Waffle Iron - #48

So it's time to go through the list and see where I stand .. not looking so good ... however, I completed #48.  Well, I had a little help from my OD and his wife.  I got this beauty for Christmas. 

 I tested it out on Boxing Day ..

and they turned out super yummy!

Cocktail Wednesday - Bubbles

This week we decided to have some bubbles with guava juice -- kind of a mimosa, but not.

Simple, yet tasty.  I actually had mine with pomegranate liqueur.  It was good, but a little tart.

Turkey Trot

Thanksgiving morning, we participated in the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot; we being my husband, my daughter, her husband, and me.  The colors this year were the worst so far ...

Here's a picture of us pre-race ..

This is evidence that I am really bad at selfies ..  maybe I need a selfie stick.

 

Our ribbons ...

I finished in 57 minutes; an 18:21 minute mile.  I need to work on my time.

and a post race picture...

 

Cocktail Wednesday - Eggnog

Every year my husband makes a most excellent eggnog (recipe from here).  He made it for our pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday night cocktail. 

  

My OS and DIL and YD and SIL (my oldest son, his wife, younger daughter, and her husband) were all there.  It was delicious and lots of fun ...

 

I never liked eggnog before, but that was the store-bought kind.  This is so very much better.  I highly recommend you try it -- even without the rum.

Christmas Decorations

One of my goals this year was to make or buy new Christmas decorations.  This picture is my first attempt .. quite a fail.  I'll try again to see if I can get it right ...

Deer Quilt

 In July, I finished the quilt top for a boy quilt for a girl ...  I finally finished it this weekend.

 It'll be a gift for the friend of my son's. 

Finally .. another finish

 Finally another finish.  The picture doesn't do the colors justice. 

I machine sewed the binding - my second time.  I'm not super happy with it, but it turned out okay.  I hope she's happy with it.

The quilt is a gift for a young friend (well her baby).  We have a baby shower tomorrow night.

and another picture of the diaper cake ...

Soup #12 - Enchilada Soup

Recipe from here. No pictures, but I swear I made it.

This is a picture from the website where we got the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 cup diced white onion (about 1 small white onion)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup masa harina (corn flour)
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups cooked, shredded chicken
• 1 1/4 cups (or 1 10-ounce can) red enchilada sauce, homemade or store-bought*
• 1 (14-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes, with juices (I prefer fire-roasted)
• 1 (4-ounce) can chopped green chiles
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, freshly grated
• 1 teaspoon salt, or more/less to taste
• optional toppings: tortilla chips/strips, diced/sliced avocado, grated cheese, sour cream, chopped fresh cilantro, and/or pico de gallo

and then we had Cocktail Wednesday  (not the same week but whatever) ...

Silver fizz, from here.  We went with this because we had all the ingredients on hand :).

Ingredients:

Gin (2 parts)

Lemon juice (1 part)

Egg white (1 part)

Simple syrup (1/2 part)

Soda water  (as needed)

So you take the gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, and egg white in the shaker (with ice) and shake.  Pour over more ice and top off with the club soda.  A very light, refreshing drink. and not too sweet.

We had had this drink before, but it was good anyway!

Whatever you do, don't BLINK ..

I received a wonderful surprise from a friend yesterday ...

Soup #11 Pumpkin Soup - again

So, yesterday we went with the grandkids to the "pumpkin patch" and bought pumpkins for carving.  I did the carving -- probably should have figured out how to get the kids to do it (I'll try harder next time).

They didn't take the pumpkins with them so I cut one of them up for soup.  Recipe from here. Obviously, I used pumpkin instead of butternut squash.

Since that's my favorite butternut squash recipe, I knew it would be really tasty -- it was.

I also cooked up some of the seeds.  Those were great!

Cocktail Wednesday - Peppermint White Russian

This past Wednesday's drink was a Peppermint White Russian.   Recipe from here.

Ingredients:

• Vodka
• Peppermint Schnaps
• Kahlua
• Cream

 

So I put ice in the glasses, then added one part vodka, one part schnaps, one part Kahlua, and topped it off with cream.  It was tasty.  A little too minty for my taste.  Would probably be better with less schnaps, more Kahlua, and heavy cream.  Thursday I had a Kahlua and cream.

Cocktail Wednesday - Pear Mule

I need to play some catch up with my blog posts.  We had the pear mule a couple of weeks ago.  Recipe from here. 

Ingredients:
Absolut Pear Vodka - 3 oz
Ginger Beer - 1 oz
Lime Juice (splash)
Pear Garnish

It was really yummy!  And 80% of my kids were there.  Here's a pic, after the fact.

Soup #10 - Slow Cooker Nacho Soup

I made it to #10 this weekend with Slow Cooker Nacho Soup.  I had almost all of the ingredients at the house so it was great.

Here's where I got the recipe.  Gotta love Pinterest.  Mine didn't look nearly as good as the original, but that might be because I don't have the right kind of bowls ..

It was nice to be able to put it in the pot and forget about it for a few hours.  I would definitely make again.

Favorite Things Friday

Today's favorite is two-fold.  The first is my grandsons' drawings (or just kids' drawings); the other is a plan I have.

First, the drawings. I don't know why I had these in my bag, but I did, so I decided to scan them and realized just how cute they are. 

When Mikey was learning to write, he couldn't get "grandma" down so he would write "Gimop".  So cute, right?

 

I think these were all done during his Spiderman phase ...

And this one is by Andrew, at the same time -- I'm guessing Mikey was 4 and Andrew, 2.

Note to self, always, always, always date their drawings.

Second, the plan.  There is an app/thing called Storycorps, which is about talking to people and telling their stories. You can read about it here.  Anyway, I was thinking it might be cool to talk with my grandchildren, yearly and ask them questions about life.  So I'm going to do that with Mikey and Andrew this year, maybe Cooper.  And hope to do it regularly.  I'll let you know how it goes and maybe bring the videos here, if they turn out.

New Hike - Pulgas Ridge Preserve

So, Nevada and I took another new walk (yay!).  We went to the Pulgas Ridge Preserve (link to their website here. Another dog friendly place.  No bad smells this time. Although we got a late start (I overslept), it wasn't overly crowded.  Not that many dogs either.

Nice view too!

 

We even brought a dog.  She got a little tired and had to be carried some of the way. :)

After the walk we went for breakfast .. though by the time we found a place it was after noon.  We had brunch at Bistro Vida in Menlo Park. Had another eggs benedict - they were pretty good.  Much better than last week's (the Prolific Oven).

No walk this week.

Soup #9 - Tomato

As you know, I have tomato plants in my garden and we've been harvesting the tomatoes.  However, we haven't been eating them very quickly. So, last week I saw this video on facebook ...



and decided I knew what I was going to do with some of those tomatoes.  So, I took all the tomatoes sitting in the kitchen ...

 

and peeled them

 

 blended them and cooked them in a pot ...

rolled out the mushy white bread (we cut the ends off and made croutons!) ...

rolled the cheese up in the bread and fried it ...

used some fresh basil from the garden as garnish ... 

and here it is!!

 

recipe from here. 

It was great.  I learned a few things and might use a different recipe next time, but it was great.  Loved the little grilled cheeseys and again, one I will definitely do again.  I think the little boys will like the grilled cheeseys.