Tag Archives: Food

Blue Mosaic Monday ~ Celebration!

 

Things have been busy around our home in Washington State. We had 18 people near and dear to us over for a celebration on the 4th. Dear barbecued Tri-tip for sandwiches and we had some great veggie sides. Cookies and Cheesecake for dessert. The center photo in the collage is of our daughter Katie. The lovely ladies in the bottom photo are Jamie, Laura (our DIL), Lucy, Katie and Bridget. Jamie, Lucy and Bridget are sisters.

On Sunday morning I drove Dear to the airport and we’ll be apart for about 4 weeks. Boohoo!  On Sunday afternoon we picked up my niece Debbee from the airport for a 3 day visit. This coming Sunday I’m helping my daughter with a Bridal shower at our home. We hope our vision for decorating the gazebo for the shower comes together…

Thanks for stopping by. To see more Mosaics visit Mary at Little Red House. To see more Blue visit Smiling Sally.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Tablescape Thursday ~ In Honor of the 4th!

Well I’m thinking we are going to see a lot of Red, White and Blue this week on our tables. It’s time for Tablescape Thursday so visit our hostess Susan at Between Naps on the Porch to see a variety of tables decked out for our viewing pleasure!

 

Dear and I arrived to our home in Washington on Sunday night after 15 hours on the road. We drove from California. I will be in Washington for the next 6 weeks. Dear flies back to California on Sunday. Boohoo! On Monday evening we had all our kids around the table for a meal. Now that is a wonderful thing.

 

I decided to bring out the red, white and blue for the week. On Saturday we’re having a gathering so this will serve as the buffet table for that event.

 

For those of you who live in the U.S.A.,  hope you all have safe and sane 4th of July celebrations. Thanks for stopping by…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Friday’s Fave Five ~ Summer!

Looking back over the first week of summer 2009 here are my top 5!

 

On Saturday Dear and I explored Malibu Lagoon State Park and saw some great sights including the historical Adamson House.

 

After walking and enjoying the sea air we had breakfast at the Marmalade Cafe in Malibu. Dear and I enjoy eating breakfast out together.

 

Oops more food. On Sunday we barbecued a tri-tip roast and got 3 full meals from it. The first night we made sandwiches with the meat and a roasted Poblano chile. On Tuesday I made these quesadillas with caramelized onion and whole green chilies that I cut up along with pinto beans. I like to get the whole pinto beans and mash them myself. We have a great Mexican market here in town that makes their own Guacamole and salsa. I can’t buy avocados and make the guacamole myself for as cheap as I buy the freshly made at this store.

 

I always love seeing this plant here in Southern California from the Agave Family. It’s called Our Lord’s Candle Yucca whipplei. Beginning in April and continuing through July, Our Lord’s Candle blooms abundantly in Chaparral and Oak Woodland in elevations up to 2500 feet. Willow and I saw this beautiful example of one on our Thursday walk in her neighborhood.

 

Now my absolute favorite thing about this week is looking forward to our road trip to Seattle beginning on Saturday. On Saturday we will stop 5 hours up the road at a wedding of my cousin’s son enjoying all the fun and then on Sunday morning we’ll drive the rest of the way to Seattle. I’m looking forward to seeing all our kids and getting the deck all set for summer festivities. I’ll be in the Seattle area for 6 whole weeks…whoohoo!

For more favorites please visit Susanne at Living to tell the story.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Mosaic Monday & Blue Monday~ Happy Flag Day!

Flag Day is Sunday and since our Mosaics go up on Sunday night I’m posting this one early to honor Flag Day here in the U.S.A. There’s a lot of blue in all my mosaics so I’m double posting for Blue Monday.  Thank you Mary for starting Mosaic Monday which is wonderful for a visual person like me! Click here to see more Mosaics. Thank you Sally for starting Blue Monday. Blue is one of my favorite colors. Click here to see more blue!

On Thursday I walked around the historic section of Oxnard and found some flags. The vignette of flags and Parfait were taken at our home in Washington over Memorial Weekend.

 

Now here’s some Blue from Maliblue, I mean Malibu! I was here with my bloggy friend Willow on Friday.

 

And on Friday night Dear and I headed over to the Greek Festival in town to get some good Greek food. We had Gyros and Saganaki (a great hard greek cheese, fresh cut from a large wheel sauteed with lemon and flamed with brandy and fresh lemon juice). OPA!  Oh I forgot about the Greek pastries we brought home, too. Can anyone tell me why I’m not losing weight??

 

Happy Flag Day and have a great Monday everyone…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Blue Monday ~ Wonderful Weekend!

Welcome to Blue Monday hosted by Smiling Sally. Thank you Sally for hosting this event even in the midst of your move!!

What a whirlwind weekend we’ve had. Our son flew down from Seattle for the Seattle Sounders game against Chivas the first place Los Angeles team. Even though our team dominated the game we could not get the ball into the net and Chivas beat us 1 – 0!  Six of our family members met up with us at the Home Depot Center in Carson for the game. Fun times.

On Sunday my family and Dear’s brother and sister met for a Middle Eastern Potluck at my sister’s house. I’m always so happy when my kids can spend some time with family especially their grandparents! My dad fell last week and broke a bone in his hand and had to have stitches. He is so funny he said “I can fly real good but I’m not so good on the landing”. Pretty funny for a Russian in broken English!

The cousins that got together at the potluck. We do not take for granted the amazing blessing we have and the love we share with our extended family. What fun the cousins had together and what joy we have whenever we can be with eachother.

