A few weeks back we had supper with my sister and friend. The steaks were awesome-medium rare like I like and seasoned well. My sister said they went crazy at the dessert counter. I don’t think I have that fancy of dessert before!
Here are a few photos!
Everyone likes a little chocolate now and then!
😉
This July 4th, was good and mellow. On Friday we went north to our friends house on the lake- Arie was in desperate need for swimming, actually we don’t know how well Arie can swim. He does not like the water over his head and I think with his long legs he tired really easily. Carl was in the lake trying to help him paddle, it was funny. Then we went for a boat ride and when I jumped in the lake, Carl said Arie was very concerned and almost wanted to jump in after me. When we got back to shore, we grilled out and I started the fire that was smoldering.
Saturday July 4th- We took Arie to the dog park, ran a few errands and then we went to go watch fireworks and they were perfect. I love July 4th, it is one time that we all can be proud, try to set our differences aside for a short period of time. I am very proud to be an American. The opportunities that have been awarded to me are like none other. I am thankful my parents adopted me, so that I could come to the US for a better life, freedoms and opportunities. Watching fireworks, made me tear up at all the childhood memories I have. And you can’t celebrate July 4th and summertime without a fruit pizza, gluten free I might add…. Yummy! 🙂
Cheers and Happy Fourth of July, remember the real reason why we have this day!
Here are some fun photos, from the last few weeks. 🙂 Love grilling season and being outdoors. Our supper was a seasoned pork chop, steamed baby yellow potatoes and corn grilled with husks on. The second photo is the bible versus that inspired my anchor tattoo. The next photo is Arie trying to get us up by sleeping sideways between us. Last Tuesday, we went and rented paddle boards at a local park. We loved it, it was so relaxing and a good workout. I hope to purchase one. And last but most certainly not least, a throwback photo of Arie when he was a puppy. Oh I love that face!!!!!
For Christmas Day, we traveled to my parents house for my family Christmas dinner. It was another great holiday, it stinks sometimes when you have a big family because unfortunately, some of the family can’t be there because of distance. My sister and her family live out of state so they were not able to be there; however, we sent her lots of pictures and talked on the phone. I made a fresh fruit salad with honey and lime over the top, I forgot to take pictures. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was, so much so, there are no leftovers! 🙂 My other sister said that is a staple that I have to make for our family gatherings.
Here are a few photos from Christmas Day at my parents house.
We wish you all a great holiday season!
Love, Blondie, Carl and Arie
This was our typical weekend of running errands. I seriously feel we are always running errands. I must say with a Costco membership, we don’t run nearly as much. We have it down to a science that we can get through about 2 weeks with our fresh fruits and veggies for juicing. Which is helpful with budgeting and space for food- we don’t want to be wasteful.
On Thursday night, I decided I wanted to move my spices from the cupboard where they were messy and I couldn’t see what I all had, to one of my kitchen drawers. We cook a lot more and I have more spices that this seemed like a good idea. I spent Thursday night and some on Friday, searching on the internet and calling places to look for a “spice drawer” insert. I found beautiful wood ones that ranged from $30.00 to over $100.00, I was not looking to spend that much. I then found an plastic insert at Home Depot that I could cut down to fit in my drawer specifically. I really like my drawer and wish I would have done this sooner.
Spice Drawer
On Friday after work we ran to the Coop because I have been doing research on Hemp Protein. I am going to try this protein with my juices and future smoothies when I make those. lol I also bought a sample pack of Hemp Hearts which is similar to flax seed or chia seeds. Manitoba Harvest is the brand they had at the Coop. I wanted to get the Hemp oil, they were sold out of that. I got the Hemp Pro 50Â and Hemp Hearts, I will let you know more of what I think when I try them this week. My mom has been helping me research more holistic ways to assist with my aches and pains and immune system. We have been looking at the oils, so at the Coop I got the wintergreen organic oil. I will update you on that once I try that.
  
On Saturday morning, we had to go to Target to get a new toaster, my 4 slice toaster kicked the bucket this week, I was bummed as we liked the toaster. (side note- Arie woke us up at 5:47am)While at target we had a couple other odds and ends to get. We have friends coming this weekend Fri, Sat and Sun and we are doing chicken and steak kabobs with sweet corn and some other veggie. I need to get MORE spices for the steak marinade. While at Target, I have been looking for a bigger citrus juicer, I have one small handled one but want a bigger one because it does not fit my Costco lemons very well, it makes a mess and the seeds go every where. So I found a nice citrus juicer at Target and I love it! 🙂 Great find!
