Trends on Tuesday

Finally, I am back in style after all these years.  The midi is back as a style this year, not just  'that's what I wear because I don't do knees.'  I heard that it didn't matter (years ago, I suppose), and any length goes, but the mini, the shorter above the knee length took over.  Then it was the striped maxi--a summer, beachy look to  me; then other full-length skirts came back masquerading as maxis.  I didn't think maxi would last, silly me, but it is outliving my expectation and its usefulness. 

Check out KSL TV's Studio 5 -- How to Rock a Midi Skirt. 

 There are ideas for wearing this length of skirt, rules, accessories and suggestions to create the best look. Pictures are showing all lengths from just below the knee to the longer mid-calf length.  We claim to not follow trends, pooh-pooh styles, but they work their way into our wardrobe, nevertheless.  May as  well get on top of it before the item you love the most is gone.  

To honor the Halloween Holiday I am posting my own quirky style.  If you know me, you know that I love to dress up on holidays, and Halloween is the most obvious.  I wear Orange and Black all the month of Occtober in celebration.  It is just part of my 'type One' personality.  Here are two midi skirts that have been in my closet for years.  Last year I shortened one of them to be closer to stylish, but kept the one long.  

The long midi.  My old 80's big shoulder jacket and my longer midi.  Don't love this look too much.  That is why I cut off the other black skirt.  I can't believe I ever wore this.  (My beautiful brides in the background.)

I like this length for my age, my body type and feel it is much more stylish.  There may be a place for the longer length, but I am not sure which moon of Jupiter that is.  Wack it off.  I like the pumpkin sox but didn't wear them last Sunday.  We were at Jacob's ward for his mission farewell and I didn't think they were ready for me.  My own ward knows me by now and accept me the way I am.

HAPPY FASHION

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The End of the Harvest

Last week I picked the Asian Pear tree ( with help).  It was waiting and ripe, but not crying about it so it was put off as long as possible.  There was a ton of fruit and each one was huge with very few worms.  Then I picked the garden, too.  I was amazed at the amount of food still growing out there.  This is a picture of my one day harvest:

I filled up all my large bowls.  There are five bowls of pear apples, two bowls of tomatoes (finally--ripening very late), one bowl of beans one bowl of winter squash (didn't do so well this year) with a few cucumbers, jalapeno and sweet peppers, and a small bowl of grape tomatoes with a few orange small peppers and yellow pear tomatoes from my hanging pot.  

This is great, but meant a lot of work waited for me the rest of the week.  Therefore, no posts.  Most of the pix for posts just had to wait for this week. 

There is one lone bowl of apples from my five strain of apple tree that only has one type of apple left--johnagold (sp?)  Something was wrong with these apples this year.  They are pitted.  I thought it was hit with hail, but why this tree and not the pear apple right next to it?  Why is it all over the apple and not just on the top side?  Something is wrong with the tree and I will have to call my brother to see if ye knows.  (He is an agricultural graduate and works at the Utah State University.  He knows about these things.)  This problem makes the apples inedible; the pock marks are each bruised slightly so most of the apples just fell on the ground as chicken food.  They don't care about worms or bruises.  I hope to get some apple butter from the ones I picked.

This was the start of a busy week.  More later, I hope.

HAPPY GARDENING


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It's Always on a Windsday.

It is WINDSDAY PINSDAY, the day I feature my favorite pins for the week.  

Number One is Bacon-Wrapped Stuffed Jalepenos.  I found this on Pinterest and it originates at  http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/09/25/bacon-wrapped-cheesy-stuffed-jalapenos/

Thank you,  Sally for such a great appetizer.  I took it to my church's fun Chef-a-la-Palooza food sharing contest and won 1st prize for the best appetizer.  

They were not too hot as most people expected.  Perhaps the jalepenos that I grow in my garden are a milder variety or they got plenty of water or the other ingredients soften the heat.  Whatever the reason they are so very good.  (And I have so many peppers from just two bushes I planted this spring, and I am going to make them again and again.  Yum.)

