A Jeanne in the Kitchen

WOW! Today, I hit the jackpot! There was so much to see. I don’t even know where to start or what to share. But since the snapping turtle was one of the first things I saw, I will start by sharing my pictures of him today. He was a large snapping turtle, but by no means, the largest one we have in our ponds or lakes. I would say he was a medium-large turtle. But he was right up at the surface, which allowed me to get some very good shots of him.

He was starting to get a little uncomfortable being in the spotlight, so he is starting to turn away, to go down to the bottom once again.

At least Mr. Turtle stuck around long enough for me to get some very good, very clear shots of him before leaving. Thank you Mr. turtle.

As I have mentioned many times, I find my inspiration for recipes from many different sources. This time, I was inspired by one of our very own again. Gail from http://snapshotsincursive.com/ had posted a recipe for Red Chile Garlic Chicken that just really made my mouth water. I had to try it. Of course, I changed it a bit, but not by much, and I was using my leftover Costco rotisserie chicken rather than cooking the chicken. I also added vegetables to the dish. I did not add the dried red chilies, but instead used red pepper flakes.

Chili Garlic Chicken and Vegetables

1 lb chicken – I used cooked chicken breasts that I added later

The Sauce

1-2 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste

salt & black pepper to taste

1 TBSP garlic

1 TBSP ginger

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup rice vinegar

2 TBSP red wine

1 TBSP soy sauce

1 tsp paprika

2 TBSP honey ginger balsamic vinegar, optional

1 TBSP cornstarch

Combine everything together and set aside until later.

The Vegetables

2 carrots, peeled and sliced Asian style

1 cup broccoli florets

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1/2 red bell pepper, sliced thin

1/3 cup green onions, sliced Asian style

cashews for topping

toasted sesame seeds for topping

olive oil for cooking

Saute all the vegetables together in a hot skillet or wok with the olive oil for about 5-7 minutes, or until mostly tender, but still have a slight crispness to them.

If you are cooking your chicken, cook it in a separate very hot skillet, with more olive oil, and salt & pepper until it browns. My chicken was already cooked, so I skipped this part.

Heat up the sauce and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for about 7-8 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the chicken and cook until it is heated thoroughly.

I served it over cooked white rice and added my vegetables on top of the chicken. Then I added the cashews, green onions and toasted sesame seeds on top. I added some potstickers on the side too. Since this is a bold, heavy sauce, with red wine in the sauce, I served it with bold cabernet sauvignon. DELICIOUS!

Thank you Gail for this delicious inspiration. I hope you don’t mind that I personalized it a bit. As you see, there is nothing wrong with tweaking and personalizing recipes to suit your own tastes. In fact, I encourage it. The personal touches are part of what make cooking so much fun. Gail and I both started with the same basic recipe, but we each added our own style and personality, making them completely different. 🙂

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

I have been busy with a lot of things that have been going on with the church these last couple of weeks, so not a lot of time in the kitchen, other than cooking simple things or using up leftovers. But I have still been going out and discovering “who” has been visiting around our lakes. This time, a Common Grackle and his mate caught my eye and the lens of my camera. I just love his colors.

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. Always take time to find something special in each and every day, even if only little things. After all, it is the little things that really mean the most.

I had not one but two services to provide the weekly coffee cart for this morning. Pastor Mathew had requested cinnamon rolls, but because I needed so many, I have to confess, I did not make them. Costco came through for me though, as they always do. We had lots and lots of cinnamon rolls. Usually I provide a variety of goodies, but today, it was mostly cinnamon rolls. These were my extras, just in case I ran out. I had plenty, though so no need to worry.

Lauren is sampling before she had to go up on stage to sing.

Our worship team giving an awesome presentation, as they always do.

I hope you all had a Happy Easter, or a good Passover or Ramadan, or whichever holiday you celebrated.

