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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Beefy! Dinner for a picky teenager.

Kind of a lazy day today. I threw together a recipe for dinner that I knew my picky son would like. Easy Beef Stroganoff. I really wasn't sure what to make for dinner until about an hour ago. =) So I just checked the pantry and knew I was going to make something with egg noodles.





Ingredients:

1 lb. hamburger
1/2 cup of Italian dressing
1 10 3/4oz. can of cream of mushroom soup
1 1/2 cup of dry white wine
1/4 butter
1/2 of 8oz. tub of cream cheese "chive and onion"
Hot cooked egg noodles

In a frying pan brown the hamburger with the Italian dressing. Drain and set aside. In a pot, add the cream of mushroom soup, white wine, butter and cream cheese. I also added a bit of Italian dressing to the mix along with a splash of water. Cook until nice and combined. Add the hamburger and mix well. Serve over egg noodles. Makes 4 servings.

Caiden loved it! He's so picky! If I had them I would have added fresh mushrooms, which Caiden thinks are gross. Luckily the mushroom soup had small specks of mushrooms he wasn't able to identify.
=)

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Beautiful Diaries

I'm excited to say that I just inherited a ton of family diaries!! I am on cloud 9!! My mother's first cousin Colleen in Colorado sent them to me. She has children and grandchildren of her own but she knows I'm the family historian and would take good care of them. I was given copies to a few of them a number of years ago, from my mother's other first cousin Pat in Vermont, but to have the whole collection of actual diaries is just completely awesome, I can't even describe it!!

One of the diaries is from my great great great grandmother Damaris (Robbins) West, it is from 1879-1883. She passed away in 1885 at the age of 77! The diary is 133 years old, unbelievable. The others are a total of 9 diaries from my great grandmother Catharine (Piquet) Clarke. She passed away in 1972 at the age of 92, just 11 months before I was born. Her diaries are 1914-1918, 1920-1925, and 1961-1966. It makes me wonder what happened to the 35 year span of diaries that are lost. =(

I plan to annotate the diary from my grt grt grt grandmother Damaris first, since it is smaller. I want future generations to be able to read them and have an understanding of who these people were, even 130 years from now!

I will probably scan every page into my computer and add the annotations there so as not to ruin the original. I will need to research US and NYS Census records, old newspaper articles and cemetery records to be able to add correct information to the diary of "who, what, where and when". At some point I will tackle my great grandmother Catharine's collection, but that will be a major undertaking, as some of them are very fragile.

(Click on picture to make it larger)

Damaris Robbins West 1879


Catharine Piquet Clarke's Diaries


My great grandmother Catharine had such beautiful handwriting


I can't wait to get started! Dang pesky job and chores will get in the way I'm sure. grumble grumble. Do you have any family treasure's to pass down to future generations??


Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Halloween 2011

Well, Caiden didn't dress up this year....sniff....=(
He took his younger brother and sister out and then hung out with some friends, dang 15 yr olds!  Saturday night I went out with his step mom, my friend, Christina. We went downtown and had a great ole time. My costume was a sugar skull for the Day of the Dead holiday or Día de los Muertos. I have been obsessed with sugar skull's for a while now, I just think they are beautiful. Also, I am a HUGE cemetery weirdo  enthusiast so a holiday about celebrating the dead is right down my alley. I'm in cemeteries quite often because of my love of genealogy and tracking down ancestors! =) One of my favorite artists is Sylvia Ji. She paints beautiful women mostly with sugar skull makeup. Here are a few. I wish I had the extra money to buy one of them!






My makeup was inspired by these paintings.



How was your Halloween? Get more treats than tricks?? I hope so! =)

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Fall Decor

Getting started with the fall decorating. My favorite time of year!!


My family wall

Tomorrow I'm going to hang the fall wreath and look for white pumpkins. =) Can't wait.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Give Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! Boy am I stuffed! Today we celebrated at the home of Jeff's paternal grandparents, Jake and Dana. They live in North Brookfield, NY near Jeff's hometown of Waterville. (about an hour away from us)

My father-in-law Daryl is the oldest of 7 children and Jeff is the oldest of 15 grandchildren so there was a packed house, just the way I like it!! 


The food at Jake and Dana's with Jeff's uncles in the background



Caiden and Jeff thinking about getting a 3rd helping



On Tuesday evening we hosted the holiday with my family and Jeff's parents. My brother and sister had places to go today so it's just nice to be able to get everyone together regardless of the day.


 My brother Jason his daughter Nevaeh and my sister Lisa

      Caiden, Rosemary, my brother's fiance Steph and baby Nevaeh


  Proud Poppa



      nom nom nom




One of my all time favorite dishes to serve is Rosemary Sourdough Stuffing I found in my Better Homes and Gardens magazine back in 1996, and have used it ever since. (It's been folded and refolded for years and will eventually fall apart)

Everyone loves it! Give it a try.