Here is my version with a few tips: 

Bacon Jalepeno Peppers

12 jalepeno peppers halved and seeded
1 - 8 oz. package cream cheese softened
1 C grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon smoked paparika
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
(opt.  1 clove of garlic minced or mashed)
12 slices of bacon cut in half

Seed peppers using a strawberry huller.  It is just the right size for the pepper and can be used to scape out both seeds and membrane.





I bought mine from Pampered Chef, but I cannot find them listed.  I did find it on Amazon by the name of Tomato corer.

Mix together cheeses, paprika and garlic powder or clove.  My husband doesn't like anything that he can taste or smell garlic.  (migraine inducer)

Place cheese into peppers with a rubber scraper or spreader.  The cheese mixture will just barely fill 24 pepper halves if it is scraped flat across the top.

Wrap in a half slice of bacon and secure with a toothpick.  End the bacon on top for easier insertion of the toothpick.  Wrapping crosswise from top to bottom covering the cheese will help the bacon cook crisper.  Bake on a rack placed over a cookie sheet.  For easy cleanup use parchment paper or foil under the rack. Bake at 400 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until bacon is crisp.  Broil if needed to crisp up the bacon, but watch closely.

 This was all that was left of a half-sheet of stuffed peppers that I left home.  Part of these were dusted with bread crumbs when I ran out of bacon.  

PS: Tillamook Cheese is the best.  My dad used to sell milk from his dairy farm to the Tillamook Creamery that was made into Tillamook Cheese. 

PPS:  Part two is a delicious kale salad.  Will have to wait.  This blog is long enough.

HAPPY POPPING


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Home Again

The long summer of travel across the nation back and forth pretty much wore me out.  I was gone most of August and September with harvest time in between trips.  All the visits with family were great beginning with a 25 hour each way road trip to Illinois to attend a baptism of my grandson.  The time we spent there was priceless, but the time on the road was too much.  I thought it would be fun for a change, but it is not so fun.  After continuous mountains of Utah and Western Wyoming came the near desolation of Eastern Wyoming.  Then the road went nearly straight across Nebraska and Iowa.  It was one continuous road as far as you could see.  At least it got greener the further the drive eastward.  Although the end is not entirely flat, it goes slightly up and down, but on and on in a straight line.  It was totally dark when we hit Illinois so I had no idea where we were or what it looked like outside, but there were continuous toll roads.  We ran out of change fast.

Bowling With the Grandkids.

Coming home was the reversal.  We opted out of the toll roads in Illinois.  Iowa and Nebraska ran straight across the country in descending greenness and Wyoming and Utah were depressingly smoggy due to the number of forest fires in the west--especially in the state of Washington.  Yes, the smoke does travel that far.

Three days home and I get an emergency call from my youngest in tears because she needed helped after surgery so it was off to Maryland for two weeks.  Guess the garden will have to wait.

Grandkids and neighbor kids at the Great Falls, Virginia

I came home the second time in the middle of a bountiful harvest: tons of beans to freeze, tomatoes and peppers to make into salsa, dead ripe green grapes, cucumbers by the bushel and a waning zucchini crop, pears and apples falling on the ground and a tree full of large Asian pears. It was continuous preservation for a week and then off to Pocatello for my granddaughter's birthday.  Whew.  

Home again to more harvest which continues each day because of the warm/hot weather.  Busy busy, busy.

Now my attention is turned to cleaning and organizing my home after my mission and summer extension of that mission.  More on this later.

End of a great mission--Salt Lake City South Mission Office.

Altogether it has been a busy summer.  The blog went into arrest and I now plan to get it up and running once again.  Hold on.  I can get this all together once again.

By the way, I spent many captive hours making jewelry while on the road--one benefit of a long, long drive.  Lots to show.

Teaser

Back to basics once again.

HAPPY DAY!


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Top Chef-a-la-Palooza

What a night!  The second annual Top Chef-a-la-Palooza event was tonight at the church.  Everyone was invited to enter the Cook-Off contest in the categories: Bread, Appetizer, Salad, Main Dish or Dessert.  There was also a best Costume or Witch Hat contest.  

I WON!  with the best appetizer:  Bacon Wrapped Jalepeno Poppers. (thanks to  Pinterest's Sally/Sally's Baking Addiction at http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/09/25/bacon-wrapped-cheesy-stuffed-jalapenos/.  They are a proven winner!  Dan said it was because the judges were all men.  Hey, women liked them, too, at least they were all gone.  And guess what?  I didn't get a picture of the finished product because I was running out the door as they were coming out of the oven to get to the church on time.  

