So much to share.....

I left my camera over at my neighbors on Thursday and just got it back last night! I have lots of pictures to share from the past week including Kristen's birthday, thanksgiving day, a craft I made and of course Christmas decor - all that will come in the next day or so, but today I thought I would show you a few pretty pictures of the 'Paula Deen Pumpkin Cake' I said I'd be making for Thanksgiving. . . . . remember it was on the front cover of her latest mag, here's a picture of how mine looks next to hers :-)

I went one step further and sprinkled a little icing (confectioners) sugar on top before taking it over to my neighbors.

I have to say the cake turned out ok, the one thing that was totally off was the cooking time! The recipe said both 9 inch cakes would bake at 350 for 22-27 minutes!! Surely not? If any of you bake cakes often you'll know for certain that 22 minutes is not going to cook a very dense cake like this. My neighbor said she bakes her recipe for an hour! I didn't know this at the time so I just kept adding 10 mins to the cooking time, and finally after 50 minutes the cakes seemed done. The maple cream cheese frosting was very yummy.

Not sure if I'd make this again, I prefer the 'Libby's Pumpkin Roll recipe to be honest. Speaking of which, here's a picture of the one I made last year...


Well, it's our last day of 'fun' today before we get back to school tomorrow. Then we'll be counting the days til we break for Christmas :-)

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all our family and friends. I'm thankful for so many things in my life - For my wonderful family near and far, for our health, for my sweet hubby, our precious daughter, great friends, food on the table, a warm house (and a cool one in Summer!), my computer, for without it I would not have met so many wonderful 'buddies'. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, for leaving sweet comments and for your friendship. Most especially, I am thankful that God SO loved us all that He sent His one and only Son to die for us.

Today we will be having Thanksgiving dinner with our wonderful neighbors. My inlaws are in CA. We miss them so much but know they'll be home before Christmas.... then it will be my turn to cook the turkey ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving to you all
xxxxx

Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes

Tuesday + + I know I posted this recipe when it was Monday, but I'm linking to Tasty Tuesday and TMTT so others might be able to use it if they need to at their Thanksgiving Dinner :-)


A few of you have asked me to share the recipe for my make-ahead mashed potatoes. I can't take credit for these, I've seen a few other versions of this online, but this recipe was given to me a few years ago by my dear friend Heather. I love making these at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and even Easter. When I was growing up in England we didn't have sweet potato casserole, so although I enjoy that at our special family gatherings now, I always still love fluffy mashed potatoes too, that's why I make these. And what I love about them is I can make them the day before, pop them in the fridge then just heat them up the next day. It's one less thing to make on the special day:

Ingredients:

5 lbs. potatoes
1 8oz package(block) cream cheese
1 cup half and half
1/2 cup butter(1 stick)
1 tsp onion power
1 tsp seasoned salt
1 tsp regular salt
1/2 tsp Black Pepper

Cook and mash the potatoes with all of the above ingredients. (add the half and half slowly as you may not need the whole cup if you think it's getting 'too soft')

Place in a greased 3 qt dish (I usually use my 13 x9 glass dish), sprinkle with paprika if desired and bake in a 350 oven for 30 minutes. To make ahead simply place the dish in the fridge, then the next day bring to room temperature and pop in the oven for 30 minutes.

I don't have a picture to share right now, but I'll be making these on Thursday this week, so I will take pictures then, and hopefully post this on my cooking blog.

It's the most wonderful time.....

...of the year! Yes, I'm singing Christmas songs and I have 3 Christmas trees up already, although they don't have the toys on them, Kristen and I will be doing that tonight. Wanna see a sneek peek of our 'doggie themed tree'?

I put this tree up yesterday in the game room and added lights to it. When Kristen came home from school she was thrilled to see it and immediately went looking for all her doggy soft toys to place around the tree (and this isn't even half of them!). I know you can't see much of the tree, I told you it was just a peek! Of course I'll be sharing pictures of everything once I'm finished decorating.

It's raining this morning, so I can't take 'outside' pictures for you. So I'll post about the Paula Deen recipe I tried last week....

