Cooking Thursday and a Special Day

 

Hello dear Friends! 

I head out soon for my Mohs surgery, but I wanted to pop in with a quick post with a few items. 

First - how beautiful was this sunrise this morning? The first few photos are looking out our kitchen window. The third photo shows the frost that was on the deck this AM (it was in the 20's). And the 4th pic is of some trees in the back of our home out our bedroom window -still holding onto their leaves. 

Next, I wanted to share that exactly 4 years ago today I met Matt for the first time. I met him online. Here are a couple of his profile pics from that time. We met on a dating site and I thought he seemed cool and was cute, but too young for me and lived a distance from me, so I was ready to swipe him aside.  And I only actually talked to him because he was raised in Illinois and was living in MN, but was a Green Bay Packers fan. So I responded to his profile to tease him. True story...the Packers are the primary reason I'm now married to this man. Lol (Well, God had His hand in it too). But thought I would share on this historical day, as the rest is history. 😉❤️

And lastly I thought I would share some pics from the recent dinner we had over here with my Mom and step Dad over. I made my Mom's favorite pot roast, a salad, biscuits and spiced peach pie. I sent them home with leftovers, as well as some of the pumpkin cream cheese bread I had made. And I'll connect a direct link to the recipes under my recipe tab, and the bread I found on a website.  Wonderful Fall comfort food! And it was fun to get a sneak preview for Thanksgiving with my new placemats and dishes. I love them and think they're so pretty. :) 

pumpkin cream cheese bread

easy spiced peach pie

slow cooker pot roast

The pot roast recipe includes how I make a gravy when the roast is done cooking. I use some of the juices from the slow cooker - so good! And for the pie I now add a little pumpkin pie spice, along with the cinnamon, to make it even more Autumn inspired. 

I won't have time to visit now, but I'll check in with you Friends later. Thanks again for the all the prayers and support about my little surgery today. Blessings! xoxo

Wordless Wednesday

 

Happy Homemaker Monday

 

Happy Monday dear Friends 🧡

And....

Can you believe we are getting so close to the end of the year already? Time is whizzing by. 

I think of November as an underrated month. It seems so many like to skip past what this month could be all about and just go straight into Christmas mode. I like to think of November as a time to slow down a bit. A month of gratitude and focusing on blessings. And a month of preparation for all the holiday season to come. 

We even have some chances of snowflakes in our forecast! So I'm thinking of hibernation time. We need to put more things away in the shed. Do some final buttoning up the house chores to get ready for the weather that may come our way sooner than we'd like. So that's next on the agenda this week. 

But it was a lovely weekend here. Early on Friday we got a delivery that my Dad and step Mom had sent for our October bdays but Halloween was the earliest day they could ship it. My Dad & Mary had gone to New England for a Fall trip and it included Maine. They had the best lobster there and shipped us LIVE lobsters! It was crazy and kind of hilarious how Matt & I had to deal with these live lobsters. But we were able to boil them up successfully and they were amazing! We had a little of them with melted butter right away. Then chilled the rest and I made us lobster roll sliders over the weekend. Then Halloween evening we went to Mr. C's Aunt's home for Halloween and they do a big gathering of family and friends. They put on a giant pot of chili and everyone potlucks all kinds of sides and treats. We hung out there and visited and it was a lot of fun🎃 The C's daughter even popped in with their granddaughter Thea and we got to see her in her costume. She was a dragonfly and was SO adorable! I forgot to get a pic though. She's very much in the "stranger danger" phase of things so she would only stick with her parents or her Grandma (my bestie Mrs. C). Then the C's came back to our house and we stayed up til the wee hours playing cards and gabbing away. Such a fun night!

Saturday Hubby and I ran errands, went to evening mass, and went out for dinner. And yesterday we lounged, watched football (darn Packers lost - boo), and then I went out with a couple girlfriends for our Fall birthdays that we do every year. It was a really fun and relaxing weekend and now it's time to dive into this new week....

