Football Sunday

Go Colts!

Made some super easy snacks for football sunday afternoon.

Cheese & crackers

Bacon wrapped cream cheese stuffed dates
(fill pitted dates w/cream cheese, wrap w/bacon, stick a toothpick through to hold, bake at 350 until bacon is done-about 20min)

Ham & broccoli puff pastry rolls
(thaw 1 puff pastry sheet, spread chive cream cheese over whole sheet, top w/chopped ham and chopped steamed broccoli, roll up and slice about 1/4 inch thick, bake at 400 for about 20 min-oh brush an egg over each before baking)

Yum! My husband, Patches and I are enjoying all this right now. I better stop blogging before its gone.

Big Lebowski Cupcakes

I made these specifically for my nephew because it was his 21^st bday and he likes The Big Lebowski. If you’ve seen the movie you know what flavor these are – White Russians. I googled a few recipes and ended up using this one. They were so good and tasted exactly like White Russians.

Here's the link to where I found the recipe: http://www.bakedperfection.com/2011/01/white-russian-cupcakes.html

Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sugar

6 tablespoons butter, softened

1 large egg and 1 egg white

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk

1/8 cup Vodka

1/4 cup Kahlua, divided (Plus a little more if needed)

 

Steps:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners.

 

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a separate bowl or in a stand mixer, beat together the sugar and butter until combined. Add egg and egg white, one at a time. Then add the vanilla, Vodka, and 1/8 cup of Kahlua. Gradually add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk in two additions, ending with the flour mixture.

 

Bake 17 -20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcakes comes out clean. While the cupcakes are still warm, brush the tops with the remaining 1/8 cup Kahlua. Remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

Frosting

 

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter, softened

3 cups powdered sugar

pinch of salt

3 - 4 tablespoons Kahlua

Steps:
Beat butter until creamy. Add salt. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, beating until combined. Add Kahlua 1 tablespoon at a time until you reach desired consistency. (I added more Kahlua until the flavor was just right)

For the decorations I cut straws and put one in each and I had to ask my sister for advice on how to make a bowling ball and bowling pin.

Bowling balls – malted milk balls and Bowling pins – white (vanilla) tootsie rolls and I used frosting ink for the dots and stripes.

My sister used to make all kinds of fun cakes so I knew she would have excellent ideas on what to use. She said to use tootsie rolls because they are easy to shape into whatever you need and if you buy them in the bulk candy isle you can pick out only the colors you need. I’m so glad I asked her because the bowling pins turned out so good.

I know its been awhile since I've posted. I've been baking and cooking lots- just find it hard to get on the computer at home after staring at one all day at work. I'll try to get a few posts up this week. I have LOTS and LOTS to post about.

 

Spaghetti and Meatball Cake

We had August birthday weekend this past Saturday at the cabin. There are five of us in our family that have August birthdays so we always have a weekend (or now a day) to celebrate. I was bringing the cake and dessert so I asked my niece what kind of cake she wanted. She said something fun like the burger cake I made for the May and June birthdays (the non-bday weekend). So I decided to make this spaghetti and meatball cake. It is really fun looking and super easy to make!

I first saw this recipe on Food Network.com and then saw it start popping up all over. I made a practice cake and brought it to work and everyone loved it so I was ready to make it for Birthday Weekend!

Ingredients:

• 1 box chocolate cake mix (I used Duncan Hines Devil's Food --- Duncan Hines is my favorite cake mix brand, there is just something about it that is better than the others)
• whatever is listed on cake mix box
• 1 container vanilla frosting (again, I used Duncan Hines)
• a few drops of yellow food coloring
• about a 1/4 cup of strawberry jam
• white chocolate shavings

Steps:
Make cake in two 8 inch round pans according to directions on box.

Let cool and throw one cake into a bowl.

 

Eat some to make sure it tastes ok--yummmm, yup its good. Crumble it up.

Make a few cake balls as the meatballs -- I made five. If you need to add a few tablespoons of water to help you form the balls. I rolled each ball in crumbs so they would have a more meatball texture to them. Then I put them in the fridge until I needed them-- just to make sure they would stay firm.

Once the other 8in cake is cool frost with all except about a quarter of the frosting. Add a few drops of yellow food coloring to the remaining frosting and mix well. Pipe this onto the cake to look like spaghetti. I don't have a real pipe bag so I just use a Ziploc bag with a very small corner snipped off.