This is Mexican Veggie Casserole. For a Paula Deen recipe this was surprisingly light in the 'fat' department. There was only 2 tblsp of oil used to saute the onions and zucchini, then you added canned corn, black beans, ranch-style beans, can of toms w/chilis and taco mix. The cheese in between the corn tortillas was neufchatel (1/3 less fat) and light sour cream and 2% cheddar cheese! I didn't take step by step photos and didn't even get a picture of the finished dish, but the full recipe can be found in the Nov/Dec issue of Cooking with Paual Deen. This was really very tasty and we enjoyed it with a crisp green salad, I didn't miss the meat at all.

I couldn't resist changing my blog look over to a Christmasy one ;-) Tonight we are taking Kristen to see A Christmas Carol in 3D, I can't wait.

Have a fun weekend whatever you're doing.

Let's take a walk....

I've mentioned the new 'event' center that just opened up near us, it's where I went with my friend Cheryl last week to the women's health seminar where Lance Armstrong's mom spoke. Well last night a new show opened..... Walking with Dinosaurs!

My friend/neighbor Cheryl said she was going to try and get tickets to the show for us all, if you remember she works at the local hospital who are sponsors to the center, and she did get the use of their company box, but she could only get 4 tickets for her family members. I really wanted to take Kristen to this so I got online yesterday morning and managed to get tickets for last night's first show. Wow! What an amazing event. Those dinosaurs are HUGE. When I first heard of this I thought it was just a movie about the dinosaurs on a big IMAX type screen, but then I saw a commercial on tv for it and saw that they were in fact 'man-operated' dinosaurs. I found a clip on Youtube that shows you part of the show with the huge T-Rex, I was hoping I could show it below but I can't figure out how to do that (someone could tell me if they know) so I'm just gonna add the link here that will take you to the youtube page:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAE5aqG8L_U

It's quite a long video so you don't have to watch it all, but it gives you an idea of what the show was like. Kristen loved it :-)

Tomorrow I think we are all (me, K and Jason) going to go see the new Christmas Carol movie in 3D. Kristen saw a preview months ago and thought it was scary because it was a big close up of Scrooge, and I must admit he does look kinda scary, but I explained it's not a scary movie and what the story was about. When I think about it, she's never seen or read the story of 'scrooge' yet, but it is a great lesson for kids I think, so hopefully we'll all enjoy it.

Off to clear up the house and carry on with the Christmas decorating. I have a ton of posts I'd like to cover, perhaps if I mention them here I won't forget? I still want to take photos of the 'garden' for you, tell you about the Paula Deen recipe I tried this week and post the recipe for my make-ahead mashed potatoes, as requested by Laurie ;-) That should keep me busy for the next few posts!

Have a beautifully blessed day.

If you can believe it.....

see that bowl of cherry tomatoes up there - that HUGE bowl of tomatoes? I picked those from our garden yesterday! I kid you not. And half an hour later I threw them all down the garbage disposal!!!

Let me explain why. . . . . first let me just say, I really need to take some outdoor pictures of our 'garden'. A few of you asked a while ago how things were going, and I just never seem to get around to telling you (or showing you) about it. After the success we had during the early summer with all the zucchini and watermelons and the pumpkins, well lets just say 'we' (cos I can't blame it all on my hubby, although I've always insisted I don't really like gardening) have let things go a little out there, and to say it's looking rather messy would be a slight understatement. Things (and by things I mean weeds and grass) are taking over the beds where the earlier veg have died off, and we just never seem to get out there to take care of it. If I'm honest this is what annoys me about gardening. I'd prefer to do things on a smaller scale, but hubby 'went big' again this year and has done the same thing he did last year.... just let everything get too messy and now he doesn't want to deal with it.

All that said, the tiny tomato plants I planted from seed that never seemed to be doing well during the heat of the summer finally started going wild a few weeks ago when the weather turned cooler and we started getting rain. And that's where all these tomatoes came from... there's still a ton of green ones on there that I'm hoping will ripen over the next few days, although I'm not sure if they will now as we had a little bit of frost early this morning.

