A Jeanne in the Kitchen

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, Happy Easter Sunday Lauren, Wendy and I all made parts of our delicious Easter feast, and what a feast we had too. Lauren and Wendy both brought the sides and desserts. I prepared the meats, except for the ham which Lauren brought, along with some, deviled eggs, asparagus and herbed popover rolls. Because all three of us – Wendy, who is one of the Sunday School teachers, Lauren, who is part of the worship team, and me, who runs the coffee cart, had double duty at church, we combined our efforts and made a joint meal that was shared and enjoyed by all. It worked perfectly for all of us, and none of us was too stressed.

We had vegetarians and carnivores alike, and we had plenty of food for everyone, with plenty more left over. Everything was delicious!

I made garlic, rosemary and thyme lamb

and prime rib.

I also made some deviled eggs, or as Wendy called them, angel eggs. 🙂

We let the meats marinate overnight, and then Larry smoked them along with a brisket and some beef ribs, filling up the smoker. He did a great job. They came out so good and so tender. They were cooked to perfection.

After the festive feast, we all played games and laughed the night away. It was a great way to celebrate and we all had a very fun evening. 🙂

I have said this many times – good food, good fun and especially great friends make many, many good times. And that is what life is all about. 🙂

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

Today has been and continues to be a very busy day. Our church had two services this morning and I just got home a little over an hour ago. But my day is nowhere being done yet. We are hosting Easter dinner. Lauren and Wendy and I are all cooking and contributing to the dinner, which makes it good. No one person is doing all the cooking. Lauren and Wendy both had double services today too. Bu we will all get together and enjoy the meal and the friendships and we will all have a lovely evening.

I just wanted to send a quick little message saying Happy Easter to everyone. I hope it is filled will being around those that you love, good food and good friendships like mine will be.

Happy Easter Everyone

One of the presents I got for our friends Mike and Lauren for Christmas was a little cat puzzle. It turned into a project we did together, which was a lot of fun. At first we thought OMG! This is going to be a nightmare, but it really wasn’t. It actually didn’t take us too long to finish the puzzle, even though all the pieces were confusing at first. We finished in two sessions of about 1 1/2-2 hours each. After finishing it, we all decided we needed a good way to showcase our masterpiece, or in this case, our catserpiece. 🙂 So I put on my creative thinking cap to figure out the best way to display our beautiful catserpiece.

Lauren had brought over a piece of wood to mount the puzzle, but then I added more special touches to it. We are all very pleased with how it turned out. In fact, so much so, that I am already planning on doing this again.

This is a wooden puzzle and many of the pieces were cut into cat shapes. This is the back side of the completed puzzle before I added the glue.

After assembly.

We were so pleased with ourselves and our accomplishment that we had to capture the moment. 🙂 Yes, those are still Christmas decorations in the background. We forgot to put them away when we took down all our Christmas decorations, and it has kind of become a running joke at this point.

After the puzzle was completed, I placed pins all around to hold it in place. Then I spread wood glue over the entire puzzle. When the wood glue dried, I added a coat of MOD glue as well. When the glue was dried on the front, I added another coating of wood glue on to the back so I could mount it on the wood. But before mounting it, I added a colorful edging around the wood, again tacking it down with more wood glue.

All that was needed to finish off our fun little project was to add a hanging wire on the back. It is all done now. Lauren said she had the perfect place on her wall for our fun little project and memory maker. We already know there will be more of these in our future. It was just another good way to spend time with our good friends. 🙂

Be as creative as you like and make the world more fun. Have a great day Everyone. Stay safe, stay well and most importantly, have fun! 🙂 ‘Til next time.

It is once again Easter. I hope everyone has a great Easter spent with loved ones.

The fun meaning of Easter.

The true meaning of Easter.

If you celebrate Passover instead of Easter, may you and your family have a good Passover celebration.

And if Ramadan is what you celebrate, I hope that is a good one spend with loved ones as well.

This is definitely a Holy season for most people around the world. Whatever way you celebrate the season, I hope it is spent with loved ones and is a good day or season for all. May you all have a blessed Holy season and Holidays.

