A Pina Colada Kind of Weekend

I'm linking up with Heaven is a Bookstore for Martha Monday

Father's Day weekend ... was just one big party. Good food, good times, good pina coladas. Hubby manned the blender, playing with all the different buttons ... puree, whip, liquify. Here's what he came up with as the ultimate pina colada ...

Pina Coladas

Pineapple Juice
Crushed Pineapple
Coconut Cream
Rum
Crushed Ice

We chilled everything in advance in the fridge (the cans of juice and crushed pineapple and the bottle of rum) except the Coconut Cream (it gets too thick to pour) ...

Put about 1/2 cup of crushed pineapple in the blender, add 4 ounces of pineapple juice, 4 ounces of rum,  3 ounces of coconut cream and 2 cups of crushed ice.

Blend Pour Sip Smile! 

Saturday dinner ...

Bacon Wrapped Boursin Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Spray olive oil
2 chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
Boursin Light cheese spread
Fresh baby spinach leaves
3 slices bacon

If you've never tried Boursin cheese, you are missing out. We like to serve this savory cheese spread with crackers and grapes as an appetizer. It is loaded with herbs and garlic and oh so tasty!

Preheat oven to 350˚ and spray your baking dish with olive oil. Butterfly chicken breasts open, season with salt and pepper, spread half of the Boursin on each breast.

Layer with baby spinach and fold chicken breasts closed. Cut bacon strips in half and wrap 3 half strips around each breast.

Bake uncovered for 45 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving. The blend of bacon and Boursin is ridiculously good!

And dessert ...

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownies. Tiffanee over at One Crazy Cookie has so many wonderful recipes to share. Please stop by her fragrant kitchen and tell her I said "Hi!"


People, this was only Saturday. Sunday (Father's Day) included a big breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns, beans and tortillas, pool-side lounging and swimming and more pina coladas, BBQ rib eye steaks, baked potatoes, corn on the cob and more brownies.

Decadent, fun.

Happy Father's Day, my love.

Now get me to the treadmill!!!

Puppy Daddy

In honor of Father's Day, I will share with you a photo I snapped 

of my Puppy Daddy laying on the couch 

reading the newspaper,

providing a cozy napping place for Louie and Miles,

our four-legged babies.

Happy Father's Day, everyone!!!

Handmade Patchwork Baskets

My Mom emailed a few pictures recently of these cute little patchwork baskets she's been making. Mom is the ultimate crafter, having done nearly every craft out there over the years. I definitely get my love of crafting from her. She has knitted, crocheted, oil painted, tole painted, china painted, created her own slip with which to pour her own molds that were then painted and fired in kilns in her basement, cross-stitched, needlepointed, sewed clothes for the family and quilted. I'm sure I left out a few dozen crafts but, honestly, who can remember them all??? (Oh yeah, and she's an incredible cook, too!)

So, anyway, I kept thinking about these adorable baskets. She found the pattern for the lined fabric baskets on the Pink Penguin blog, which is a total crafter's delight.

I decided I really, really, really needed a basket to tote my electronics cords around the house for my camera and phone and to hold my flash drive and maybe the phone and camera, too.

So being the Wonder Woman that she is, once I mentioned that I'd love to have one, Mom went into action. Stand back! I received a package (hello, UPS man) a few days later with not one, not two, but FIVE handmade patchwork baskets. Each one is cuter than the last. You can barely see in the photo below that this little lavender and green one has a Glad food storage container tucked down inside that fits perfectly and gives the basket stability. Ingenious!

All five of these are so cute ... in addition to the purple and green, there is a pink floral, a multi-color, a patriotic themed and a Christmas holiday basket. I've been driving Hubby nuts, walking around the house with them, trying them out on different tables and dressers and thinking ahead to the holidays. Okay, and I suppose I might share with the daughters and the granddaughter.

Just had to gush a little and show you all this handmade patchwork cuteness produced by my Mom. Be sure to check out the Pink Penguin for this tutorial and lots of other adorable projects! And thanks again, Mom!!!

A Friendly Chat About Hormones

I was just sippin' on a Mike's Hard Black Cherry Lemonade and thinking about hormones. Now if you haven't tried one of these tart, refreshing, slightly alcoholic beverages, you are missing out. I know they're low in alcohol content because I am a verified light-weight when it comes to drinking and I can consume a whole Mike's and barely get a buzz on. Unlike tequila shooters, which I adore, and which for me, imbibing more than one signals the beginning of the end of the party pretty quickly.

I am an expert on the subject of hormones, having had raging, out of control hormones for many years. This was mostly nipped in the bud the day I had my hysterectomy a little over seven years ago or as it's known around here, The Day Momma Got Her Happy On. I spent many, many years searching for the right combination of herbs or drugs or whatever it takes to quell the hormonal beast within and, truly, never found anything that really worked. I once told a doctor that if she didn't immediately prescribe something good for me, I was going to drive straight over to the nearest high school, stand on the corner and score something good for myself. She did not laugh ... of course, I really wasn't trying to be funny!

