Parmesan Squash Chips

Happy Happy TuTu Tuesday Peeps!!!

I bet you were expecting a Tuesday Times and not a real life recipe?!   I like to keep you guessing!!!

I made these lovely little yummies awhile back when our garden was lovely and lush and producing fresh veggies at a pace faster than I could consume.  Said garden is now shriveling in Day 42 of no rain and let's just say unless it is Okra, you ain't gettin' nuthin' from that garden!

Let's stop the reminiscing of gardens past and get on with this yummy yummy in your tummy dish!

Of course mine was done gluten free but feel free to gluten yo' self right up!!

Here's a quick list of what you'll need:

2-4 Small to medium yellow squash

1-3 Tablespoons olive oil

salt & pepper to taste

1 cup panko bread crumbs (or GF crumbs of choice)

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. garlic powder

Cooking spray

Dipping sauce of choice:  marinara, plain yogurt, ranch (whatever floats your boat!)

First things first: Preheat that oven to 450 degrees

Since I needed to make my own GF bread crumbs I used some nasty tasting hot dog buns I purchased. (I did block the brand name out of the photo- but seriously these things were horrifically bad!!)     I just tossed them in my handy dandy food processor and made some nice fine crumbs of them.

Take those crumbs out of the processor and measure out 1 cup of them.

(If you end up with more crumbs than you need, you can freeze them for later use)

Next thing you need to do is line a baking pan with wax or parchment paper and spray with an olive oil spray.

Now you need to prep those squash.  I pulled out my cheapo plastic mandolin slicer and sliced those babies up.  You need to keep them roughly the same thickness so they will bake evenly. 

After you have the squash all sliced toss them in a bowl with the olive oil, salt and pepper. Use enough olive oil to lightly coat the squash but it shouldn't be drowning in the oil.

In a separate bowl mix the bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, oregano and garlic powder.

Just stick your hands in there and mix that up really good.

There's no substitute for some good hand mixing!

Now grab those squash and coat them in the bread crumb mixture.  Make sure you get both sides really good.

Lay those out on the baking sheet in a single layer.  No squash bunk beds here, they need to cook evenly.    

Now grab that olive oil spray and give those squash a nice light coat of spray and then pop them in the oven. We are going to cook them for about 8-10 minutes then we are going to flip the squash and spritz with the olive oil spray and pop them back in the oven for another 8-10 minutes. 

While those are cooking up you can take the extra crumb mixture (if you have any leftover) and put it in a glass jar and pop it in the freezer.  You never know when you will find yourself with some lone little squash just begging for a Parmesan bread coating!

(Yes, labeling is important)

Pull those babies out of the oven and remove them from the baking sheet with a spatula.

They are HOT so careful getting too excited and popping them into your mouth right away.  No really, don't do it, the roof of my mouth is still raw.  Let my pain be your example!

Now I grabbed me some nice fresh marinara sauce that I had so lovingly whipped up with our previously bountiful tomatoes and made myself a nice plate. 

I don't think we need to go into whether or not these are good do we?

Seriously these were so good and I'm so much hoping that my squash plants will produce again when the weather cools a bit especially since they are still alive in the garden.  I'll keep you posted!

So what do you think?  Are you guys getting rain where you are?  PLEASE send some to us if you're tired of it. Actually we're supposed to get a little rain tomorrow night/Thursday morning so I think California could use your excess rain.  

Alright folks, I'm yawning and I still have about ¼ glass of wine left to drink so peace be with you my peeps!!!

Samma out---

Peace, Love & Squash

p.s.  I still don't like the new PHOTOS app and am going to demand they bring back iPhoto

Shall We Dine?

Hi Dee Ho my Peeps!!!   I've been super dee duper busy around here painting away and I figured it was about time for me to show you my handiwork!!

It could be the only time in my life you hear me say I'm somewhat jealous of Marge Simpson!

Let's look at the before shots:

This is the little nook off our front entry by the closet.

This is a preliminary after where I painted it LoneStar blue chalk paint. 

This view if from the great room area looking towards the front door.  Can you believe they had those glass inserts covered with curtains when we moved in???  

This is another preliminary after with the inside of the doors being painted the same LoneStar blue.

Before I show you the "afters" I must offer a full photo disclaimer:

I just upgraded my Mac OS and I DO NOT appreciate what Apple did with iPhoto!!!  Seriously, iPhoto was the bomb and now it's just gone???  What the heck Apple??  With that being said, my photos are unedited because well quite frankly it's a darn miracle I even got them in this blog post.  

Moving on from my software bitterness, I present the Afters:

This is that same door with the nice LoneStar blue on the inside and now the walls are Sherwin Williams Mindful Grey.  

The Mindful Grey color is going to extend into the den and stairwell areas so the two areas will flow together a bit better.  

This is just another view without the bright Texas sun blaring through.

