Inspiration Alley

(P)inspired

This weekend I'm taking part in a Pinterest Party over at the Kitchen Keepsakes forum.  

We all like to pin things on Pinterest, so this is a chance to make something that is inspired by one of your pinterest pins and share it on the forum.  It's pretty easy for me to pick something, because I have a slight Pinterest addiction, so I'm pinning things ALL the time.  Mostly food and scrapbooking/cardmaking stuff, but also quotes, crafts, decorations and stuff for the home.

So yesterday, I made two dishes

The first is Mini Deep Dish Pizza

From Pinterest:

and My Try:

I made a few changes to the ingredients - I used regular spaghetti sauce instead of pizza sauce for the sauce was thinner, I also used regular pepperoni rather than the healthier version the recipe called for.  The first batch had too much sauce, so the second batch I used less.  I made them on low carb tortillas and they tasted great.  I could see doing these again and even as an appetizer for a party.

The second recipe I tried was Italian Corn Salsa

From Pinterest: 

and My Try:

I followed the recipe exactly and used a low cal italian dressing.  It tastes great.  I had mine with Fritos scoops, but I think it would be better with the tortilla chips.

Today, I've been working on cards, so I'll post those a little later or tomorrow.

I've tried other recipes from Pinterest before but this is going to be the first time I'm woring on cards inspired from Pinterest, so we'll see how it goes.

Turkey Meatloaf Muffins

No the pod people didn't invade my body ... it's me sharing a recipe.

I was watching a Rachael Ray episode last week and she made little turkey meatloaf cupcakes - little turkey meatloafs made in muffin tins, with sweet potatoes as the "icing".  I liked the idea, so did my own take.

First, I don't like celery and the apples seemed weird, so I searched online and found several recipes, then combined them all and adapted them and did it my way.

Recipe

1 1/4 lb ground turkey - this is the standard size package from Jenny-O.

1 jalapeno seeds removed and chopped (because I have some and need to use them up)

1/2 c onion chopped

1 tsp garlic

2 tsp worstchesire

1/4 - 1/2 c sundried tomatoes in oil chopped

butter

1 egg

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1 tsp poultry seasoning

1/4 c parmesan/reggiano cheese

salt

pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

melt butter in saute pan, add chopped onion, chopped jalapeno, garlic, worstchesire,  and cook until onion is clear.  Remove from heat and allow to cool - I put mine in the fridge for a couple of moments.  In a bowl, put turkey, breadcrumbs, poultry seasoning, parmesan, egg, salt, pepper, and tomatoes.  Add the cooled onion mixture.  Mix ingredients.  Don't over work it - just enough so it's mixed through.

Divide into 6 portions and place in a texas size muffin tin.  (if you use a toaster oven like I do, you will then find out that your muffin tin doesn't fit the toaster oven, so after forming them in the muffin tin, I took them out and just put them on a tray that did fit my toaster oven).  Bake for about 25 minutes.  If you have a thermometer the pros say bake until the internal temp is 165 degrees but I don't own a thermometer, so just make sure it's cooked through but not cooked to death.

I loved them.  They weren't dry and had just  a little kick to them from the jalapeno.  If you like it spicier you can add more jalapeno which I think I'll do next time and you could even leave it out if you don't have any on hand. 

The measurements are estimates.  They're pretty close but I don't really measure, so you shouldn't stress over it, and please, please, please if you try it or do something similar take a moment and let me know - I'd love to hear how it came out for you.

 

 

My latest addiction

It started with these  which I can only find in snack size bags

then I moved on to these
and now I'm hopelessly addicted to both.  Now I know you're thinking Jalapeno and Habanero are too hot to handle - but really they're not.  Yes, they do have a little kick, but they are too good.  At least it's a semi-healthy snack (read as - healthier than a chocolate bar).

So why am I even talking about Almonds ?  Just making a mental note that I have to get more - or maybe add them to my next Amazon order.  This is some of the crazy sh*t that constantly runs through my head - (make the voices stop - LOL ...OK ... I'm not that crazy yet).  I just wanted to pass on a good thing to everyone out there in blog land.

