Baked Potatoes.....in a bag

Hey Peeps!!!  Not gonna lie, I've been cooking lazy this week.  Sometimes you just have those weeks and you just gotta roll with it.   But coming in to save the day yesterday was Sweet Gloria.  C'mon you remember Sweet Gloria

Gloria ..... I loved this wine and it's just so funny that it came from you 'cuz you are too kind and you make a kick booty salsa! (which my sweet son has almost perfected since he assisted you)

Anyway, Sweet Gloria sent this home with hubby

It looks like a cute little fold over fabric bag but in disguise, it's a potato cooker.  Let's give it a whirl

Here are the directions

Gloria thoughtfully includes these in the pouch. Thank goodness because I was gonna pierce those taters don't ya know!

Let's wash those potatoes and dry them with a paper towel (a towel for each because you need to wrap the paper towel around the potato)

See, just wash them and then wrap 'em up in the paper towel you used to dry them off.  Then pop them in that little pouch and into the microwave they go.

I started mine at 8 minutes because there were two potatoes and they were both good sized but I think I ended up cooking an additional three or four minutes to get them nice and soft

While those were cooking up I popped some asparagus in the oven.  Just trim off the ends and toss with some olive oil, salt and pepper.  Roast in the oven on 400 degrees for about 6-8 minutes

Now those taters are done and let's get them out and see how they are

tender, soft and fluffy....looks good

here's dinner! 

The potatoes were really good and Gloria tells us that this little dandy pouch is excellent for tortillas too.

I have to try that because my tortillas always end up getting cold and I left hubby's potato in the pouch while he was walking the dog and it was still HOT when he arrived so I think it's a tatertort pouch from now on.

Hey...it needs a fun name.

If by chance you are interested in obtaining a tatertort pouch of your own, just leave a comment and I'll put you in touch with Sweet Gloria so you can get one of your own.  

Last item of business..... I can wait no longer!!!! The Halloween decorations are going up today!!!  Seriously, I'm about to bust a gut waiting for October to get here so I decided it's close enough dag nabbit I'm putting 'em up today!!    I started in the kitchen this morning

I'm weird...did you figure that out yet??

Peace, Love and Yummies!!!!



Found while browsing the drugstore

Oh come on.... You know you are jealous!! I feel like I'm in high school again. ;o)
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Oh my has Fall really arrived???

Or is it just teasing us for a few days before we go back to raging inferno like temps??? Whichever the case, I am going to enjoy it while it's here!

Not a lot going on this past weekend. We were completely kidless so we went to the gym Fri. Night, Sat and Sunday. Ran a few errands on Saturday but mostly hung out at home. Chuck and Suepoo stopped by Saturday night with baby Emi but other than that a quiet weekend.

As I vowed to do..... I got a new toaster!!!!

Isn't he a beaut!!! My new toaster friend is taking good care of bagels and buns and toast. Do not get in between a woman and her carbs or you might suffer the same fate as the old rusty toaster!!

Since we were home alone this weekend while at the cost of co we got ourselves each a new toy!! Look and check out the dork factor here peeps!!!

Yep, I got a new label maker and hubby got a new weather station. Good grief how dorkified can you get. Heehee. I am free to roam the world labeling and organizing...on two lines of text!! Whoop whoop Technically, it's for the condo ;0). When Chuck was over he and hubs installed the new weather station, it's actually pretty cool. There is a wireless remote that is tucked up in the corner of our porch and inside the back door the unit is hanging on the wall. We can see the time,date, inside and outside temp and humidity. We see the barometric pressure, highs and lows and all that weather jazz. Yeah, we are exciting people!!

On other dorkified purchases, I got this lil' cutie patootie. It's an acrylic tumbler with a lid and a straw and it doesn't sweat and leave water marks all over the place.  Love it 'cuz now I have tea wherever I go without spilling it! Yep yep I just love me some hardware stores!!!   And don't forget, I'm being environmentally conscious too.

So I'm off to get cleaned up and do a little computering. There will be no dinner posts tomorrow as we are meeting a wonderful friend of mine from Kentucky tonight for dinner. He's in town for a meeting and I'm so excited we can have some dinner and catch up. He's a great guy and I hope he remembered to bring lots of pics of his cutie Lil girl and sweet wife.

See you soon and if you are having the gorgeous fall weather we are..then get out and enjoy it!!!


Peace, Love and Yummies!