Now top with the meatballs, spoon some strawberry jam around them and shave some white chocolate all over the cake (like Parmesan cheese). Done! See easiest cake ever and it looks like you spent all day making it. Its delicious too!

The other dessert I brought to birthday weekend was Big Lebowski cupcakes-- check back later to read that recipe. Yum!

Roast Chicken

I got this recipe from the Pioneer Woman Cooks blog and it looked so yummy that I just had to try it out. It was all that I thought it would be and more.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
About a quarter cup of butter, softened
5 sprigs of rosemary
1 lemon
S&P

Look! They gave me a handicapped chicken! It only has one wing!

Steps:
Put foil in a glass pan big enough to hold the chicken and preheat oven to 400 degrees
Rinse chicken and place in baking dish (after you make it dance- I love raw whole chickens)
Chop 2 sprigs of rosemary really really fine
Add chopped rosemary to butter and zest lemon over the butter
Mash butter mixture until well blended

Spread butter mixture all over the chicken (not sure if this step is supposed to be difficult but I sure had a hard time doing this. Every time I went to spread the butter it just got in a big clump. Eventually I got it all evenly spread but it took patience and time)
Cut the lemon in half and stuff the bird with the halves and the other 3 sprigs of rosemary.

Throw some S&P (that’s salt and pepper) over the entire chicken
Bake for about 1hr and 20 min.

Ummmmmmmmm, my house was smelling soooooo good at this point.

When its done (I use a meat thermometer to check) take out and let it sit a few minutes. Then carve and serve!

I fried up some potatoes while I was baking the chicken.Just some more rosemary, S&P, butter and olive oil.

What a homey, delicious weeknight dinner!

My Birthday!!!

Every year for the past, oh probably, 15 years my sister takes me out on my birthday. I take the day off of work and we hang out all day. I never know what we’re going to do until we do it. She plans the full day.

This year we started off the day with a morning (late morning, because I also like to sleep in on my birthday) visit to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I hadn’t been there in forever so we had lots to see and revisit.

We wanted to give this one to our mom and name it “Weeding”.....

And this one looks just like my brother-in-law!

After the MIA we headed to uptown for lunch, drinks and shopping. Lunch was at The Cafeteria, which I had never even heard of before we went. I had chicken and waffles. I never really understood what all the hype was around chicken and waffles--- but now I do! I was served a huge waffle with 2 pieces of the most moist crispy and moist chicken I’d ever eaten. All of this was sitting on top of home-style gravy. Ummmmmm. Oh, and I poured maple syrup over the entire plate too. I had to! Yum! My sister had a salad with shrimp, avocados, wantons and cashews in light vinaigrette. Because it was my birthday the waitress gave me cotton candy on a stick! How fun!

Then we went shopping and stopped at a rooftop restaurant for drinks. I had a white house made sangria. White wine with lemons, oranges and limes (not sure what else) – I definitely want to try to make this at home. We didn't have appetizers there because the waiter was lame  and didn't care it was my birthday. So we drank up, paid and left. (My sister used a different type of word for him, but I'll not use that here.)

Next stop was another cute restaurant - Cafe Barbette- where we each had fun bubbly drinks and a couple appetizers. We had oysters and portabella mushroom pave. (thats paaa-vey, not pave)

They were the BEST oysters we had ever eaten! I'm not sure why soe oysters are better than others but these were defniniately the best. They served them with a cup of some type of vinegar. Perfect addition. The pave (which I looked up while we were ordering and it means simply-- in the shape of a rectangle) was chilled grilled portabella mushrooms packed in a, you guessed it, rectangle and this was served with a pile of soba noodles topped with mango. Both were so good! I want to go back here for dinner some time. The menu looked de-lish!

It was getting late and I was also going out to dinner so we rushed out of the last place and headed back to the car. But first we stopped in Victoria Secret and covered ourselves with almost any type of body spray we could find and gave ourselves makeovers with the sample make up.

Dinner

For dinner my husband took be out for all you can eat prime rib at Running Aces. I never get more than the first slice but oh well. I love their prime rib!

Soooo good and a perfect ending to a perfect birthday. I was so dead after dinner. Eating, shopping, walking, drinking, eating --- I was beat.

Another 364 days til next birthday!

