Sunday evening delights

Tonight for my after dinner treat I had some of this

With some of this

and the crumble from here sprinkled on top.

It was quite the delicious finish to a sauteed mushroom, onion, garlic, and ham pasta with asparagus.

Yum!
Bekah

Num. Num. Yum. Yums!!

I made some very yummy yum yums this evening. I get so tired of makeshift dinners, but I don't always remember in time to have an actual dinner. This evening we had bbq brisket (the hubby smoked the meat yesterday. DELICIOUS), hashbrown casserole, steamed asparagus and corn flake cookies for dessert. Yum. 

We had quite a few mangoes that are as ripe as ripe can be and so my hubby sliced and diced them to make dried fruit out of. He did a great job, got as much of the flesh off the seed as possible. Dried mango to add to the granola, yum. :)

Hashbrown Casserole

Mangoes in the dehydrator

Corn flake cookies

Leave a comment if you want recipes, and I will post them later. Don't forget, Mother's Day is sunday! 

~Scottie

Such a long time...

It has been such a long time since I have blogged. I have thought of many topics to blog about:

How to: Christmas stockings
Arkansas Visit/ Fishing trip
Lenten Practices

But, alas, have not blogged on any of them, as you well know. : )

Latest news, my sister had an art show this evening, but I haven't heard how it went. I am hoping for a good turn out, and a great success.

I planted my garden this evening, or more precisely, I finally finished planting. Last weekend the hardware store had a giant plant sale and had a 4 plant container (the little ones) for $.89/ea. We bought WAY to many plants for our garden. We ended up sharing some of our extras with the neighbors. :) I started the planting last saturday, and finally finished this afternoon. Unfortunately, I need to finish planting flowers in the front flower bed. *sigh* I now have corn, green beans, carrots, broccoli, squash, tomatoes, peppers, watermelon, cantaloupe..... I don't think it is all going to produce, but if it does... we are going to have produce running out of our ears this summer. Wouldn't that be lovely? :) We planted some raspberry and blueberry bushes too, but the rabbits ate all the leaves off... I don't know if they will survive. I should get a haircut and go put it around the bushes. :D

Side note: I am very thankful and grateful to those bloggers in this world who regularly update and post new things to share with us all. I enjoy reading your blogs and getting to see a piece of your life. Thank you!

So long
~Scottie~

Christmas is here!

Christmas is here! Really? Already? I'm not ready for this! I finally conceived a place put my christmas cards, the very large number of them as you can see. : ) 

Life has been rather busy at my house. I've intended to post and simply haven't made it! Here is a bit of what has been going on:

Aries came through for one last visit before heading back to Hong Kong. We raked leaves and gave her another unique american experience. I made her jump in them too. :)

My grandfather brought me some Arkansas Black apples and I had to do something with them! They were picked in September and I didn't get them until December. Surprisingly only a few were really gross. The rest became dried apples, frozen apples, and a little bit of apple cider. Yum! Thanks, Grandpa!

Aries also brought me back some chocolate from Seattle, compliments of her and KV. Not the best ever, but definitely a nice full bodied chocolate. I really enjoyed it.

Oh, and while all the apples were on the counter, my hubby left me a message. :D

Oh, and one last thing.

Merry Christmas to all!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We went to the family for Thanksgiving. We had the typical turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and bread. I did make these Vanilla Mashed Sweet Potatoes. They were good, a lot more like whipped potatoes than mashed potatoes. I used probably two teaspoons of vanilla extract in place of the vanilla bean, and omitted the autumn infused oil.  For part of thanksgiving weekend, we decorated for Christmas. My sister took these pictures. Enjoy!!

My brother. Don't worry. No announcement needed. :)

Wedding Ornament

Chocolate Daze

I have recently been reading cookbooks (yes, reading) and done lots and lots of drooling. My current favorite drool has been over this book:

Well, I was in the mood this evening for something chocolatey. Something dark, decadent and delicious. Something more along the lines of Cupcakes, but alas, I don't live in San Francisco, nor could I find a recipe that looked as delicious as these.  I've been perusing David Lebovitz's blog (the author of the above cookbook) so I think I will blame my current chocolate cravings on him. :D Thankfully, he came to the rescue to satisfy my craving. I made Clotilde's Very Chocolate Cookies and let me say they are as dark, decadent and delicious as a girl could hope for. I used Lindt 85% dark chocolate bar and hershey's cocoa. I didn't have any cocoa nibs, so I left those out. I would love to try the cookies with those in them. For those out there who love bigger cookies, mine are about thumb size and are perfect. Each bite is so dark and so rich, anything bigger would be overwhelming. 

Enjoy!

What a mess.

So the bug guy is supposed to come and spray.... and he said for maximum effectiveness, you should empty your cabinets. *sigh* Now my kitchen (most of it) is all over my dining room, my family room, and inching out into the living room. Oh well. No more buggies?