Quaint Cafe

   Madilynne was recently given a gift certificate to a quaint little café in an area about 40 minutes away from home. This establishment is known to be different from other eateries in the area (farm to table type) so we were very excited to try it. Upon walking into restaurant I found that it was very bright and colorful.  The proprietors  had it decorated with lots of lights strung from the ceiling along with many colorful origami pieces throughout.  The tables were all mismatched-no two tables/chair sets were the same but it worked.  They also had local artesian work decorating the area that you could purchase.

   The most important part is that the food was delicious! It was made fresh and with healthy ingredients.  I ordered a Bourbon BBQ Chicken Flatbread sandwich with coleslaw.  Mercy was it good!  Madilynne ordered a kale salad with quinoa, butternut squash and dried cranberries and a side of cauliflower "wings".  She reported that it was delicious. Ryder stuck with a basic- a cheeseburger.  It was made with grass fed beef and was nice and thick and also received a good rating.  My mother-in-law and my sister-in-law were with us and they both ordered Caesar salads with grilled chicken and cauliflower "wings". My SIL stated that it was one of the best Caesar salads she has had in quite some time.

   One of the tastiest things that we tried today was a blueberry soda.  Oh my! was it ever good. I am not a fan of soda but for some reason it just sounded good and it didn't disappoint!  We are all fans of that soda. The label was kind of confusing but I think that it was from Maine Root??? Not quite sure about that though. 

   I am so glad that we tried this restaurant.  It was a bit of a distance to travel but good food, good company and a bit of an adventure for our taste buds made it worthwhile. It is fun to try something outside the norm. My SIL listed a couple other restaurants that we should try sometime.  Sounds like fun!  I hope that they all turn out as enjoyable as this one!

Random funny!

   My mother-in-law loves to give gifts.  It is her nature and she shows love through thoughtful gifts. She knows that I like cardinals and I have a small collection of them.  She found a small plastic one that has a petite metal clip and makes the cheer, cheer sound that a cardinal chirps.

   I was excited by this gift and we quickly opened the package to activate it.  Unfortunately my little cardinal didn't chirp and we were disappointed but I clipped it onto the plastic pull on the kitchen window screen thinking that I would remember to take it home with me.  I forgot to take it with me and my MIL must have placed it on top of the fridge so it wouldn't get ruined. 

   Jeremiah's dad was sitting at the kitchen table today working on the laptop when he heard a bird chirping. He looked out the window and couldn't see a bird anywhere.  He proceeded to open the patio door and look around outside.  He heard it so close yet couldn't spot it.  He looked out the kitchen window again, still nothing. He found the cardinal on top of the fridge and thought that I left it there to prank him!    :-)

Bits and Pieces

   Our home has been busy as usual.  We had a full weekend with Easter and Ryder's birthday all mixed into a busier than usual weekend.  My "baby" isn't a baby anymore at over 6 feet tall and only in his early teens! He has more growing to do! He requested several different birthday cakes this year.  He asked that my mom make him a Pineapple Upside Down Cake.  She was more than happy to make it. He wanted a Chocolate Chip Cookie "cake" from Walmart and asked me to make a Funfetti Cake and a Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Icing! He has been having leftover cake for every meal since his party!

   Easter was a great day of celebration.  We attended church services on Sunday morning. After church we headed home to make a dessert for dinner with Jeremiah's family.  I made a Pistachio Pudding Salad.  My mother-in-law requested it so I told her I would make it. It really is good if you like pistachio pudding.  (Side note here:  my younger brother liked pistachio pudding as a kid but didn't like the little nuts in it so my mom and I would sift out the nuts and make a smooth pudding for him!) My In-laws had most of the food prepared so there wasn't much to make.  Jeremiah's aunt made collard greens. I will say that I lived my life having never eaten greens before until Thanksgiving 2014. I have only ever tasted hers and they are delicious.  The meal was rounded out with ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, spinach salad, a cheesy hash brown dish, maple baked beans, macaroni and cheese, broccoli cauliflower salad and rolls.  I am sure I am missing some items.  Dessert was several peach and apple pies along with ice cream, cookies, quick breads, and the pistachio pudding salad.

   Spring is coming quickly!  We have some daffodils blooming at the entrance to one of the pastures. They look so "happy" blooming there!  :-)   We are starting to see some of the trees coming into bud.  Ryder and his two friends like to make maple syrup each spring and they were able to get some boiled before the buds came.