Friday Happy Dancing with sammies and sketti

Hey Peeps!!!   Long time no blog!  It's been a busy busy week.  Yesterday I discovered how hectic a day can turn when you are trying to manage vacation rental property from 700 miles away.  Geesh!!!   Anyway, I'm ready to get down to the condo and check things out for myself.  

Let's catch up shall we.
Tuesday night is one of our two nights off from the gym so we had some Grilled Chicken Sammies and Roasted potatoes

This is the stuff I used on the chicken

Just squeeze your lemons and pour over the chicken breasts, then sprinkle on the Tony Cachere's and then some honey

Then cover them with some plastic wrap and pop them in the fridge (if you can find room!!)

They can just hang out all day and give 'em a flip if you can

When it's time throw them on the grill....don't you just love my grilling technique???

Hey..dont' judge, it worked really well!!

While the chicken is grilling you can whip up some fixin's

I also roasted some potatoes....you know the SAME way we always do.  Salt, pepper, olive oil and thyme

Why mess with perfection???

Now make that sandwich and have some dinner!!!

Moving onto Wednesday....we work out at the gym on Wed. nights so I needed to get dinner made as much in advance as possible 'cuz I be starvin like marvin by the time we get home.

First thing let's get some rolls ready.

Get out that iron skillet and spray it with some cooking spray. 

now it's time to cover those up and put them away from the dog in a nice safe place.  What's that you say...your dog doesn't get on the counters and eat food.. Weeelllll la tee da lucky you!!!  hee hee

Just leave them alone for the rest of the day and later you will be handsomely rewarded

Let's make spaghetti sauce and I know you just saw this but the last time we didn't get to eat any, the kids took it away!!

Chop up those onions and get them cooking in the pan

Now get the garlic ready

Add the garlic to the pan with onions

Add the meat

Get it all good and brown

Now it's time to add in these guys

Let's get the tomatoey stuff added in

Now let's add the spices

Stir it all up and let it come to a boil

Then I turned mine down really really really low and let it simmer away for about 2 or 3 hours

After it's cooked awhile just turn it off and let it cool.  We arent' eating until later so I put it away and stuffed it in the fridge.  See above picture to understand how full my fridge is right now so stuffed would be the appropriate term to use.

Home from the club so let's get this started because I can bake the rolls and boil the spaghetti while I shower and get the chlorine outta my hairdo  :0)

Before popping those rolls in the oven I loaded them up with some melted butter, garlic salt, parm cheese and a little sprinklin' of I-tayl-yon seasoning  (c'mon say it just like Brad Pitt)

Now it's off to shower and return to this

Let's eat peeps I'm hawngry  big time hawngry

Now yesterday was Thursday so it was game night in the ole' Spring of town for us.  I made my Italian beef so it simmered in the crockypot all day.  I was making sammies to meet the hubster, trying to reconnect internet service to a condo 700 miles away and my toaster decided to do this to my bun!!!

Bad bad bad toaster...for that you are outta my life.  Be gone with yo bad self!!!

Seriously, I'm buying a new toaster today as soon as this gets posted and I get changed outta my boxers and tee (really NO one wants to see me like this).  This toaster has foiled me for the last time and he is about to be replaced with a shiny, new, wide slot, bagel capable, frozen waffle cooker version so much better than he...  I'm really sorry mr. toaster, you shouldn't have eaten my bread.  Us carb lovers don't take kindly to that sort of thing.   I'll show a pic of my new toaster and the fabulous toasty life we're gonna build together.

Anyway, hubby grabbed the camera from the back seat and snapped a photo of my sammie

If you notice it doesn't look the same, I used a jar of that hot spicy veggie mix instead of pepperocini peppers. It had cauliflower, jalapenos, carrots, celery, and some kind of red pepper in it.  Good stuff good stuff!    I also added a little spicy brown mustard, shredded lettuce and some tomatoes to the sammie.  It was good.  Oh, that cute little pattern belongs to my Vera Bradley mailbag purse.  Lurve lurve lurve me some VB.  She's da bomb on purty little patterns. Oh and there is a new baroque pattern that is simply TO DIE 4!

Peace, Love and Yummies and Friday Happy Dance ♪♪♪♪

Monday musings and a condo at the beach!!!!

Well we had an awesome weekend that didn't involve complicated cooking on my part.

Friday night we headed over to the health club and when we came home we had chili cheese fries for dinner.  Stop judging me, I was so hungry.  If it makes you feel better, they weren't very good.  We should have double baked the fries. 

