Self Portrait!

 

This sounds like fun, wonder if I can keep it up all month? I’m not a great photographer but it will be fun trying to take pictures , or I might even use ‘old’ ones, like I’ve done for my self portrait!

Last day of school tomorrow :-)  Kiki is off on her school field trip today (strange day for it if you ask me, all the other classes had theirs months ago!).  Jason is working from home today and tomorrow then heading off to Denver to work for a week on Sunday :(  It will be a quiet first week of Summer for Kiki and me. I might actually find more time for blogging!

More trees!

We went out for a drive last Friday to a little place called Berdolls Pecan Farm. Jason has wanted pecan trees in our backyard ever since we moved here. We finally bought 3 last week.

   This doesn’t look very big, it’s skinny but tall.

See! Much taller than me!

The third tree wasn’t in when I was taking these pictures. It will probably take a few years before they start producing nuts. I told Jason we’d have some pretty big trees already if we’d planted them when we moved in 4 years ago! But at least they’re in now.

Wanna see how the rest of the garden is growing?

The corn is nearly as tall as me!

AND, we have ears!!! (ears of corn). We tried growing corn last year but there were worms or something that got in to the ears and started eating the kernels, so we had to get rid of them all. I really hope we can eat some, this year.

My neighbor Cheryl loves eggplant parmesan, so I planted some. I am hoping to make her a dish when they are fully grown!   We have two different varieties, the top one (where you can see me holding it) is the typical dark purple one, and the small one above is called ‘Fairytale’. We call them Aubergines in England.

Spaghetti Squash!

 

 

My basil plant is going crazy again! I bought pine nuts to make my own pesto. I just need to find the time to get on and do it!

Linking up with An Oregon Cottage for:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s for Dinner?

 

Happy Memorial Day weekend. I hope you’re all having a fun time with family and friends. My heartfelt thanks go out to all of our servicemen and women, my thoughts and prayers are with you today.

We’re having a great weekend, spent Friday and Saturday night hanging out with our fav peeps next door (but I left my camera at Cheryl’s so I can’t share the photos yet). We tried some great ‘blue’ cocktails, inspired by this one from Val So Cal :-)

Actually I used Val’s exact recipe for this ‘Ice Blue Margarita, it was a hit with everyone.  You can click on the picture to visit Val’s lovely blog. Thank you Val. We also made an O--- S*x on the Beach! (I don’t know who comes up with these cocktail names!!!) which had pineapple juice in it that gave it a tropical taste – quite yummy, but sweet. I’ll share recipes and photos later this week.

Ok, so today is quieter, just me Jason and Kristen. I’m trying to decide what to make for dinner. Usually we’d grill out, it being Memorial Day and all, (which my fellow Brits might not know but this weekend signifies the start of Summer and BBq’s), BUT, I have all this to cook . . . . .

 

This is what we’ve harvested throughout the week! As you can see there’s quite a few different squash I need to start using. We have the yellow ‘patty pan’ squash, the usual zucchini, and 4 more lovely acorn squash. There’s also two bags of washed lettuce there, plus some radishes and one little beet! I’m thinking of making stuffed zucchini today, using Italian sausage and marinara sauce with mozzarella on top. I’ll let you know how it turns out.  I probably could also make Jason his zucchini bread too.

Other than that, we’ll just be ‘chillin’ today. Hope you all have a great day, whatever your plans.

KikiBoo Designs

I’m joining in with Kristen today for her ‘Show and Sell’ Party.

I’m having trouble uploading pictures to blogger – I’ll be back later to see if I can add them!

Kikiboo Designs is the new name of my Etsy Store. When I first set up my Etsy Store it was to sell my hand knitted goods, so I named it the same as my blog ‘The Knitting Den’  But then I started making craft/vendor aprons and the cute teacup bird feeders too. The Knitting Den name no longer seemed to fit. So, for a brief period I called it ‘English Rose Gift Shoppe’I enjoyed sewing the aprons but I get bored doing the same things over and over, so I introduced ‘shoe bags’ and Lavender Sachets. 

This cute Winnie The Pooh bag and matching Lavender Sachets recently sold in  my Etsy store.

The customer then asked if I could do a special order if she sent me the material. I was more than happy to, so this week I’ve been working on more sachets and some smaller bags for her.

So because I have enjoyed sewing these bags, including 21 sachets for this customer, it came to me that I like knitting things for baby, and I like sewing things for baby, so why not rename my Etsy shop and focus on ‘baby’ items.  I came up with the cute name KikiBoo for obvious reasons (if you’re new to my site, I’ll tell you – Kiki is what we call our daughter Kristen, and Boo is our little Shih Tzu). I added ‘and friends’ when I thought about the washcloths/dishcloths  I like to knit (which would be great gifts for Grandma’s and Aunties too), and the thought of making blankies for new puppies came to mind, so it would include our ‘fur babies’ too :-)

You can visit my Etsy store by clicking on the banner above.  And what do ya know, I decided to open up a new BLOG just for my store too (like I haven’t got enough of them, what with The Knitting Den, The Healthy Den, The Cooking Den!!). The KikiBoo Blog is where you can see updates about what I’ll be adding to my shop. It’s all a work in progress right now, but I’m hoping I can get more things listed very soon.

It’s starting to pay off. . .

. . . all our hard work in the garden, that is!  We have been enjoying some things from the garden the past week or so and I haven’t even had a chance to blog about it.

I’m gonna make this a super quick post, I just got back from a 25 min walk/jog around the neighborhood – it’s only 9.15am and already I’ve taken over 5000 steps! I should hit 10,000 today :-)

Last night Jason and I went out back as we usually do after dinner, and this is what I picked . . . .

