May Be Another One...

Take a look at this picture. Any guesses what it might be? If I tell you I took it today of my eggplant, er... plant, maybe you can guess! I mean, I've never seen an eggplant growing before, but it looks like a purple ball sticking out of one of the blossoms! So... I'm hoping it's an eggplant, lol. Keep your fingers crossed and I'll update as I can.

:)

Sorry For The Delay

Here's some Lily and Phil love in the meantime.

This week and next week are going to be kind of hairy. Something's come up work-wise which is going to make it difficult to post every night. I'll do the best I can, but no promises! In the meantime, I hope everyone has a great week. Take it easy if you can!

:)

It Was Good!

Here's another quickie for tonight. This is a picture of the squash from the garden all cooked up! Olive oil, onions, black pepper, and sauteing is all it was. Along with a pork chop, it was awesome! More on the other garden stuff later.

:)

Post Card Sunday

As yesterday's short but sweet post said, I was just a little under the weather yesterday. So tonight I'm making up for it! And first up - Post Card Saturday. Only on Sunday...

This is, obviously, one from my personal collection. As in, post cards that people actually send to me. I have loads of 'em, and that's kind of how this all started... But I digress, lol. Check out the Post Card page for links to all of that.

As you can see, this post card says Miami on it, in huge letters. Which of course, a locally sent post card is awesome, as well! Only... hehe, it's not.

Take a look at the back. Can you see it?

Here's the postmark... Got it yet?

A friend of mine at work is originally from Serbia. He went to visit his parents there over Christmas, and naturally, I asked him to send me a post card from Serbia. How cool would that be, right? I didn't have one. 

Now I have two! He sent a "real" one, that I will show next Saturday. But this was clearly meant to be a joke, and it's a fabulous one, don't you think? He actually carted a post card from Miami and mailed it from Serbia, LOL!

The ironic thing in all of this is that I got the non-gag one first. I was super pleased with it, until we got back to class and he asked about the joke one. And I really just got the funny one last week. So here it is!

Enjoy!

:)

Saturday...

Yeah, not feeling quite up to snuff tonight. Apologies, but Post Card Saturday is going to be Post Card Sunday this week. Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

:)

Friday! Woot!

Heck yeah - Fantastic Friday once again! Hope you had a great week, and are looking forward to an amazing weekend.

:)

Quotable Thursday

Short and sweet tonight, and even early. There's a story why, of course, but does it matter? Lol. The important thing is that it's Quotable Thursday and I have a great one!

And I've also done a quick Google search, giving me conflicting reports as to who actually said it. So I will give you the quote, the two possible authors, and let the words speak for themselves.

"Nothing is easy to the unwilling".

Now, when I first saw this, it was attributed to Nikki Giovanni. Looking now, I see it is also attributed to Thomas Fuller, who lived long before she did. It wouldn't be the first time someone quoted something and then got the reputation of being the originator. I can't find any history on that, but maybe some time when I have more time.

For now - I think we can all understand the sentiment. You can't do it if you don't try. Something I need to remind myself of often... Lol. And how many people do we all know who prefer to sit and whine rather than get up and keep trying? Yeah, I thought so... We can all use the reminder.

Hope it helped, or that you at least enjoyed. Another next week!

:)

Sort of Recipe...

On Monday, I took huge pans of chicken and dumplings to work because I got a baby in the Rosca de Reyes... Yeah, go look at Monday's blog for that story, lol.

Anyway, I promised a recipe of sorts, so here's what I did. 

As usual, I started off looking at recipes online. Then... I made it. haha!

I started with sauteing some onion in a little olive oil. Then I added chicken broth, cream of chicken soup, cream of onion soup, and a bay leaf. Also some freshly ground black pepper. I cooked all that a while, then added the shredded chicken and turkey (it's what I had, and I needed volume, you know? lol). Then added some frozen peas and frozen carrots, and let it cook.

Now, with such big pans, I let it cook in the oven. People generally make this in a Dutch oven or some such on the stove. But I let it cook awhile, until it seemed it was time for the dumplings.Oh, and it seemed really soupy so I added a little flour and milk mixture to thicken it up.

Oh yeah, I also couldn't believe there were Americans there who didn't know what dumplings were... But I digress, lol.

Made dumplings from the recipe on the Bisquick box. A lot of 'em, of course, lol.

So these are my estimations to make one "regular" batch for one meal.

1/2 chopped onion
olive oil to cover the bottom of the pot
2-3 cups of chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of onion soup
1 bay leaf
pepper (and salt?) to taste
1/3 cup each frozen peas and carrots 
2 cups or so of shredded cooked chicken (or however you might make an equivalent if you don't have any pre-cooked). 

Dumplings - one recipe's worth from the Bisquick box

And well, cook it all until it's done, lol. I don't know if this was helpful at all, but there it is, as promised.

:)

Another Comfort Food Yum

I have to say I was amazed and astonished today. Like... really. But I'll get to that, lol. For now, for those of you who remember... I found a baby in the Rosca de Reyes on 3 Kings Day. You can click Here to read about it, if you like. 

But what this meant was that I had to bring food to work today. I decided on something nice and traditional, comfort food and all that. You know, share American culture. So I made Chicken and Dumplings. That's a picture at the top, of the finished product. Here's one of just adding the dumplings before cooking it more.

Yes, usually this is made on the stove in a Dutch oven or something. But since I had to feed a bunch of people, I got these aluminum pans and did it in the oven. Don't ask for the recipe because I only have a vague notion of what I did, lol. Maybe tomorrow I'll give it a stab though, if anyone really wants to know. Most people probably have their own recipe as it is.

But here's the shocking thing. Like, I thought at first they were joking. But two American teachers had no idea what dumplings were. Well, one of them kept referring to the ones at Chinese restaurants and Korean food. The other - nothing. I kept saying "chicken and dumplings" and they had no clue. How is that possible? This is pretty classic American comfort food. I just... yeah.

Anyway, the stuff was a hit, thank goodness, since I'd never really made it before, lol. There's some left over (I made two huge pans of it), so I guess I'm also going to find out how it freezes...

So yeah, tomorrow I'll do what I can by way of a recipe. Any other comfort food lovers out there?

:)

Down and Dirty

Or... not, lol. Just a quick note for tonight. Did you realize that if you go to Wal-Mart during the Super Bowl, almost no one is there?!  :D

On that note, I'm off. More tomorrow when I have something cool to show - I hope, ha!

:)