Everyone needs a dinnertime hero....

and mine was sweet Gloria yesterday!   You remember sweet Gloria....

Well...I was super duper busy yesterday and before I realized it hubby was on his way home from work and I had no clue what was for dinner.  We had an extra long walk with the dog and then we came home and that's when sweet Gloria became my hero!  T minus 15 until LOST and this is dinner........

yes, my friends I had chips and salsa for dinner.  Sweet Gloria sent home her delightful homemade salsa with hubby from work...so I ate it.  It started out so well until.....LOST was a rerun!!!!  What the heck???  Good thing I had chips and salsa because otherwise I would have just gone to bed in pure disgust.  Thanks Gloria for saving my night sometime you will have to come over and we'll make your salsa together and put it up on the blog!!

a few updates...

I think my Earth day flowers are even prettier today than when hubby brought them home! 

A couple of roses from my rose bushes:

Since we had a long walk last night I thought I would show you some photos we took while we were out...oh, just pretend you are excited and yes, I realize I haven't cooked dinner since Sunday!  On the bright side...there are almost ZERO leftovers in my fridge!!

Love the dandelion!!

Don't you love the way the ground is all cracked against the green "weeds" and it was getting dark so the bluish tint to the pic just makes it stand out even more, I think.

A man and his dog.....

Pretty little purple weed flower.....

Yellow sunshine on the ground

pretty yellow and purple....ahhhh, makes me sneeze but I still love it!

Peace, Love and Yummies folks!!!   I promise to try and make dinner tonight!

Sunday afternoon pot roast

Well folks....it's Monday and the weekend is gone.  Boy, did it go by quickly!!!    Friday night there was a Snatch rematch ...mind outta the gutters folks this is a family friendly site!!!    Just for the record... I beat my hubby AGAIN!!  So far this is the only thing I can find that I can beat him at... he's VERY competitive when it comes to games.    Saturday was filled with shopping (hubby needed new work clothes) and then we met friends at the Southlake Arts Festival. Gorgeous Saturday night hanging out with friends and eating kettle corn for dinner.   It's ok, we had a REALLY BIG lunch and just wanted a snack for dinner.  Hung out in the Apple store where hubby offered to buy me the iPad I've been begging for and I thought he was just teasing me but I think...he just might have been serious.  Stupid stupid stupid me..... I really want that iPad, especially after I actually got to touch and play with it.    After the festival we all went over to a new yogurt place in Roanoke.  Have you noticed my slight fascination with frozen yogurt lately??  Anyway, this one I enjoyed much more than the one by our house.  It's called Yogurt Story in Roanoke, Texas. This is a link to their Facebook  page http://www.facebook.com/yogurtstoryroanoke  By the way the Red Velvet Cake flavor is most awesomest!  Try it...you'll love it!


Moving on.....yesterday morning hubby and I got up early and left 2 of the 3 dependents sleeping the morning away and headed outside to finish off the front flower beds.  You can see the finished product:

I'll have updates later this week as I've ripped out all the pansies and planted new blooming flowers for the summer.  Actually, I have the right hand side finished....much work to do today on the left.

Mere asked on Friday if we could have roast beef for lunch on Sunday before she went home. Since we all love roast beef.....dinner is planned!

Here we go folks!!  It's good and it's easy!!!

You are going to need some potatoes, carrots and celery and then you need to cube them up and put in the bottom of a crock pot like so:

add the celery

Now we need the star of the show.....the roast beef. This one is sirloin tip but you get whatever cut you prefer.

Just plop that baby right on top of the veggies. Now mine was thawed as we just purchased it but if yours is frozen..it's ok, just drop that frozen puppy right in there the same way. It's all good in the crock pot world.

Time to add some flavor...

1 pkg of the Lipton onion soup mix, 1 can of Golden Mushroom soup and 1/2 can of water.