Banana Pudding Dessert

I made this to bring into work for my birthday last week.The recipe made it sound like it was supposed to be cut into squares but even after a full night in the fridge no simple little squares of it were going to happen. Still pretty tasty though. A good dessert for the summer and its so easy to make.

Ingredients:

• 40 or so Vanilla Wafers
• 1 small pkg instant pudding – the recipe called for vanilla but the grocery store was out so I used Banana Cream
• 3 cups milk
• 8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup powered sugar
• 1 tub cool whip
• 3 bananas – sliced up
• About a quarter cup of melted butter

Steps:

1.      Crush up wafers really fine – I used my blended but you can do it by hand if you like
2.      Mix in melted butter and cover the bottom of a 9x13 pan

3.      Put in fridge until ready to use
4.      Mix cream cheese and powered sugar with blender until well blended
5.      Stir in a little less than half of the tub of cool whip
6.      Spread over crushed wafers in pan
7.      Top with sliced bananas – yes 3 bananas is enough so line them up real neat
8.      Mix pudding and milk, whisk for about 2 minutes
9.      Add pudding over bananas

10.   Top with the rest of  the cool whip (ok, nowhere is where I had trouble. I threw on a big glob of cool whip and then had issues spreading it evenly. Maybe I should have let the dish sit in the fridge a while before topping? Or put a few dollops of cool whip all around and then spread out. Not sure)
11.   Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.


Yum!Like I said I brought this into work the day before my bday to share. I always take my bday off of work. I love my birthday and always have a fun day. More to post about that later.

Tostadas

After my Southwest Night post I was really craving tostadas so thats exactly what I had for dinner tonight.

Ingredients:
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Cheese
Sour Cream
Re-fried Beans
Shredded BBQ Pork (I cheated and bought the already prepared stuff. Still good, but thats the lazy way out)
Corn Tortillas

I sprayed the pan with cooking spray and placed two tortillas in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. They probably could have used some more time but I was HUNGRY! While those were baking I heated up the pulled pork and chopped the tomatoes.

To assemble I first spread the re-fried beans, then the meat, then the cheese, then the order doesn't matter after that. I like to spread the beans first because otherwise it is too hard to spread them out. And I always put the cheese right on top of the meat whenever I make tacos, burritos, or tostadas-- then the cheese kind of melts. yummmmm.

Ahhhh. Perfect dinner.

Now I have to get outside and water my poor plants-- why won't it rain?!?!?!?!

Southwest Night - YUM!!!

A while back my foodie friend and I had a food night that we themed Southwest Night. When we get together we either like to try a new restaurant or make food ourselves. This was a night where we made our own delicious dinner.

She made tostadas and I prepared a Southwest salad. We ate guac, salsa and drank margaritas while we prepared the meal.

Pico de Gallo (fancy salsa):

- Roma tomatoes (4 or 5), chopped

- 1/2 green pepper, chopped

- 1/2 jalapeno pepper, minced

- 2 cloves garlic, minced

- 1/3 cup red onion, chopped

- 1 lime, juiced

- handful of cilantro, chopped

- salt and pepper

Guacamole:

- avocados (2-3), smashed

- garlic cloves (2), minced

- Roma tomatoes, chopped

- 1/4 cup red onion chopped

- 1/4 cup sour cream

- 1 lime, juiced

- handful of fresh cilantro, chopped

- salt and pepper

Southwest Cobb Salad:

Lettuce

Tomatoes

Corn (I used can corn but thawed frozen corn or fresh corn cooked on the cob will do too)

Black Beans (canned)

Avocado

Onion

Chicken
Green Pepper

Dressing: sour cream mixed with Chipotle Cheddar salad dressing (brand is Brianna’s, I love this dressing. I used it for a lot of dishes – sauce for fish tacos, dip for sweet potato fries- so good!!!)

Tostadas:

Pulled Pork

Chicken

Red Onion

Lettuce

Corn Tortillas

Re-fried Beans

Radishes

Cucumber

Sour Cream

Shredded Cheese

To make the tostadas place on baking sheet and bake at 350 until crispy. You can fry them in oil too but baking is a healthier option (and I think its easier too). Then top with the toppings you like and feast. I like to spread the re-fried beans on first, then top with everything else.

For the salad-- I like to section the salad because it looks pretty, but it can be hard to eat and get the ingredients you want.

I just got back from the grocery store and I'm making tostadas this weekend- yum!!!

