Hope you had fun!

The Chef! (me)

The Spread!

The basic dinner: Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry, gravy, rolls.

Got to get on my treadmill now, maybe for the next 24 hours....ugh! Oh, I made a pumpkin pie for my hubby, I am not much of a dessert eater, but he loved it! Hope everyone had enough to eat, be safe if you are out shopping or driving this weekend!

Today...

Be Safe, Be Happy.....

Holiday Shopping?

I love to shop online and buy from artists, people who still make things with their own to hands and their creative minds.
Etsy is my favorite, you can even buy vintage stuff there too!
One of my favorite vintage items I found on Etsy were these 2 little boxing kittens:


The absolute cuteness kills me!!

But the best things are fun jewelry, like the harmonica necklaces I just added to my shop:

Goddess of Love and Music



Peace, Wine, Music

Don't forget to support your starving artists and shop Etsy.com this year, or you can shop at

WWW.PEACELOVEANDARTSHOP.COM

I offer free shipping to the USA, plus, you can shop in your pajamas, don't forget the coffee!



 

French Bread Pizza!

Tonight we stayed in and made homemade french bread pizza! Yum!

That's mine, jalapeno, mushroom, bell pepper, pepperoni.

Hubby can be so boring,,,pepperoni and jalepeno.

All done, it was fabulous!

Here is how we got it done:

2 loaves French bread cut in half then cut in 4's.
2 jars pizza sauce, they only had small jars??
pepperoni slices
mushrooms
bell pepper
Italian cheese blend shredded
Parmesan cheese
red pepper

heat oven to 450*

I like to saute my mushrooms and bell pepper in butter and olive oil once it is cooked through, crank up the heat and throw in a cup of white wine and let it reduce to nothing...fabulous!!

Now you can ladle on sauce onto your bread, add cheese and ingredients and bake at 450* until cooked through and cheese is all melty...about 10-15 minutes..let it sit up about 10 minutes then dig in to homemade pizza!! It was awesome!!

I would like to add up the cost of this compared to ordering a pizza from the corner....I will be back with that info shortly.....
Ok, I figured it out at about 15.00 and we have leftovers, I love cold pizza so breakfast tomorrow is taken care of! If we order a pizza from the corner pizzeria it is about 15.00 but it is good pizza not cheap cardboard pizza..so we decided we loved making our own pizza, the flavor was outstanding! And we could really customize, the corner pizzaria only gives us a large pepperoni with half jalepeno for the 15.00, here I had my mushrooms, and bell pepper added for no charge more.

Rod....

I have not been feeling well but it did not stop my friends from inviting me to see the lengendary ROD STEWART at caesers palace! Yeah, they both scored tickets on houseseats, so I was in either way...Well, I can only hope...
Wow, so glad I went...he sang all his old classics, songs I love from the 70's & 80's...he rocked the house...it was one of the best I have seen!
Thank you Tanya and Colleen!!
Here are two of my favorites....I love them both!!
Way ahead of it's time..The killing of Georgie...about gay bashing...so awful, I think if people love each other it should not matter if you are black, white, man, woman, woman, man, man... as long as there is love.....I think this song taught me that long, long before I was even old enough to know what it all meant...thanks Rod!


And this one...Old flames burn bright and burn long....

A Happy Homemaker Hint

I got a couple emails full of useful tips around the house and I also see lots of good tips and tricks on Pinterest. I finally remembered to try one this morning!
I make my own roast chickens to use for chicken salad or chicken tacos, etc. I used to buy the rotisserie chickens already done at the store, but they had started to be too dry and overcooked, they have to over cook everything now days, so I taught myself how to roast my own, it is not cheaper, precooked 5.99, raw is approx. 7-9.00 but mine comes out juicy and delicious every time!! I'll take it!

So getting back to the household tip, it is the one about peeling garlic in 10 seconds by shaking them in 2 metal bowls. I use about 6-8 garlic cloves when I roast my chicken so I needed to get them peeled. I did not have two metal bowls so I looked around the kitchen and found a canning ball jar, hmmm, I wonder if that will work. I dropped my 8 unpeeled cloves in and put the lid on and shook the dickens out of them! Opened the lid and waa-laa, peeled cloves!!! Yahoo! that was quick and easy! I popped 3 in the bird and the rest around the bird, rubbed him with olive oil and covered with lots of spices, onion powder, lemon pepper, celery salt, salt and pepper, poured some chicken stock in the bottom of the deep dish roaster and shoved him in the oven. cook 1 hour, remove lid, cook 1/2 hour more and you have your own chicken meat for what ever you need it for! I am making chicken tacos tonight!
I hope you remember to use some of the helpful handy tips, if you have any to share, leave a comment!
Watch here:

My life....

I woke up to a wicked head cold, the sneezing, coughing, achy head, fever, can't sleep kind!
So this will be my life for the next week! UGH!!!!!
Be back after my head explodes or implodes...either way I would be better off!!!

KWS BAND!

I am so lucky! My friend Tanya called me yesterday afternoon and offered me 2 tickets to go to see Kenny Wayne Shepherd with her! She knows Charlie and I have been sitting home pinching pennies and trying to save money. I have an upcoming surgery in December, (Gotta get a handle on some pesky fibroid's) and work is slow so getting to go out was a real treat!
We met at the Orleans and grabbed some burgers for dinner, then headed in to see the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band! I have been a big fan of his since his idol is Stevie Ray Vaughan, his guitar playing is wonderful! He is self taught and been playing since he was 3!
And I love Noah Hunt's vocals, he could sing the dictionary and I would be mesmerized by that voice!
It was a great concert and thanks again to Tanya for letting us tag along!

Fall foods!

Fall Fox!

The one thing I do love about fall is the food. I love making comfort food, mac and cheese, homemade of course, did you know once you make homemade mac and cheese you will never go back to a box, Thanks Colleen Myler for teaching me that! Yes, homemade mac and cheese is just as fast and easy, try it!
I also love making casseroles, chicken pot pies, etc....

Today I decided to try Salisbury steak and mash potatoes with gravy and green beans.
I know my hubby grew up eating Salisbury steak probably from a TV dinner but he still loved it, I never really tried it or knew about it, but it sounded like a good fall meal.
Wow, it was fabulous!
I made the recipe from Pioneer woman's site:
Salisbury-steak

I made mash potatoes and green beans to go with it, those are no brainers. But the best tip I have learned with mash potatoes is to heat a stick of butter and a cup of milk in a pan while the potatoes boil, drain the potatoes and then add the warm butter and milk and mash. The perfect pan of mash potatoes and they stay warm with the warm butter and milk added!! So there you go, a nice comforting fall meal! Enjoy!!

November!

Made this wonderful pumpkin bread today, it is very good, very moist and pumpkinny!

I also put some chicken and white bean soup in the crock pot this morning. It is very fallish in this house today! Nothing can beat soup and bread! Enjoy!

(Chefs catalog sent it to me this morning in an email)

Coffee House Pumpkin Bread

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Cooking Instructions
Grease and flour a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. Preheat the oven to 350 F. 

MY NOTES: I DID NOT HAVE CARDAMOM NOT SURE IF I MISS IT, AND I DID NOT PUT SEEDS IN OR ON MY BREAD. ok carry on....

In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. Stir in sugar. In a small bowl beat together eggs, pumpkin, oil, and vanilla. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Be careful not to over mix batter

Immediately pour batter into prepared pan. If desired, sprinkle top of loaf with a 1/2 cup of salted roasted pumpkin seeds. Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool, in the pan, on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Turn out bread onto cooling rack and let cool to room temperature.