Flower Frogs – Another Collection

Our first featured “guest” collector is Pam Bell, my niece. Pam has some wonderful collections….old scales, cake plates, metal stools…and this is her latest collection – flower frogs. She lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming, just a jog up the interstate from Loveland. There are some really great flea markets in Cheyenne.
I was especially excited about this collection after reading a feature article on flower frogs in the magazine Flea Market Style. Check out their blog.  Thanks for sharing your collection, Pam.

Food & Wine

Pairing food with wine is big industry. There are numerous books and magazines with so many suggestions….Some say you must follow certain rules such as - red wine with red meat, white wine with chicken and seafood; others tell you to break all the rules and just enjoy! The choices can be overwhelming and where do you start?  Do you choose your menu and then the wine? Or should you choose the wine and then plan the menu? I personally like to choose wine based on the name and/or the label. I don’t worry too much about pairing it with the perfect food. It's much easier to pair a wine with a good friend.  Kellee and I do have some favorite wines. This is one of them.



Cupcake Vineyards have some very interesting food & wine pairings.
Check out their suggestions.

It’s Thursday Already

 

I cannot believe that this week is almost over.  I also can’t believe that it has been my turn to blog for three days and I am just now sitting down to do it!

About a month ago, we sat down and talked about things we wanted to write about and determined who was blogging on what days.  We even put it on our calendars so we would have it in writing, and not just in our heads :)  All of which leads me to be able to make up my lack of blogging in one post. 

I HAVE TO HAVE A CALENDAR TO FUNCTION ! 

Calendars are the greatest things ever.  It allows you to be organized, not to double book things and it always gives you an excuse to look at it and tell someone you are just way to busy to do what they are asking you to do. 

Right now, my calendar is my best friend for lots of reasons. Here is a sneak peak of what we have in the works and few personal things thrown in the mix too.

School Carnival booth

Piano Recital

Scott’s Birthday (it’s a big one that requires a big party!)

Last day of 3rd grade and Ninny’s Graduation too (she gets to be Graduate Nin one more time)

Graduation #1

Grandma comes!

Graduation #2

Graduation #3

Summer Vacation starting with at trip back to Grandmas!

 

We are all excited for all the things we have coming up and hopefully with a little help from our friends, our families and our calendars, they will all be just fabulous.  Stay tuned. 

Substitute Ingredients

As I continue to cook my way through the Pioneer Woman Cooks…I kept looking at her Chicken Spaghetti recipe, but I could never remember to buy the pimientos! One night I just decided to make it and substitute a few ingredients. A good cook once told me “if you change one ingredient of any recipe it becomes your own”. So here is the DFD (Dairy Farmer’s Daughter) version of PW Chicken Spaghetti. I used the meat from a rotisserie chicken,  roasted red peppers instead of pimientos and celery instead of green bell pepper. Because I did not have any chicken broth from cooking my own chicken, I added some canned chicken broth to my water before I cooked the spaghetti. I thought the results were great!

My favorite book collection

I love to read. I don’t think I always have time to read. But that really depends on what is meant by “reading”. Does it mean a good novel? A quick romance story? Or does it mean the daily newspaper? Or daily devotions? Maybe you read a great children’s book every night! I guess I do have time to read! It is probably no surprise to some of you that I love to read cookbooks. This is another wonderful trait passed on to me by my mom. We always joked that she read cookbooks as if they were novels…beginning to end. So here is a peek into my favorite book collection. I have cookbooks in 3 rooms, on 4 shelves and 2 tables…just on the main floor. My flea market collection of cookbooks lives in the basement…(that’s another story).
 

I like to buy cookbooks as souvenirs…Here are my latest.

I’m still reading through these two. Keep your eyes open for a spicy recipe coming soon!

Isn’t it weird when this happens?

 

Last week we were having a conversation about Red Hots which lead to the conversation about the wonderful dish that is Red Hot Jello.  So I had to laugh when I saw this over at craftzine.com as one of today’s posts.   I love it when that happens but I don’t love how long it takes me to put it all together :)

Check out some of the other cute things over there too!

Sushi Anyone?

Thanks to the Food Network Magazine, I had a little fun with friends and family over Easter weekend. We love going out to eat sushi, but I have never tried to make it at home. This recipe was the perfect solution for all of our non-sushi eating friends and it was really fun and easy to make. My daughter Briee was so impressed she took all the ingredients back to school to “make” sushi for her college friends.