Corn Salad with Baby Grape Tomatoes and Gorgonzola Crumbles 3 C fresh corn kernels 1 pint basket baby grape tomatoes, halved ½ red onion, diced 1 C fresh romaine greens, chopped 2 T Balsamic vinegar 1/3 C olive oil salt and pepper to taste 1 C Gorgonzola crumbles Combine corn kernels with baby grape tomato halves, diced red onion, and chopped greens in a large serving bowl. In a small mixing bowl, whisk balsamic vinegar with olive oil to blend together. Season with salt and pepper. Add ¾ C Gorgonzola crumbles, stirring to mix. Pour balsamic dressing over corn mixture and toss to coat. Garnish with remaining ¼ C Gorgonzola crumbles over top. Cover and chill.
Ott’s Famous Bacon Wrapped Asparagus Ingredients: 10 fresh asparagus spears, trimmed (use the larger/thicker spears) ¼ Cup Ott’s Famous “The Red” Dressing 10 bacon strips *Note: This can be replaced with prosciutto for as classic Italian pairing. Preparation: 1. Preheat your grill. 2. Place your asparagus on a sheet of tin foil; and coat with cooking spray. 3. Wrap you bacon pieces around each spear; wrap tightly and overlap edges. Secure with a ½ a toothpick. 4. Grill, uncovered, on medium-low heat for 8-10 minutes on each side or until bacon is crisp, 3-4 minutes into grilling each side, baste your spears with Ott’s Famous “The Red” Dressing. 5. Remove from the grill and enjoy.
That’s right folks, after I dunno how long, we finally got a measurable amount of rain on Sunday, Monday & Wednesday of this week! In fact Sunday night I went and stood in it. Monday & Wednesday weren’t an option because they might frown about that at work!
Our hayfield was burning up as was pretty much everything else around here. Maybe, just maybe we’ll luck out and get a second cutting. I’m pretty afraid this winter will be rough!
I’m still praying that Oklahoma & Texas get some much needed rain!
And, since it’s Friday, and because I can wear jeans to work today, and because I love y’all, I have an interesting recipe for ya.
Chocolate Cream Cheese Cake
Say what? Have I lost my mind? Nope! A while back at a Sunday night dinner, one of the girls brought this amazing dessert. So after much digging for a similar recipe, btw none exist until now, I came up with this creation by myself. Not even sure this is how she did it, but by George this is how I roll!
Now Janet over at A Farm Wife’s Life taught me that I can in fact make a No-Bake Cheese Cake that isn’t the Jello kind. I’m not a huge cheese cake fan anyway but the jello kind really isn’t my cup of tea…
So let’s get started!
Filling:
What you need: 2 packages Cream Cheese, 1 Lemon, 1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk, and Vanilla Extract
Now with an electric mixer mix the cream cheese till smooth.
Then add the sweetened condense milk a little at a time. Mixing it in between each addition…
Until creamy and smooth.
Now add 1 tsp of vanilla extract and…
the juice from one lemon.
Once again blend those until creamy.
Now simply spread the filling into the crust.
**I cheated, I used a pre-made Graham cracker crust 🙂
Now, by following Janet’s instructions here’s where you would cover and refrigerate for 2 -3 hours till firm.
But I added my next twist.
Although I’m thinking I should have let the cheese cake set up and then added my twist. I’ll have to try that the next time around. So here’s my twist now…
Next tear open a package of Chocolate instant pudding.
Add your milk
And whisk together for 2 minutes.
Then pour on top of your cheese cake and spread.
Then (I would place back) place in the fridge to set up.
When you go to serve it up, top with Whipped Cream or Cool Whip and enjoy!
It might not look like much there, but oh is it dreamy!
Chocolate Cream Cheesecake
Makes One 9-inch Cake
Filling
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 14-ounce can (1 1/4 cups) sweetened condensed milk
1Juice from 1 Lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
Using an electric mixer set at medium-high speed, beat the cream cheese in a large bowl until smooth. Beat in the condensed milk a little at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the lemon juice and vanilla.
