What happened to the weather?

We didn't go to the Oasis after all last night. For a few reasons. . . . when Jason came home from work early to take Kristen to meet Papa, he asked if I wanted to put off going to the Oasis until another time when it was sunny and we could watch the sunset. It had been cloudy all day and we knew the sun wouldn't break out like it had on other late afternoons this week. Not only that, but even though the forecast had said it would be 80 degrees, it had in fact turned pretty cool (read chilly) and was only about 59 degrees, and was drizzling slightly too! I had thought we might stay a while and listen to the live band there, but when I looked on the website it seems they don't start live performances (because they our outdoors I assume) until April.

So for all those reason, we canceled our plans to go to the Oasis and we went to Carrabbas for dinner instead. I had some yummy lobster ravioli and a nice Riesling to drink with it and Jason had Mr. and Mrs. C's Favorite! That was a pretty good choice for him because it was just protein and veggies, no stodgy pasta like mine ;-) We did indulge in dessert and shared some sort of brownie creation (it wasn't with icecream, but I don't know what it was called)

Jason had brought a cd out with him to put on in the car. As we were driving home I mentioned that the cd (by the group Live) reminded me of when we first started dating because we would play it all the time, and my sweet hubby looked over at me and said "I thought it would, that's why I brought it". Isn't that sweet?

So today while Kristen was still at Grandma's we went to Lowes and bought some plants for the front yard. We also bought some brick edging but when we got home we got a little disheartened when we realized the edging was not going to look very good because the yard slopes quite a lot. Basically we gave up trying to make it look right and I just turned the beds over so I can plant the plants out tomorrow. Jason is now having to do some work in the office downstairs, and Kristen is home now playing on her computer next to me. I'm gonna think about planning our meals for next week and writing out a shopping list.

The weather is making me feel kinda 'blah'. There's no sunshine and it seems it may storm again (speaking of which we had a huge thunder storm last night that woke me up around 1am!).

A Surprise!

Do any of you get this magazine? It's a free issue from Kraftfoods.com All you have to do to get one sent in the mail is sign up at their website. I've been getting this for a few months now and I love it. Also if you visit HERE you can see all the previous issues and click on them to see what recipes were includedin each magazine. I love the Kraft Food website too, they have great videos showing how quick and simple some meals can be. I especially like their easy grilled bruschetta chicken (see bbq videos on their site)

So anyway, this latest issue came in the mail sometime last week and in it was a recipe for taco salad. Now we'd just had this on our SB diet the previous week, but what I liked about the Kraft Food recipe was it served the salad in your own tortilla bowls. I figured I could use the low carb tortillas to make ours. There's only 7g carb in each one.

You scrunch up foil to make a 3" ball and drape the flour tortilla over it. Then you lightly spray with Pam, or any other oil spray you use and it says sprinkle with a little chili powder. I only added the chili powder to Jason's and on mine and Kristen's I sprinkled a little seasoned salt. To be honest I don't think you'd miss it if you didn't put anything on.

Here's the tortilla bowls out of the oven turned over ready to add the taco meat. I didn't follow the exact recipe for the meat. I like to add taco seasoning to ours, and I use ground turkey these days. I hardly ever buy ground beef now. Kraft recipes says to just add chili powder and salsa. I added the taco seasoning as usual and the salsa. Then it says to mix 2tbsp of mayo and 2tbsp of salsa together then toss that with lettuce and tomato. You add the lettuce mix to the bowl first, then the meat, then add shredded cheese.

I served this with a side salad too because there didn't seem much on the plate and I drizzled the mayo dressing on. Also added a spoonful of refried beans cos I already a tin open from giving some to Kristen the previous day. This was very yummy, I'd do it again. The only thing I wasn't impressed with was my tortilla bowl, it wasn't very crispy in the middle, but just on the outside edges. I don't think I could leave it in the oven any longer than I did as they were starting to turn brown. So there you have it from Den's Kitchen this week. . . . .