Apple Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes

These were really good. I brought them to work Monday and everyone loved them. Because I decided to get fancy with the decorations they took me a while to make, but if you just make the basic cupcake w/frosting it will take you no time at all. I wanted the marshmallows to look like little cinnamon rolls on the tops. How fun!

Ingredients:

• French Vanilla Cake Mix
• 2 Eggs
• 1 Can Apple Pie Filling
• 1 Container Duncan Hines Cinnamon Roll Frosting Creation
• 1/4 Cup Frosted Flakes
• 1/4 Cup Cinnamon Bun Marshmallows (I know- Do these really exist? Yes they do!)
• A handful of chocolate chips

Steps:

1. Open can of pie filling and chop up apple slices - you don't want whole slices for cupcakes

2. Mix pie filling, cake mix and 2 eggs until well blended (you don't need a mixer, just a good wooden spoon)

3. Fill cupcake liners and bake according to directions on cake mix box

4. Let cupcakes cool completely

5. Crunch up Frosted Flakes - I put in a prep bowl and mash with a spoon until the crumbs are the size I want for a topping

6. Mix up Duncan Hines Frosting Creations frosting -- really well so you don't have swirls. One thing I have to say is although this frosting mix is very tasty it is kind of runny and always seems to slide off some of my cupcakes. Boo. But those are the ones I eat then so I guess its ok. Maybe I should refrigerate the cupcakes when I use this frosting.

7. Cut marshmallows in half so they are not so big. (I had a hard time slices them and mentioned this at work and then the marshmallow expert said I should have used scissors to cut them. Duh! That would have been easier! oh well- next time)

8. Melt chocolate chips and using a toothpick drizzle or draw circles on the marshmallows.

9. Frost cupcakes.

10. Sprinkle Frosted Flakes and top with a Cinnamon Bun marshmallow.

Ahhhhhh- when I was done this is how I enjoyed one of these.....

with a scoop of Neapolitan ice cream. Yum!

Monday night dinner

Roast beef in the crock pot
I'm sure there could be some fancy name for this but I just call it what it is.

This is probably my favorite dinner of all time. My mom would make it all the time for me back in high school. It was my most requested meal when I lived at home. I can still remember coming home from school, walking up the front steps, just barely opening the front door and smelling this dinner. Ahhhh.

Mondays can be a really lazy night and I knew I would not want to cook after work so I prepped this last night, threw it together this morning before work and it was ready for me when I got home. I love coming in the door and having dinner ready to eat. It makes me so happy to smell that heavenly aroma instantly. Before I even set my purse down I stick a fork in to taste a carrot, then a potato -- yummmmm - Hot! But Yum. Yup! Another masterpiece that I can't wait to eat! So simple yet my taste buds go crazy for this meal.

Ingredients:

• roast (this time I think it was a Eye of Round Roast, but I just browse the roasts and buy what looks good)
• carrots
• potatoes (russet)
• onion (I usually buy white onions but yellow is ok to use too)
• beef broth
• roast beef seasoning (I have this container of roast beef rub that I usually use for this meal - its by all the other seasonings at your local grocery store)
• S&P (that's salt and pepper)
• 2 bay leaves

Steps:

1. Peel and chop carrots, potatoes and onion. You want them in somewhat big chunks but still cut up fairly well. Now if you're prepping this meal the night before you can stop here and do the rest in the morning. Or, if you can fit your whole crock pot in your fridge you can do the rest up to plugging it in and turning it on. I switch it up depending on the shelf space in my fridge.
2. Throw in a handful or two of the carrots, onion, potatoes then pour in about 1.5 to 2 cups beef broth and about 2 cups water.
3. Season your roast - I use a roast rub so I first put S&P all over the roast and then the rub all over.
4. Put the roast in the crock pot (Now, my sister sears the roast first, then puts it in the crock pot. I don't do this because I rather just throw everything in and let it cook itself and save a step.)
5. Throw in the rest of the carrots, onion, potatoes
6. Pour in more water and/or beef broth so the liquid is just at the top of the roast.
7. Plug in and turn on low if your leaving it all day, mine was on low for about 9 hours today
8. Feast

I could stand at the counter with a fork and eat the whole darn thing its so good. Oh, sometimes if I have an open bottle of red wine I'll throw some of that in while its cooking too, but I didn't have a bottle open today.

When I got home I made a couple salads and dinner was ready. Happy Monday to me!