  We went to our local Aldi's store several weeks back and I picked up some of the plants they had for sale there. I was very happy with them.  They are very healthy and sturdy. We purchased two Spider Plants, two Boston Ferns and one Wandering Jew.  After getting them home and seeing how nice the Wandering Jew was I wished I would have gotten two of them.  I wasn't sure how nice they were at the store. 

 

 



Enjoying Life

To say that it has been awhile since I posted would be an understatement!   I think it was Feb. 17 when I last appeared on here.  I have been preoccupied with living life.  It has been a busy season for our family.  Lots of visitors and running here and there but all has been well! 

I will admit that another reason I haven't been online much is Jeremiah gave me a new Kindle.  Our old Kindle was shared between Madilynne and myself and it stopped working.  I didn't stop reading, I just went back to reading actual books.  Yes, they do still make actual books and I can go to this nice building and borrow them!  It says "Public Library" on the sign outside! :) Madilynne loves the smell of new books.  She will flip the pages and breathe deep! 

I have found that it is harder to read in bed before going to sleep when reading an actual book.  It requires light and I was using a small flashlight that wouldn't disturb Jeremiah too much.  The new Kindle has a black background option so all is much better at night.  I also like that I can just push a button and shut it off and it will keep my place.  Another thing I enjoy the dictionary feature.  I just touch the word that I am not familiar with or want to know what the actual definition is and it will pop up.

There are downsides to reading on the Kindle.  It has to be charged up occasionally and I am not a fan of buying many books so I just usually download the free books.  Many are good but I think some of them are self-published or something and they didn't take the time to proofread.  I don't enjoy reading a book and feel like I need to draw a red line at all the mistakes! For the record...I don't think this blog is perfect either! I know there are going to be mistakes, but you dear reader are not required to pay anything to read my mistakes and ramblings and it won't cover 100's of pages!  HAHA!

A book that I just finished reading was co-written by a well known historical fiction author and was well written.  I enjoyed the book a lot, however, I do not like to read a book that leaves me hanging with what happens to the characters. I understand that authors need to sell books to make money, I get it but honestly, I just read 336 pages for you to leave me hanging on what happens next.  No closure at all and I don't wish to spend $14.99 to find out in the next book because it is a series of like 3 or 4 books.  It probably won't tell me anything until I get to the last book and I am out $44.97! I just don't care enough. 

I don't know how my ramblings ended up with a whole post on my thoughts about my Kindle but it did! ;)  I was just going to touch base with a post on enjoying life and not worrying about posting.  I do have some other posts bopping around in my head so I hope to post more soon! 

Blessings to you and go enjoy living life!

Update on the Recipe Flop

   I thought that I would let you know that I tried the Slow Cooker Honey Sesame Chicken again.  I didn't think that the recipe was too good.  It was better than the first attempt with baking powder but still not a winning recipe.  Ryder ate it but it wasn't his favorite thing to eat.  He prefers to not have that recipe again and he is the big meat eater here.  Since I used 6 chicken breasts to make it and it was only eaten so we didn't waste any of it, I don't think it is worth making again.  I just wanted to update the blog with that info. 

   I think that I will look to find another Honey Sesame Chicken recipe though.  I did really like the fact that I could use the crockpot for cooking.  I am trying to find some more crockpot recipes. If you have an easy crockpot recipe that is tasty please feel free to share it! By easy I mean, not a lot of steps!  I like a recipe that I can just throw into the crockpot and go. 

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1.  Speaking of skating...when did you last 'skate on thin ice', 'skate over the details', 'encounter a cheapskate', or just plain skate?
I am going to go with "just plain skate"...It is winter so ice skating comes to mind.  I was talking about this on our way home from church recently.  I last ice skated when I was about 14-15 years old.  We have a small pond at my mom's home and my brothers and I used to ice skate when it froze over!  That was many, many years ago but it holds a lot of fond memories.

2. What would you say is the biggest problem of people your age?
I have absolutely no idea what that would be. The problems that I can think of expand to all ages so I just have to leave this one unanswered, sorry...

3. What's your favorite accessory? Is it something you wear every day, often, or only on special occasions?
Earrings. I have earrings in all the time. I even sleep with them in.  I wear little earrings for everyday but change them when I go out to match my outfits.

 4. January 20th is National Cheese Lover's Day. Are you a lover of cheese? What's your favorite dish made with cheese? Last thing you ate that contained some kind of cheese? 
Cheese!!!  I love cheese! I could eat cheese all day in everything.  Last thing I ate was cheese pizza for supper last night and that would probably be my favorite cheesy dish.

