mexican chopped salad

Because I changed this recipe so much from the one I found online, I am putting up my own version here, as a complete recipe. Delicious and easy to make. Give it a try!

Mexican Chopped Salad

Mexican Chopped Salad

8 cups shredded romaine lettuce and/or spinach
2 tomatoes, chopped (I didn’t peel mine, but peel away if you like)
1 cup cucumber, chopped (did peel and seed these…again, your choice)
2 T finely crumbled Feta cheese

1 cup broken tortilla chips

Dressing

1/4 cup olive oil
Juice of one lime (or 2 T. bottled lime or lemon juice)
1 T salsa
2 T parsley, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste

1. Place the lettuce/spinach, tomato, cucumber, and Feta in a salad bowl.

2. In a lidded container, place olive oil, lime juice, salsa and parsley. Close and shake vigorously until well mixed. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. Toss salad with the dressing. At the last minute, toss in tortilla chips.

Serves four.

The ingredients can be adjusted to any amount that floats your boat. And the original recipe uses 1/2 c. red (or substitute white) onion, but DH doesn’t eat onions, so I leave those out. They’d be great in there.

~~Rhonda

fudge…the good stuff…

I have to say, my husband makes GREAT fudge.

he makes the BEST fudge

Yes, that’s a fudge smudge on his lip. And, yes, I did hug him. Several times. 🙂

Here’s his recipe for homemade, from scratch fudge.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup cocoa
3 cups sugar
3/4 cup milk

6 T butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract

In a sauce pan (DH uses a 3 quart straight sided one) combine the cocoa and sugar. DH says complete and thorough mixing at this point is key to good fudge. He uses a kitchamajig to combine the ingredients.

sugar and cocoa mixing the ingredients

After mixing, add the milk in small amounts and mix together after each addition. If you add the milk all at once you will have lumps of cocoa.

mixing the ingredients making fudge

Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until the mixture starts to boil. After boiling starts, do not mix anymore. Heat to soft ball stage (234 degrees F, 112.2 C).

homemade fudge homemade fudge

When the fudge comes to the soft ball stage, remove from heat, and add the butter, then the vanilla.

add the butter vanilla's next

Butter a pan for the fudge. We use a 8 1/2″ by 7″ pyrex bakeware pan.

butter THE FUDGE PAN

Let the mixture cool to about 170 degrees F then begin stirring vigorously for about 2 minutes. The sheen of the mixture will become somewhat dull when ready. If it starts to harden put it in the pan earlier.

stir and stir and stir

ooooo, yummy!

wanna bite?

Oh, so good!

~~Rhonda

menu plan monday ~ august 31, 2009

Monday
chicken salad sandwich
chips

Tuesday
sauteed sea scallops stuffed with basil
cheese tortellini
peas
spinach salad with strawberries

Wednesday
tacos

Thursday
crock pot BBQ chicken / homemade buns
corn on the cob
Mexican Chopped Salad

Friday
Chicken Caesar pitas

Saturday
fridge food

Sunday
spaghetti
garlic bread
peas
corn
green salad

You will find more menu ideas and recipes at Menu Plan Monday. Lots of links with lots of ideas!

~~Rhonda

pumpkin cake and a birthday party

We traveled to my sister’s house to celebrate our mother’s birthday. I made a white cake with chocolate ganache frosting and a pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting. Several people asked for the pumpkin cake recipe, so I’m posting it here.

pumpkin cake

Pumpkin Cake
Mix together:

2 c. all purpose flour
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt

Add and mix well:

4 eggs
1 c. vegetable oil
2 c. canned pumpkin (15 oz. can)

pumpkin cake batter

Pour into greased 9×13 pan. Bake 325* F for 55-60 minutes. Cool completely and frost with cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Mix ingredients together until smooth:

1/2 c. butter, softened
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 (1 lb.) box powdered sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract

You may add 1/2 cup of raisins and/or nuts to the batter, if you like. I made it plain, no additions.

pumpkin cake

The daughter of my niece gives Booker some tickles. She said, “I touch him all the time!” He’s her grandma’s doggy.

tickles for Booker

Booker is shy, but he let DD give him some attention, too.

shy Booker

My parents and their seven children. I’m in the back, in the left corner (white shirt).

my parents and their children

Happy birthday, Mom! ~~Rhonda

open house invitation

I’ve been working on our Christmas open house invitations. I like to finish them in August when it’s usually too hot to be in the garden and before we begin decorating for Christmas in October. Once the decorating starts, I don’t have time to sit in the scrapbook room doing detail work. And when November arrives, I will be SO SO happy these are done.

