Indianapolis for a getaway.  Indy was a city in easy driving distance for us that we had never been to so we hit the road to see the sights.  The first day we went to Edinburgh, Indiana to do a little shopping at the Premium Outlets and, let me tell you, it was the BEST outlet mall we had ever been to.  We found lots of bargains and only went in about 10% of the stores there before we ran out of time.  I would love to go back this spring to shop there again.

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We spent the night in Edinburgh and headed to Indy the next morning after going back to the mall for a few minutes.  Along the way, we stopped and ate at Jimmy Buffett’s Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant.

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This is a chain restaurant, but not one in our normal area and it was good.  We both got cheeseburgers and fries.  The meal was tasty, but if we go back I would like to go to a couple of local eateries instead of a chain.  Maybe next time.  One of the main reasons we chose Indy was to go their zoo and aquarium located inside the zoo.  Unfortunately, it rained all day long while we were there, but we still enjoyed the zoo. The aquarium part is pretty small except the dolphin exhibit.  The underwater dome was awesome!  The next pics will show the zoo highlights.

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Indy has a great skyline even in the rain.  We did a drive-by of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but since there wasn’t a race we couldn’t get a very good view.

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The attraction that I most wanted to see was Monument Circle and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument so we braved the rainy weather and downtown traffic to go. If you are in the Indy area, I highly recommend visiting this area of downtown.  There are several shops and restaurants that I would love to go back and visit if we have a chance to.  It is also just down the street from the arena where the Indiana Pacers play.

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Menu Plan Monday

Posted in Menu Planning, tagged , , on February 4, 2013| 3 Comments »

We have arrived at another Monday so it is time for this week’s menu plan.  Time sure does fly by.  C & I helped my Dad and his friend E celebrate his 60th birthday on Saturday.  I fixed one of Dad’s favorite meals: grilled sirloin, butter roasted potatoes, salad and Italian Cream Cake.  We all had a great time eating and watching the Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team get a victory.  It was a great night!

This week’s plan has mostly old favorites with one new soup recipe that I have been wanting to try.  Right now is the perfect weather for soup and I could eat a different kind every night, but C is not that big a soup fan so I space them out a little bit.

Bubble Up Pizza

Tacos with fruit salad

Grilled pork chops with oven fries

Hamburger soup (new)

Sausage biscuits with oven fries

Shredded pork bbq

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

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Alton Brown’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , , , on February 2, 2013| 7 Comments »

My husband, C, is not a big sweet eater, but when the urge strikes, he usually requests chocolate chip cookies.  He wanted some a couple of weeks ago so I decided to try a different recipe than the tried and true “back of the package” cookie.  Alton Brown to the rescue!

I remembered an episode of “Good Eats” where Mr. Brown made different kinds of chocolate chip cookies so I got out my trusty copy of “Good Eats: The Early Years” to find it.

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There it was on page 166 from the “Three Chips for Sister Marsha” episode…chewy chocolate chip cookies!  Let me tell you, I think these were the BEST chocolate chip cookies that I have ever eaten, let alone made.  The extra effort of this recipe was so worth it!

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Remember, Mr. Brown’s baking recipes do measurements by weight, not volume so get out the trusty kitchen scale.

8 oz. unsalted butter

12 oz. bread flour

1 tsp. kosher salt

1 tsp. baking soda

2 oz. granulated sugar

8 oz. light brown sugar

1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

2 tbsp. milk

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

12 oz. chocolate morsels

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Melt butter in the microwave and set aside to cool slightly.  Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda onto a paper plate.

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With an electric mixer, combine the melted butter and two sugars.  Beat for 2 minutes.

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In a measuring cup, whisk together the whole egg, egg yolk, milk and vanilla.

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Reduce the mixer speed and slowly add the egg mixture until thoroughly combined.  Gradually mix in the dry ingredients, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary.  Stir in the chips.

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Chill the dough for 1 hour.  Heat the oven to 375 degrees.  Scoop the dough onto a lined baking sheet.  Bake for 12 minutes or until lightly golden brown.  Cool for 5 minutes (if you can wait that long) and eat up!

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