At the height of my hormonal hell, the revolving front door had been in operation and we had living with us {again} our oldest daughter, granddaughter, youngest daughter, her two cats and our two dogs. It was a freakin' zoo. And as wonderful as they all are, when Mom's in the house, it is expected that she will do most of the cooking, cleaning and heavy lifting. Okay, I didn't really do any heavy lifting - Hubby did that - but I liked the way it sounded.

One day a few months before my scheduled surgery, YD announced that she was going to look for her own apartment. Chances are good, she wasn't enjoying my constant snarling. Her comment triggered that switch in my brain that brings on a rampage and I suggested OD do the same. I basically told everybody to get the hell out. Now I'm guessing that that Mom of the Year trophy is never coming. OD then snarled at YD, "Thanks a lot!" She was assuming that she and the granddaughter would have more room to spread out once YD and the cats left the building. Wrong! I was ready for some peace and quiet.

And I got it. They all found cute apartments about a mile away, so still close enough for friendly visits ... but gone. When I had the surgery, I was told to stay in bed for a week. And I so took advantage of that. Every time I woke up, Hubby fed me another pain pill and I went back to sleep. He unplugged the phone and told everybody to leave me alone so I could rest. When I finally crawled back out into the land of the living, I played the messages on our answering machine. YD had left several that sounded like this: "Mom ... Mom ... did you die? Dad won't let us talk to you or see you or anything. Mom???" It was absolute heaven. The doctor suggested a 6-week recovery. I bounced up with more energy than I'd had -- maybe ever -- and was back to work in less than 3 weeks. Feeling marvelous! Happy! Hormone free!

So I see these ads for organic, free range, 100% hormone free chickens and I worry. I worry about all the chickens out there on the chicken ranch with hormones. Raging hormones. Can you imagine all those hormone crazed chickens pecking each other? God! What a nightmare!!! I'll bet the roosters are a twitchy, psychotic mess, sleeping with one eye open and looking over their shoulders as they go about their roosterly duties. Gives a whole new meaning to the term hen-pecked, doesn't it?

As I take another pull on my Mike's, I will leave you with a joke. This, historically, is the first off-color joke Hubby ever told his parents at the ripe young age of 8 or so.

How do you make a hormone?

Don't pay her!  ;-D

Post-It Note Tuesday - 06/15/10

Brought to you by

Here are my thoughts today ...

 

 

I love post-its ... happy Tuesday!

Pine Nut Stuffed Chicken Breasts for Martha Monday

I'm linking up with Heaven is a Bookstore for Martha Monday

This is another one of those "Chopped" Mystery Box type dinners where I had a couple of chicken breasts and decided to stuff them with ... stuff ... whatever was handy and needed to be used.

I've had a package of pine nuts in the cupboard -- I'm not even sure what I originally bought them for, but I decided it was time to use them. So I threw 1/4 cup of them dry in a small skillet and toasted them over medium heat just until they started turning golden brown and I could smell the beautiful fragrance. Just be sure to periodically swirl them around so they don't burn.

I also had a good-sized container of baby spinach that we've been sneaking into sandwiches and salads to get our greens. This sounded good. And we almost always have a big bag of grated Colby Jack cheese so ...

First, I butterflied 2 chicken breasts open, salted and peppered them, then covered with grated cheese and toasted pine nuts ...

Layered on some fresh baby spinach leaves ...

Folded them in half and secured the open edge with 2 crossed toothpicks.

I baked them for 45 minutes at 350 degrees in a glass baking dish that I had sprayed with oil and covered with aluminum foil. I pulled the foil off for the last 10 minutes to allow some browning and spooned some of the juice and melted cheese over the top when plating.

My favorite part of this dish was the toasted pine nuts. They were so tasty! And we served them with our new favorite ... roasted broccoli. You can't beat healthy and delicious!!!

What Has Brown Done For Me Lately?

The anticipation ... the tracking ... the big brown truck pulling up in front. Have you ever startled the UPS man by ripping the door open to accept a package delivery before he's actually rung the doorbell? That would be me and I'm sorry and it's a good thing his pants are already brown. And, of course, I'm juggling Miles-you-little-bastard in one hand so he can't take off down the street and Louie is dying of ecstasy at having a visitor and running around his legs like a maniac.

And I'm doing the happy yarn dance. Just look at all that cotton goodness. And it feels so nice and I love the color. And screw working on Christmas and birthday gifts (sorry, family) because I am making this cute summer sweater for myself ...

This is thin yarn and small needles - for me, anyway. I'm into instant gratification so I like quickly grinding things out with chunky yarn and big needles. Cast on for the bottom edge was 250 stitches, which I had to do twice because I first tried a cable cast on that just didn't look good, but I didn't decide this until I was 4 or 5 rows into it. That's a do over of the cast on plus over 1,000 stitches knit that had to be torn out and redone. Arrrggghhhhh! I hate that!!!

But it's beautiful and light and airy and cottony and it has a lovely lace pattern that repeats throughout the body. Here are the first 14 rows ...

When I need a break, I'll be doing some button shopping. Yay!!!

Let me leave you with a few knitting funnies my BIL sent me ...