I can see clearly now that the fog is gone. This morning I had my second cataract removed. I am very please already. Believe it or not, I can actually see the computer and am writing this without my glasses. WHOOOO HOOOO!!!!! Everything is so bright and clear now! I had no idea my eyes were as bad as they were. But NOT ANYMORE!!!!!

All About Cataracts

In healthy eyes, light is able to pass through the lens back to the retina, allowing us to see detail. A cataract creates a cloud on that normally transparent lens, blurring vision and eventually leading to blindness.

Most cataracts are related to aging, and are very common in older people. Essentially, the lens of the eye accumulates proteins and sugars throughout one’s life and, ultimately, this accumulation leads to the clouding of the lens and vision trouble.

Someone with cataracts might not have any symptoms at first, when cataracts are mild. But as cataracts grow, they can cause changes in vision. For example, a person with cataracts may notice that:

• Vision is cloudy or blurry
• Colors look faded
• Poor vision at night
• Lamps, sunlight, or headlights seem too bright
• A halo around lights
• Seeing double (this sometimes goes away as the cataract gets bigger)
• The need to change the prescription for your glasses often

I suffered from all of these symptoms.

Approximately 65.2 million people suffer from cataracts world wide, and that can cause moderate to severe vision loss in over 80% of the cases. As populations age and average life expectancy continues to increase worldwide, the number of people with cataracts will continue to grow.

Cataracts are relatively simple to treat and remove surgically, but access to eye care and the appropriate resources is extremely limited in underserved communities. Unfortunately, 99% of people with cataracts live in these underserved areas.

You may be at risk for cataracts if you:

• Have certain health problems, like diabetes
• Smoke
• Drink too much alcohol
• Have a family history of cataracts
• Have had an eye injury, eye surgery, or radiation treatment on your upper body
• Have spent a lot of time in the sun – This is the only factor that may have caused mine. I LOVE being out in the sun, and have always been a “sun worshipper”.
• Take steroids (medicines used to treat a variety of health problems, like arthritis and rashes)

There is no way to completely prevent cataracts, however, there are a few steps you can take to lower your risk of cataracts, such as:

• Wear sunglasses and a hat with a brim to block the sun
• Avoid or quit smoking
• Eat healthy, and include dark, leafy greens like spinach, kale, and collard greens in your diet
• Get a dilated eye exam once every two years

I have two post-op follow-ups, one tomorrow and one next week, but I am expecting nothing but positive results from the doctors. At one of my last post-ops, I learned about pressures in both eyes, and they were afraid of them being the starting phases of glaucoma. But they put me on steroid drops, and after my last post-op exam, those pressures had dropped significantly because of the drops. So yes, it is still something we need to be aware of from this point on, but at the moment, I should be in the all clear. It’s so nice to be able to see again! Just thought you would all appreciate my latest update. 🙂

Have a great week this Holy week, whether you celebrate Easter, Passover or Ramadan. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

You know it is spring when the flowers start to bloom. There are not many blooming flowers yet, but they are starting to make an appearance. I say let them all bloom and brighten our world. I love flowers. Here are some early bloomers that are very bright and colorful. For whatever reason, our purples and yellows tend to be the first of the flowers every spring.

We even have some pinks poking up too.

It’s going to be a colorful season. Let the colors come out. 🙂

For Christmas, Larry got me yet another cookbook, The Best of Secret Restaurant Recipes. At first, I really didn’t care for it much at all, since I really don’t eat at most of the restaurants it features. But I have to say the cookbook is beginning to grow on me a bit. Of course, just like with any other recipe, I always make it my own by making additions and deletions as I see fit.

Another one of the recipes I chose from the book was based on the lemon butter chicken recipe from Carrabbas. I actually do like that restaurant quite a bit, and have enjoyed this dish many times.

My additions were subtle. Instead of using sun-dried tomatoes, I used regular grape tomatoes. I added some spinach, lemon olive oil and capers. I did not have goat cheese, so just used shredded mozzarella instead and I served it all over angel hair pasta. I like my additions, and as usual, I tend to like my own creations more than most restaurant versions anyway. 🙂

Italian Lemon Butter Chicken

1 1/2 -2 lbs chicken breasts

salt & pepper to taste

olive oil

lemon olive oil, optional

6 TBSP butter, divided

1/2 cup onion, diced

1 TBSP garlic

2 cups fresh spinach, chopped

1 cup grape tomatoes, quartered

1 cup dry white wine

1/4 cup lemon juice

1-2 tsp capers

mozzarella or goat cheese for topping

fresh basil, chiffonade

Pat the chicken dry with a paper towel, then place in plastic wrap. Pound the chicken a bit to make all the pieces roughly about the same size.