Honeybaked Ham

Yesterday we had a company lunch at work with HoneyBaked hams and turkeys.  Every year, we get a free lunch to test out the ham and turkeys and decide which one we like, then for Christmas the company gives us either a ham or a turkey.  Man, I love those hams.   I'm pretty sure it is loaded with salt (because I am always thirsty the rest of the afternoon), not to mention whatever they sugar it with, but they are mmmmmm so good.  I am not usually a ham lover.  I like Boars Head maple glazed ham cut very very thin, but other than that ... ham is not my first choice.  But the Honeybaked hams at Christmas are just like a special occaision.

Sorry, if I got your mouth watering some.

I'm trying to arrange a little shopping day with my mom - probably will go to the Florida City outlet mall on Monday.  So ... I'm down to just 3 more Mondays off and then it will really suck having to work 5 days a week.  Not that I've been slacking mind you, I've still been putting in over 40 hours a week, but I've just had every Monday off since February in order to use up my vacation time on the books.   Sad to think it is quickly coming to a close.  I really think I'm going to check w/ the boss and see if he'll let me keep the schedule and do 4 - 10 hour days.   Hmmm - gotta catch him in a good mood for that one.

Well, you see that I'm talking of hams and work, so there's nothing all too exciting going on here.  I'll be in the scraproom this weekend, so I'll have some projects to post.  I might even wrap a package or two - imagine that.

 

At the Crop

This weekend I'm at a scrapbooking crop hosted by HilltopMemories.  Now when I go to these things, I usually spend the whole time catching up with all the happenings since most of my scrapbooking friends live on the West Coast of Florida.  This crop however, I've actually been scrapping - I mean "real", "authentic", scrapbooking pages.  It's funny, because I set out by bringing kits expecting only to work on those, but ended up doing a couple of layouts.  Here's two, and I'll post the rest as soon as I can.

   

This first one is for one of my employees - she recently got a new motorcycle and I had taken some pictures for her "me" wall.  This is using one of the Spring BoBunny lines called Block party.  It's sort of a patrioticish theme  but I liked the color combination for these pics.  The blue is close to the color of denim.  Ont he red sqare there are stars in the paper printing that the photo didn't pick up - I'm thinking I'll go back in tomorrow and add some crystal effects to make it pop.

This one is using another spring release for BoBunny called Peacock Lane.  I picked this one because the purples and teals "went" with the teal of the car and the purplish hues of the sky.  This was from February when Frankie's Pizza was celebrating 55 years.  Their celebration took place on Valentine's Day and we took our 1955 Buick Century to the show because it was also 55 years old.  The car needs some work, but we really wanted to take it because it was new when Frankie's first opened.  (If you weren't aware, you can order half baked pizzas and have them shipped direct to you - just in case you live out of town but love those square pizzas.)

I've also done some card kits, another layout, and some other cards, but I can barely keep my eyes open much longer.  If I don't get some sleep I wont be able to make the drive home.

Utah - Day 9

This morning we had two departures.  Mary and Ann had to be up and ready for the car at like 6:45 AM, and we would be doing the same thing just 24 hours after that.

Todays events started at our final Diners Drive-Ins and Dives location which was Ruth's Diner - which was a diner,
but hardly a dive.  Ruth apparantly was some kind of character - if you get a chance you might want to look her up -
I'd say she was my kind of woman.  At first I thought there would be a problem because there wasn't seating ready for us but it only took them about 30 minutes to seat us.  We had to be split up into small groups but we were all on the patio and it worked.  This was amazing considering it was a Sunday and not just any Sunday, but Father's Day.  First they have
mile high biscuits - and you don't have to order them special they just come with every meal.  We probably could have stopped there (after a slathering of butter), but we also ordered breakfast which was quite delicious.  From breakfast, we were heading down to Park City which is a quaint little resort town.  They have a farmers market called
Park Silly.  The idea here is it is very "green".  They say that they only had one bag of garbage after the event they had last year -- there was recycle bins for paper, plastic, glass, and even some (believe it or not) for diapers and dog poop - I know, I should have taken a picture, but I had my sights set on getting a massage and nothing was stopping me.  I made it to the front and had 10 minutes of bliss (5 minutes were free).  After the massage, and I was feeling fine, some of us caught the
trolley to tour the town a bit.  Now with the trolley two things happened, first by the end of our trolley ride, we had met up with everyone in our group except one, and I'm pretty sure we scared everyone else off the trolley because we were the only ones on board.  And second, the ceiling light fixture just fell from the sky and scared the crap out of us (not to mention almost hit Linda).  It landed upright and didn't even break - that would have been a mess.