Pour the filling into the crust; smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Cover and refrigerate until firm, 2 to 3 hours.
Mix up the Chocolate pudding according to the package directions. Spread over the top of the cheese cake and refrigerate to set up the pudding.
Then top with Cool Whip or Whipped Cream and enjoy!
…doesn’t wash my hair everyday. If I do… Wowza! (Hey you wouldn’t know if I didn’t tell)
…gets excited because my hair will now go up in a ponytail!!
…donated my hair now twice and both times have said I won’t do it again, but knowing me I will…
…calls it pop, not soda. Hey blame it on my Hillbilly Accent!
…loves to be grammatically correct and if I don’t correct you, I am correcting you in my head. I can’t help it, my moms that way and I’m sure that’s where I got it.
…loves the heat! I’d much rather be hot than cold.
…loves to sleep covered up.
…loves to take photos of everything. I want to be a better photographer so any chance helps.
…loves her husband unconditionally!
…feels like my hair is a mess if I leave it curly even though I get compliments.
…sometimes has better luck with my husbands shampoo than any of mine.
…got thrown into being a mom (step) and has lots of things to learn, but do my best and learn from my mistakes.
…really doesn’t like chocolate but every once in a great while don’t mind chocolate milk, chocolate milkshakes or Nestle Crunch candy bars.
…really didn’t like her digital camera (first in 2002) until 2005 when I went to NYC. Now I LOVE digital and can’t stand film cameras.
…LOVES living in the country but loves the bright lights and architecture of the big cities.
…has wanted to always live in a big city just for a couple years to experience the different culture, especially all the markets (especially food markets!).
…Always wanted to go to CIA (Culinary Institute of America) but couldn’t see spending that much money to learn to be a chef.
If there is one phrase I hate to hear it is, “We have to get up early,” followed by “We have to get up earlier than normal.” Blah!
I’m not a morning person. Let me be the first to admit that!
So Friday night the conversation went a little something like this:
PC to Tbug: We’ll have to get up a bit earlier than normal tomorrow morning. Me to PC: Really? Did you really have to say that? Tbug to PC: Why daddy? PC to Tbug: We’re going to an auction in the morning. PC to me: Why, you know you won’t sleep in anyway. Me to PC: Yes, but I like having options. The option to sleep in gives me a better chance to actually sleep in. PC to me: Oh whatever, you still know you wouldn’t. Me, I whined some more. Tbug to PC: Ok daddy, what time do I have to get up
And so the conversation went.
I haven’t ever been a morning person, Not EVER!
So what time do I normally get up for work you may ask? The alarm goes off at 6:35 (yes a random time) and I get up somewhere between the second time it goes off and the 4th time it goes off. It goes off every 9 minutes so you can do the math :).
What time did I have to get up on Saturday? I think PC set the alarm for around 7am. What time did I actually get up on Saturday?
Before Sunrise. To be exact… just shy of 6am is when I got up. And there was no going back to sleep either :(.
So what do you do at that hour? Enjoy the peace.
Enjoy the sunrise:
Play with Audrey:
And watch PC work on the pool:
And eventually after the alarm to wake-up finally goes off, get the rugrat out of bed.
All before my first cup of coffee. Oh wait I don’t drink coffee. I knew there was something wrong with this picture. Wake me up when it’s 10am ok 🙂
On more than one occasion I’ve been teased about owning a bazillion cookbooks and yet finding recipes on the internet and trying them. Ok, maybe I’m guilty… but sometimes you find some really interesting ones out there.
I was reading Ashley‘s blog, Life After the Aisle and she posed the question, Where do you find your recipes. I had to laugh, only because my answer should have been, “One of my bazillion cookbooks,” but truthfully my answer was, “reading blogs.”