Anyway, I thought because I had so many tomatoes I would try and make some salsa with a packet of stuff I got a few months ago for this very reason. Long story short, I had to 'scald' the tomatoes in hot water to peel them and then de-seed them, but by the time I took the peel off and tried to squeeze out the seeds, there was very little flesh left. It was so messy and difficult to seperate them I thought I would just peel them and through the whole tomato in the bowl, seeds and all. After I'd done this with half the batch I came to the realization that most of what was in the bowl was slimey seeds and that wouldn't make good salsa at all. The other half were still in hot water so the whole batch went down the sink :-(

Tomorrow I will try to take pictures out there and share them with you. Today I started on my Christmas decorating. I will share pics of all that as and when I get things done. Although I am realizing that I don't really have that much stuff so a trip to Hobby Lobby or Michael's may be in order once I get everything unpacked ;-)

Can you believe it's Thanksgiving next week? What are your plans? Who's cookin the turkey? We will be having dinner at our neighbors house like we did last year because my inlaws are not here. So no turkey cookin' for me, but I will make my yummy 'make-ahead mashed potatoes' a recipe I love from my friend Heather, and I also might try and make the pumpkin cake on the front cover of Paula Deen's magazine!

OK, I've waffled on a lot today (or I should say tonight, as it's 7.37pm as I type this). I think it's about time I went and put my feet up with a glass of wine - care to join me?

Birthday Girl

Just wanted to say a quick hello and happy Monday. The past week went by in a whirl, yesterday we had Kristen's birthday party at a local 'entertainment' place. We played 'glow in the dark golf' and had pizza and cake before that. We had 14 kids there, so it was a great turnout and perfect that the place does everything for you and all I had to do was bring along the cake :-) Her actual birthday is not til Nov 25th (day before Thanksgiving) but doing it early like this makes it less stressful and means a few of her friends are still around and not out of town visiting family for thanksgiving.

'Daddy' was in charge of the camera! I thought I was bad with 'blurry' photos.... these few are about the best I can show you!

A busy day

I'm having lunch with Kristen today at school. It's their 'Thanksgiving Lunch' and is often very busy. I usually just sign her out after we've eaten and we get to spend the afternoon at home just pottering around :-) After we get home today though I need to help her with some 'extra' homework she has, then I want to put a color on my hair (the brown is looking too dull, I think!) as I'm going out tonight with my friend/neighbor Cheryl.

We have a new events center that just opened this year, about 5 minutes drive from us. Kelly Clarkson played there just last week! Cheryl is one of the directors at our local hospital and they are one of the sponsors of the center. Tonight they are hosting 'Healthy Woman'

Enjoy the wisdom of keynote speaker, Linda Armstrong Kelly (Lance Armstrong's mother) as well as a fabulous fashion show, cash bar, health expo, silent auction, plated dinner and so much more!

She asked if I'd like to go along tonight as she has a table for 10 :-) I can honestly say, I don't get out much these days, the only time I dress up is when I go out to 'book club' once a month, and even that is only in jeans and a nice top! So tonight I get to put my best party dress on and enjoy an evening with a great friend. I'll post all about it tomorrow!

This weekend I'm doing a craft fair with Cheryl again. I'm actually going to try and sell some little things I've been knitting. When I get a chance I'll show you pictures and let you know how that goes too. Too much going on.... not enough time to blog about it! Gotta dash - lots to do.

Have a great day.

Yummy-licious!

Yesterday I bought this magazine. . . .

and so last night I let Kristen pick out a cookie she'd like to bake and we got busy in the kitchen. Actually there wasn't many to chose from that I had the ingredients in for! A lot of the cookies called for shortening which I never have on hand. But we had all we needed for 'Chewy Chocolate Cookies' and that was good enough for her :-)

Here's the recipe if you want to try them....

1 1/4 cups butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup baking cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups semisweet choc chips

1/2 cup finely shopped walnuts or pecans (we actually left the nuts out this time, cos Kristen doesn't like them. I usually do 1/2 the mixture with nuts but I didn't bother this time).

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt, and gradually add to the creamed mixture, mix well.
Stir in chocolate chips (and nuts).
Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets.
Bake at 3.50 for 8-9 minutes. Cool on the pan for 1 minute before removing to wire rack.

