Fun Foods on Friday!

It's that time again... Fun Foods on Friday!

#1. What brand of frozen dinners do you think are the best and why?
I think Stouffers does a good job with the meals they make that are family size. Especially the chicken enchiladas.. yumm.

#2. What is your favorite frozen waffle or breakfast food?
We eat Eggos waffles and have for years. I should probably try something less expensive and see if it can match up.

#3. Frozen appetizers. Which one is your favorite?
I like TGIF's selection of appetizers. The potato skins, fried cheese and buffalo wings are pretty good.

#4. Share a recipe or meal made from at least one frozen food.

Broccoli and Rice casserole
Frozen broccoli
8oz. Cheese whiz (mild)
2 c. cooked rice
1 can cr. of mushroom soup
¼ c. celery
¼ c. onion
3 T. butter

Saute celery and onions in butter. Mix all ingredients and cook at 350 degrees for 40 minutes uncovered.

Pingin' and Pongin'

We've added another feature to the backyard pool area. Ping Pong! We've had this table folded up and out of the way in the garage. But when Hayden had asked if we could move the table to the back porch, to an area that we had no other use for, I thought, "why not?". It was perfect.

And oh how I loved the way the boys played against each other without one fight. In fact they worked as a team to see how long they could rally back and forth. I've been informed that "74" is their record so far.

Four Foods on Friday

Here's this week's Four Foods on Friday that is brought to all of us at Fun, Crafts and Recipes. Everyone should join in on the meme... it's very enjoyable.

#1. When going out to dinner what items do your order? Appetizers, soup, salad, dinner, dessert. Sometimes I'll have an appetizer, if I'm really starving. But for the most part the only thing I order is dinner.

#2. How predictable are you when eating out? Do you usually order a meal that you’ve had before or do you like to try new things?
I am sooo predictable. I have favorite things at each restaurant and tend to order the same thing. Occasionally I'll have a hankerin' for something different.

#3. When eating at a restaurant, what beverage do you like to order with your meal?
I prefer ice tea because it's refreshing and no calories. My other drink of choice would be diet sprite or 7up. Again.. no calories.

#4. Name a meal that you ate at a restaurant that you liked so much you tried to recreate it, as well as the name of the restaurant and the recipe.
I once made Oriental Chicken Salad that is served at Applebees. I found the recipe in a cookbook that clones restaurant favorites but I made some small changes. It was delicious.

Oriental Chicken Salad

Salad Dressing:
3 T. honey
¼ c. mayonnaise
1 ½ T. rice wine vinegar
1 t. Grey Poupon Dijon mustard
1/8 t. sesame oil

Blend together all ingredients and chill while preparing salad.

Tyson chicken tenders, warmed in the oven; cut in bite size pieces
3c. chopped romaine lettuce
1 c. chopped red cabbage
½ carrot, shredded
1 T. sliced almonds
1/3 c. crispy chow mein noodles

Mix lettuce, cabbage and carrots. Toast almonds over medium heat for 3-4 minutes, or until light brown. Sprinkle almonds over salad and add the chow mein noodles. Lay chicken on top of salad and serve with salad dressing.

Should I be worried?

Cody and I were driving down the road when he spotted a group of cattle huddled together in a pasture.

Cody: What are they doing?

me: Having a meeting.

Cody: (giggles out loud)

Cody: Killed the farmer

Might have been a bit premature

We opened our pool this weekend and I think it might have been a bit early. Only because our Oak tree hasn't produced all of its leaves so for now it has these fuzzy looking blooms on it and the wind decided today was a perfect day to blow again. This resulted in lots of little bloom tidbits floating around in the pool. Yea!!!

Too much wind ruins my day

The wind here today is horrible. The wind was blowing yesterday and I knew it would be more of the same today, but I wasn't expecting it to be worse. So if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. And that's what I did. I went out and took pictures of wind. Oh yeah... you heard me! I'm cool like that.

Somehow I thought this would be easier. I had to wait for wind because it tried to hide from me several times. I peered through the camera at my target and "wind" became "breeze". But my sheer determination and stubbornness would prevail. Good thing I'm a Taurus; us bulls are known to be stubborn.

Here is the first thing I spotted across the way. The "way" being the road in front of my house. Or if you 're from the south like me, you might know it as over "yonder". My mom has a room in her house called "the yonder". This is because my nieces thought that was the name of the room since my mother was always pointing off in that direction and telling them that things were "in yonder". Ok, back to my spectacular photography. See how you can tell this is the American flag instead of a piece of fabric wrapped around a pole? This is called "wind".

Now here's the net on our basketball goal. Normally this hangs below and looks like a funnel. But not today. This is also called "wind".

Dear Rain, Can you pace yourself, please?

All the rain that we recently received has washed out the road we take to Tulsa. Now it takes 10 minutes on top of our already 40 minute trip to soccer practice. Repairs are expected to take up to a month. You might not know this but.. it sucks.

Four Foods on Friday

Here we go again with my new Friday obsession of Four Foods on Friday. If your interested in taking part, go to this site, copy the questions and write your answers. Dont forget to leave a comment at Fun, Crafts and Recipes.

#1. Cottage cheese. Small curd, large curd, chunk or whipped?
I love small curd cottage cheese with saltine crackers. Sometimes I even crave it.

#2. Burgers. Made fresh, preformed fresh or preformed frozen?
The only way to go with burgers is "fresh"!! Add some mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and when I'm in the mood for a little punch... jalopenos too! MMmmmm.