When I get all the ribbons and little holly leaves on the stack to the left, the invitations will be finished.

open house invites

I used Print Shop to design the invitation. I imported the vintage postcard print, then added the invitation and the light green background. It’s printed on a cream colored “parchment” card stock. Each sheet of card stock printed four invitations. When I trimmed them, I left a cream colored border around the green to add a light border.

I used gold Stickles to outline the border of the postcard print, then used red Stickles to outline the green background and to color the ribbons and the holly berries. Green Stickles highlight the holly leaves. Once they dried, they were matted with red card stock and I used a Krylon 18kt gold leafing pen to put the last border on the invitation.

Stickles

The holly leaves were punched from green card stock printed with “Please Come!” and outlined with the gold leafing pen.

punches leaves

open house invite

These will go in the Christmas cards and will be mailed the day before Thanksgiving. Once I get the invitations done, all I have to do for the Christmas cards is put together the Christmas letter. I’ll probably finalize that in October. But the cards/invites will be ready and waiting!

~~Rhonda

menu plan monday ~ august 24, 2009

Yesterday, company came over to visit for a few days. A dear friend I haven’t seen in probably 25 years. It is so good to see her again, to reminisce about college days, compare time lines of our lives since then, etc. We’re having a wonderful time. She’ll be here until tomorrow morning. So I’m late posting today. I’m too busy talking. 😀 But she’s on her laptop and I’m on mine right now. A little quiet time before we head out for an early supper with DD, then we’re off to riding lessons for the evening.

DH and I did a lot of yard work Saturday afternoon / evening, which was satisfying. Autumn is creeping into the picture, so I am eager to get outdoors to take some shots of the changes the garden is going through right now. I took a few on Saturday and will leave you with those for right now. And the week’s menu. 🙂 We’ll get back to more garden pictures in a few days.

shadows on the lawn

Russian sage

bokahville

Monday
eat out
dessert / brownies and homemade chocolate ice cream

Tuesday
hamburgers / homemade buns
chips / veggies / dip
grapes

Wednesday
loaded baked potatoes
green salad

Thursday
Pork Tenderloin in the slow cooker
Maple Pan-Roasted Baby Carrots
mashed potatoes
broccoli
tomato cucumber salad

Friday
salmon
steamed red potatoes
sugar snap peas
corn

Saturday
fridge food

Sunday
grilled shrimp and scallops
grilled corn on the cob
grilled veggie packets (these were a hit last week)
spinach salad

Head over to Menu Plan Monday for more menu ideas and recipe links. Enjoy!

~~Rhonda

grilled veggies

The weather has turned cooler, so we decided to grill last night. Grilling had been on the menu for Wednesday, but it didn’t work out for that evening, so I had everything we needed on hand. DH was running late with work, so I decided to stick the pork steaks under the broiler to give them a head start. Then I moved on to preparing the veggie packets. I found this recipe for grilled potatoes and it reminded me of the foil packets we made as I was growing up. My mother would put a hamburger patty and potatoes (and any other veggies we wanted) into a foil packet and we would cook them over a camp fire or at home in the oven.

Ingredients for the veggie packets can be any vegetables you enjoy. Potatoes make a good base. I sliced them about 1/4″ thick. I peeled the ones for DD, but washed and sliced unpeeled potatoes for the other packets. We used:

potatoes
zucchini
yellow squash
onion (for me)
tomatoes
fresh rosemary
olive oil
butter
salt and pepper

If I’d had carrots, I would have added them, too. And garlic would be good in these. Whatever floats your boat.

making foil veggie packets

Put two layers of heavy duty aluminum foil on the table, one on top of the other. Prepare the veggies and lay them on the foil. Tomatoes add a great flavor to this dish, if you like tomatoes. We have plenty from the garden right now so I used them in my packet and DH’s. DH’s packet also had zucchini and yellow squash. Mine had the addition of yellow onion.