After dinner it was time to give Patches a bath. We went for a loooooong walk down to the lake on Saturday and smelt terrible! blahhh! He does not like baths but he is much more well behaved than he was for his first couple baths when we first got him.

He's saying "I hate baths and now I'm a wet doggy!"

He doesn't stay like this for long.

He's already back up, running around, squeaking toys.

My Favorite Pasta Salad

I had two friends visit a couple weekends ago and I made roll-ups (see post on Roll-Ups) for a snack and this pasta salad for lunch. This is another recipe you can add almost anything you like and are craving at the time.

What I used this time: cucumber, green pepper, cherry tomatoes (actually I think they were grape tomatoes), pepperoni, pasta (I like the colorful pasta for pasta salads), cubes of Colby Jack cheese, and Italian salad dressing. I wanted to add artichokes but Cub moved them and I couldn’t find them!

Chop anything that needs to be- I like to slice the tomatoes in half because they are easier to get on your fork that way, other than that –chop and throw in a bowl. Boil pasta, rinse and throw in bowl. Stir everything together and squirt in the Italian dressing. Stir and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. Done!

If anyone can tell me how to keep my pepperoni from clumping up I would really appreciate it. I hate it when this happens! Hate it!

I love this pasta salad- its so good and you can throw just about anything in it. One of my friends called it the debri salad. haha!


______________________________________


This summer at the cabin we have been trying to get Patches into the lake to go swimming. Of course its always great how nice he smells after the lake– NOT!!!!!

The first time Patches did not like swimming at all. He swam straight for the dock and was done.

But the second time he liked it much more!

He swam around and didn’t head for the dock or land for a while. Just kept swimming.

Hummingbird Feeder and Food

I just got into bird feeders this summer – I’m trying not to go nuts and keep it to a few. So far I have a suet, thistle and hummingbird feeder.

The suet feeder works great – its just a simple square cage one and most birds love it. The thistle does well – it took about a week or two before the first birds ate from it but now there are almost always yellow finches feasting. I love the bright yellow birds in my yard- I think they match my garden so they are the perfect bird to have.


The hummingbird feeder
The first one I bought was no good at all. No one ate from it. The “food” or whatever you call it got moldy and gross. I showed it to my dad and he said to throw it away and that kind never works. When I asked why they even sell that style in the store he said “cuz those people who make feeders don’t know shi*t about feedin’ birds”. Apparently there are feeders at the store designed by people who just sit in their house and have never seen a bird before. I think that is a bunch of crap-all feeders should be tested first. Well, not really, but how is a person supposed to know what style feeder to get when there are about 15 different kinds of one type bird feeder?!?!?

So this is the style I ended up getting. My dad said it will be much better—and it was! I see hummingbirds all the time now. I love those little birds – they are so cute and funny looking.

Food for hummingbirds:

First, you do not need to buy anything they sell in the store. Second, hummingbird food consists of just water and sugar and cannot be easier to make.

Boil one cup of water, stir in one cup of sugar.Once dissolved completely stir in two cups cold water. Done.


Fill feeder only about half way and then keep the rest in the fridge. Sometimes with the hot summer weather the food might get icky so you’ll need to pour it out, wash the feeder and fill again. So, if you only fill half the feeder the food will go faster and you can fill with fresh food more frequent and not have to wash it out as often.

Enjoy!

PS- I tried to get a pic of a hummingbird at my feeder but just couldn't catch them. Sorry!

Hens

While I was choppin away making the roll-ups for the potluck my mother and dad were at the cabin feasting on Cornish hens. Yum! They look delish!

Mother stuffs them with sauteed celery, onions and mushrooms. I think I’ll have to make these soon because now I’m craving them!!!

I know- they are really roughin it up there are the cabin - huh.

Roll-ups

This is my last week with the staff in my department. Monday I begin a new position in a new department. So my staff threw me a good-bye party. They asked what type of food theme I wanted for the potluck because we have had so many different themes- walking tacos, breakfast, hot dog bar, pasta par, baked potato bar, apps/finger food, sweets, state fair food, green (that was for St Patrick’s day), and many more. I picked the kind where we eat all day! For those we bring sweets, appetizers, finger food, hors d'oeuvres  – usually this is for our Christmas party. Its my favorite because, well, duh- you get to eat ALL DAY!!!