ROSEMARY SOURDOUGH STUFFING



 Better Homes and Gardens magazine, November 1996

•3 cups sliced assorted fresh mushrooms, such as shiitake, brown, or white
•1 cup sliced celery
•1 cup chopped onion
•1/2 cup margarine or butter
•1/4 cup snipped parsley
•1 tsp. dried rosemary, crushed
•1/2 tsp. pepper
•8 cups dry sourdough bread cubes (*)
•1/2 to 3/4 cup chicken broth


In a large saucepan, cook fresh mushrooms, celery, and onion in hot margarine or butter until celery in tender but not brown; remove from heat. Stir in parsley, dried rosemary, and pepper.
(I omit the pepper and dried rosemary for good ole' Bells Seasoning)

Place dry bread cubes in a large mixing bowl. Add the onion mixture. Drizzle with enough chicken broth to moisten, tossing gently to coat the bread cubes.


Use the stuffing to stuff one 8- to 12-pound turkey or bake separately in a casserole, covered, in a 325 F degree oven for 40 to 45 minutes or in a 375 F degree oven for 20 to 30 minutes or until heated through. (If the stuffing is baked inside the turkey, the temperature of the cooked stuffing should register at least 165 F degrees in the center.) Makes 8-12 servings.


* To make dry bread cubes for stuffing, cut the bread into 1/2-inch square pieces, You’ll need 12 to 14 slices of bread for 8 cups of dry cubes. Spread in a single layer in a 15 x 10 x 2-inch baking pan. Bake in a 300 F degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until dry, stirring twice; cool. (The bread will continue to dry and crisp as it cools. Or, let stand loosely covered, at room temperature for 8-12 hours.)


I love the holidays! I love being with family and making memories for my son. And that I'm thankful for!!!

Friday, November 12, 2010

The tale of the 105 year old cookbook. weird. weird. weird.

Well, some things are just weird. Period. And here's an example- long story probably made longer.

My husband Jeff is from a small town called Waterville about 60 miles east of Syracuse, New York. I just love small towns, love love love! Everyone knows everyone, a real sense of community! I would like to live there someday when Caiden is off to college.

Anyhoo, I receive emails from Ebay when anything from Waterville comes up for sale. Last year I bought a 1905 Relief Society Cook Book- Revised by the King's Daughters of M. E. Church Waterville, NY.  

     Something old and from Waterville-
had.to.have.it.


 Hand written on the inside cover of the book was-
Miss Mae Hayden Waterville, New York Dec. 20, 1910.


Unfortunately for Jeff I'm not a great cook, but I do like to try recipes now and then. 

A couple of weekends ago I brought the cookbook up to camp with me and let my mother in law Rosemary look through it. It was a rainy cold day so we were all huddled inside with literally nothing else to do!  All of the recipes were written in by women of Waterville long ago and some of the last names are now street names in town. Having lived there all her life Rosemary loved it! We decided to call her mother's sister, 82yr old Aunt Irene, better known as Chuchi (polish for aunt). We put her on speaker phone and Rosemary began to read off some of the names in the cookbook to see if Chuchi knew any of the ladies, seeing as she used to work in the Waterville nursing home way back when. She did know some of them and then preceded to explain where they lived in town and who they where married to. That phone call took about 20 minutes. Then a little bit later we decided to call her again when there were some terms we had never heard of used in some of the recipes, like an iron spider (iron skillet) sweet milk (regular milk) etc. During the course of a day we called her a total of 5 times, all because of this cookbook!

After dinner we had exhausted all our efforts on the cookbook and were going to leave Chuchi alone for the rest of the evening. Or so I thought. I was just thumbing through it again when I came across a Cranberry Nut Bread recipe cut from a newspaper. It was about 7" long by 2.5" wide. It looked to be from the Waterville Times Newspaper, probably 1920s or so. Included in the cut out just below the recipe was an advertisement for a Dry cleaning business which read- "Dry cleaning- quality work on all kinds of garments at lowest prices for first class work. Satisfaction guaranteed. J. L Feuiner. 174 Sanger Avenue Waterville."

                                                              

Rosemary was looking over my shoulder and said "does that say 174 Sanger Ave??" "Yes, why?" "That's Chuchi's house!"  Yup, you read that right, Chuchi's house. Sooooo, we called Chuchi again and let her know that in some random 105 year old cookbook, which by the way we bothered Chuchi about all day long, happened to have a newspaper cut out with her address on it!! Now THAT my friends is WEIRD!!!!!

Monday, November 1, 2010

Halloween 2010- Wrap up!

Well I did it! I finished his mask an hour before he went out trick or treating. I think it came out great if I do say so myself. =)   Here's what I did. At the Salvation Army I found a pair of white cotton lounge pants $3.99 and a white top for $2.99 and because it was pink tag day, both were 50% off! Score! I found a large piece of red felt at the Thrifty Shopper for 25 cents and straw hat for $1.



I made the tie out of the red fabric with some cardboard to give it some weight.











Ouchie, fabric shears are sharp!




Extra fabric used for the hamburgers with ketchup and pickles! I love love love me some McDonald's pickles!! Yum!




I made his cape and mask using the $2.95 black apron and $3 yellow shirt from Walmart.Then I taped off the shirt and pants using the only tape I could find: duct tape. (no pictures of that sorry) Sprayed the hat, shirt and pants with left over fabric paint and voila! There you have it-  a happy teenager!!!





I told him since I injured myself during costume construction that any Twix or Kit Kats would be confiscated from the treat bag!!!

It was about 38 degrees in Upstate New York and hailed twice last night! I made him wear long johns and jeans under his clothes. BBRRR! He had a good time going out with his friends and didn't mind the cold at all. How do kids do it?? How was the weather in your neck of the woods.