Citrus Juicer
  
On Friday, I ran to the grocery store by work to browse, I needed to get out of the office. I grabbed a few spices and then I saw this Beer Can Chicken Rub that was already made and thought it would taste great. So on Saturday night, Carl and I made chicken thighs with the rub, steamed baby red potatoes and  asparagus that was soaked in olive oil, fresh lemon juice (from my new citrus juicer) and salt and pepper on the grill. The chicken turned out fantastic with the rub, I tried finding it online for y’all but I can’t. 😦 It does have Dean Jacobs on the top of the tin. So when I googled that, I got excited because this company has a whole website of fun goodies for cooking! I think I might purchase some of the olive oils like the basil and rosemary infused ones. Yum!  I re-googled the rub again and at least found a picture, even though it is amazon- Dean Jacobs Beer Can Chicken Rub.
Beer Can Chicken Rub
 This stuff is fantastic!
Our delicious supper
I just wanted to share some of our fun kitchen finds this past week/end. I will have a few more fun blog posts coming up as I have a few things up my sleeve. I am looking into what is going to be be my fall/winter hobby! I’ve got it and it’s going to be a real honey! 🙂 Another side note- Arie had me up Sunday morning at 4:11am and then again at 6:13am, needless to say, I was up and ready to go for the day!
Happy Sunday!
-Blondie!
This weekend is pretty low key, because the next few months are pretty busy. We have weddings, cookouts and family gatherings. We went to the Farmer’s Market yesterday morning and we got a big bunch of lettuce (I want to attempt lettuce wraps), 4 large steak tomatoes and a bunch of kale for only $8- you can’t beat that. We traveled to the Co-op, I was on a mission to find fresh crab meat for a pasta I want to make that I saw on Take Home Chef-with Curtis Stone. We are watching the episodes on Netflix, they are only about 20 mins long and have pretty good easy restaurants. I want a chef to find me in a grocery store and come home and cook for me. That would be heavenly. He does a lot of seafood/fish dishes and I am pretty sure I drool every time we watch an episode like that. He made a Crab Spaghetti in one of the episodes that we watched and I am going to re-create that. I hope it turns out.
Interrupted during blog post- Arie rolled in goose poop and got a bath- get the geese out of the yard!Â
In the meantime, we were trying to figure out what to make for supper last night, now that our refrigerator and freezer are stocked full we have plenty of food, just need to be creative. We have lots of bell peppers, onions and chicken- those ingredients are great Kabob ingredients, Carl searched online for a marinade recipe for the chicken and came up with a Garlic Lemon one. We only let it marinade for 3 hours because it wasn’t until later when we decided what to eat. I still have sugar snap peas and I made that our side dish. I think that is my new favorite side dish. So easy to make and they have a lot of flavor.
Here is the link to the recipe-Â Garlic Lemon Chicken Kabobs
Sugar Snap Peas-
Our pictures of Saturday supper.
Our sugar snap peas, cut up veggies in the bowl-onion, red/green bell peppers and mushrooms. In the bag, our marinaded chicken.
It was fun to make our own kabobs.
The finished product! It was light and full of flavor.
We had various items to eat up and now that we have a stocked freezer and refrigerator, we had plenty to throw together for supper.
We had Sweet Bourbon Beef Kabobs from the meat market and we had the fresh shrimp from Fabian Seafood from my previous blog post Yummy Shrimp and A Good Book and I had a few steak tomatoes left from the farmer’s market.
I am sure everyone just loves all the food photos that every one takes and then they post them to social media. 🙂 I don’t mind it but get annoyed sometimes because then I become hungry for what I see and can’t have it, it can be frustrating at times. haha 🙂  Well along with the mass amounts of people who take photos, I took a “Before and After” pictures of our supper because it was significant difference in our food and it was quick, easy and delicious.
The Before Picture:Â
It doesn’t look too appetizing just yet. Just wait…
* The Sweet Bourbon Steak kabobs- from the meat market.
Shrimp Recipe:Â
The recipe is a marinated that you put the raw shrimp in and then an additional basting recipe for once they are on the grill. We took the legs off and deveined the shrimp, we left shell on.I did not have big skewers so I had to use my small ones. Don’t forget to soak your wood skewers prior to grilling so they don’t start on fire.