Easy right? And they were super yummy fresh out of the oven last night ;-)

Gotta mention the 'cookie jar', a Goodwill find last week for $4. I was going to put Boo's biscuits in it, but he already has a plastic jar, so I got this for Kristen. She of course loves dogs and wanted a cookie jar she didn't have to 'screw' the lid on and off!

Another magazine I bought last week was the latest Paual Deen. . . .

I love Paula's magazine, there's always something I want to try and make from it. That cake on the front for instance! It's a pumpkin cake with maple cream cheese frosting. The top is decorated with rosemary and cranberries dipped in sugar! I think I might make this for Thanksgiving and take it to our neighbors (where we're having dinner, cos my inlaws will be in CA, so there's just us 3 home). There's also a veggie mexian lasagna I want to try. How about you? Do you like Paula Deen? Do you buy the magazine? Wanna join me in cooking something from this issue? Post about it on your blog if you do, and let me know so I can come visit and see :-)

I'm linking this post to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday and Tasty Tuesday

It's beginning to feel a lot like. . . .

Seriously! I know it's only the beginning of November but Christmas commercials are already on TV, actually I noticed them right after Halloween. I was down at the mall last week (I don't go very often these days) and noticed store windows were already decorated with tinsel and greenery! It does seem to get earlier every year, but to be honest, I don't mind at all. I am so wanting to get in to the Christmas mood :-) I will confess, I had Christmas cd's playing on my ipod last week while I cleaned in the kitchen and I had my Yankee Candle (Home for the Holidays) burning. I know I'm not the only one. All over blogland there is talk of holiday decorating and sharing of ideas for handmade gifts.

Just yesterday I found a lovely site that is hosting a 'party' starting today....

I won't be taking part in this, cos I haven't made anything of late other than knitted items. But I know for sure I'll be visiting every single link in this one to get some great crafting ideas. One thing that has already caught my eye (I've seen three different posts already) is homemade drinks coasters, using tiles and napkins or stamps. They look so simple to make I might just have to buy the materials and give them a try.

I thought I'd share with you what I found in Goodwill last week (I love browsing through there to see if I can find any 'household' bargains. I found these lovely Christmas plates this week.....

Aren't they cute, here's a close up so you can see the edge, it's meant to resemble twisted rope, so it's not a smooth edge (I'm saying that because I think it still looks smooth in the picture but it's actually 'bumpy'!) The set of 4 was just $5. They are about the size of a salad plate. Of course I will have to do a tablescape with them at some point ;-)

I also wanted to share another hat and scarf set I made for a champagne bottle. I think I mentioned that I bought the letters G I R L and B O Y to put on the scarfs.... here's the pink one I made

Well, I gotta dash, I have sweet potato casserole in the oven! It's Jason's Thanksgiving lunch at work today so he likes me to make his favorite dish (his mom's yummy recipe) to take each year.

Friday again - planning ahead!

Wow, no post since Tuesday! Again because I couldn't really think of what to post about. I didn't have time to take pics to post for 'Outdoor Wednesday' and I didn't make a tablescape this week. I've just been pottering around doing the usual household stuff and running errands.

The weather has been glorious this week, beautiful and sunny, blue skies and mid 70's. Until today that is, it will be 80 today. And that's still nice (I don't want to complain about beautiful weather) but it means our a/c still kicks in later in the afternoon! It's NOVEMBER!!! I don't want my a/c on.

I was born in England, as most of you know. I lived there for over 34 years, so I don't mind the cold, I really don't. Oh, I'm sure you'll hear me complain when it gets colder and it's wet and rainy (although after the HOT summer we had here, I'm trying to be thankful for any kind of weather we have), but when it's November I expect it to be cold, at least a little colder than 80 degrees!

But seeing as the weather is so nice I have decided to 'plan ahead' and (don't gasp) get the Christmas lights out!!!! We didn't put any lights up last year because we went to New Mexico to spend Christmas with family, but I remember the year before that I left putting the lights up til the end of November and it was a freezing cold weekend! This time I think it would be good to get the lights out, organize them, hang some of them up around the trees and porch but of course I won't turn them on til after Thanksgiving. I'll be happy I did this once the weather turns cold again :-)

Also on the cards today (I hope) I want to go buy some wood at Home Depot and finally try my hand at making one of these. . . .

