Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit....

Beans for breakfast, beans for lunch....we just love beans. One of our favorite hearty breakfasts is made using refried beans, spread over toasted English muffins, topped with a few thin slices of ham, a slice of tomato, then thin slices of cheese. I usually heat up the beans and ham first so it gets nice and hot. Once assembled, it is baked at 450 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes until cheese melts (I use my toaster oven). For fun, we alternate slices of Monterrey Jack and mild Cheddar. You have to cut it with a knife and fork to eat it, but you will not be hungry for at least 5 hours after eating this.

Everyone probably knows how to make beans, I use a few ham hocks, a sliced onion, and small red beans. When the beans have simmered 2 or 3 hours, and are nice and tender, remove the hocks and render the meat, smash a few beans against the side of the pot to thicken then, season with salt, a little vinegar, and hot sauce. Serve over pain white rice and make Jiffy cornbread (I use my toaster oven). Serve with additional hot sauce, and onions soaked in vinegar. You will feel full for the rest of the day!

This is a cool lemon from our tree.

Yikes! Neon is Here!

We have been having hot, dry weather here in Paradise this last week. Yesterday, I was watering some plants on the patio and I spotted this little snake looking up at me as it sipped some water off the pavement. As soon as I went in to get my camera, it got spooked and started to slither away, so I only managed to get this shot. It disappeared so fast, while shaking it's rounded, black head at me that is just out of the shot.....the amazing thing is that as it entered the little garden a few feet away, it changed to a green color and slithered up the branches of the Hawthorne bush and completely disappeared! We named it "Neon" and hope it is happy now, here in Paradise. It is more afraid of us, than we are of it, but I wondered what kind of snake it was, it looked black and yellow before turning green.....it looks big here, but is really only about the size of two pencils end-to-end. After some research, I decided it was a baby California King snake, I tried to upload a video from YouTube, but it failed, however, I did manage to post it to my Facebook. It looks just like the one I saw, doing the same thing mine did.....

This was the pave-style floral design we made in floral class yesterday. It will be wilted in a few hours with this weather....sigh....I got the flowers fresh from Trader Joe's right before class. They open at 8:00a.m., and have the freshest, nicest flowers, this bouquet was less than $6.00.

I thought this would be a also a good spot to show my decorative bowl I made in ceramic class. I used a sprig mold I made to create Miss Kitty faces on a slumped free-form slab, then after bisque firing, used Easy Stroke glaze to color the faces, then clear glaze over all, then placed pieces of glass to melt into interesting shapes, they came out looking kind of cool!

Just had to show Miss Kitty trying to stay cool resting her head on the chair rung....pretty smart!

Shrimp cocktail for two for dinner; too hot to cook for sure....I always try to keep frozen shrimp (Trader Joe's again) in stock, so I just defrosted them under cold running water, then mixed a sauce of ketchup, horseradish, lemon juice, and hot sauce. Then made a bed of lettuce and celery, placed the shrimp on top, spooned the sauce over, and served with Saltine crackers. A very yummy, light, and cool dinner for a hot summer night here in Paradise!

Just Need ID and Money

Sunflower smily face I made at floral class yesterday; that is Joe Lizura, our local meteorologist, predicting higher temperatures in El Cajon....supposed to be back in the 100's in a few days, sigh....

Here's my latest creation, needle felted design on felted sweater, a lightweight evening bag for your ID and money......oh, and a lipstick of course!
Started with a picture of a pretty floral arrangement I made, copied the design using needle felting method.

Fulfilling a Promise :)

A few weeks ago, and a couple of failures later, I decided I was ready to make the simple purse I had been promising myslef I would complete. I had some free Saturday morning time, so went to work and within a few hours, I was done......Since I already had somewhat of a master plan; I knew the basic shape and design and that I just needed to hand sew the outer felt, and machine sew the lining, then hand-stitch it in place. I was deciding on embellishments, so I needle felted a design to coordinate with the colors and pattern of the lining. It came out so cute!! Anyway, I am using it as a sewing/felting kit and I just love how it looks and functions so have been re-inspired to keep experimenting with my techniques. As previously mentioned, I have now studied my book a little more and have new information, such as using dissoluble stabilizer when machine sewing felt....for now, I intend to mostly hand sew with embroidery floss or silk ribbon and I know my machine will appreciate that =^..^=

