Kitchen Escapades

tried a new recipe this weekend. it gets given the checkmark of acceptance - it will be repeated. this one was a Sausage and Beans recipe out of the Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook. I'm loving this book! This recipe was reminiscent of Red beans and rice, but didn't have the cajun seasoning.

In unrelated news, the weather is fabulous. I can't believe it was snowing two days ago. today the high was about 65 degrees? I tried to take the dogs on a walk. It was a complete disaster. We walked out the door and nearly got attacked/tried to attack another dog. The entire walk they were pulling themselve. You would think that they had never been on a walk before. We had to stop and sit several times because they were panting so badly. In fact, Madison was at the point where she was panting and white tongue turned into slightly blue tongue. Apparently we can't handle walking any more.

For those parties interested in these types of things, the recipe follows--
Ingredients

• 1 lb fresh sausage such as turkey italian sausage or 1 lb smoked or full cooked sausage such as bratwurst, chicken apple sausage, or kielbaa
• 1/4 water if using fresh sausage
• 2 tbl olive oil
• 2 small bell pepers, seeded and cut into strips
• 1 medium ellow onion chopped
• 1 garlic clove minced
• 1- 15 ounce can white beans (great northern, butter beans, or cannellini) rinsed and drained
• 1- 15 ounce can red beans, such as small red or kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes, with thier juice
• 1/4 cup dry red wine
• salt and frehly ground black pepper to taste

1. Lighly brown sausage in ungreased skillet over medium heat. If fresh add water, voer, and cook until cooked through. uncover and cook for a few minutes more.
2. Let cool and slice
3. Warm oil over medium heat. Add peppers, onion, and garlic. cook, stirring, until just tender.
4. Transfer to slow cooker adding sausage, beans, tomatoes, and wine. cover and cook on high 3-4 hours, or on low 6-8 hours. ear the end check consitence and cook with the lid off to thicken if desired. Season and serve.

Welcome Back Sarah

I’ve been without internet access on the homefront for about a week now, and I have really been feeling it! Plus, you all have missed out on some ‘important’ discussion from your favorite blogger. Here is that much anticipated, picture that I promised. Please ignore the mess and the painters tape that needs to be removed. I need to get the ladder out! Recall the befores, shown below, and then you will be even more amazed!

Snow, Snow, Snow

Yesterday brought a cold front and snow flurries to vicks-vegas!! This was my first snow since moving to the miserable state of Mississippi. The weather was miserably cold yesterday. Somehow I had forgotten to watch that part of the news, and left the house completely unprepared. After spending the day hooked on weather.com I headed to the grocery store, picked up some good food and headed to the homestead. It looked as though we were upposed to tap out at a low of 31, just below freezing, but it also looked as thought the snow-like frozen precipitation would miss us. I was WRONG!! It SNOWED last night!!! I let the girls out and they had fun in the flurries for a bit. Then we headed back in to our nice warm fire. I had just enough wood left in the house for the right size fire – because you know I wasn’t going out to the shed to get more. Here are some pictures of the girls in the snow last night. I also grabbed one of the house this morning when I took out the trash. Any accumulation on the ground had melted by 6;30 this morning, but the rooftops were still covered! It was fabulously exciting!! Crazy thing is that it will be about 70 degrees days from now!

Sister Christian, you are motoring

Wednesday night was the much anticipated Project Runway season finale. I was sucked into this show this season, having never really watched it. The finale was down to Christian, Rami, and Jillian.

I really didn’t care who won, as long as it wasn’t Rami. He makes beautiful clothes, but they all seem to be the same clothes – and they all involve draping. This week he brought ought the mini blinds – some slightly different clothes. I liked his weaving, and a couple of his dresses were gorgeous, although the models seemed to have trouble wearing them. However, I don’t understand why he was on a show for discovering new talent – he had already been discovered and was making fancy dresses for society women including Jessica Alba. I totally agreed with Michael Kohrs – Rami has no understanding of color. He always picks a color that is just two shades the wrong side of ugly.

I loved Jillian’s outfits. They were smart and cute. She seems to be one of those HM people who stresses about things. That is cool. She might need some therapy to figure out how to get through these things. Otherwise, her stuff was awesome and I wish she had won. Her outfits looked fashionable, but they would translate to things that you or I could wear. That was probably her downfall – they have thrown people off of the show for being too wearable, and I think she got busted on that one. They said her line was lacking continuity – I think it might have been slightly so, but the line needs to not be the same thing repeated again and again. That doesn’t sell.