. . . . now about that surprise? Well Jason surprised both me AND Kristen on Wednesday night! First Kristen, when she asked if he would go to 'Donuts with Dad' at school on Thursday morning!!! It meant he had to get up when she did at 6.30am and go to school with her, because Donuts were served by the PTA at breakfast time in the cafeteria. OK, I know donuts aren't allowed on South Beach, but he could hardly sit there while everyone is eating donuts and not have one too. Poor Jason, he said it wasn't even that nice, and not worth the calories :-/ It was a little dry apparently, although Kristen seemed to enjoy hers, and she loved having her Daddy there with her.

And my surprise? Later that night Jason announced to me that he was taking me out to dinner on Friday night? Unbeknown to me he'd called his mom earlier that day to arrange for Kristen to go for a sleep over :-) He said he's taking me to The Oasis! I've mentioned this place before. There was a fire there a couple of years ago and a lot of the wooden decks were destroyed. They did re-open soon after the fire but a large part of the place was off limits until they got it all rebuilt. I've heard it's even better now.

It has fabulous views over Lake Travis and we've been a few times to have drinks and watch the sunset. Today is very cloudy though, so I doubt we'll see any sun, but I'm just tickled pink that my sweet hubby was so thoughtful to do all this without even asking me.

I just got back from having coffee with my friend Cindy. Did a little shopping at Target and I'll be heading out again in an hour to pick up Kristen. Then I'll be getting ready for my hot date tonight ;-)

Have a great weekend!

Did you miss me?

Let's play catch up! This week has gotten away from me, I can't believe it's already Thursday. I just couldn't get motivated to blog after Monday, the days as usual seemed to go too fast.

I'll share with you a couple of pictures I took last weekend. I think I mentioned that we did a little yard work before Easter. Jason and I wanted to try and clean out some of the veggie beds from last year. You'll remember what a disappointing time we had with the veg that never grew.... the 'crappy' soil etc! Jason was so disheartened that he just let it all go. The beds got over run with weeds and grass. Except one of them that I had tried to clear out at the end of last summer. That was the one we cleaned up this past weekend. We bought some manure to add to the soil in the hope it would help and we bought a couple of tomato plants and peppers and some herbs.

First I have to show you the parsley that is in one of the beds. This has been there all year and just keeps growing. Strange when nothing else seemed to grow in that stuff. Jason says it's because it's roots finally made it through the 'yuck' soil and in to our own good soil that is in the yard.

As you can see it seems to be thriving.

Above is a tomato plant I bought at the grocery store last week. It's still in it's own pot but it's sitting on top of a big planer I have on the patio. It's a patio tomato but right now I don't know whether to replant it (the soil in the planter is the yuck stuff too!) or just leave it in here for a while. It already has some little green tomatoes on it.

Here is the bed we cleaned out with the small tomato and pepper plants in it. There's also cilantro, flat leaf parsley, basil and mint planted in there.

And here's a larger view of the rest of the 'messy' beds. We have talked to a work crew in the neighborhood and they've agreed to come in and clear out the beds for us next weekend. Our neighbors were hiring them to do some planters in their back yard and they sent the guy over to talk to us cos I'd told them we needed stuff doing. It's hard for Jason to find the time (and of course he doesn't like doing it) when he's working two jobs.

So what else has been going on this week? Well it's week 2 on the beach for Jason. I'm happy to say last week he lost about 4lb, and that's with going to Chuy's midweek for lunch and having 2 or 3 beers on Easter Sunday, plus Easter dinner. This week is going ok, although he had Chuy's again yesterday, so I think it's gonna be a slow process :-/

I have some food pics to share with you but I'll leave that for tomorrow so this post doesn't get too long. I have to go out this morning for library duty. I just hope someone comes in to take out a book or I'll once again feel like I've wasted my time!

Hope you all have a great day.

More Easter Pics!

