6.17.2009

My Three Favorite Things



Is it too early for two out of the three vices in this picture???? My taste buds don't think so.

But I do have one question for you on this sunny, hot, sticky, Wednesday morning.......

Q: Which one of these items will be gone by the end of the day??
a. Diet Coke
b. Peanut M&M's
c. Flowers

A: If you guess A - the Diet Coke well how do you know the diet coke isn't already empty? After all it has been open for 9.7 seconds.

If you guessed B - well I'll give you half credit because a bag of Peanut M&M's, regardless of the size, doesn't stand a chance around me for too long. I can't help it I love the little guys.... they melt in your mouth not in your hand. But I'm going to try and extend them through the weekend. Notice the key word is underlined in the previous sentence.

If you guessed C - well then you are smarter than I give you credit for and you would get an A+ in my class. Yes it's true, the flowers will be gone by the end of the day if I don't protect them from the cats. I've only been sitting here for 30 minutes, 25 of which has been spent swatting them away and pushing them off the table. And yet they continue to come back for more punishment...they are relentless. I can't explain it my but my cats apparently like to eat flowers, especially roses. So unless I move the flowers from room to room with me and lock them up in a bathroom when I leave they will be destroyed by the unexpected predators. The rat bastards! You should see them, Harley is rubbing his head on my feet as if to say "it's okay, I won't eat them, please just let me look at them", and Kasey is curled up in the chair trying to look asleep. I'm lucky though, Bailey is on the watch for me and when the cats get close to the flowers she barks letting me know they are approaching the subject.

6.10.2009

Ohhh Yes It Happened....

He did it.... he ate something green mixed with something purple, orange, red, white/yellow, brown, and more. The Answer: Michael eating a salad. I know not exciting news to most but ya'll for my husband to put GREEN vegetables, let alone lettuce in his mouth and enjoy it...stop the press!!

When we were in Orlando in May we went to lunch at a place called Houston's. Well they had a really good salad, The Chicken Waldorf Salad, well their version anyone. As most of you know Chicken Waldorf is normally mixed with mayo or I've seen some recipes mix it up with yogurt but either way there is a creamy base to it and he does not, I repeat does not like mayo. So Houston's version of the Waldorf was better because it was basically just all the ingredients mixed on top of a bed of spinach lettuce in their raw natural form (well the chicken was cooked of course). So the other day we went to the store and he asked if we could make the salad again. When he asked I knew it was his voice but I had to look around to make sure it was his body standing near me asking that question. I wasn't sure if I should take his temperature or mine.

I must say he picked out most of what went into this salad since this his request. He was like a little kid in a candy store picking out ingredients for the salad, some that were part of the Houston's salad and some that weren't. But either way it was quite a site watching him walk through the produce section of Publix finding ingredients.

He works late on Monday's so I wanted to surprise him with 'his' salad for dinner. I would have taken a picture of the final product but by the time I realized I wanted to write about this momentous occasion both our salads were half eaten....and pictures of a half eaten salad aren't that pretty. Nor was the food on our faces as we shoveled it in. But moving on.... If you'll allow me, I'd like to pause for a moment to reflect on how goooood it was....(pausing for a moment to remember the Savery Waldorf Salad)

Okay here goes nothing...

The List

  • Spinach lettuce
  • 1 bag of Sargento Salad Finishers with blue cheese crumbles, cranberries, and candied almonds
  • 1/2 Fuji Apple (cut julienne style, Danette this means cut into strips...haha)
  • Match Stick Carrots
  • Purple Cabbage (finely chopped)
  • Hard Boiled Eggs (1 per person)
  • Bacon (cooked crispy but not burnt)
  • Red pepper (chopped into small bites)
  • Shredded Colby Jack cheese
  • Marie Callender Whole Grain Croutons (if you haven't had these yet you are missing out. they are way better than the normal croutons)
  • And of course Chicken

I cooked the chicken as follows:

  • First, heat up the oil and then add 2 cloves of garlic and let cook for a few minutes
  • Add chicken (which I had cut into strips)
  • Kosher Salt, Lawry's Seasoning, Pepper (I'm sure any seasoning you select is fine, this is just what I picked)
  • Once the chicken is cooked, I added maybe 1/4 teaspoon, could have been less because I only lightly and sparingly drizzled Red Wine Vinegar over the finished chicken (while it was still in the pan). It just gave it a slight tangy flavor but it was good.

Now serve with dressing of choice, he had Blue Cheese and I naturally had Ranch. I will admit I ate this salad again the next day for lunch and this time had Honey Mustard and it was a toss up for me as to which one tasted better.

The even cuter part to this and then I'll let you go, that's if anyone has made it this far in reading, was after he finished eating he got a piece of paper and pen and started writing down the ingredients so we wouldn't forget because he wants this again. Oh what a monster in the making!

6.04.2009

In Full Bloom

Now that it has stopped raining for a few days my plants have had a chance to soak up the water, dry out, and start blooming. Not that you care but I was bored yesterday and took some pictures while the thunder rolled in and before it started raining again.





Yes my plants are like totally this color....there was absolutely, positively, no funny business to be had in Photoshop Elements to make them look this fake.

Not sure why looking at these clouds made me start singing the song from Garth Brooks "The Thunder Rolls"








Why do most lizards in my back yard look like small dinosaurs. What happened to the cute green ones? (i think you can click on this picture for a larger size and see how gross he truly is)

Witness Protection Program

She never lets me take pictures of her sweet face. She either walks away, turns her head, or gets so close to me that I can't take it. When I finally do get a picture of her I naturally lose my balance and fall forward so it's blurry. Maybe she's afraid of the flash I used to use, or maybe she's in the witness protection program and is hiding from someone/something and doesn't want to be found. Who knows but this dog hates having her picture taken for some reason. And most of the time she's a beast but I'm trying to capture her sweet moments; which is proving to be difficult. Oh well you win some and you lose some....it's all in how you play the game. Or so I've been told.

Even though they are blurry and not good pictures, I'm still posting so you get the idea of how she spends her day when I'm home working. Typically on the floor next to me or if I get up to get a drink she follows me. Keep in mind, the dining room where I've set up camp and the kitchen are next to each other so she can see me. But she still feels the need to follow me and stand behind me and nine times out of ten I end up tripping over her. She's either trying to kill me or she thinks its funny to watch me fall all over myself and eventually into the wall. Which is normally the only thing that breaks my fall. If/when she isn't trying to kill me she's laying on my feet hoping for food crumbs to fall. I am known to drop a few crumbs for her...sometimes it's because I'm just messy and others it's on purpose since we are both potato chip girls. Oh to be a dog in my house, it's a rough life but someone has to do it; I wish I could be one. They rule this house, they lay on the couches, take over my bed at night, get fed people food, get loved on and new toys each time I go to the store. Wait..... that sounds like the life of my husband too. MAN, I got the raw end of this deal....

Anyway, I have gone way off topic from the original purpose of this post... it was supposed to be all about how Greta, aka Re-Greta, hates when I pick up the camera and immediately turns and leaves the room.



I would post pictures of her backside as she leaves but no one wants to see a dogs booty... so I elected to leave that off. You can thank me later.