These are the beautiful shelves Traci made, and ever since I saw her 'tutorial' I have wanted to try and make some to go above my buffett! I'll let you know if I succeed!

What's for dinner?

I'm making these tonight. . . . Creamy Beef Enchiladas!

The recipe is from Simple and Delicious magazine - Oct 2009 issue. I made them a few weeks ago and Jason really liked them so I thought I would do them again and share the recipe with you all. I love enchiladas and there's lots of different recipes for them. I like the easy, simple ones, and this one falls in to that category for sure.

The recipe calls for 2lb of ground beef and serves 12, I made this much but I only did a dish for 6 and I froze the rest of the filling for a later date. You could just half the recipe if you wanted to.

2lb ground beef or turkey (I often use lean ground turkey, as it cuts out a lot of fat)
1 cup chopped onion
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream
1 (40z) can chopped green chilies
3 cups shredded cheddar cheese (divided)
3 cans (10oz each) enchilada sauce (divided)
12 flour tortillas warmed

For the filling: Cook the beef (or turkey) and onion in a skillet or dutch oven. Add the soup, sour cream, chillies, 1 cup of cheese and 1/2 cup of enchilada sauce; heat through.

Spread 1/4 cup enchilada sauce into each of two ungreased 13x9 baking dishes. Place 1/2 cup of beef mixture down the center of each tortilla. Roll up and place seam side down in each prepared dish. Pour remaining enchilada sauce over top. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake uncovered at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

Don't forget, if you do the full recipe you can always just fill 6 tortillas (don't use all the enchilada sauce) and freeze the other half for another day ;-)

If you don't know what's for dinner tonight and want some great ideas, visit Jen or Grace (click on the graphics above) :-)

Such generous bloggers....

One of the things I love about blogging is the generosity of bloggers. The give-aways they have are simply amazing. Like the one I just won from Sherri :-)

Another awesome give-away was announced over at Melissa's Heart and Home. Look at all teh lovely stuff (above) that she is giving away.!

I've only known Melissa for a few short months but I love her blog. She openly shares not only 'herself' (she's one of those bloggers you just know you'd love to meet in the real world and become great friends and neighbors with) but her lovely home too. Her decorating style is so 'me', I love it :-) I could surf her blog for hours.... but of course I don't, I mean I don't want her to think I'm weird or anything!! But despite the fact I just won a wonderful give-away, I couldn't resist entering for this one too. Part of me feels guilty, but part of me thinks I won't win anyway, so where's the harm, and then there's the part of me that says 'if I do win, then I will have to host another give-away on my blog to 'pay it forward' so to speak, then I won't feel guilty at all :-)

SO, hop on over to Melissa's blog and enter for your chance to win too.

Halloween Pics

Here are a few more photos from our fun night last night.

It was such a warm sunny day so we decided we'd set up a table out in the cul-de-sac and grill hotdogs and put out some 'munchies'. Cheryl, ever the gracious host even offered 'dogs' to the trick or treaters (and the parents that came with them) :-)

The deviled eggs I made were a big hit with everyone.....

and of course the kids loved the cupcakes Kristen and I had made earlier that afternoon....

Watch out, the prisoner is on the loose again. . . .

he was on the lookout for any dropped hotdogs!

Here's Kristen home from her trick or treating....

Look at all that 'loot'!

Hope you all had a fun night too. So.... next up is Kristen's birthday party, then Thanksgiving!

Just a quick pic

We had a fun night last night. This morning I'm getting ready for church (haven't been in many weeks!). And because the clocks went back last night it means I can make the early service.

Just wanted to share one little pic with you before I head out, and I'll post lots more later today.

Kristen was dressed as a wolf this year. Not the big bad wolf, or a werewolf, just a 'nice' wolf. She is fascinated by the 'real' creatures and likes to read books about them and see them at the zoo!