After the veggies are done, sprinkle with chopped rosemary (delicious!), a pat of butter, a drizzle of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.

grilled veggies

Spread the veggies a bit, then wrap in the foil, one layer at a time. I turned the dull side out on DH’s and the shiny side on mine so I would know which one was which. Throw on the grill for 25 – 30 minutes, or bake in the oven at 375* for 35 minutes.

veggie packets

This is my packet. Doesn’t it look delicious?? And it was!

grilled veggies

A friend brought over fresh sweet corn in the afternoon, so we grilled some of it, too. The ends were already trimmed, so I decided to roll them in foil to grill them. I pulled the husks back enough to remove the silks, replaced them, then wrapped the ears in foil. No need to fold the seam of the foil to seal it. Just roll them up, then fold the ends over. If you want to, you can add butter, olive oil, seasonings, salt, pepper, etc. to the corn before you close them, but I made them plain. Some recipes ask you to soak the corn before grilling, but I didn’t because we were grilling them in foil, not just in the husks.

grilled corn

grilled corn

Grilled beautifully.

grilled corn

The pork steaks cooked wonderfully under the broiler, then we finished them off with Sticky Fingers BBQ sauce on the grill. A delicious meal. DH and I didn’t have room for any dessert, but DD built her own little fire in the driveway and made a S’More.

makin' S'Mores

~~Rhonda

riding lessons

DD *loves* riding lessons.

riding lessons

She thinks it’s the greatest thing she got to do this summer.

riding lessons

We’re keeping them up as long as it will work out.

riding lessons

She has a great teacher. He’s patient and meticulous about teaching and reviewing the things she needs to know.

riding lessons

We thought about doing this last year, but it didn’t work out. I’m so glad it did this year.

riding lessons

She may not look like she’s smiling, but that’s one happy girl! ~~Rhonda 🙂

mexican chopped salad

Last night for supper, we had tacos, tortilla chips with sour cream / salsa, and a Mexican chopped salad. The salad was delicious and we’ll be making it again. It’s especially nice right now when tomatoes and cucumbers are so plentiful from the garden.

Mexican Chopped Salad

You can follow the above link to see the original recipe. I used that as a pattern, but changed a few things.

Instead of Iceberg and Romaine lettuces, I used spinach. My lettuce was a bit wilty, so out it went. The spinach was fresh, so I used that.

Left out the onions. DH is allergic. I know…makes cooking painful sometimes. I *can* add dry onion in small amounts to some recipes, but that’s about it. I didn’t add any to the salad.

I didn’t measure the tomatoes or cucumbers. Just put some in. I cut up four tomatoes a smidge smaller than tennis balls and used a medium sized cuke. Peeled it, discarded the seeds, and diced it.

And I didn’t add the chips. We were having chips on our plates anyway. But they would have been great in the salad, too.

I also added about 2 teaspoons of finely crumbled Feta cheese. A delicious addition!

I don’t like cilantro, so I added some parsley to the dressing. The dressing was great. I halved it and it was plenty for our salad. The dressing was very good. You could use lemon juice instead of lime, if that’s what you have, but the lime is nice.

So you see, I changed a lot, but basically, it’s almost the same. 🙂

~~Rhonda

honey peanut butter cookies

I found this recipe while looking for cookie recipes to try out for our annual Christmas open house. I like something fancier for the party, but DD said we should make them for the open house. If I could incorporate chocolate somehow…. We will certainly make these again. They are delicious. Great honey / peanut butter flavor and perfectly chewy. So good!

Honey Peanut Butter Cookies

I found the recipe here and she found it here (where they are rolled in powdered sugar instead of granulated) and that person found it here (where the picture doesn’t look like the same cookie at all).

Honey Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup butter
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup honey
2 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Granulated sugar for coating cookies before baking. (If you are using this recipe for Peanut Butter Cup Cookies, you won’t need this sugar.)

In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt, and set aside. In a standing mixer, beat the shortening, peanut butter and honey. Then add the eggs and mix well. Add the dry ingredients to the peanut butter mixture and mix well.

Form dough into 1″ balls and roll in sugar. I used a small ice cream scoop to make all the balls the same size, then rolled them in my hands to make them smooth and uniform.

Honey Peanut Butter Cookies

Honey Peanut Butter Cookies

Place on ungreased baking sheets and bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes [8 minutes for mine].

Honey Peanut Butter Cookies

Remove from oven and let cool slightly on cookie sheets. I didn’t let them cool on the cookie sheet for more than 30 seconds or so. I didn’t want them to cook any more than they had. Remove to cooling rack to cool completely. Store tightly covered.

These are right out of the oven. As they cool, they collapse a little.

Honey Peanut Butter Cookies

I tried baking them in the round and also flattened with a glass. I liked the rounds better. Bottom row in the picture below. They were a bit chewier and thicker, too. The top row are the flattened ones.

Honey Peanut Butter Cookies

The recipe made seven dozen cookies. I plan to put a dozen in the freezer to see how well they freeze.

Honey Peanut Butter Cookies

~~Rhonda

PS…the next day and they are just as great today as they were yesterday. They hold their shape perfectly.