From Park Silly, we headed back to the Beartrap because not everyone wanted to spend a full day out and about - some people wanted to relax a bit before a full day traveling.  Well, on the way back, all of a sudden we saw smoke coming from the engine - so over to the side we pulled.  It turned out that it was leaking oil (quite a bit), so our driver added in some oil, and continued up the canyon.  Now were were OK with this since, we wouldn't be sitting on the side of the road.  They then decided to drive those of us going to Sundance back down the Canyon and swap out the vehicles (we could use a minibus since only 8 of us were going) which also seemed OK until the brakes started to alarm.  Ugggh.  Not a happy time.  To make a long story short, we made it down the hill safely, swapped the vehicles, and were on our way to Sundance.

At Sundance, we went on the
ski lift and man, you could see for miles.  The views were just
stunning.  Linda and Kelly
were in the seats in front of us, Gerri Anne and Sonia were in front of them, and Kip and Jayne were in front of that.  After our little ride to nowhere (they don't even let you off at the top unless you have a bike), we went over to the shops and restaurants.  Of course, when visiting Robert Redford's place, we had to taste his food, so we tried for reservations but they were booked until 8PM.  The Owl Bar
however, served the same food and you didn't need reservations.  We ordered food and it was delicious.  I had a burger, and substituted Asparagus for the fries.  The Asparagus was perfectly cooked, and Linda thought I was weird because I put them on my burger - I'm known for making sandwiches out of anything.  Sonia just got a side of
sweet potato fries - we all were surprised to find out that they charged $6.00 for them.  A bit pricey, but hey ... we were at Sundance dontcha know.  The trip back to the lodge was uneventful.  We spent the evening packing up our suitcases (and weighing them), and cleaning out the fridge.  Some played Canasta, and some (me) fell asleep on the couch (again).

Utah - Day 8

Today we started the day by going to the Farmers Market at Pioneer Park which had fruits, vegetables, plants, cheeses, breads and pastries, crafts, musicians, as well as great people watching and dogs.  We had heard about a fantastic (not to miss) waffle house that served Belgium waffles, so besides checking out the farmers market we kept an eye out for the waffle house -
and found it.  You could have a waffle with fruit, or creme fresh (which looked so thick and creamy), or something called the chocolate tornado which was a belgium chocolate infused waffle ... can you guess which one I chose ?  In my defense, I did share it with Mary and it was oh so delicious.  Pierre told us that they dip the waffles in imported belgium sugar so that when they cook the sugar melts and carmelizes - not that's just the waffle, not to mention the chocolate inside.  I'm very happy that I live a safe distance away because it was the absolute best.  After our waffles, we waited for the group to catch up

