Faith, Family, Food and Dogs

Cue the music,,, I really hate moving. The purging of stuff, the packing, the total mess the house or other dwelling becomes during the process. I moved in November, but by October I had pretty much trashed,,,in a good way, the house in Stokesdale. The living room was full of packing material. As was the kitchen. Even the master bedroom was a mess. I did not take a photo of the office or the guest room. That is where the bulk of the packed boxes went to live until moving day. With the help of the BEST neighbor in the world and another neighbor the U-Haul truck got loaded. Thank you Randy Winn for all your hard work! The drive down was smooth and uneventful. My crew of friends all showed up to help me unload the U-Haul. This is my kitchen once we were done unloading the truck. My new living room. And my new master bedroom. But me, being the crazy person I am, I stayed up until 2 am that night to get some of the kitchen unpacked. I was very grateful that my new manager...

Brace yourselves, this may come as quite a shock. Not everything I make turns out great. You have no idea the stuff I make that no one ever sees because I am not happy with the results. For example, I was looking for dessert recipes that would serve two people. Recipes for one don't exist. I found one for Peanut-Butter Cheesecakes and they were cooked in a muffin pan. I thought this would be great and I was really excited as I started this project. The first batch of baked crusts with the peanut butter cups in place. The filling barely covered the peanut-butter cups. These came out pretty dry. I wound up throwing most of them away. I decided to make my own sourdough bread for lunches. When I got up the next morning I found that my starter had overflowed the jar and was like something out of a grade b horror film. What a mess! I later tried again using a bigger jar but then the dough wouldn't rise. So much for that idea. Since I still had some cream cheese I decided to t...

I bought some bay scallops a few weeks ago. When cooking for one its amazing how far a pound of these little guys will go. I made a recipe for baked scallops with bread crumbs. It was okay, not great, just okay. So I went on the hunt for a better recipe and found this one on Food.com. I didn't have cherry tomatoes but I did have some Roma tomatoes, fresh from the garden and I did have the spinach as I has just bought some for a pizza I was going to make. This recipe also called for sea scallops, the big ones, but I had to make do with what I had on hand. Let's give this a try. Scallops and Pasta Florentine 1 lb sea scallops 1/8 tsp pepper (I omitted) 1/4 tsp salt (I omitted) 1 large shallot minced (I used a regular yellow onion) 1/4 cup white wine (I had some Chablis on hand) 7 tsps oil 1/2 cup chicken broth 3 tblsp butter. softened 6 oz package baby spinach 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped (I used dried and maybe 1 tblsp) zest of 1-...

Every time I go to the grocery store I am always looking for something new to try. One day at Wal-Mart I saw this package. Closer inspection showed that they are lamb ribs. I had never seen these before, ever! Since I simply love lamb I had to grab a package of them. Of course I had absolutely no idea as what to do with them. I did some research and found the recipe below. In the original recipe the ribs are supposed to be grilled but I did them in the oven. It is simply wonderful. The taste of the ribs with my few changes is lip smacking good. You start out by making a dry rub. You then take part of the dry rub and massage it into the lamb ribs. Let the ribs sit for one hour before cooking. Then you add molasses to the remaining dry rub. Next add some apple cider vinegar. The ribs are ready to go into the oven. These were oh so good. Some of the ribs had a bit of fat on them but I just cut that off before I ate them. Cumin & Coriander Lamb Ribs 1/4 cup kosher sa...

I was at the grocery store and spied a flat iron steak. I had not seen one of these at a reasonable price for some time and decided to grab this one. It was small, maybe 1/2 pound total weight but more than enough for me. I did some Google research and found this recipe. Per the instructions I let the steak marinate for 7 hours. Once cooked the steak was not bad, but the flavor from the marinade was very mild. I'll try another marinade next time. Flat Iron Steak 1-1/4 - 1-1/2 lb flat iron steak 1/4 cup olive oil 2 tblsps balsamic vinegar 2 cloves garlic, peeled & crushed 1 tsp Italian seasoning salt & pepper Place steak in a sealable plastic bag. In a small glass bowl, whisk together all ingredients. Pour over the steak and marinate for at least 1 hour or as long as 8 hours. Let meat sit at room temperature for at least 1 hour prior to grilling. Remove meat from marinade and discard marinade. Place steak on pre-heated grill, cook about 5 minutes. Turn ...

Yes, I am still alive and doing well. It has been 4 months since my last blog post. So much has happened and some of it I have photos for and some things I don't. There are a fair amount of photos attached to this post. After my last trip to Decatur to see my son I used the breadfruit I bought and made a breadfruit stew. It was really good. I took lots of photos for a blog post. I took the girls and we went on a several mile walk through the Guilford Battleground National Park. I took lots of photos of the statues, the trails and all the Dogwoods in bloom. I made new meals and took photos so I could do blog posts,,,then my 10-month old laptop got a virus and crashed, gone, toast, wiped out, and all above mentioned photos with it. Now me being me, I got over it and carried on. While the weather was cool enough I enjoyed meals on the back deck. We had always had flowers out front and the thought of looking at an empty flower bed all summer was not very appealing. But with no j...

This is a semi-terrible blog post. Did not take nearly as many photos on these road trips as I had intended to. It happens once in awhile. So, March 13th I picked up my rental car and turned towards Jacksonville. My daughter was having her baby sprinkle on the 14th and since I don't have a job and can't seem to find one in this part of the world I sent the girls to see 'Aunt' Trudy for two nights. Friday night I made a blueberry coffee cake for Saturday's festivities and then made tacos for us for supper. Hillary hosted the sprinkle and had some of the decorations up when we got there. There was a good amount of food. My coffee cake is in the back on the left hand side. The one with the glaze on it. Miss Savannah was rockin' her new big sister shirt she had gotten at Christmas. I've said it before and I'll say it for the rest of my life,,,I love this munchkin! Patricia opening my gift. Loved the bag I found to put everything in. Saturday af...