Drop all that over the top of that pretty little piece of meat

Slap the lid on the crockpot, flip the switch to on and cook that baby on Low ALL DAY LONG.  At least 8 hours.   I put everything in my crockpot before bed Saturday night then Sunday morning I woke up and dropped it all into the base at 7:15 in the morning and got it started cooking while we were slaving away in the yard.   We had dinner around 4 and this is the blessed joy that emerges from the warm

crockpot bosom:

We had some green beans, some creamed corn and bread. The gravy for this roast is also most excellent so I put that in the gravy boat and dinner was served.   Next time you need a good hearty remind you of Sunday's at your grandmothers meal.......pull out the crock pot and have a roast, you'll be so glad you did!

Peace, Love and Yummies folks...I'm off to conquer Monday!

Samma's Special Sandwich and Friday Happy Dance

Because yesterday was Earth Day and because my hubby is sweet to me....

I love flowers, I love Earth Day and I love my hubby!!!

Yes, that is an empty tequila bottle the flowers are in...just sayin'

Onto dinner

I had some potatoes leftover from something...maybe potato salad a few weeks ago?? I really don't know but in any case they were hanging out in the panty looking like they needed a purpose.

Here they are hanging out on my VERY bright pink cutting board with my Sonic cup. Which contrary to the above mentioned tequila bottle is what comes to my mind when you say Happy Hour.  Seriously, if you say Happy Hour to me it says Cherry Vanilla Diet Coke at Sonic.  Sad...I know

Moving on, it's time to cut up those potatoes.




Now once you get them cut up put them in a bowl and drizzle some olive oil all over the top of them. Then spread them all out on a baking sheet like so:

Now we are going to grab the salt, pepper and thyme.   Sprinkle those oiled up babies with salt and pepper and a light dusting of thyme.  Trust me on this one, you'll be glad you did.  Pop those right into a 375-400 degree oven and brown them all up.  I started on 375 to bake them slow and then when they were tender I bumped it up to 400 so they could get nice and toasty brown.



Now, while you are chopping up those potatoes you might tend to "shoot" a few around the room and onto the floor....no problem just call the dog!

This is Kiss cleaning up the potatoes I dropped...isn't that sweet of her??!!

Time for the sandwich.  This is my own creation which will be called S3 (Samma's Special Sammie) if my husband ever lets me fulfill my desire to open a bakery/deli. Until then....it's just my secret. Well, yours now too!!  Enjoy!!

First thing, get your favorite bread or whatever you have.... today, we had fresh baked sourdough bread from Central Market.  I took 5 plastic wallyworld sacks there and they gave me a snazzy new reusable grocery bag.  Freedies are awesome!!

  LIGHTLY butter the outside of the bread slices.  I mean ever so gently and lightly. One of the few times I am going to tell you less is best when it comes to butter.

When you get that done you are going to take some spicy brown mustard and spread on the inside of the bottom piece of bread.  Hey, if you feel frisky put mustard on both halves.

Now it's time to add the turkey and tomatoes:

Looking good but let's heat things up a bit and add some jalepeno relish spread:

still not done...... we need some lettuce and some sliced pepper jack cheese

Now plop that other slice of bread on top and bump that oven up to Broil

As you can see I have my sammie's all ready for the oven on my Pampered Chef baking stone.  LOVE LOVE LOVE this stone and as you can see it's all dark brown and seasoned perfectly.  Now, it will probably break or some "dependent" at the house will wash it in the dishwasher and I'll have to find a Pampered Chef person and start all over again.  Cycle of Life baby!

Once you get those in the oven then we are going to watch it real close because we are on broil and when the top side is nice and toasty, pull them out and flip them over and let the other side bask in the broiling heat.

Pull them out and serve 'em up peeps!!   Then go watch Survivor and be VERY upset that J.T. was such a trusting soul and is gone now.  Seriously folks, get RID OF RUSSELL!!!

Sorry, I digress...here's dinner!

Peace, Love and Yummies folks.....Friday Happy Dance!

Happy Earth Day... so we are in the garden

Since today is Earth Day and we had "whatever" from the fridge last nite we are gonna head outside.  Lucky you, I'm gonna show you the progress the plants have made since March 30th.  Aren't you glad you stopped by today!!!   Don't answer that, I just prefer to believe everyone is so interested in my backyard.

First up the squash and bell pepper pots:

Amazing what happens in such a short amount of time!!




