I took the camera with me this morning when I walked along the road adjacent to where live. This is a quiet country road with developments like ours along one side indicating the city boundaries, and quiet farms and fields along the other side of the road which is the county boundary.
I know I commented on a prvious blog that all is ugly and grim this time of year and this is true for the most part but still one can find something interesting to photograph.
The day has a spring feel but I was a little fooled as there was a little wind and it was nippy. I really needed to have my little snuggy little cap on and a warmer hoodie. When I returned home I had flushed cheeks, a cold drippy nose and my clothes had that wonderful smell like sheets brought in from the clothesline.
We made reservations this morning at Spirit Mountain Casino resort for a couple of nights in February. We have not been there for about ten years. When we lived in Portland we would go occasionally in our motor coach and stay in their RV parking area. By the looks of the place on their web page it is enormous now it has really expanded. The rooms look wonderful very luxurious. We reserved a top floor corner king room with a view of the fountain and courtyard. I think it will be a fun time for us as we have not been to Casino for a long time. We are not big gamblers but do enjoy a gambling on rare occasion.
We will dine this evening on the chicken noodle soup we enjoyed last night. I made a large pot as I usually do as I do enjoy a cook free night sometimes. I will make those cheesy biscuits to go with dinner tonight however. I have fun making them they are so easy and very simple. I have posted the recipe for those in the past.
Last night I put my menu together for the next seven days. I will shop tomorrow for all ingredients.
I am anxious to try "Garden veggie Linguine with Cilantro pesto." A simple recipe and quite a healthy dish. It is a very pretty dish according to the picture.
I am also making spinach lasagna one evening. A stir fry with rice, salmon fish and chips and a German meal. So lots on the agenda. Of course we will repeat some meals as we will have leftovers. I am so lucky that my hubby does not mind leftovers in fact he looks forward to them. Some of my gal pal's have told me the men in their lives will not eat leftovers, what a shame.
A easy good for meal right in the middle of that agenda will be bakers stuffed with salad and homemade ranch style dressing. I will probably be a little bad and fry a couple slices of bacon to crumble over the tops.
We are not doing anything for Super Bowl as hubby will be working a long day and I will not even put the telly on. I could care less about the NFL. However if my husband was home I would watch with him and we would have game fare.
Well I want to sketch a little this afternoon on a rendering of a European village crawling down a cliff. I find it very relaxing to sit at the dining room table and draw. It is a bright room with a large window over looking our garden spot. Of course this time of year nothing is growing out there except for weeds. But it is fun to watch the squirrels dig holes in the raised beds and hide their nuts. Not to fun to watch the neighborhood cats do their thing in the garden beds but if I am sitting there I can at least tap on the window and scare them away.
Have a nice day even the day is boring(like here) it is nice sometimes to just veg out.
Me
Yes cozy winter nights are wonderful but could I possibly be thinking spring? Shame on me it is not even February yet. This is the way I get every year. This time of year all is so dismal looking. When the sun shows itself it softens the scene somewhat but still the streets are grimy, the trees bare, the lawns in disarray, the gutters littered. Just unattractive and bleak especially under gray cloud cover which is the case of late.
I heard from my dear friend Judy this morning and Steve her husband is in the hospital with pneumonia. Steve is also dealing with other health issues. Any of you that know Steve and Judy please say a prayer for them. This is a very hard and scary time in their lives.
I am making chicken noodle soup for this evenings dinner. Sounds homey and comforting on a rainy gray day. I am not making the noodles from scratch but I am using old fashioned home style egg noodles which are thicker and more like what you would make at home. I have a half loaf of sourdough artisan bread left from another meal so I will make cheese bread with that to accompany the soup.
For a breakfast lunch combo I just scarfed down a nice little bowl of beans and rice left over from our enchilada dinner. It hit the spot and will probably last me through the day. It was a good carb hit.
I am hoping to have lunch with my niece Brooke this week. She is a sweet gal and is attending her freshman year of college. I have not seen Brooke for a while but keep tabs on her through her postings on FB. She is a very artsy gal and enjoys the same types of things I did at her age and really do still.
She will be in a production, a play in one of our smaller venues here in Eugene in March. We will be there to cheer her on.
Well I have no more chatter today.
I must jump into the shower and get on with my day.
Have a nice day whatever the weather. I know I will be out there trudging along on my walk today just trying to get through it. Who knows though maybe I will spot something of interest.
Till later
I feel you know me well from what I write as I wear my heart on my sleeve. You know I am not materialistic at all. But the one thing I would wish for if were possible to have such dreams is to travel to interesting and beautiful places like this place in Italy. However there also many places in the good ol U S of A that would be grand too I am thinking.