Then I made stuffed mini sweet peppers I purchased at the 99 Cents Only store. They had the nicest produce yesterday, stocked up on beautiful celery, carrots, onions, raspberries, and limes...I couldn't resist these colorful peppers and I remembered I had made stuffed peppers like these once and wrote the recipe down because it was easy and good. I don't really even like sweet peppers always, but I like them prepared this way and they smell really good cooking. I am serving them later, re-heated, with some leftover sauteed kale with ham and garlic, and some frozen stuffed potatoes, also from 99C. It is too hot still to cook at night, so I have been busy cooking this morning, to last us a few meals. Red beans with ham hocks are boiling away now, to have for a nice late lunch with Steve tomorrow with fresh cornbread.

I imagine most folks know how to make beans, and cornbread using Jiffy mix is so easy, but you may be interested in the stuffed peppers. Here's how I wrote out the recipe, since I only had half a dozen or so peppers, I halved the recipe, for the meat, and breadcrumbs...I did use a whole egg, and whole can of soup, and didn't change the seasonings, except a little less salt. They came out really good and I had a little extra filling, so I just baked it in patties next to the peppers.

1 lb lean ground beef or turkey

6 medium green bell peppers (I used mini Hungarian sweet peppers)

1 cup soft breadcrumbs (rye is good)

1/2 t. salt

dash pepper

1 egg

2 T. minced onion (I used red)

1 can condensed tomato soup, divided

Cut off tops, remove seeds from peppers and steam shells for five minutes (in microwave steamer). Let cool till you can handle them.

Combine stuffing and mix with HALF a can of the soup.

Fill peppers, then bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees. Spoon rest of soup over each pepper and bake an additional 15 to 20 minutes, no longer than an hour.

Note: if you have leftover filling, shape into patties and bake and serve alongside the peppers.

Birthday for Miss Kitty

Miss Kitty had her fifth birthday, so we decided to give her a little party. She participated just like she knew what she was doing! She got a new cat couch scratching pad, some special kitty foods, and some toys.

We had an herb crusted rack of lamb with roasted potatoes and steamed artichokes, then fresh peach and strawberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream.

The meal turned out really well and Miss Kitty (and us) had a good time here in Paradise.

Here is a simple cobbler recipe:

Two to three cups of fresh fruit cut up (I used fresh peeled peaches, and strawberries)

Sprinkle with about 1/2 cup sugar (depending of sweetness of fruit, we like it tart), sprinkle of cinnamon, sprinkle of lemon juice, about 2 tablespoons of cornstarch, and 2 tablespoons of softened butter

Mix together in a baking dish

In a mixing bowl, add in 1 cup of Bisquick, about 1/2 cup of sour cream, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and enough milk to make it smooth but still thick enough to hold it's shape

Dollop onto fruit mixture and bake at 375 for about 40 to 45 minutes till bubbly and biscuits are light brown on top. Let cool for 15-20 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream

If At First You Don't Succeed LOL and Try, Try Again

Cut out slipper tops, decorated with needle felting, beading, embroidery

Slipper pieces ready to sew

LOL My feet do not look like these!

This was my first attempt to make slippers out of my brown felted wool sweater. I got the directions off the Internet. The process was pretty straightforward, trace your foot, cut a pattern, cut four pieces, sew, etc. Well, I decided to needle felt a butterfly on each top and added some beads and outlined with embroidery. Good plan, but the instructions indicated not to add seam allowance since the wool would stretch....wrong...this wool did not stretch right and they turned out terrible, unwearable. I will cut the design out and use it in another application such as a bracelet or embellishment. LOL and try again. These other pieces will next be turned into a lined purse. This time I bought an instruction booklet with a lot of cute ideas and another slipper pattern. Now I just need another sweater to felt. I combed two thrift stores yesterday and came up empty-handed except for some wool yard swatches.

Try, try again!

Here are snaps from the book I bought, Vivian Peritts is the artist:

Stay tuned.....