I hope you all had a lovely day yesterday. I know we did. We left for church at 10.30am and didn't come home until after 5pm! Grandma did a lovely Easter dinner with Ham, garlic potatoes, cheese and broccoli casserole, spinach salad and green jello salad. We had yummy apple and caramel cheesecake for dessert! The tulips to the left were the lovely center piece on the table.

Here's our little princess ready to go to church. I had thought to post a picture of her first easter, but I need to resize it, so I might do that later.

Here are some pictures of the egg hunt!

Above: Kristen had spied the basket the Easter Bunny left. It had a Kangaroo Webkinz in it, Diego color by numbers, Peter Rabbit chocolates, Pez candy and a few other goodies. Boo was on a mad dash to get to it before Kristen!

Kristen found another egg - Boo's wondering where it came from!

And Easter Bunny left a new umbrella too - perfect cos Kristen's other one had a few spokes broken and was really quite unusable. Thank You Easter Bunny, you sure made one little girl very happy :-)

He Is Risen!

The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."
Matthew 28:5-7

Easter Bunny came to our house this morning:-)

We'll be off to church later this morning, to celebrate the real reason for this day. Jesus died for us, so that we may have eternal life and not be separated from God. I wish you all a blessed Easter Sonday.

Just a quick post. . . . . . .

It looks like I haven't posted since Wednesday, but I actually posted my last entry on Thursday, so I've only missed one day! I wrote some of Thursday's post on Wednesday night and saved it to draft. I guess it must still retain the date of when you first started the post? I know Sadie just mentioned something about setting the date when you pre-post - might have to ask her about that.

I just wanted to pop on here quickly (it's Saturday night and I'm about to put my feet up and watch a movie with Jason) and wish everyone a blessed Easter Sunday for tomorrow. I hope you have some lovely plans to spend time with your family, perhaps time at church, and just remember the real reason we celebrate this special time of year. It's not all about chocolate eggs and bunnies, as I keep reminding Kristen ;-) We will be going to church tomorrow then to my inlaws for dinner. I get a day off from cooking - yay! And because Jason and I have been so good this past week not having bread and potatoes etc, I'm looking forward to indulging just a little in some 'forbidden foods'!

We did some yard work today and planted out a few 'little guys'. I took some pictures and will share them tomorrow when I have more time to post.

Food for Thought!

My thanks to Sadie for sharing a lovely Easter graphic with us. Mmm, that choccy easter egg looks just like the ones I used to get when I was little at Easter time. Over here in the States Easter Eggs are slightly different. At Easter time in England all the big candy makers would create an egg to show off their specific candy bars. They were mounted in boxes. It's hard to explain really so I scoured the internet and found a few pictures.

Cadbury's is my favorite chocolate. And I always loved their easter eggs the best. Smarties and Flakes were my favorite. Smarties in the US are actually very different to the UK ones. The UK smarties are more like M&M's (but taste even better!) The smarties would be inside a large hollow chocolate egg. And the egg was always visible through the front of the box (as you can see in the Smartie egg box on the right).

This is the Flake egg box. They would look different every year, but you can see again in this one how the egg peaks through a window in the box. I miss buying these at this time of year. I'm happy to say I can still get a Cadbury's Creme Egg over here, which I indulge in once in a while around this time of year ;-)

OK, so enough about chocolate! I was trying to keep my food talk healthy, I just got carried away a little there. So dinner last night was Turkey Parmesan, once again from my little SB book. This one wasn't such a winner. It looks much nicer than it tasted. Not that it tasted awful, rather it just wasn't VERY tasteful. And I changed it slightly and used chicken, because believe it or not I couldn't find turkey cutlets in the store this week!

If you click on the picture of the recipe you might actually be able to read it all, should you want to give this a go (just excuse the water splashes on my page!). Remember I didn't say it tasted awful, just not as tasteful as I'd like it. Jason and I both agreed it was just OK, but I wouldn't bother to do it again.

It made for a pretty colorful plate though - don't you think?