I am not going to give exact amounts of what I used as it was for a larger amount of shrimp, where we had a smaller amount and I threw the ingredients in the baggie to marinate the shrimp for a few hours. So please portion and ration based on the amount of shrimp you have and what you want them to taste like.
Fly by the seat of your pants. 🙂 You can’t mess it up.
Marinade-
Basting Sauce-
Tomato Recipe:
I loved the tomato recipe because it was quick, light fresh and had lots of flavor. I didn’t have any fresh herbs because I would have added them as well. It would have tasted great with chopped cucumber. We will definitely make it again. 🙂
The After Picture:
It was a great quick, easy and light supper. It was Gluten Free as well. 🙂
We had July 4th off for Independence Day and we did not have any plans or really any destination. We thought we would go to Costco to get our groceries because it is holiday, hoping no one would be there. We also had a plan to go to Ikea to look for a shelf to go put blu-ray player on so we can push Aries kennel into the corner further.
Well, good think I texted my sister and said “We’re off to Costco”, Because she messaged back and said, “They are open on the 4th?” . This prompted us to check their website again quick before leaving the driveway. Low and behold they were closed, which was just fine. We did a change of plans and went to Caribou and drove to Ikea to look for a shelf. We found a great shelf that is perfect in the spot we needed it for. While waiting in the check out line, I spotted this bright green freezer bag that I thought would be great for groceries. It was only $5.99, so worth it, that we are getting a second one!
The outside has mesh compartments and a zipper pocket and the inside also has mesh pockets. Can’t beat a purchase like that.
After leaving Ikea we stopped at the meat market and Cub Foods for supper to throw on the grill.
We got home and put our shelf together and then met my brother and his family to go to the parade and walk around. It was fun to watch the parade through the excitement of my nephew.
After the parade, we went home to clean and organize our closets for our bulk items we would have from Costco.
Then we relaxed outside for the rest of the afternoon/evening and enjoyed each other’s company and played ball with Arie of course, his favorite game.
The supper we decided on. 🙂
It was a great supper for July 4th and all gluten free. We watched the fireworks from our front sidewalk and saw them from about 10 different directions. Our only complaint, they none of the spots were consistent in lighting. After about 30-45 mins we were starting to eaten up by the bugs and went inside. Arie did fairly well with the fireworks, we left the TV on inside to help with the noise.
Happy July 4th all!
This past weekend we were in Eastern Wisconsin for a wedding; when I mean Eastern WI, I mean WAY east. On Saturday morning, I was on a mission to find coffee in the next town over about 10 mins away. As I drove into town, I spotted a farmers market! BINGO. I got my coffee and then made my way to the farmers market and here are the pictures of the fun finds I got. 🙂 I also picked up a few apples from a cute old man and then some ground cherries, a yummy treat that my pa, sister and I love to eat! 🙂  I also picked up two sets of pot holders from the woman with the rugs. I got my mom a rug and pot holders for watching Arie.
 This is a beautiful rug that I found.
 Here is another great rug, a little smaller size and fun colors.
 This is a close up of Carl’s mug from the groom. The other mug is from a restaurant we ate at in Wausau, WI, it was a good souvenir to have of our trip. Red Eye Brewing Co.
 Here is a close up of Carl’s homemade apron from the bride. 🙂
After my trip to the farmers market I drove as far east as I could and I hit Lake Michigan. It was so beautiful and the weather was a little chilly but perfect with a jacket and that warm sun. It was a perfect day for our friend’s wedding.
The pictures of Lake Michigan make me want to go back and just sit and maybe read a book. 🙂 It was peaceful and I enjoyed listening to the seagulls.
Today we went for a nice long walk and then a ran a few errands. Carl then cleaned out both of our vehicles and the garage.
For supper we made marinated top sirloin steak, corn on the cob and baked potatoes all on the grill. We prepped, cooked, ate and cleaned up in one hour and a half. We had marinated the steak in a Weber Black Peppercorn seasoning that my brother recommended. We found it at Cub Foods. It was so good that I had to share pictures.
When the steak was done we had put blue cheese crumbles on the steak. It was like a party in your mouth.
Needless to say supper was done to perfection! Now we are sitting back and relaxing maybe catching The Bachelorette.
Go Blondie! 