Salivating Saturday

I have a confession to make. I love my garden. I love every fruit and veggie out of there. I use to hate gardening-it seemed like so much hard work, and it is, but the benefit is definitely worth the work.

The first thing that is ready to harvest in my garden is my lettuce, raspberries and basil. OMP and I have been enjoying fresh salads and raspberries directly off the vine for about a week now. I was trying to figure out what to do with the basil and the simplest dish to make that can be used for just about anything is pesto.  Here is a quick recipe for yummy pesto.

Pesto
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup pine nuts
2/3 cups Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups basil
2/3 cups olive oil
pepper to taste
squeeze of a lemon wedge or two

In a blender or food processor finely chop the garlic, next add nuts, cheese, salt, pepper, and basil, then process until finely chopped. Finally, add oil and lemon,blending until smooth.


Now, what to do with your pesto? I love making cowboy pizzas with it. You thought the pesto was easy, cowboy pizza is even easier.

Take a can of biscuits and roll them out flat, next cook them according to the directions on the can. You can make homemade biscuits, but I wanted to eat now and didn't have time to make up the biscuits.

After the biscuits have baked,  add pesto and any other toppings you want. I had left over steak and chicken and added them to the pesto along with some cheese. I turned my oven on broil and put them back in for a few minutes until the cheese had melted. These are so easy and so good! They are perfect for whatever leftovers you have laying around the house.

Feel Good Friday!

From Gardening in the 909

Oh Friday...how I love you. You are the sweetest thing ever.

I want to live in this embroidery. Tinyexistence is amazing! I just love all the little details in the work. Check out her etsy shop too, she has patterns and finished pieces. I heart her.

 I've been catching up on the blog Scrumdillydilly. Great recipes, wonderful pictures and awesome projects. Pretty much everything I love. Okay, I really love the cake batter sugar buns, but that's a whole different story. 

Dear OMP, please get this for me. I can make all sorts of karate chopping noises while chopping up veggies. I promise I would eat more veggies.

As God as my witness, one if not all of my dogs will be wearing this for Halloween.

So many good things to feel good about on this Friday. I am heading to the backyard, throw the ball for the mutton chops and snuggle next to OMP. If he's lucky, he might get a kiss or two, IF he's lucky. ;)

I could not, at any age,
be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on.
Life was meant to be lived.
Curiosity must be kept alive.
One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
-Eleanor Roosevelt

Sum Sum Summer!

I think it's been established that I love my backyard. It really is the pride of my whole house. It's a peaceful and calm escape from the hustle and bustle of the city. Although my backyard is wonderful, one side of it it was missing something. I have a detached garage that was just dying for some decoration. The paint is worn and OMP keeps telling me he is going to replace it, but so far I have thwarted his efforts. I love the way it looks and plan on keeping it that way for as long as I can.

I tried to figure out what to put over there and finally decided to mod podge some letters and spruce it up a little.

I found these letters at Michaels for 1.49 each. They are pressed wood and about 12 inches tall. I painted the edges and used scrap book paper for the front. I'm sure you could use fabric or any other paper if you wanted to.

I grabbed my outdoor mod podge and glued the letters to the paper. I could have cut the paper out first but it was easier for me to glue the letter to the entire piece of paper and then cut it out.

After my letter dried and I cut it out, I sanded the paper and the edges. This gave it a nice worn beach look. I outdoor mod podged the front of the letter. I let that dry and applied 3 coats of varnish (this was according to the directions of the bottle)

I hung up the letters outside and have had no problems with moisture getting between the letter and the paper. 

I am so happy with the way they turned out that I will be doing all seasons in the coming months. This craft was super easy, fairly cheap and you can make it as personal as you want. Plus, you get to brush up on your spelling skills!


Oh yeah...for all of you who wanted the rainbow skittle toes....

Rainbow Painted Toes

I'm not gonna hold back, the past couple of weeks someone has decided just to grind on my last nerve. They have pushed every button that I have and it finally got to the point to where I lost it. Yep. Happy Pam turned into Smashy Pam (not literally, but I felt like it). So, now that I have stepped back, I started thinking of things I can do instead of losing my temper. Here are a few I came up with.


Remove yourself from the situation. It is never ever selfish to take care of yourself first and make sure you are okay. Walking away from the anger and the hurt feelings sometime is the best thing you could ever do for a relationship-even with yourself.

Talk to your friends. I would especially find friends who agree with you.

 Look at cute animals. Do I really need to explain this? Cute animals cure all.

Write that person a letter but don't send it. Cuss the person out, tell them everything you have ever wanted to say, then get rid of it. Release that nastiness.

Practice your hula hooping, rope tricks, stitching, cocktail mixing-something that will take your mind off the crappy person and on fine tuning your circus skills (okay, this one might be just for me)

Remind yourself that the person/situation is just a speck of dust on your road map of life. You can brush it away and continue on your journey.  Keep thinking...just one speck of dust, one piece of sand, one pebble on the road.

Last, do something good for yourself, I highly suggest painting each of your toes a different color. It works wonders and makes you smile. How can you be angry with a rainbow?