and for our travel bus to swing around and pick us up.  Barb and Kip sat in the grass enjoying the beautiful day.  From the Farmers Market, we decided that we needed to make a pit stop at the Walgreens in order to purchases some extra memory cards and let me tell you it was a good thing that we made that little detour.  The reason it was a "good thing" is because that is where the bus decided to break down
.  The break was stuck so he couldn't move the bus forward.  Had we not stopped we would have been stranded out at Antelope Island which was our next destination but instead we were right by the A&W, so we decided to make the best of it and have rootbeer floats.  Here we are sitting on the wall
with our thumbs out like we're hitchhiking.  Some took pictures of the bus guy under the bus, and some took picures of us taking pictures of the bus guy working on the bus.  Even under these adverse conditions we still found stuff to laugh about.  From here, we ended up being split up into two vans to finish our travels which wasn't quite as much fun, but at least got us on our way.  Our next destination was Antelope Island.
We saw some beautiful scenery with the mountains
in the background, and the water and salt flats.  Besides the scenery, we stopped at the visitor center and some bought souveniers and some bought Antelope Island scrapbook paper.  From here, we were primarily on a buffalo hunt.  We knew they were on the island and we didn't want to leave without seeing them.  After all we had traveled all that way.  One van took a left out, and the other van took a right, so unfortunately only have the group got to see the
buffalo.  We saw 3 in the grass, and then a little further up saw this guy.  In the forground of the picture is the side view mirror of the van, so you can tell just how close he was.  It was amazing.  Kip was hanging out the window trying to get a good shot of him and all I could think (especially when he started to rub his foot on the ground) was that he was going to charge us.  He didn't and Kip got her picture, and  Jayne got a picture of Kip hanging out the window getting her picture.  About now, those waffles from breakfast had worn off so it was off to another Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives location.  This time it was Moochies Meatballs
in downtown SLC.  Even thought it's called Moochies Meatballs, they are also known for their authentic Philly sandwiches which is what most of us had.  I also had the potato salad which had some kind of seasoning in it which was delicious.  It was all good.  Now, because of the breakdown, we were behind in time, so sent as many as possible back to the lodge in one van, while the remainder went to pick up pizza for after our class.  We went to "The Pie" pizza place (although not the underground location) and got one of the biggest pies ever.  It was a full 24 inches in diameter.  WOW.  I know ... we had just had philly cheesesteaks, and no one could really think about food at that moment - but when you are 12 miles up the canyon and don't have any wheels once the bus driver leaves, you've gotta make plans for a snack later in the evening.  After getting home we had a class to do which was Rusty Pickle's Lance Anderson teaching the Panama Jack
class which was such a cute album.  It has a little pop-up shack on the front.  He had taught this same class at Donna Downey's Inspired, and we were all very excited to get to take it while in Utah.  Not only did he teach the class, but he spent time going over some of the other kits we purchased from him, so that we would know how to put them together.  There was one with a woven edge and he made sure we all knew just how to put it together when we started working on it at home.  It was a fantastic class and we learned quite a bit - just little tips and tricks he's learned and passed on.  Plus we got to see his black handled CropADile which he told us WeRMemory made just for him.  After Lance left us, we just hung out, played Canasta and LCR (OK - not me, I was flaked out on the Sofa), and had some of the pizza.

With the exception of the breakdowns, it was another good day.

 
 

Utah - Day 2

Log-Haven was the absolute best - but let's start at the beginning.

We got a late start today getting out of the hotel and on the road.  Jackie stayed behind and rested her knee while working on a project.  The rest of us went back to visit the WalMart.  We did need to get some essentials, and I managed to find a few things I absolutely needed.  Here's a picture of the cart mover -
actually, more us taking pictures of the cart mover.
You might note how close to the top Barb is.  She was so intent on getting the picture that she almost forgot to turn around and step off the escalator.

From WalMart, we took a trip around town.  We went looking for a Roberts Arts and Crafts but the GPS wanted to send us 90 miles away, so there was an app on Gerri-Anne's phone which showed things close by and we were actually only a couple of miles away ... we got on the right path and found that the Roberts at that location had closed down.  We were going to head to Michaels but found a Joanns right around the corner.  From there we headed to Staples so Penny could pick up a new camera, then returned to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

Now the important stuff.  Log Haven. 
Everyone, even those not so keen on going thought it was THE best.  It was up in the mountains and the views were incredible, but the food more so.  Here's a group shot of us
First ... they actually gave us an Amuse Bouche - now I know what this is because I am a Top Chef fan, but I have never had one, so I was excited.  For the uninitiated, and Amuse Bouche is a single bite sized hor d'oeuvre, not ordered from a menu, it's a chef's selection served as an excitement of the taste buds.  So the Amuse Bouche was watermelon, with fresh goat cheese, with a pear balsamic reduction and arugala.
Of course there were drinks too.  Jane ordered a beer called the Devistator
Penny had a Margarita
Then we progressed onto the appetizer selections - I think we tried most of them.  I started with Gingered Carrot Soup we also tried the Fried
Halibut Cheeks,
the Juniper Smoked Bison Carpaccio, and the Green Beans and Chilled beets.