 

 

 

THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS:

ON THE BREAKFAST PLATE THIS MORNING:

protein coffee, a piece of the pumpkin cream cheese bread I baked over the weekend

ON MY TO DO LIST THIS WEEK:

errands we need to run, house chores to get done before snow, my Mom & step Dad over for dinner, my hair appt, my face surgery for the little skin cancer spot, home projects, hospice work

THINKING ABOUT: 

The chores to get done outside this week. I'm going to tackle cleaning out the pantry cabinets in the kitchen today (tomorrow is garbage day) and give them a good cleaning and I plan to clean my oven this week too. I also got items to put together more blessing bags to keep in my car and need to get them completed. 

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY:

Putting on the fireplace this time of year in the evening sometimes. We will do a no tv night and just be cozy in front of the fire in the living room for the evening - chatting, reading, and relaxing. It makes life feel such a slower pace. 

CURRENTLY READING

Some new holiday magazines and an old book I hadn't finished before. 

ON THE TV TODAY:

 Jeopardy, old seasons of big brother and the office, Great British Baking Show (need to catch up), Dancing with the Stars, Survivor, Shark Tank, Shifting Gears, Ghosts, might start diving into Hallmark movies for fun ;) 

ON THE MENU THIS WEEK:

    MONDAY -  clean out the fridge of leftovers & a salad kit to use up

TUESDAY -  (my Mom & step Dad over) slow cooker pot roast (includes potatoes and carrots), I make a gravy from the juices, biscuits with homemade honey cinnamon butter, spiced peach pie with vanilla bean ice cream

WEDNESDAY -  protein waffle breakfast sammy's (think scrambled eggs, sausage and cheese in between), veggies & dip, fruit

THURSDAY - tacos

FRIDAY - slow cooker ham & scalloped potatoes, salad

TO RELAX THIS WEEK I WILL:

sketch and paint, crochet, work on what I want to bake ahead for the season and freeze

TIPS OR SOMETHING TO SHARE:

When we were dealing with all of Bubba's health issues recently I found out that essential oils are toxic to pets. When I was doing my diffuser the mist could have been getting on Bubba and when he would lick and clean his fur it could make him sick. So I got rid of my old oils and bought all new pet friendly ones. 

FROM THE CAMERA:

Matt's face shows perfectly what we thought about dealing with live lobsters for our bday gift...we both kept joking that at least Halloween was a perfect time to commit murder. Lol 😂🙈 I did apologize to the lobsters and blessed them first. It made me feel a little better. And they were delish 😋

Halloween night I wore my spider web shirt and spider earrings to the party we went to. Bubbs was fully in the Halloween spirit too. I brought sweet and salty munchie mix (bake cheesy spiced nuts and mix with golden grahams cereal), and Halloween bark you chill and then break into pieces. I also baked pumpkin cream cheese bread (so yummy!). You can find all of these recipes fully under my recipes tab.

the moon put on a perfect Halloween show:

PRAYER LIST:

 For an end to the conflicts all over the world and anyone living in war & fear. For peace and unity in this country, especially from hate and shootings or violence.  For anyone sick, suffering, in pain, fear, loneliness etc ... that God bring them comfort and peace. For the government shutdown to end. For my upcoming surgery.

For Christ's Light and Love to cast out the darkness everywhere and help the world find its way to loving our neighbors as ourselves. 🙏🏻

PRAYER, INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE OR DEVOTIONAL:

So thankful for all of you Friends and send you wishes for a slow and gratitude filled November. 🍁🧡

I'm sharing this with Sandra of Diary of a SAHM for Happy Homemaker Monday.

Autumn Beauty, Harvest Honey Apple Stuffing Chicken, & a Coffee Lover's Treat

 

Howdy Blogland Pals!

I know that's quite a title for this post...but I'm packing in all kinds of Autumnal goodness because:

A) it's my last post for this week 

B)this weekend it becomes November (gah! where has the time gone?🙈)

C)so life will start to become more about the holidays, so I'm being Fallish while there is still time 

Also, BOOO! It's almost Halloween! 👻🎃🍁

Ok, so first up - some Autumn Beauty. Matt and I went for a walk a few nights ago and there was still such Autumn gorgeousness (is that a word?) everywhere and I just reveled in every step that we took in it. And of course, you know me... I took a bazillion photos. Lol  I also took a few more pics of Autumn around our home.