Acorn squash, summer (yellow squash) and a zucchini, 3 peaches and 3 green beans!!! Yes, just 3 green beans, that is so funny I think. Usually we would get a lot more all at once, but this small crop we planted first didn’t do so well in the beginning, and there’s not much on them right now. We have another larger crop we planted a few weeks after that are looking really good, and we have a whole row of ‘pole beans’ that are growing up the netting really fast.

These aren’t the first peaches from the tree, we had some last week

 

We can’t remember what kind of peach this is but it’s definitely different to the other two trees – a much earlier producing one for sure, as the other trees have tiny peaches on, and they’re no where near ripe yet. But these babies were . . . and they were delicious.

I can’t tell you how nice it is to just pick them off the tree and sit on the back porch eating them, they’re so juicy, and still warm from the sun – truly amazing.

Here’s a meal I did last week…. rather eclectic but we wanted to eat what was harvested from the garden – We had soup I made with the chicken from the Farmer’s Market. Our first acorn squash were ready, so I roasted two with a little butter and brown sugar. You can see a small bowl of plums (they have all gone from the tree now – we didn’t get as many as we did last year, and they were smaller, but still so good)

Here’s one just before I picked it off the tree!

There’s also a bowl of salad from our garden. I’ve since cut much more, just look at the bowl fulls I got this week:

The corn is getting high but I don’t see any ‘ears’ yet! Cantaloupes are flowering as are the watermelons. Peppers are starting to grow better too. It’s all looking great.

Linking to:

Outdoor Wednesday

Tuesday Garden Party

Renaissance Fun!

The Renaissance Festival in Waxahachie, TX (near Dallas) runs from April to end of May every year. Jason mentioned last weekend that he would love to go there. We’ve been to a Renaissance Festival many years ago when we lived in MD (before Kristen was born), when we told Kristen about it, she was super excited :-)

Here’s some photos (especially for Nenna) :-)

  

  

 

Kristen of course was on the lookout for anything ‘wolf’ . . .  this is actually a coyote tail, she just had to have!

  I have more pictures to share but this seems a lot for today. I’ll post more tomorrow. I really will try to post more this week, so much to show you in the garden, and my crafty stuff ;-)

Have a great Monday.        

Weight Watchers – Cookbook Review

Some time last year, as a way to encourage myself to eat healthy I decided to ‘splurge’ and buy the Weight Watchers At Home Kit. I didn’t want/need to go to meetings and at the time I didn’t want to join the online program either. The At Home Kit was perfect for me. I received lots of motivational books, along with the WW food calculator, cookbook  AND a free subscription to their magazine (which I love).  I stuck with the plan for just a few months though, then kinda fell off the wagon during the Summer and Winter months.

When I decided I needed to get back on track with better eating and exercise I was a little sad to find out that Weight Watchers had revamped their whole program! It was now called Weight Watchers Points Plus. It meant all the material I’d just invested in was rather obsolete, even the calculator wouldn’t calculate the food points correctly (all that had changed too). But still, I was sort of excited too. A new year was approaching and I really wanted to get back to eating healthy (I’d really let me myself over-indulge during Christmas!).  So, this time I DID join on line, and 5 months later I am still following the plan (most of the time) AND still feel motivated because I check in with a group of girls at the forums every day. Accountability is the key.

I bought a new WW calculator but I didn’t buy a new cookbook. I had to recalculate the points of a recipe when I made it using my new calculator. . . . .  that is, until now.

Now I have :

Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook, 4th Edition. And it calculates the PointsPlus for every meal :-) 

The WW New Complete Cookbook has been completely revised and updated to reflect the way Americans are eating today. Packed with 500 delicious and nutritional-conscious recipes, this new edition of the cookbook helps people stay on track and achieve their weight management goals, including information and values for those following the new PointsPlus program.

When I first received the book I spent most of the evening just browsing through it slowly. Turning every page and almost drooling at some of the wonderful photos!

Really? Nachos Grandes!!  That’s what I love about Weight Watchers – NOTHING is off limits :-) The book is filled with great recipes from Breakfasts and Brunches to Slow Cooker Classics and everything in between. My only problem?   . . . deciding what to cook first!

I decided to make this Chicken and Rice dish. It looks so savory, AND I had all the ingredients in.

To be honest looking at the recipe photo, I thought the dish might be rather complicated, but I was happy to see there was only 4 steps to it, and step #1 was preheat the oven to 350!  This was going to be easier than I thought.

I didn’t have ‘chicken parts’ (breast, drumstick and thighs') just skinned chicken thighs, so I used those….. sautéed in a pan til browned (then remove)

then cook bell pepper, celery, garlic and onion for about 5 minutes. I added some small diced patty pan squash that I just picked from the garden too :-)  Next I stirred in a can of tomatoes and some chicken broth, once it was boiling I added rice and oregano (I didn’t have any saffron that it called for).

Transfer everything (including the browned chicken) to a casserole dish and cook covered for about 25 minutes until chicken is cooked, then add some frozen peas and cook covered again for 15 minutes.  I took this picture before I’d added the peas!

   

Just as I expected, this was a really savory tasting dish. I loved the veggies in it and the thighs were really nice and moist. I had more of this the next day for lunch and the flavors were even more intense.

I can’t say enough good things about Weight Watchers, I love that I can eat all of the things I like, nothing is off limits. It’s teaching me to watch my portion sizes and to eat lots more fruit and veg (all free points) :-)  I can’t wait to try more recipes from the book.

 

** I received a review copy of this book from Wiley publishing in exchange for an honest review. All opinions and thoughts are 100% mine **