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

Yesterday, our church had a big community Easter egg hunt. Lacy, who works in our children’s ministry, put on a great event. A bunch of us all volunteered to help scatter Easter eggs and as well as help out with a bunch of other fun things she had planned for the day. She even had a cute dance and puppet show for the kids before the Easter egg hunt. We had about 4000 filled eggs for the kids of all ages to find. The eggs were filled with candy, small toys, money and a few lucky eggs had special tickets inside, but more on those in a bit. There were lots of smiles from all the kids who were there. I think everyone had a lot of fun.

I took a whole bunch of pictures, but I am only going to share a few with you. Of course if you want to see them all, you can always go to our church website.

Wendy and Leva, with Wendy’s special friend “Johnny”.

Pastor John getting into the spirit.

Our Lead Pastor, Matthew.

And our guests, the kids and their families. They were all so excited and had so much fun. These pictures are inside our Sanctuary, our newly painted sanctuary that we all painted last week. (We painted the whole inside of the church).

The hunt is on, outside, behind the church.

Opening up the eggs to see what’s inside. This little boy got a big spider. I think he liked it. He was so full of personality. He and his two older brothers were all dressed alike.

Lots of candy.

One of church members donated a whole bunch of brand new bikes for the event, so some of the eggs were lucky eggs, and had a special ticket inside for a brand new bike.

These two little girls did not find that special ticket, but they were so sweet. They are taking care of one of the recent Ukrainian refugees, and they were telling me the story about their new friend. They said if they won, they would give the bike to her.

I did get some pictures of some of the new bike owners though. That was a complete surprise to them, and totally made their day. This little girl chose the new Spiderman bike.

This boy got the big mountain bike. His shirt matched his new bike. It was just meant to be.

At the end of the day, some people were ready to take a break,

while others were still having fun.

All in all, it was yet another fun and busy day. Everyone had a great time.

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

It is a rare occurrence to have major holidays from three of the world’s leading religions to fall at the same time. Yet that is what has happened this year. This Friday, Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus, and on Sunday celebrate Easter, marking their belief in his resurrection. On Friday, Jewish people celebrate the eve of Pesach, commonly called Passover, which commemorates the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and the end of their slavery. And this weekend as well, Muslims around the world mark another Friday, their weekly holiday, within the month of Ramadan, which began on April 2 and ends on May 2. This coincidence of dates is unusual, especially as far as the proximity of the Islamic Ramadan to the Christian Lent or to the dates of Pesach and Easter is concerned.

Whether you celebrate this holiday

or this holiday

or this holiday

Celebrate with family, friends and loved ones. Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

Spring has definitely arrived, and so have my pelicans. Today is the first day I saw them. I had the dogs outside and I saw three just leisurely swimming about in my first lake. I ran inside real quick to grab the camera. And I got ’em. I know there will be a lot more in the future, but today is the first day I have seen them for the season. WHOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!

These pictures were all taken from my backyard as I was looking over my back fence.

I love this picture. Mr. Mallard had to photo bomb this picture. He was feeling neglected.

Life is always full of surprises. Be ready for them.

Have you ever come across recipes that sound so much better than they really are? This was one such recipe. Larry picked this one out, thinking it sounded so good. I mean after all, it has bacon in the sauce, so it’s got to be good right? MMMM, not so much. When I read the ingredients, before even making it, I shrugged my shoulders and said ‘Meh”. It sounded really boring to me, but Larry is so good and lets me experiment all the time, I really had to give it a shot.

This recipe was very tender and juicy, but other than that, I wasn’t all that impressed with it. I mean, it was good, but as predicted, boring. I liked my side dishes much better than I liked the pork recipe. I used the rest of my gnocchi, which wasn’t much, topped with marinara sauce and green beans with tomatoes, garlic and mushrooms. But here is the recipe for the pork. I will let you decide what you think about it. I would love to hear your thoughts too.

Pork Chops with Bacon Cider Sauce

4 slices bacon, crumbled

3 TBSP butter

1 1/-2 lbs pork chops

salt & pepper to taste

1/2 cup shallots, sliced very thin

1 cup apple cider, plus more for marinating the pork

1/2 cup chicken broth

Add salt & pepper to the pork chops and marinate in some of the apple cider for at least 2 hours before cooking. This will add some flavor and will help tenderize the meat.