Sister Christian, what can I say, I knew from near the start that you would be the winner. You ARE motoring! He may have had lots of skinny pants and jackets, and the line was all in black and white shades, but it was fierce. Really, it was. I loved it. I wish I were 6-5 and weighed 112 pounds and had somewhere fashionable to wear that crap. It totally wouldn’t go down when I’m working in the field, but damn it was fierce!! You totally deserved the win, just for creating those pieces in a room the size of my bathroom. Way to go. I don’t know that you will actually sell anything on bluefly.com, but best of luck to you buddy,

The Faraday Girls

I recently read The Faraday Girls, by Monica McInemerney. this was a complex novel that drew me in. McInemerney has written a number of novel dealing with families from south of the equator, namely Australia and now Tasmania. Her novels dwell on the complex issues between siblings, parents, the skeletons in their closet, and the ties that bind. I’ve rally enjoyed the other two novels I had read by her, and this one didn’t let me down. I was sucked into the story of five girls left motherless at tender ages between 6 and 14. their father kept their mother alive in their eyes, through his near worship of her. Things were great, and then they weren’t. lives started falling apart, and they all just went downhill from their. Promises made between sisters made for some bitter feelings, and one sister’s discovery of the truth about their mother leads to nothing less than family tragedy. Yet in the end the book wraps everything up. All does not necessarily turn out in fairy tale fashion, yet I was satisfied with the conclusion. Each sister comes to terms with their history and continue along in their own separate lives. A great read.

The Friday Night Knitting Club

This week' read was The Friday Night Knitting Club, by Kate Jacobs. The Cover of the book gives a blurb from USA Today 'Like Steel Magnolias set in Manhattan'. I probably would not have given that assessment, but in retrospect, that is a great assessment.

Jacobs weaves the stories of several women of completely different backrounds using the setting of a knitting club on Friday nights. The club sprung up on accident, at the knitting store owned and run by one of the maincharacters. We see the lives of each character unfold, and are drawn in by their tales. Their abilities (or lack thereof) with knitting needles are peripheral to their lives. I really loved this book, and I highly reccomend it. I was drawn in and could not put it down. it was totally not what i thought it would be, and I enjoyed every moment of it.

I really loved the diverse characters, their lives, and the affect that knitting had on their lives and their relationships with the other characters. In fact, knitting is something I have been wanting to learn to do. I'm not quite ready to start classes yet -- there is a lot of painting and a silly little exam on the horizon. However, I AM going to pick up my latest cross stitch piece and finish it off. This book reminded me of how much I love my needlework/handicrafts, and how much it relaxes me to work on them. I am also promising myslf that I will learn how to knit in the near future.

The weekend, Bring it on

It is pretty common for us to walk around the lake and see deer tracks over by the dam. I know that we live ‘out in the count’, and I know that there is undeveloped land practically around the corner. I try to remember to be careful when coming home from work around dusk. But, the other night I had a crazy experience. I was coming home late at night. I was in my subdivision, not three houses up the road, when I noticed the neighborhood dogs running around. I said, gee those are some big dogs, that looks bigger than the tan dog from across the street. Suddenly, the realization hits me, it isn’t a pack of dogs, it is three deer running across the street! Thank God I wasn’t five seconds earlier or the Camry would be toast.

We had some beautiful weather here in the ‘burg. This evening the girls and I went for a little walk around the lake. Everyone is starting to take advantage of this weather to get things done. We stopped to chat with the family next door for a few minutes – it turns out we go to the same church. A couple of weeks ago I followed them to mass, and recently she had notice me at church. We are really starting to fit in around Lake Forest. On the way back around we got to stop by and talk with our other next door neighbor. Luckily, he hadn’t even noticed the excessive dog barking lately. I wish that were the case for me. He has noticed that our neighbor out back has put up a spotlight that shines directly into our back yards – not so cool for trying to sleep at night.

It has been a productive day in the Jersey house. I didn’t do the yard work that the weather was asking me to do. Instead, I started to finish off last weekend’s paint job. The minute I decided to put an offer in on the homestead I had a few visions of thing I wanted to do. Today I finally put my living room paint vision into practice – painting the beams in the vaulted ceiling to set them off from the ceiling. I never had any doubts that it would look good, but it looks even better than I thought it would. It really defines the room. I don’t understand how the previous owners thought that it was a good idea to paint it any other way!!! You need to check it out! I’ll be posting pics soon.