Moving on to Saturday, we went to Edelweiss German restaurant with Chuck and Suepoo and Chuck's parents.  Soooo good, but I come home stuffed to the max every time we go.  The black forest cake just tips me over the edge.  :0)

Sunday we made tacos for lunch and big salads for dinner.   See, no degree of difficulty in the food prep area this weekend.  Hopefully we'll get back on track this week.

Also continued my little projects around the house. Finished this one up late last night.  I found these frames on sale at Kirkland's .  I have been wanting to do this for awhile so I finally bought the frames.  Looking from our game room to the hallway, this is to the right

this one is to the left

and this is what it looks like from one side looking towards the other side of the upstairs.

the area on the same side of the wall overlooks the den downstairs.  It's just a fun collection of old family photos.  It makes me smile when I look at and as Martha would say....that's a good thing.

OK.......Now for the official big news.   We bought a condo in Ft. Walton beach!!!!   Really, try to pretend you are excited.    I'm excited and as long as I think about excitement and not expense I'm all good!!!

Here are a few photos.

this is the view from the balcony. yes, it's gulf front condo

sorry , it was also a stormy day in early May when I took this photo

if you turn to your far right on the patio you can actually see the bay area.  This is where the Billy Bowlegs pirate boat parade occurs and the fireworks on the fourth of July.  We can sit on our balcony, see it all and never have to fight the traffic.  :0)

This is the bunkie bed area

this is the master bedroom

 and this is the guest room

and this is the dining area

and this is the sofa area of the living room

it's not furnished exactly the way we envisioned but that willl come along soon enough.  Can't do everything at once.  We are going down in a few weeks when it's vacant and I hope to have more photos.  But if you are interested in taking a cheap cheap trip sometime this year give me a yell.  We are making deals!!!

One last thing, this is the schedule for the week

Peace, Love and Yummies!!!

At Edelweiss

German restaurant in ft worth. Yuummooo
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My name is Michelle and I'm an addict of.....

Boots and scarves!!!  hey, we all have our demons to battle!!
Yesterday I started picking through my closet because the donation truck comes by the house next week, well that and I found this Awesome Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt at the VS that I really really want.  I just don't want to pay $58 for it! HELLLOOOOOO it's a sweatshirt for pete's sake.  Anyway, I figured if I got rid of a bunch of stuff hubby would say "sure go ahead and get it".  Well he did but I didn't, it's still 58 DOLLARS!!! maybe I'll get a coupon.
Anywho back to my addictions....in the process of purging I discovered two things about myself.
1) I absolutely LOVE boots!!!  I dunno why, I just do and here's proof

See those cute little brown ones on the far right, just got those last week for a bargain at Belk's and if it wasn't darn near 100 degrees around here I'd already be wearing them.

Oh and those spiffy rain boots, why my dear Hubby got those for me last weekend.  I have seriously looked at thousands of pairs of rain boots and finally had my heart set on these.  They are Sperry's and I lurve them  :0)

Don't even get me started on my purple rain prince boots!!

And no, I do not have enough. There are a pair of Frye's that I'm just aching for and also a pair of Luchese cowboy boots on my wish list.  Problem is those are both pricy boots but hey, a girl can dream.  I had my eye on those cowboy boots for two years before I finally got them. I'm a patient woman.







2) I feel the same way about SCARVES!  Seriously, I see a scarf and then find something to go with it.
    Yes, here is my midnight confession with this little addiction

see, scarves scarves scarves of all shapes, sizes and colors.
sad thing...you can't even see all of them because they are hanging from both sides. 
I know, I know there are people starving and I'm buying scarves!
moving on....don't you just love that handy little scarf hanger I picked up at Ikea?  It's just the bomb for hanging your scarves not to mention cheap.  I love Ikea too but my hubby tries to keep me away from there as much as possible.  He calls it "Home Depot" for women.  ☺   He's probably right!










So, what are you addicted to? C'mon fess up...don't leave me hanging all alone. Give me a shout in the comments and tell me what your addiction is.  By the way, these probably aren't the only two of mine it's just the two I am willing to coming to grips with. Don't fret....I'm not ready for rehab yet. Baby steps people!
also on the note of addictions...I think I've managed to nosh down about half a box of fruit loops writing today's post.  I'm a cereal junkie too!


One more thing that big surprise I hinted at, well here's a clue.

Peace, Love and Yummies!!