Add coarse salt and fresh ground black pepper to both sides of the chicken. Get a skillet very hot, then add the olive oil and lemon olive oil. Carefully add the chicken pieces and cook for about 6 minutes per side or until evenly browned. Remove the chicken and set aside.

Cut the butter into pieces. Add 1 TBSP of butter to the oil and add the onions. Cook for about 2 minutes or until the onions are translucent. Then add the garlic and cook for an additional minute.

Add the wine, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for about 10 minutes or the liquid has reduced by about half.

Add the rest of the butter, 1 TBSP at a time, stirring or whisking after each addition. Add the spinach, capers and tomatoes and continue to cook for about 3-5 minutes or just until the spinach has started to wilt. Re-add the chicken at this point too and cook just long enough to heat the chicken. Coat it with the sauce. Do not overcook it.

When everything is ready, serve it over cooked angel hair pasta. Add the pasta to the plate, add some of the sauce and vegetables on top of the pasta and then add the chicken. Top with the cheese and add more of the sauce and vegetables on top again. Add some fresh chopped basil and mangia. !Buon Appetito! This is a very light dish, so a light, dry white wine is the perfect paring, preferably the same wine used for the sauce.

Once again, this is eating your favorite restaurant foods at a fraction of the cost, enjoying them in your own home. Same great foods, but not nearly as expensive. Right now, I think we all need to find ways that will help us stretch our $$$ as much as possible. This is one easy, delicious way to help do just that. 🙂

Have a great day Everyone and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

No doubt about it, I am a saucy kind of girl, in more ways than one too. 🙂 I love sauces on my foods; all kinds of sauces. I like how they add to the flavors and depth of the dish, but mostly, I like how they keep meats juicy and tender.

Pork was in the dinner rotation and I needed a sauce to go with it. I had a couple of things in mind, but decided upon making a new BBQ sauce to add to the pork, both as a marinade and a sauce to add before serving it. BBQ is one of Larry’s favorites. I am more picky about my BBQ sauces. I don’t like them too sweet, and prefer them with just a hint of sweetness, and more smoky and spicy. This new sauce was the perfect combination. It was yet another creation from my Ghirardelli Cookbook. It’s called Polk Gulch Sauce. I served it with pork, but it would also go very well with ribs or chicken too.

Polk Street is a famous street in San Francisco. It’s been around since the late 1800’s. Originally, Polk Street was known as Polkstrasse because it was in the German part of town, with mostly German immigrants who resided there. Polk Gulch got it’s name because Polk Street runs over an old stream at the bottom of a gently sloped valley. It has always been a very unique area, with a very colorful and wild past. Most recently, the area was known for being one of San Francisco’s original gay mecca areas. Today, living in Polk Gulch offers residents a dense urban feel and most residents rent their homes. In Polk Gulch there are a lot of bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and parks.

With such a bold and colorful history, it is only fitting that the foods would be just as bold and colorful too. The Polk Gulch BBQ sauce lives up to its name and the reputation of it’s namesake.

Polk Gulch BBQ Sauce

I think the combination of the lemon juice and the chocolate are what make the flavors just pop and come alive.

1 cup catsup

1 cup cut onion

2 tsp garlic

1 TBSP Ghirardelli ground chocolate

1 TBSP liquid smoke

1 TBSP lemon juice

1 TBSP honey

1 tsp ginger

1/2 -1 tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste

Combine everything together in a food processor and blend until it is all smooth and liquidy.

Once the sauce is liquid, place it all in a saucepan, and bring to a boil, then cover, reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the sauce thickens.

When the sauce was ready, I marinated the pork chops in it for about 30 minutes before placing them in the oven to cook. I roasted them in the oven at 400* F or 204*C and cooked for about 30 minutes, or until the pork juices were running clear and the internal temperature reached 165* F or 74*C.