Some days I wonder if I need a life and then I think, Nope, I’ve found a lot of cool things out being involved in the bloggy world! I’ve also met a lot of amazing people!
I’m so glad you are all in my life! Thank you so much. And I’ll admit, some days I wish I had more followers or more commenters, especially when I see people who have been blogging less time than I have, I get the blog envies! But at the same time, the ones of you that do follow, read, and comment, I absolutely LOVE you 🙂 and wouldn’t trade you for the world! So thank you for making my day, every day! I don’t need to be the Belle of the Ball! I have friends and that’s what matters!
Ok so I digress just a smidge but I had to get that off my chest!
So the day that Ashley posed that question, she left this really good recipe that she got from allrecipes.com so I went and looked it up and knew I just had to try it too!
And because my {step} daughter is here this weekend
And because the first thing I’ll hear out of her mouth is, “What’s for breakfast?”
I thought I’d share with you a super simple, super quick recipe to definitely get your children up out of bed ready for the day, as opposed to sleeping it away.
I however have been one of those kids who if my parents would have let me, I’d have slept my day away! I’m not a morning person. Although these days I’m not a night owl either… I’m somewhere in between 🙂
Rule #1 when you are around horses, You Can’t Be Scared!
Being scared only makes the horses more nervous, especially if they are a little jittery anyway.
You have to be confident. Horses sense fear.
But a horse doesn’t usually intentionally hurt you either. Sometimes they are more afraid of you than you are of them.
Last Sunday we took Tbug out to meet Snookums. Tbug was at camp when Snookums was born so she hadn’t yet met her.
A good momma will keep her foal by her side at all times and knows where they are at all times. And momma I get the feeling hasn’t been handled a whole lot so she’s a little nervous anyway.
Hubs went and got feed in the bucket to see if we could bribe them closer.
In this corner, neither of them were having any part of it.
So we eventually got them moved over to the feeder.
And of course this one, thinks she’s starving all the time decided this time to eat horse feed??!!
Well Tbug was scared of them. The more scared she let on to being, the more nervous the horses were around her. I asked her if she trusted her dad and me. She said yes. I said ok I promise we won’t let anything happen to you, you have to not be scared. The more you relax, the closer they will eventually get to you.
She slowly started to listen to me and as she did, the mare started coming and eating out of her hand.
Eventually Snookums had to come see what was going on on this side of mommy.
And PC got her to eat out of the bucket.
And eventually we had Snookums eating out of Tbug’s hand as well.
And of course she had to brag that Snookums would eat out of her hand and not her daddy’s.
It just took a little convincing of Tbug that she couldn’t be nervous. As she’d start to get nervous again the horses would step back and we’d have to start all over fresh.
So remember and learn from Tbug, being nervous is not a good thing around horses.
So I have attempted to make biscuits twice now. Both times weren’t complete and utter failure, but they weren’t good either. Both attempts were quite sad. And I used 2 different recipes, still no good.
I wasn’t ready to admit defeat just yet though, I just needed to try again. Well since we don’t eat biscuits a whole lot at my house, every day wasn’t quite feasible either.
So I’ve gotten into reading food blogs lately, but Delightful Country Cookin’ is one I’ve followed for a while now. And it just so happened that she had a biscuit recipe that I thought looked easy that she posted yesterday. Since hubby still hasn’t been able to eat really hard foods yet, I figured biscuits and gravy was easy, right 🙂 and it beat soup so when he asked, I suggested this.
I’m proud to announce, I mastered making biscuits. Now if only that would have been on my 101 list I could cross something off… LOL 🙂
Recipe
Flour
Baking Powder
Cut in butter
Stir in liquids
Roll & cut. Place on greased sheet
Bake
Hello! Yum!
and to top it all off, Sausage Gravy!
Dinner is served!
Dixie’s Sky High Biscuits
by Nicole
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Keywords: bake appetizer bread breakfast side snack a/p flour eggs American