I was fortunate as a child as my father was a traveler. At a very young age I traveled much of the Untied States. Starting with my first adventure at four years of age I traveled by train with my Mother from the old farm where I grew up in Oregon to Detroit Michigan where my Mom's family lived. Can you imagine the trains in 1946? I still have the little children s menu's from the dining car. They look like new as I have kept them in a safe place ever since my Mother gave them to me over 50 years ago. I recall certain things on that trip. One was a black porter. I should say African American as I do not mean offend anyone but in those days that was the term. This one particular porter took a liking to me. I was only four and I was very cute(I was) no brag just fact. He always tried to elicit talk out of me but being very shy I would not say a word. then he would tease saying, hey little girl has the cat got your tongue? I still would not respond. I just remember looking down at my shoes my face burning and my Mother saying something for me. I recall getting into in my bed at night on the train. We had a sleeping car and my berth was above my Mother's and she would help me up into the small bed. I would snuggle in and then not pull the shade at the window as I liked to go to sleep looking at the landscape whizzing by. The click-clack of the train on the tracks and whistle frequently blowing kept me awake but then the same sounds would eventually lull me to sleep. It took days to get to Detroit. That was my first experience with travel that I recall and I think it set something off in me a quenching for adventure that may never be filled as I love to go and go.
From that point on it was traveling with my Father, Mother and little brother by car. I can remember going across the united states at least five times to the east to visit family there. There were also many trips to different area's my Dad would get a yen to see. Like the southwest, the Dakota's, Canada as family was there the also. One year we drove to Ft. Lauderdale Florida and stayed for six months. I spent most of my sophomore year at Ft. Lauderdale High school. That school was huge and I was overwhelmed. However I did so well in my studies I actually got on the honor roll. It was hard work in the classrooms too. The teachers were so different from Rainier High school in Oregon where I attended. The teachers allowed you no slack in my new high school. There were no excuses for missing homework or homework turned it late. It was so quiet in the classrooms no one whispering or note passing, all things I was very accustomed to.
I got acquainted with two wonderful gals that were more academic than social. Judy was from Indiana and Bunny was from North Carolina. Both were snow birds as I was. Meaning they had their main homes in other parts north and were spending the winters in Florida which they did every year. We became fast friends. They were in most of my classes. We studied hard we got good grades, we went to the beach after school, we ate off campus most days at a little burger joint that had the best plain and simple burgers. A soft greasy grilled bun a few dill pickle slices and a yummy patty and some mustard that was it. We loved them as they were as cheap as a hot lunch or packing a lunch, my Mother did not mind.
It really was a wonderful experience for me though I surely did not want to go when my parents mentioned going for the winter. But when it was time to return to Oregon I did not want leave Florida. I had made a new little nest right there in Ft. Lauderdale. My friend Judy lived on one of many canals that led to downtown. They had a boat and on weekends the three of us gals would jump into Judy's Dad's boat and he would tour us around via the canals to downtown where we were dropped off to go the movies or shop for clothes. It was really fun and something so different from my Oregon life.
Travel now does not coincide with my life at this point. As my hubby is not retired and will not be for a long time we try to glean what we can out of small trips near our area. But one never knows what the future will hold.
In the first fifteen years of our marriage together we did a lot of traveling. We were building homes at the time and the money was there and the time was available. After finishing a home we would take a break after we put the house on the market. We worked so hard and so long for months at a time we needed to take vacations to recharge our batteries.
We traveled four times to various islands in the Caribbean staying two weeks or more at a time. Also we traveled a good deal in the united states. Through the southwest and south. Also we enjoyed many trips to Canada and saw much of British Columbia as well as Alberta. So we have had a good deal of travel in the past and I am thankful for that.
I do have a few places in my mind to visit and I hope those trips will come about.
Now as this blog is primarily about food I must get back on track. And not a train track!
Tonight we are having shredded beef enchilada's with a new enchilada sauce recipe that sounds good and three kinds of cheese. I will also make a dish of mexi rice and beans. I have a easy fix for the rice and beans that I will share with the photo's of dinner.
We are out and about today for a little outing. We feel a need to get out of the house. The air is cold the sky is blue with little ribbons of wispy clouds.
When I looked out the windows this morning there was still frost on the rooftops of the nearby houses and smoke slowly curling from chimney's.
I made coffee in my new coffee maker. I love it. I ground beans and set the machine for robust flavor. It was good to sit and look outdoors at the cold and sip my rich coffee and be warm and cozy indoors.
Well I must get on with my day time is slip sliding away.
Right now I need a bowl of multi grain cheerio's which I will scatter blueberries over top and add a splash of soy milk. A typical breakfast for me at eleven.
Have a great weekend. Hope you see some sun it brightens ones spirit.
Later.