Now we have the cucumbers and peppers:

The cucumbers are looking a little yellow in the leaves but I've been throwing in banana peels and coffee grounds and some fertilizer, hopefully they are coming around!




The Basil:  In the first pic it's in the smaller golden yellow pot

Now for some before shots of the tomato plants, you can see one of them in the left picture above:

Now, let's see those tomato plants today!

and the best part....

look at all those tomatoes!!!!!

I finally found some zucchini too so we have a new edition

Also remember there was some discussion about the roses and how I thought we needed more but hubby thought three was enough.........well, I added two more :0)

This is three rose bushes plus the dahlia's

and this is five...much better!

My picture isn't too great but you get the idea, it's looking more "full" and I'm going to add some additional filler flowers. Thinking another couple of dahlia's (if I can still find them) and some smaller ground cover.  I'll keep you posted for sure!

In the meantime I leave you with this sunny photo......I'm thinking of enlarging and framing this to pull out next January.

Peace, Love and Yummies folks....do something good for Earth Day today!

Happy Hump Day.....Spaghetti aka pasketti (as said by Alex age 5)

It's hump day peeps and well so far this week is just zipping by. The weather hasn't been good either but today is looking more promising and like I might finally be able to plant my new roses.  This post comes with much anticipation and excitement. When we found Janie's recipes the one item Court asked for was the spaghetti sauce.  What??? Spaghetti sauce??  I looked and looked and delivered the sad news that I found nothing on the lines of spaghetti sauce but then a while later I happened upon an Eggplant Crepe with Marinara Sauce. Two items to note:
1)  First of all...what is an eggplant crepe???
2) Second, I can appreciate Janies recipes as the with in the title was not represented by a w/ but a c with a dash over the top.  Thanks Janie, everyone questions my "with" abbreviation.

Could it be...could I have found the elusive spaghetti sauce....maybe??  Let's see!

Cast of characters:

1 med onion : chopped or thinly sliced

3 cloves of garlic

3 Tbsp olive oil

2 Lg (15 oz cans) Tomato Sauce

1 Lg (15 oz can) Crushed tomatoes

3 Tbsp chopped parsley

1 1/2 tsp oregano

1 1/2 tsp basil

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 lb gr beef (browned and crumbled)

Note on crushed tomatoes: I have seen these in the store but for some reason I couldn't find any so I just used the petite diced and ran them through my handy little electric food chopper.  Worked like a charm.

I'm perfectly happy in my world to skip the meat but I'm alone in that theory in this house. Even my non meat lovin' dependents must have meat in their sauce. So I added it.  Just go ahead and get that meat going in a pan and get it all browned up and waiting on you.

Drain the grease off if you need to but if you buy your ground beef at Sprouts Farmers Market like I do, then you won't need to do that.  I swear it's the most lean beef I've ever purchased and it's usually on sale for 1.97 a pound and I food saver that stuff like crazy!!  Handy for those last minute thoughts on dinner when you don't want to go out and face Texas Motor Speedway traffic. 

Now, it's time to get that olive oil heated up in the pot and get that garlic and onions added to it so they can be cooking up all nice and toasty.

Once those onions are nice and tender it's time to add the tomato sauce and the remainder of ingredients.

You are going to get all that stirred up together and heated throughout then dump in that browned up meat you have, bring it back to a boil and let it simmer for at least 15 minutes.




I personally left mine on very low simmer for about 2 hours.  Sauce is funny that way, it likes to hang out and "become one" with the meat....like so:

See, doesn't it look happy happy  :0)

Now you must face the wrath of the mess you made...or maybe that's just me!

Onto more important things.....like this great little wine sweet Gloria brought over Saturday night.

Thanks Gloria..... I love it and it makes me giggle. Even before I drink a few glasses!!!

Ok, so it's time for dinner and I'm starving and LOST is going to be on in a little less than an hour so DINNER TIME!!!

small side note: if you know my hubby....ask him what the "bread" on this plate really is.

Delish and by the way........it appears that yes, we have found Janie's spaghetti sauce.  TA DAAAAA

Peace, Love and Yummies folks!