 

5. What's something guaranteed to make you roll your eyes?
Politicians....
 

6. Your favorite book series? 
I love reading but I don't think I have a favorite series.  I have been pondering this for a bit and can't come up with a favorite set, authors yes but not series.

 

7. Why did you choose your profession? 
I find this to be an interesting question. First, I am currently a wife and homeschool mom.  This is by far my favorite profession.  However, there was a time when I didn't have my kiddos and I wasn't married. I wanted to be a teacher growing up until I tutored while in high school.  Tutoring did me in and I wanted nothing to do with that profession.  My senior year of high school changed when I found that I really like the office classes I had.  I headed off to college, graduated and with my piece of expensive paper I was able to get a job in Office Technologies.  My first job was working with another lady at a veterinarian's office.  There were 3 vets working out of the same office.  One vet took care of small animals (cats/dogs) and 2 others went to farms and worked with large animals (cows/horses). This was a fun and busy job but I didn't want to continue working evenings and weekends.  My next job was at a vending company office.  It was a busy, stressful job and a pretty far drive so I found another office job at a local dentist office.  I stayed there until I had Madilynne and became a full time stay at home mom.  We now homeschool so I really did go back to my original profession of teacher!   

8. Insert your own random thought here.
I have been doing some de-cluttering and relocating of some things around.  I haven't quite hit my goal to throw away, donate or put away 35 items each day but I have been doing some cleaning up and I feel better about how things look.  I still have problem areas and will most likely always struggle with that but I am making progress. 

Recipe Flop!

   I mentioned that Jeremiah bought me a very nice casserole crockpot for Christmas, I think.  I am really liking this appliance.  The one issue I have with it is that the recipes that came with it all use canned soup.  I can't eat canned soup too much as it upsets my stomach.  I have to get creative with trying some recipes on my own. 

   This week I was searching though my recipe binders for some different supper ideas and I stumbled upon a recipe that I printed out in 2013 for Slow Cooker Honey Sesame Chicken.  I hadn't made this recipe yet and I thought that this would be the perfect recipe to try out in the casserole crockpot.  I doubled the recipe since I need to fill both of Ryder's hollow legs. The recipe was easy to follow and didn't require a bunch of odd ingredients.  I mixed up the sauce and placed the chicken breasts in the mix and set the timer on the crockpot to cook.  Oh, it smelled so good!

   In the meantime, my brother, J, called me to ask me some questions about our little nephew that is due to arrive in a couple weeks.  We hadn't talked since Christmas Eve so I was enjoying our conversation and catching up with his holiday activities. I was still laughing and talking when I saw that the time was up on the crockpot and that I needed to complete the recipe.  It stated that I needed to remove the chicken breasts and add 2 Tbsp of cornstarch to the sauce.  Whisk well, cover and return to high for 10 minutes. Shred chicken. 

   Here is where things get messed up a bit...  I buy a lot of my regularly used baking staples in bulk.  I put them in mason jars, cut the label off the front of the package and tape it to the jar.  This works perfectly for me, well until now. 

   I was reading the recipe and knew to double the cornstarch, found my measuring spoon, got into the cabinet and pulled out the cornstarch.  I added it to my sauce and it didn't really look right but I kept on chatting and whisking away.  I figured that it should have started to thicken up a bit by then but oh well, the recipe says to whisk well, cover and return to high for 10 minutes.  No problem.  I did as it said and continued to talk while shredding the chicken breasts.  The 10 minutes passed quickly and when I checked on the sauce it still wasn't thick.  "Well, that's just weird!" I thought to myself.  I decided that I should probably get off the phone and check this out more closely. 

   I reread the recipe.  I did everything correctly, followed all instructions and it still wasn't thick.  Ryder was hungry so I decided to just add the meat and try to figure it out later. Ryder wasn't overly impressed with the taste.  He said it had an odd aftertaste and wasn't sure if he was crazy about this recipe.  Maybe, I shouldn't make it again. I tasted it and thought the same thing.  Ugh, this is just weird but I wasn't wasting 5 chicken breasts!  We were going to eat this regardless of that odd aftertaste. 

   After supper, I was going through the recipe again, trying to figure this mystery out.  I did a play by play in my head with the ingredients.  When I got to the cornstarch part, I reached out my hand to open the cabinet and it hit me!!!  Oh no! I grabbed baking powder instead of cornstarch!!!  Everything made perfect sense now.

   I am going to try this recipe again and hopefully I make it correctly. I don't know where I found this recipe but if it tastes good, I will share the recipe later.