From the appetizers, we then proceded to the entrees.  Some tried the Grilled Bison Bavette Steak, so the Grilled Rocky Mountain Elk Tenderloin, some the Cider Brined Smoked Pork Loin.  I opted for the "early bird special" which was a caesar salad with lobster and steak.  The kicker was that the surf and turf with the salad was only $25.00. Then it was on to desert.  I opted for the sorbet, but there were so many options. the chocolate truffle hazelnut tart, the Frozen Coconut Souffle, the vanilla bean creme brulee , the honey almond panna cotta or the warm chocolate lava cake .  And that wasn't even all of the options available.  Here's us making the desert decisions and the aftermath . 

Monday, we're waiting for everyone else to arrive, and then we have a jewelry class, some grocery shopping to stock up the lodge and dinner at the Porcupine pub.  Should be a fabulous day.

Cricut Cake Launch

Tonight was the world release of the Cricut Cake.  For those of you not into scrapbooking a very simplistic explanation of the Cricut is that it's a machine that uses a cartridge to cut designs out of paper that you can use on a page or card.  The Cricut Cake uses those same cartridges, but cuts designs out of fondant or icing sheets that you can use to decorate a cake (or other baked goods).

I don't know why this product intrigues me so.  If you really know me, you would know that I haven't had a working oven for over 15 years.  I have a couple of burners on the stove, a microwave, and my toaster oven.  (Almost anything you can cook in a regular oven, you can cook in a toaster oven, you just need to add a little bit of time to the recipe).  Anyway, I digress.  They launched the product at midnight and were present on Twitter, Facebook, the Cricut Message boards, and a live chat.  It was a lot of fun.  I don't know how many people were on the live chat but it was hoppin'.  I hung out for a little over 2 hours and I think they hit over 2000 sold in that time frame.  Whoever is in charge of their marketing is doing an excellent job of creating buzz.  They really have their pulse on the many channels of communication used today.  I received an email about the launch, I saw the product previously on the Ultimate Challenge, they're on Facebook and tonight they tied it all together and we had a lot of fun.

Now ... I really, really want one.  I have a regular cricut for scrapbooking, and I'd love one of these for baking.  I'm thinking how cool would it be to have my deserts look like they were made by a professional.  I'm serious, noone would believe they came from me.

By the way ... I do have an oven now.  I just got it at the end of March from my sister (who wanted to go back to a gas stove).  It's not installed yet but is on the "honey do" list.  My anniversary is next week so I've got my fingers crossed.

Tomorrow (or actually in about an hour) they'll be at it again.

Tried a New Recipe

If you know me, you know that I'm a Food Network fan, and I've watched every Next Food Network Star competition so far.  Last year, the winner was Aaron McCargo Jr and he has a show on Sundays called Big Daddy's House.  Now it's not often that I try new recipes, or even cook for that matter.  Hubby laughs that I watch all these cooking shows, but don't cook - well it's not really all my fault.  I'd cook more if I had a functioning stove/oven (mine hasn't worked for so long, that I've forgotten just how long but it's been more than 10 years, ... but I digress).

Yesterday, I made Aaron McCargo's recipe called Savory Chicken Hash.  It seemed easy when I watched the show, and was in fact pretty easy.  I made one change in that I used those frozen potatoes, but other than that it was pretty close.  The recipe made quite a bit, (4 - 6 generous servings)  so it went to work with me for lunch today.  Most of the recipe is done on the stove, and then you put it in the oven for about 10 minutes, which I was able to use my toaster oven.

To be honest, he's one of the few chefs I resonate with.  I think it's because he often has his son helping him and I think if a small child can do it I should be able to, plus his son is a cutie.