Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘Favorites’

Aug 31

The salad that made me like tomatoes.

Photo-1

I have had a lifelong battle with tomatoes. I try every year to like them, and every year I have failed.  This year, we grew tomatoes in order to make lots and lots of salsa.  Because I like tomatoes as an ingredient, just not as a, you know, main thing. 

Then I found this salad. It’s an adaptation of a recipe by Rachel Ray. 

Arrange avocado wedges, sliced cucumbers, and tomato wedges on a plate. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of fresh, chopped cilantro and a pinch of kosher salt over vegetables. Drizzle with lime juice. 

The cucumbers are optional. Everything else is a necessity. And even I will eat the tomatoes.

Yum.

Aug 26

1 Comment

fresh peach pureé + vanilla ice cream = ….

Yum.

Photo

Aug 13

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

Lemonade

So I spent a little time with a good friend last week and she made some of the Best Lemonade Ever. 

I can’t believe I haven’t ever done this.  Seriously. 

Ingredients:
1 cup Splenda (or similar product)
1 cup lemon juice (from a bottle)
juice of one lemon (for the texture)

Mix everything together, and add enough ice and water to make 2 quarts. Adjust amounts of lemon juice & sweetener next time to make it perfect for your taste.

Yum.

Jan 30

3 Comments

Favorites: Creamed Eggs

Eggs

This was one of my favorite breakfasts when I was growing up.  My mom can’t remember if she made it up, or if it came from my dad’s family. Regardless, it is a treat now often requested by my own kids.   It is a simple recipe, a distant relative of eggs benedict, that consists of three basic things:  toast, sliced boiled eggs,  cheese sauce.

Creamed Eggs

boil eggs (5 or 6 for a family of four), and allow to cool slightly.
while eggs are boiling, make the sauce

cheese sauce (triple this for a family of four)

2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 cu milk – heated
salt & pepper
1/2 cu grated cheddar cheese
optional: ham chunks, browned sausage, or cooked bacon

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in flour and cook, stirring constantly until paste cooks and bubbles, not allowing to brown. Add hot milk, continue to stir. Bring to a boil. Add salt & pepper to taste, add cheese. Lower heat and cook 2-3 min stirring. Add meat, if preferred.  Remove from heat.

Remove shells from eggs, and slice eggs into the sauce. stir gently. serve sauce over toast. we prefer to cut toast into pieces before adding sauce.  Adjust proportion of eggs and sauce as you like. Feed to your family, and prepare to make it again!

Jan 23

1 Comment

Favorites: a dog and his fence

On Fridays I post about ‘favorites’… movies, music, food, or something that just makes our family’s life work  better.

Media_httpkimbontrage_egejk

This is our dog, Sparky. He has been a part of our family for one year now. We can’t even imagine life without him. Except that it was less fur-covered. We adopted Sparky in the middle of winter, and brought him home to our fence-less property.  He had a reputation for running away, so for about 3 months, we took him outside on a leash.  Delightful in January and February. Our situation (both geographical and financial) doesn’t lend itself well to fences of any kind, so we weren’t sure what to do to make it possible to allow Sparky outside without a leash.  Then, we discovered this.

Media_httpwwwpetcocom_targq

This is the PetSafe wireless fence system.  Not underground wire… wireless.  The grey transmitter sits in our basement and emits a ‘safe’ zone with an adjustable radius.  Our dog wears the red receiver collar.  When he gets close to the boundary of the ‘safe zone’, his collar beeps.  If he crosses the boundary, he receives a slight shock (the intensity is also adjustable). It took just about a week for him to get used to the beeping and the boundary location after experiencing just 2 low intensity ‘corrections’. Now, he doesn’t ever challenge the boundary and we’ve set the collar to its lowest level, where it only beeps. 

We totally trust the system and the dog; he spends lots of time outside by himself (weather permitting).  With the transmitter set to the largest radius, he has freedom to run in the yard all the way around our house, striking fear into the hearts of birds and rodents and cats as he goes. The only weaknesses of the system are (a) a power failure takes out the transmitter, or (b) the battery runs out on the collar.  Power failures don’t happen that often for us, and when they do, I’m fairly certain Sparky is oblivious to this effect.  The collar pack gives warning lights when the battery is failing, and so far we’ve noticed it every time. This system is sold at Petco and at various online sources. I totally recommend.

« Older Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.