What's Cookin' - Bowtie Pasta

YD requested my 5-ingredient Bowtie Pasta dish for our family dinner last Thursday night. It is so easy and so delicious!

Bowtie Pasta

12-oz. package wheat bowtie pasta

4 cups diced cooked ham

14-oz. canned sliced mushrooms

1 cup frozen peas

1 jar white sauce (whatever you like; we used Bertolli Garlic Alfredo this time)

Directions:


Boil the pasta in a large pot of salted water according to the package directions. While it's cooking, dice the ham, open and drain the mushrooms, measure out all the ingredients. Once the pasta has cooked, put it in a colander or strainer to drain.

Put the same pot back on medium heat and toss in the mushrooms and ham. Let it heat up for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally; add the frozen peas and heat some more. Then add the white sauce and stir it in. Finally, put the pasta from the colander in and stir it all together. Once it's heated through, you're ready to serve!

You can have this dinner on the table in less than 30 minutes (depending on how long it takes your water to boil :) ). It makes a pretty good sized pot of pasta. I would say we get 8 good bowls from this recipe. It also freezes nicely.

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The prior Thursday, YD's BF offered to make and bring dinner and dessert because he wanted to give me a night off! Is that the sweetest thing you've ever heard? He tapped into his Southern roots and brought Jambalaya, garlic bread and a bar cookie called 8-in-1. What a nice treat. It was really delicious ... and they even did the dishes!

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope you all spend time with people you love ...

doing things you love ...

in a place you love!

Happy Anniversary to my sister and her sweetie pie!!!

Chocolate Affaire

Last Saturday, we attended the 15th Annual Chocolate Affaire festival in Glendale, Arizona. Hubby and I went with YD and her BF and, let me tell you, you could actually smell chocolate in the air. We went late in the morning so we could -- as hubby said -- have lunch, eat a bunch of crap, then have the rest of the day to throw up. While nobody blew, we all consumed our fair share. Between the four of us, we bought fry bread tacos, chicken strips, sweet potato fries, caramel apples, chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate dipped pretzels, caramel pecan clusters, peanut clusters and root beer floats. Some of it we took home for later. ;-)

Since downtown Glendale is a historic district with tons of antique shops, we did a little browsing.

We had some blue skies, some overcast and a few sprinkles of raindrops here and there. Once we left the festival, we stopped at the Cerreta Candy factory and took the tour. I have never seen so much chocolate in my life! The equipment was amazing. It was a fun little tour to take.

I'm almost embarrassed to say that after this wonderful day of chocolate indulgence, we went out for Mexican food. Yum!

Here are some photos ...

Wordless Wednesday - Completed Watch Cap Knit in the Round

Last week's WW showed the cap in progress on 4 knitting needles.

Wordless Wednesday

Prepare to smile ...

Hubby and I ordered a selection of meats from Omaha Steaks for the first time recently and this particular package really cracked us up ...

prepare to smile

hey, it's wienies

I honestly don't know why we find that so funny ... guess you had to be there!

By the way, we had a couple of the hot dogs for dinner during the Super Bowl and they were really good!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday dear Daaaaaaaaaaaad

Happy birthday to you!

Hope it's wonderful!

Love you bunches!!!

Ain't No Mattress High Enough

Heaven knows, we love our four-legged babies!

Our Yorkies have little stairs so they can get up on our bed. We got a new mattress in November and it's about 5 inches higher than our old one. The little guy, Miles, has had some trouble making that last vertical leap up on to the mattress from the top step. And he's freaked himself out because a few times he's hit the side of the mattress and then the floor. He paces around the bottom of the steps, trying to work up the courage to go for it. It's exhausting!

So Hubby decided to make a small platform to raise the steps up a little. As his lovely assistant, I handed him the drill and screwdriver and took photos. :-)

He bought 4" fence posts and sanded them ...

And sprayed black rubber coating on the bottom so they won't slip or skid on the tile floor.

And spray painted them to match our bedroom furniture ...

He even spray painted the clips and screws he used to attach the stairs to the posts ...

Here is Miles checking out the stairs without the cover on ...

The frame lined up on the posts ...

Attached with conduit clips and screws ...

All put together ...

With the cover on ...

Ready to go next to the bed ...

Coming soon to a theater near you ... "Dog Stairs: The Movie."


And that is enough silliness for one day!!!

Yarn Ball Heaven

Thanks to birthday cash received, I was able to feed my gadget addiction and add another lovely book to my knitting bookshelf. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!)

The Yarn Ball Winder from KnitPicks.com, is by far one of the most practical, handy gadgets for knitting. And at $19.99, it is a supreme bargain! Oh, and FYI ... it could not be easier to use.



The yellow yarn pictured is left over from the horsie baby blanket. Even though it was a pull skein, I find that they often will knot up the closer you get to the end and rolling the skeins into a ball eliminates that from happening while you're knitting.



I wound all of the yarn for my funky footsies class this morning in about 20 minutes. It would have taken sooooooo much longer by hand. I needed to split one of the 2-ounce balls of fun fur into two separate balls since BIL and I are sharing a skein. I wound the entire skein into a ball, then rewound the ball to half-size, weighing the loose end on my kitchen scale. Worked like a dream! (I'll be right there, honey; I'm in the kitchen weighing my balls!)



The book I ordered from KnitPicks.com is "One Ball Knits: Purses." There are some very, very cute little bags in this book. And I love that they're single skein projects. I'm going to be looking for some cool purse handles to use.

Wordless Wednesday - Watch Cap Knit in the Round

Wordless Wednesday

Field Trip to a LYS

If you read knitting mags, you know that LYS stands for Local Yarn Shop. Saturday morning, BIL took me to his favorite LYS, Arizona Knitting and Needlepoint.



It looks so tiny from the outside, but they have stacked it to the rafters with beautiful yarn, accessories, books, buttons and amazing finished objects to drool over.



We have signed up for a class that teaches sock knitting on big needles so you can learn the process and construction without struggling with the smaller needles. They're usually made on tiny needles, i.e., size 1, 2, 3 ... these socks called "funky footsies" are made on size 13 double pointed needles (dpns). With bulky yarn! They are going to be so cozy and comfortable. I'm making this first pair for myself and ... well, then we'll just see how it goes.

This photo of the "funky footsies" is from Arizona Knitting's website where you can see some of their exciting classes and projects. http://www.arizonaknittingandneedlepoint.com/



The Brown Sheep Company yarn I bought for mine is in a color called Forest Floor with primarily greens, purples, blues and browns. Then I am adding a little green/blue and purple/blue fun fur that will go around the top of the sock. I am so looking forward to this class!