(I still have decorating to do but the painting is pretty much complete)

This is that same little bench area by the front closet. 

Amazing what a little paint and some hooks to hang your coat on will do, huh?

I still am looking for a rug to fit in this space but it's already much more functional and pretty.

Now for a few new additions to the Living Room.  Which I already showed you right here

Once again, please forgive the bad lighting in the unedited photos.

You can see where the archway looks towards the little entry area.

I added the nice little iron side table from Home Goods beside the chair because that is such a great chair to curl up in and read there and there was no place to sit your beverage.

I mean seriously....what if someone is upset??  Offering them a hot beverage isn't much help if there is no where to sit it down. 

Last thing for the Living Room- I went back and painted the two tiers of the ceiling.

Yeah, like I said, suuuuuuper jealous of Marge Simpson!!!

Let's move on to the Dining Room  and sadly there are no before photos at all. 

All I can tell you is White....it was all White everything just faded into each other. 

This area is currently housing a small table but make no mistake I WILL find a nice vintage bar cart that doesn't require me to take out a small loan.  Until then this works just fine.  

Looking from the entry/Living Room area into the Dining Room

Another view

This is looking towards the hutch.  As you can see I moved my big ole' fork and spoon in here from the kitchen.  This room just felt way to formal and out of place in the house so I tried to tone down the formality of it all. 

In the spirit of toning things down you'll notice that my lovely cowhide rug affectionately known as Ferdinand is now a tablecloth.  We were in a store and we saw a cowhide used as a tablecloth and Hubster just thought this was a grand idea.  Yeah.....because everyone wants a $300 tablecloth!!!

Actually Ferdinand looks pretty good on the table but I sure do miss him under my feet in the den.

If you look really close you can see that I also recovered the chair seats.  I used a blue ticking fabric and it's great!   So much less formal than the other fabric and I also added a little extra "puffiness".  They are old chairs and not exactly the most comfortable but hopefully now we can get through a holiday dinner without our booties falling asleep!!! 

Because I like to use things that have some sentimental value to me while I'm redecorating I'll show you some very boring photos.  I actually have these because I decided I wanted to turn the rug and I had to take everything off the hutch so we could lift the edges and I took pics so I could put it back together quickly.  That's LAZY right there!!!

From the left is an old oil lamp that honestly I've had since like forever. I mean really like forever and I like it and occasionally when the lights go out I use it!  That lace doilie underneath, my grandma tatted.  (that's a sewing term not a inked up body reference)

The little Fleur-de-Lis sign is from the Hobby Lobby and then there's the monk cookie jar.  Seriously if the day comes that this jar breaks you will find me in a corner sobbing loudly.   This was my Grandma Adams' and if you like I'll tell you all about why this means so much to me.   That's one of my very first Longaberger baskets, it's currently holding a small faux fern and Ghirardelli chocolate caramels.    

These glasses belonged to Hubsters mom and the little tray was a gift from the girls grandmother Mim.   The Jack Daniels is almost gone??!!!   This house is just falling apart isn't it?!

I actually made the little faux plant one day.  It just moves around the house as I see fit.

The little glass bottles belonged to my other grandmother, MeMama. She had lots of them and I ended up with four and I wish I had more of them.   The fat bird...well he was just a funny purchase one day.  I was probably with LL and it was probably from Hobby Lobby.   I like him because he's "fluffy" like me.  Guess he should get his thyroid checked too.

An old blue Mason jar filled with coffee beans and a tealight holder tucked inside.

The wire basket is an old egg basket.  I'll put eggs in it one day when I get chickens but until then the faux chicken gets to hang out next to it.

My Longaberger pottery pitcher is holding on to some faux hydrangeas.  The little blue fish bottle and purple bottle are the other two that I have from my MeMama and the brass bell was also hers.

The little wood tray was just a bonus from an Etsy purchase I made one day.  You know those kind of purchases where you get the whole lot of items even when there is only one thing that you really want?

Here is the last shot of the hutch and I think I have finally sufficiently toned down the vibe of this room.   It is a formal dining area but I needed it to feel less formal and more inviting as you enter the front door. 

What do you think and no worries, we have reached the end of the Koi Pond paint in the house.  The formal Living room, formal Dining Room and the garage entry have Koi Pond on the walls.  I'm tired of being green for awhile so now I'll switch to Mindful Grey and finish out the great room area with it. 

Just to give you an idea what is coming, the kitchen will be the top swatch of SilverMist. Mindful Grey is in the middle and the Denim will be on a focal wall that looks out into our back yard.   So I'll be adding lots of Mindful grey to my painting clothes in the near future.  Unless I decide to tackle the kitchen first.  One never knows.....I do have a significant amount of alone time on my hands!

What do you think? I mean besides the fact I really really need to learn how to edit photos in the new app on my Mac.   

Is anyone else melting or is it just Texas?  I leave you with this:

Peace, Love & Paintbrushes!!!