I brought roll-ups. Not too difficult of a hors d'oeuvre but really good! You can put just about anything in them. For these I stuffed them with carrots,cucumber and turkey lunch meat. I have used other types of lunch meat and romaine. Just about any veggies or meat works great.

Ingredients: veggies, lunch meat, tortilla shells, cream cheese

Start by slicing your veggies in super duper skinny sticks – what’s the appropriate term? Julienne? I don’t know who Julianne is, so I’m going to say super skinny sticks instead. That is something my dad would say- “who’s Julie?” Whenever we use rosemary in our house my dad would say “Rosemary? Is she coming?”  Anyway.....

Once you have all the veggies ready get out any other ingredients you want to use. I like to have all my “stuffings” out while assembling.

Spread cream cheese all over the tortilla shell – all the way to the ends.

Now line up your fillings – not in the middle – just to the side of the middle, about a quarter of the way in from the end. You don’t want too much filling but enough. I used a few “sticks” of each ingredient. Just play with them til you get the right amount.

Then roll it up- really really tight. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a couple hours or overnight.

  
When you are ready to eat slice up and serve! Yum! They will disappear faster than you believe so eat a few before you serve them.

____________

My send off party was so yummy! All my staff made such great food. They gave me a picture of all of them on a Hello Kitty pink picture holder, Hello Kitty pink key chain - both perfect!- and all signed a super nice card. They are the best!

Here's some of their deliciousness we feasted on throughout the whole day.....

A few other varieties of roll-ups (mine are on the plate in the back) and antipasto kabobs (should have taken the plastic wrap off first so you could see how pretty those were).

Veggie pizza - I think by the end of the day I had eaten about a quarter of this. So good! And I love how she really loaded it with veggies!

Taco dip! Yum Yum Yum!

Other items we feasted on included: sticky buns (had to have something to start on in the morning for breakfast), eclairs, fruit, rice crispy bars (my favorite dessert of all time) and little cut up smokies/wieners in bbq sauce.


Now that I ate all day I think I'm going to spend the evening sitting on the couch so I don't throw up. haha.

Garden and Tired Patches

I haven't been blogging a ton because I've been outside enjoying my garden or working late. I'm starting a new job the end of this month and am really excited. I'm statying at the same company but moving departments and changing my job title and role. I'll really miss my staff- they are all hard workers and fun people but this new job is something I've wanted to do for some time and now I can do it and not change companies. Lucky me. So I've been at work a little later than usual this past week because I have to start planning on transitioning to a new department and leave all my projects, etc that I've been working on this year. By the time I get home I just want to sit on the couch and watch tv with Patches so, I haven't cooked or baked much. But after the 4th I'll get back into the swing of things and post more.

I've also really been trying to keep up my garden this summer. Last summer I got kind of lazy and didn't water or weed when I should have blah blah blah. So this year I'm making sure everything is weeded and watered. I have my one main garden that stretches along the backyard and then I have a few plants around my deck. Most flowers are looking good this year but a lot did not make it through the winter so I have some empty spaces that I need to fill in. I buy some perennials from a good nursery but I also get a lot from my mother or friends and coworkers. I think that the ones I get from people (not nurseies) do better.

I design my own pots - why spend $40 or even $50 on a pot when you can buy a few annuals and plant them yourself? My favorite pots I do are two big pots on either end of my deck. Every year I've done different annuals in them.

Last year ---

I did almost all pink in my pots last year. Pink is my signature color. (Steel Magnolias line if you know that movie. It should be my line though because pink is my signature color.)

This year ---

I like to mix it up so this year I did a brown spike, marigolds, pink petunias, potato vine and some "furry" looking little purple flower that I don't remember the name of. I love how the marigold and pink petunia colors POP out! The potato vine is kind of taking over so I go out and move the vine back to where it should be. I don't want it crowding my petunia.

Well, I've got to get to Cub to pick up some items for the weekend and week. We're going up to the cabin tomorrow and my mother needs ice cream for banana splits and I've got to think of a fun appetizer or snack to bring up too. You can't show up to the cabin without food!


Oh, after working in the garden today I came downstairs after my shower and saw puppy like this...

Sleeping, upsided down, over the air conditioner vent. Life's tough huh Patches. In his defense-- he had a big vet visit yesterday. Got four shots, blood tests and lots of poking around and examining. Vet bills sure do add up but at least its only once every three years for most of his stuff. And the vet said Patches is very healthy and doing great!