#3. If you could only buy one kind of salad dressing what would it be?
If I could only buy one then it would have to be Ranch Dressing because it not only taste good on salads, it's good for dipping with pizza, vegetables and crackers. No other dressing matches up.

#4. Share a crockpot or slow cooker recipe.

Pulled Pork
1 Pork Shoulder/Butt Roast
1 can beef broth
2 T. worcestorshire
½ T. liquid smoke

Place in crockpot and cook overnight on low for 8-10 hours. Remove pork from crockpot and pull the meat apart, using forks, one in each hand. Add barbecue sauce of your choice and enjoy as is or plop some on a hamburger bun, maybe with some coleslaw, and eat up.

I have to force this issue

Since Spring refuses to show itself just yet, I'm bringing Spring to me and you, of course, dear internet. I've recently added some new plants to the flowerbed out back and I'm posting pics to add that Spring feeling.

This is a Japanese Maple. A small tree that fits perfectly up next to the house.









I like this next one because of how the leaves look like flowers. It's called a Stonecrop. It should produce pink blooms in late summer, but I like it just the way it is.


Ok, so there you go... enjoy the Spring!

A Must Read!

Today, Pioneer Woman recalls her night without electricity. Boy, do I remember a day we had recently where we had no electricity for 12 hours. It was cold and so boring!! I understand exactly what she's talking about and where she's coming from.

If you want to laugh at least once a day... you must read Pioneer Woman.

She never disappoints.

Shoe or Achoo?

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I've been helping my neighbors out by tending to their female schnauzers needs during the day while the neighbors are off slumming earning those paychecks.

So yesterday, as I was waiting on the two females to finish up doing their outside business, I was on my cell phone with my mother while I stood watching out the back window. As I listened to her tell me some story about "who did what to whom", the girls came to the door begging for me to let them escape from all the coldness that has enveloped Oklahoma and into the warmth where I currently stood. But some tasks cannot be ignored so that all remains right in their small doggy world. Diva must retrieve her "shoe" (which isn't a shoe at all). So while my mother talks, I pull the phone away just far enough so that I can still hear the conversation and then I tell Diva, "Go get your shoe, go get your shoe!"

At which my mothers replies: "Oh.. bless you, bless you!"

Me: "Did you just bless me?"

Green House

I've never been into recycling but I'm finding lately that I'm much more interested in conserving energy and living on natural sources. Probably what motivates me is the rising price of gas and the high cost of heat and cooling. So this article on Green Homes was one that I found interesting and I've seen other programs on HGTV on the same topic that grab my interest. I wish I were able to start incorporating this type of life but for now, I'll just keep changing out our light bulbs until we are free of those old energy burning bulbs and strictly using the more efficient "green" bulbs.

Four Foods and Fun!

I've really been enjoying Four Foods on Friday. Just something I participate that allows readers to learn more about the blogger.

#1. What’s your favorite food smell?
I love the smell of roast in the morning after it's been cooking in the crockpot overnight.

#2. What’s your favorite kind of apple?
Granny Smith is my favorite because I like the tangyness.

#3. What veggies do you like in your salad?
The ulitmate veggie in a salad is tomatoes. I love tomatoes so much that I eat them by themselves, sliced with salt and pepper. I also love bell peppers and cucumbers in my salad.

#4. Share a recipe that uses beef.

Easy Swedish Meatballs
2 lb ground beef
1 can cr. of mushroom soup
¼ c. cracker crumbs
2 can cream of celery
¼ c. minced onion
2 can of water
1 slightly beat egg
2 T. parsley
cooked rice

Mix beef, crumbs, onion, egg and parsley. Shape into 24 meatballs. Brown meat in skillet. Stir in soup and water. Cover; Cook over low heat 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve over rice.

Frownies for me!!

Yes, I'm a bit excited to have won this giveaway.

I won "Frownies" from Welcome to the Motherhood. Just what a mom in her 40's needs!! Yahoo! Thanks Lesha!!

Official language of Dallas?

Ok. So we are in Dallas this weekend. Or are we? Why do I feel as though I have traveled too far, say.. oh .. like to Mexico. Every place we shopped, every place we ate... I did not understand what was being said and it was obvious a few times that they did not quite understand us either. Even on the elevator of our hotel, Caitlin turned to the woman who had entered with us and asked what floor while pointing toward the buttons. The woman put on that funny little smile that means "I don't know what you're talking about" and stepped past Caitlin to push her own button. Obviously didn't understand that she was offering to do this task for her had she just said the magic number.

And as for the male counterparts, not one time did any of them ever... and I mean EVER... hold the door for us or allow us to enter a door or elevator before them. I was so appalled at the manners. Politeness comes in all languages... doesn't it??

Competitions

Cody will be traveling to another city in Oklahoma today to compete in the "Battle of the Brains". His competition will be in mathematics. I hope he does well and I can't wait to hear from him.

I'm heading to Dallas today for a one night stayover and a couple of soccer games. This is the last part of the National League and we are playing teams from California. We need this to go well so hopefully the girls come ready to play.

Ugh!

I'm in a funk of sorts. The weather has turned cold again and that doesn't help matters. Nothing much going on around here anyway.

I'm going to Dallas on Friday, for the night, and I'm really looking forward to this trip. The 4 hour drive sounds so appealing.

It can't hurt

Finish this line:

Money does not make you happy but......

Enjoy more like this at "Michelle"