So pull up a comfy chair, grab a nice cozy beverage and I hope you enjoy diving into this Fall-filled post. I'm so grateful you are here. 🍁🧡 

some of the neighborhood homes are so cute for the trick-or-treaters

🎃🎃🎃

Next up I wanted to share this chicken recipe that I made recently that was inspired by something I saw on social media. I took some of those ideas and ran with it to make my own recipe. The dish I saw was stuffing and apple stuffed chicken breasts over carrots with a honey butter poured over all before baking. I didn't want something quite that sweet and I wanted something more saucy/gravy like as I know that's what Matt would like. So here is what I did:

I peeled and cut up 3 large carrots and chopped some onion and put into the bottom of a pan that I had poured a little apple cider in the bottom. I still had cider lying around and thought it would go well with the apples in this dish. I probably put about 1/4 c. of cider in the bottom. And I seasoned the carrots with some salt, pepper, & Italian seasonings. 

 I only have photos of 2 of the breasts, but I butterflied open 3 good sized chicken breasts, and seasoned them all over with salt and pepper. I made a box of easy stuffing and I filled the breasts with some of that mixture (about a 1/4 c. or so) and some peeled and chopped apple (about 1/2 a large apple). I used a cosmic crisp. 

I squished the mixture into the chicken while folding the breast in half. I placed each of the stuffed folded breasts on top of the bed of carrots. And I put the rest of the stuffing and apple I had leftover all over the top of the chicken too. 

Then in a separate bowl I took a can of cream of chicken soup and I added 1-2 tbsp of honey(knew it would play nice with the apples), some seasoned salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, and some Italian seasoning. Measure the spices with your heart - I like things flavorful. I blended the soup mixture up really well. I dotted the tops of the chicken with some pieces of butter. And then I poured the soup/gravy mixture all over the tops of the chicken. I placed them in a preheated 350* oven and baked them for about an hour - using a meat thermometer to make sure they were done. I think they were done in a little less than an hour. 

We had ours with a side salad and the carrots from the bottom of the pan that had soaked up all that goodness. True harvest comfort food. I could only eat half a breast but Matt cleaned his plate so I guess it was good. 😋

As long as we're being "hearty" with comfort food I thought I would share this amazing treat I came up with too. I typically still have my high protein greek yogurt treat...but I am human and sometimes crave ice cream (well we usually get frozen yogurt). So this twist is for my fellow coffee lovers out there. In Italy there is a dessert called an affogato - which in Italian means "drowned". And it usually consists of gelato drowned in some espresso. Think really sweet creamy coffee flavor but eat like a dessert like ice cream. Well I took it up a notch further. In my defense I had mine in a mug and only had 1 scoop though. 

You see, I'm also a cookie butter lover. Have you had this amazing concoction?? Think biscoff cookies all blended up until it reaches the consistency of peanut butter. So sort of like gingerbread cookie butter. I buy mine from Trader Joe's and it's evil because it's soooo good and sometimes calls out to me in the night. Not really, but it is something I struggle to resist. 

Anywho, back on track - I took some of that devilish cookie butter and smeared it in the bottom and a little up the sides of the mug.  I put one scoop of Moose Tracks frozen yogurt in the bottom over the cookie butter. Made a well in the middle of said frozen yogurt and filled it with some DECAF coffee (I still like to sleep at night). And oh my word, I thought I was in HEAVEN because it was sooo good! Cold, creamy, chocolatey and coffeeish. A new favorite dessert, so needless to say I'm not going to be able to buy cookie butter anymore. ::sigh:: Lol But that's my problem. I hope you go enjoy this amazing treat! 

Truly, give it a try it's sooo good. 

Blessings for a fun and safe Halloween weekend Friends

xoxo