Cook the crumbled bacon in a hot skillet until it is crispy.

Once the bacon is cooked, remove it and let it drain on a paper towel. Add the butter to the pan. Then add the pork chops and cook for about 3-4 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of the chops, or until they are browned on both sides. Once they are browned, remove and set aside.

Add the shallots to the pan and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the broth and the bacon to the skillet and continue to cook for about 5-7 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Re-add the pork chops and continue to cook for an additional 2-3 minutes to heat the pork chops thoroughly. Then serve, adding the sauce on top of the pork chops.

I am cooking up the whole, colorful meal on top of the stove.

There was certainly nothing wrong with this recipe, but it needed a lot more pizzazz and flavor. I just thought it was really kind of bland and boring. I LOVE big, bold flavors. None of this bland stuff for me. No, no. But, you decide and please share your thoughts.

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

I am seeing a lot of robins out and about these days. Some are small and some, well they are just plain fat. Either way, I love seeing them. They just seem like such happy birds to me. Here is one posing in a tree. He loved being the center of attention. As you can see, he is one of the fat ones. He lives a very good life indeed.

Be like the robin, and live the good life.

Larry and his friend Mark are both German, from Hays, Kansas. As I have mentioned in the past, Hays is primarily a German region. When Mark came over for dinner Walking on the Wild Side, I wanted to make a German dessert to take the boys “back home for a bit”. Apples and cinnamon play very prominent roles in German baking, so it was only fitting that I make a German dessert featuring apples and cinnamon. I made a German Apfelkuchen or a apple crisp cake. The boys both wanted it with ice cream too.

Apple Crisp Cake

Just the basics for the cake part.

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

dash of salt

3/4 cup cold butter, cubed

1 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

2 eggs

1 TBSP sour cream

Combine the flour, salt, butter, cinnamon and baking powder in food processor and pulse until it all resembles a course sand. Then add the eggs, sour cream and sugar and blend again until it all forms together into a ball. Wrap the ball in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, and up to 24 hours before using.

The Apple Filling

1- 1 1/2 lbs apples, peeled and sliced thin

1/4 cup sugar

1 TBSP cornstarch

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 TBSP ginger liqueur or something similar – I used some honey ginger balsamic vinegar -This is optional.

1-2 TBSP butter

Cook the apples with the sugar, cinnamon and butter in a hot skillet for about 10 minutes, or until softened, at a medium-high heat. Combine the water and cornstarch and mix well, then add to the apple mixture, along with the liqueur, if using. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer, and continue to cook for an additional 10 minutes or until it has thickened. Allow it to cool.

The Icing

2 eggs whites

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 tsp lemon juice

chopped pecans for the topping

Beat the egg whites for about 10 minutes or until frothy. Gradually add the powered sugar and beat again until glossy, again, for about 10 minutes. Then add the lemon juice and beat once more for an additional 2 minutes, or until it forms soft peaks.

Preheat the oven to 350* F or 180* C.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator a few minutes before you are ready to press it into the 9×13 baking dish. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a rectangle then add it to the baking dish. Completely press it into the pan and up around the sides. Crimp the edges.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown, then allow to cool for a few minutes before adding the apples and icing.

When ready, spread the apple filling evenly over the crust.

Then pour the icing over the apples and spread evenly to cover them. Sprinkle the chopped pecans evenly over the icing. Bake again for an addition al 10-15 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool completely before cutting and serving. It goes great with some ice cream on the side.

This is a traditional German dessert. Germans love to bake and they like to eat their sweets. They are known for their cakes, doughnuts, tortes, cookies and pastries. Many are filled with all kinds of fruits, but especially apples, nuts and creams, or any combination thereof. An old German proverb says ” May your introduction be short and sweet”. So you have now been introduced. Let’s eat.

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