I cannot even believe I am posting this photo. Who is this girl? I think maybe it is the hair that makes it all seem so distant and surreal. For the most part after high school I never had short hair. At that time I wanted that Gina Lollobrigida look. You know the little spit curls so in vogue. Well it was what it was. I liked it then obviously or I would not have had it done that way. Don't you love the eyebrows? Well to tell you the truth I wish I had them now as my brows are sprouting gray hairs. The more I pick out the gray the thinner my brows become. I wonder why it is when one is young you do not appreciate what you have? You are always striving to be better, be more, be something that you are not. Why do not you like what you are in youth?
One reason for me is I matured in body quickly but sadly in mind a little slower. Not a good combo.
I was a little girl and I grew up poor in the materialistic view of things but in the actual realm of life, I was rich. But I was isolated really growing up where I had little interaction with other kids my age except for my cousins, all boys. Well how you can relate to boys? So I did the best I could I suppose but with few social skills when I headed off to high school and I just had a hard time fitting in, not because I did not make friends but over all I was shy and others at school took it as stand offish or I am searching for the word oh here it is..........stuck up. Not true. I was just uncomfortable and unsure of myself.
I swear my high school years were the hardest years I ever lived.
I was popular yet I wasn't. I was pretty but yet I wasn't the prettiest. I was involved in lots of high school activities as all my friends were very popular. Yes I was part of the popular high school group but what did I bring to it very little I feel I was just absorbed into pack.
I surely wish I could go back and have the maturity and wisdom I eventually gleaned as I would have been a totally different person. But for whatever reasons I was who I was at that time and so be it. I am not who I was and thankfully I like who I am now. I have found myself maybe later in life than others but still to find what it is that makes you content and at peace in your life and makes your bell toll at any age is a huge blessing.
So to all all those eighteen old's like I was in the photo, there is a lot of life to live and a lot of time to discover who you are truly are. I suppose every day we live we learn something different about our selves and the way we see and understand this life. So to the cute girl in the photo I say, You were a little poop sometimes but you surely had your moments and I love you regardless. All is well.
Have a lovely evening and have a lovely life you earned every minute of it.
Me
I made peanut butter cookies this afternoon. I tried a new recipe. They are luscious cookies, so tender inside and not to sweet. That is an issue I have with most peanut butter cookies they tend to be to sweet.
I made the cookies with Trader Joe's natural peanut butter and that may have kept the sweetness level down also.
Here is the recipe.
Irresistible peanut butter cookies.
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup Crisco all vegetable shortening
1 1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
3 Tbsp's milk
1 Tbsp's pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 13/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
Heat oven to 375 F. Combine peanut butter, shortening, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in bowl and beat at medium speed until well blended. Add egg beat until blended. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt and add to creamed mixture at low speed. Drop by round tablespoons 2" apart on baking sheet. Flatten slight in your implement of choice. I use a potato masher.
Bake for 7-8 minutes or until set and just beginning to brown. Cool two minutes on baking sheet and remove to a rack to finish cooling. I usually put in a plastic container with snap lid inserting wax paper between layers of cookies. They stay soft this way.
As I said I love this recipe as they are tender and soft and melt in your mouth.
After running this morning for groceries and doing some errands I just wanted a laid back afternoon and baking cookies while listening to music seemed so comforting to me.
I did do a bad thing though. On the way home I stopped at Little Caesar's for their Hot and Ready pepperoni pizza. My hubby and I like this pizza. We put the oven at 350 F and pop the pizza on a aerated pizza pan and heat for ten minutes. It is just like it was made in your own oven. So you pick it up and pop it your oven and there you go. We like the crust and the sauce we add other ingredients to our liking or what is in the fridge. For $5 bucks how can you beat it? We each had lunch today and will lunch on it again tomorrow with another five minute heat up.
To compensate our unhealthy lunch we are having for tonight's dinner a green salad with lots of veggies and good albacore tuna and home made dressing. I am sure we will have a cookie for desert so overall not the best day for health. But surely once in a great while does it really hurt? No one wants to be deprived. Furthermore it is really more about portion control.
It was mild today. When I stepped out of the car at the grocery store the sun had popped out and the breeze was warm and welcoming. I stood outside my car door and drank in the air. I am thinking I could detect a hint of spring on the horizon.
The remains of my cold are slowly taking leave. Leaving me with a sore nose, chapped lips and feeling jet lagged for lack of sleep.
Tomorrow I feel will be a stellar day. A date with my husband and well on the road to recovery.
Have a lovely evening even if you do not have peanut butter cookies. Wish I could share them with the world it bring forth a lot of smiles. Who does not like a good cookie?
Till later.
I took the camera with me this morning when I walked along the road adjacent to where live. This is a quiet country road with developments like ours along one side indicating the city boundaries, and quiet farms and fields along the other side of the road which is the county boundary.