I made two pans full and this was what was left of the second pan when I got home (minus a couple that I ate because I wanted another one--they are soooo good.)

This was a full half-sheet pan of poppers. You may notice that some are not bacon wrapped.  When I ran out of bacon I dusted them with bread crumbs to complete the pan full.  The little bacon wraps are sort of slipping off the popper, too. It happens when they are moved around while hot.  They should be like the center one.

I was not going to go.  There are always too many tempting carb filled dishes and I am not strong into my carb restrictions yet.
By late morning I changed my  mind because I wanted to share this delicious dish.  It was a big hit.

I needed more cream cheese and while at Wallmarts I bought a witch's hat so I could dress up.  I do love to dress up in costume.  I didn't expect to win anything in this area (and I didn't), but it was too fun to pass up.  These pix were taken the next morning.  I forgot.

Walmart--$4.98

Selfie in the mirror.

Selfie up close.

You cannot really see my jewelry in these pix, but, of course, I made them myself.  I will need to feature these separately.
It was a fun night.  I will talk more about the poppers tomorrow on Windsday Pinsday.  They are a favorite Pinterest post.






HAPPY A-LA-PALOOZA



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Monday in the Garden

A lot of summer time is devoted to gardening and general yard upkeep.  The Concord Grapes have been waiting to harvest.  The grapes this year have not excelled, but there were plenty to pick and preserve.  I do not make juice as a rule, or jelly (diabetes is a bummer), but Concords are too seedy to make raisins.  (There must have been a time in the past when raisins were made with seeded grapes because the package says "Seedless Raisins" [or used to say--I don't buy raisins anymore].  Raisins with seeds would have been before my time.)  BTW I did set side any grapes that had dried on the vine--raisin--to see what they would be like dried.  Way too hard to crunch the seeds by tooth.  Grape seeds are great antioxidants, but I doubt that chewing them would make them digestible.   

I canned the grapes this year just like you would put up other fruits. This means pulling every grape off the stem which takes several hours.  I took pictures of the three large bowls of grapes that I stemmed for two and a half hours, but they are not in my camera??? Take my word for it; it was an impressive site.  Then I loaded them into sterile quarts, added boiling water, sealed them and water bath canned them for 15 minutes.  No sugar needed because grapes are so sweet.  
I got 12 quarts and three pints (ran out of clean quart bottles) plus another quart (peanut butter jar that was not sealable) for immediate consumption.  To use them later I just drain off the juice which is quite concentrated and rinse off the grapes with half a bottle of water for great grape juice.  If you like it stronger don't add the water.  Then put the fruit through  a food mill and use the pulp to make some Chia Seed Jam.  It works.

Not too bad for a day's work.  2 hours picking grapes, 2-1/2 hours stemming them and another 1-1/2 hours canning them.  (And that is why I don't can too much any more.  It is a time consuming process.) [and tiring]

HAPPY CANNING


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Meet Together Often

Petunias in October

How glorious to watch the General Conference and to hear the word of  the Lord's prophet and his apostles. My heart goes out to President Monson as his vibrant strength is beginning to fail him somewhat.  May the Lord strengthen him to the end of his mission on this earth.

For this Sabbath Day I would like to quote King Benjamin from my daily scripture reading.  Mosiah 5: 1-9.
When the king finished his talk to the people of Nephi, he was desirous to know if they believed the words spoken.
"And they all cried with one voice, saying:  Yea, we believe all the words which thou has spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, . . . we do rejoice with such exceedingly great joy."

We have also been lifted up this day by the word of a Prophet of God and his Apostles.  As we were told by President Eyring:  [The Spirit] is what we have felt this day.

To continue the words of King Benjamin,  ". . . for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name;. . . ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons and his daughters; 

"I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, ...there is no other name given whereby salvation cometh;

". . . ye should be obedient unto the end of your lives."

". . . whosoever doeth this shall be found at the right hand of God, for he shall know the name by which he is called, for he shall be call by the name of Christ."

HAPPY SABBATH DAY,


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