When it was cooked, I topped it with more sauce and served it next to a baked potato and green beans with mushrooms, garlic and peppers. Because my sauce was a thick, bold, hearty sauce, I chose a bold, fruity red wine to accompany the dinner.

The sauce was sweet, but not too sweet. It had tang, it had smoke and it had just the right amount of heat. In a word – PERFECT! It’s OK to be saucy. Everything, and everyone, needs to be sauced up every now and then. 🙂

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

Is it winter or Spring? I am pretty sure the calendar says it’s spring, but Mother Nature has something else to say. It has been snowing all morning and the temperature is only 26*F or -3* C. Needless to say, I will not be out walking today. I am going to stay inside where it is nice and warm. Yesterday, I was in shorts. Granted, it was a little chillier than I was expecting, but it wasn’t too bad for shorts. Not today though. 🙂

Spring is trying to make a showing, but ….

Hopefully I will have some pretty irises before too long.

Welcome to Colorado weather, where it changes every 5 minutes or so, especially at this time of year. 🙂

I am from earthquake country. I grew up in Southern California and we had a lot of earthquakes. Then I moved up to the Bay Area for awhile, where there were even more earthquakes. Literally there are small earthquakes all over California everyday. You only hear about the big ones though. The whole state is one big giant fault line. We are used to everything rockin’ and rollin’ and shakin’ all about.

Earthquakes cakes are very popular too, and not just in California either. There are many different varieties. Earthquake cakes get their name from how they are made. A whole bunch of goodness is thrown together in the mix and as the cake is baking, all the components mix together and explode throughout the cake. Hence the name “earthquake cake.”  The surface actually does look like the aftermath of a quake.

My particular version of earthquake cake is from Ghirardelli Chocolate. When I lived in San Francisco, I worked in a Public Relations firm. Most of our clients were food clients, and Ghirardelli Chocolate was one of our biggest clients. There were all kinds of fun perks that went along with that job. One of them was a fun Ghirardelli cookbook that I have treasured for many years.

Dominic Ghirardelli was one of the few master chocolatiers in America, and even today, Ghirardelli Chocolate is one of the few great American chocolates that is ranked as a world class chocolate. Ghirardelli came to America in 1848, via Rapallo, Italy then Lima, Peru, and from Lima, Peru, he ventured to California. Like many others, Ghirardelli was lured to California by gold. He made his fortune in the gold of a different kind though. His gold was in the form of chocolate. By the 1880’s Ghirardelli Chocolate was one of the largest chocolate produces in the west, producing over 50,000 pounds of chocolate per year. Ghirardelli Chocolate is still producing mother loads of chocolate gold today as well, and is known all over the world.

Earthquake Coffee Cake

I added bananas to my cake since I hate throwing away food, and I had some bananas that were beginning to brown up, which makes them just perfect for baking. Besides, I love the combination of chocolate and bananas.

Preheat the oven to 400*F or 205* C.

Spray cooking spray and dust your cake pan with flour. I used a bundt pan this time, but a 9×13 pan is great too. The recipe actually called for a 9″ cake pan. Whatever pan you use, you want to make sure it is a deep pan though, because your cake will definitely “explode”.

1/3 cup ground chocolate

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp instant coffee

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 mashed bananas, optional

1 egg

1/2 cup yogurt or sour cream

1/2 cup cream

Mix all the dry ingredients together and set aside.

Combine the egg, sugar, cream and yogurt or sour cream together until creamy.

Alternate the flour mixture and bananas, adding 1/2 at a time and mixing in between each addition.

The Topping

1/3 cup flour

2 TBSP ground chocolate

3 TBSP packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 TBSP butter

2-3 TBSP slivered almonds

powdered sugar for dusting, optional

Mix everything together with a pastry cutter until it resembles coarse sand, or in this case, gravel. Add the topping to the cake and run a knife through the cake in a deep swirl to resemble an earthquake.

Bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

After the cake has completely cooled, slice it up and get ready to RUMBLE!!!!! I dusted my cake with powdered sugar before slicing it up too. Once again, this was a big success. At the end of the day, all the remained was the “rubble” , which for other sweet treats would just be known as crumbs. 🙂

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.