I have done all these things and I feel a million times better. I'm not longer Smashy Pam but nice, calm happy Pam and this makes a happy OMP and happy pups. Don't ever let someone upset your or make you angry. Nine times out of ten, it's their deal. They are the dust, the sand, the pebble. You are the diamond, the pearl and the world. 

Tie One On Tuesday

Hey there hot sauce! Remember on Saturday when I made that yummy coconut whipped milk and I told you to save the water because we will be making drinks with it. Well, go grab that water cause the cocktail mixing is about to begin!

The easiest thing in the world to mix up and will be super yummy is coconut water and rum.

2 oz. rum
2-3 oz cold coconut water
Fill a glass with ice, add rum and water. Squeeze in some lime and there ya go! Instant cocktail!

Another great one is a coconut water Gin Old Fashion

2 ounces gin
1 sugar cube
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1/2 ounce coconut water
Lime peel, for garnish
Place sugar cube in the bottom of a low-ball, add bitters and coconut water then muddle until sugar dissolves.
Add gin, stir and fill with ice and garnish with a lime twist.

Both of the above cocktails are courtesy of Served Raw. There are a few other drinks on there worth checking out.

I couldn't find a lot of recipes using coconut water so I started thinking, what if I froze the water and used it in my juice and it was so yummy! I got some mango starfruit juice and added the ice. It gave it just enough tropical flavor without being overpowering. You could also use this for blending other frozen cocktails.

See how we used the whole can of coconut milk. Aren't you proud of yourself for not wasting anything? Maybe my next post should be how to use the can as a windsock.......hmmmmmm.....

Happy 4th of July!

Whew! I am recuperating from the rodeo last night, so bear with me if I'm a little slow on the draw today. I'll have to tell you about it later, but right now I'm here to talk about Independence Day, The 4th of July for us here in the United States. It's a day where our pride in our country swells, and our differences are put aside in order to come together and celebrate the lives and values we hold so dear to us.

Now I could go the normal route and talk about patriotic movies, but that's been done. So today I am going to feature the alien invasion movie. Outer space aliens try to  come to our country, nay, our planet and we kick butt! Sure they have technology and fancy ray guns, but we've got pride! We've got glory! We've got crazy notions that we could win an alien attack! You mess with one of us, you crazy alien, you mess with us all!

I have talked about this movie before but it really is one of my favorite campy movies. Plan 9 from Outer Space is a classic and I don't care what you say Ed Wood is not the worst director in the world. The worst director is that guy who directed all the Transformer movies and the other guy who directed the last Indiana Jones movie. Pee-Ewww! That is some stinky directing. Now, let's see, where was I? Oh yes, Plan 9 from Outer Space. Aliens resurrect the dead, make them zombies and try to take over the world.  Guess who stops them-that's right! A red-blooded American! Not only do we out-think those stupid aliens, but we also throw in a few punches for good measure. How dare those aliens call earthlings stupid. Would a stupid earthling scratch his head with his loaded gun? Would a stupid earthling say "there" 10 times in one sentence? Would a stupid earthling...okay, the alien was partially right, but this is a fun movie that I never get tired of.

This next little gem combines two of the worst things in the entire universe. Teenagers and alien invasions (insert scream here). Teenagers from Outerspace is a delightful little romp showing that our youth of today really can make a difference. They save their small town from the horrible teenage space aliens, who, by the way, want to feed us to their monster lobster pet! One of the alien invaders loves our country and our planet so much that he decides to help us and eventually wants to stay in the good ol' US of A.

Have you ever been to Chicago? Let me tell ya, don't mess with those people! They will cut you! Okay, not really but they are a strong group of people. If you don't believe me, just ask the aliens in Target Earth. What alien, in their right mind, would go to Chicago and rough it up? The only alien dumber than that is the one from that movie Signs. Your weakness is water and yet you come to a planet that is covered by 75% of the stuff? I'm glad we kicked your butt. Now, back to the Target Earth, a group of strangers have to come together to fight off an attacking alien force and defend the United States against any further invasion. There is a wonderful plot twist that makes this film rise a bit above the normal "B" alien movie and it definitely shows how the good old American spirit of helping your neighbor is one of our strong suits.

So, what have we learned on the Independence Day? Well, for one thing, we can make some pretty bad kitschy movies but more importantly than that, when faced with adversity, we rise above our petty differences and take care of the business at hand. In a time where we seem so divided, I take great pride in today, because we can come together as Americans and enjoy a bad movie! Happy 4th everyone, don't blow off an arm.

Scrappy Dog Sunday!

My friend Bascom reminded me of a wonderful passage about our pups:

People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life -- like loving everybody all the time and being nice. Dogs already know how to do that, so they don't have to stay as long.

My friend Bex recently loss her wonderful Sadie. She was a beautiful girl who took care of Bex in the bad times and relished in the happiness of the good times.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Sadie but I can tell from the stories I've heard and from the pictures I've seen that she was a lover of fine cuisine.

A great big sister.

And a wonderful best friend.

As much sadness as it brings to our hearts that she is gone, I like to think that she is up in the big dog park in the sky playing with my little man Kato and other scrappy pups that have passed on but stolen our hearts.

"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace."

- Milan Kundera