I love this photo! This was the reaction from my sister Kathy showing one of the vegetables she grew in her garden! This is my niece Michelle, our son Josh, and niece Jessica!

My sister and her girls and grandson Jackson. What a photogenic bunch they are!!

Dear’s brother and SIL were able to be at our gathering, too. What a joy to have all of our extended family on my and Dear’s side enjoying eachother. We really do know this is a special gift from our God!

My parents escaped from Russia into Iran when they were both young so they learned to enjoy and prepare Middle Eastern Food with an Iranian influence. Our potluck was a combination of yummy seasoned lamb and chicken, Hummus and Pita bread, Tabbouleh, cheese, rice, and cucumber and tomato salad. I didn’t photograph the wonderful desserts but we had strawberry shortcake, chocolate cheesecake, and fresh fruit!

Happy Blue Monday everyone. I’ll be working on recovering from a nonstop weekend!!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Tablescape Thursday ~ Simply Meat & Potatoes!

It’s time for Tablescapes from Bloggy world. Susan is the brain child for this weekly event and it really is fun to see the creativity out there. My confession this week (I haven’t confessed in a while) is that I’ve had to give myself the restriction of only buying a bargain plate that I find at my thrift stores if it is made in England! My condo cannot accommodate many more plates people!!

 

When I was home in Washington in March I set this simple table for a dinner I made for my kids. This was the first time I tried fanning the napkins and I like how that looked. We had lamb loin chops, baked potatoes, salad with Persian dressing, and then an apple strudel for dessert that I purchased from a local bakery…

 

To see more Tablescapes visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Friday’s Fave Five ~ Food again???

Happy May Everyone!

Well I was going to be in Cancun today and not able to participate in our Fave Five but circumstances beyond anyone’s control changed our plans. So I’m still at my nice little condo in Southern California…blogging. Susanne at Living to Tell the Story is our hostess for this great weekly event. Visit her to join in or see other favorites.

 

So what is it about me and food? Food is topping much of my list this week but to cut me a break it’s not just the food but the other people around me while I’m eating good food that I enjoy.

1. I really like to eat breakfast out with Dear! Before we helped my niece and her husband move last Saturday we stopped at the Egg Plantation in Newbury Park. They have over a 100 Omelets on their menu including other things! I had Chiliquiles…yum. We really needed this great breakfast to keep us going while we packed up and unpacked the truck for the move.

2. After our trip to Cancun was cancelled I decided to “get away” to Main street in Ventura to do a little Thrift store shopping. Such a fun thing for me to do. While in Ventura I stopped at 71 Palm a French Country Restaurant for a little lunch. I had a wonderful soup with asparagus and spinach and a fresh beet, goat cheese and walnut salad.

3. I made semi-homemade chili for dinner last night and baked some corn bread to go with it. Dear was in the mood for chili earlier in the week and I decided to make it for him! I love my chili with fresh tomato, cilantro, green onions and cheese thrown on top! Last night we added some avocado, too.

4. Willow and I have seen some fun sights this week on our walks. We are seeing some great colorful evidences of Spring.

5. Also from our walk we saw this Quail sitting on top of this flimsy tree. It was really kind of peculiar. He sat there long enough to take several shots…

For more Friday Faves click on over to Susanne’s!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Foodie Friday ~ Cinco de Mayo

Our theme for this Friday’s Foodie is Cinco de Mayo! Odale! Gollum at Designs by Gollum is our trusty hostess for this event. I’m sharing a collage of a Mexican table and food we made when my SIL and brother were visiting us in Washington over Thanksgiving.

 

Letty made the Mexican Rice and she uses whole pinto beans and then mashes them herself and reheats them to make the refried beans. I really enjoy them better than getting the already refried in a can. For our soft tacos we used the slow cooked pork with garnish of cilantro, green onions, cheese, and salsa. The Salsa was homemade by Letty, too.

Today I made Tex-Mex chili for dinner.

I cooked the chunky ground beef with onion and some seasoning. I added the packets from the ready made chili spice mix some chopped tomatoes, a can of pinto beans with jalapeno added, and a can of kidney beans.

 

When I serve it I have shredded cheese, fresh tomato chunks, cilantro, avocado, and green onion to add as desired. I usually also bake some corn bread to go along with!

Happy early Cinco de Mayo to all you Foodies!

To see more Foodie posts visit Gollum at Designs by Gollum!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Friday’s Fave Five ~ Seattle

 

So it’s time for Friday’s Fave Five and all of mine come to your from the State of Washington this week. Dear and I will be heading back to Southern California on Sunday. Boohoo.

1. Spending some one on one and one on four time with our children in Washington! Our oldest son took me to a soccer game last Saturday which was so much fun. Katie and I did some shopping on Monday and she found her strappy gold shoes she needed for an upcoming wedding she’s in. Working around the house with our son Dan. Having Easter Brunch together and Taco Night. Good times.

2. Easter Tradtions! I love Easter and it’s always fun to do the traditional things each year. This year my sister Lana G! and I even made the traditional Russian Easter Bread and Cheese topping. Ok, I keep mentioning that but it was a big accomplishment for us and now we know we can do it and we’re so excited we can have fresh Kulich every year if we want it! Coloring Easter Eggs…it’s so much fun to watch Katie get creative with the colors on the eggs. Going to Easter Service. There’s something special about Easter Sunday at church. We go to church most every Sunday but Easter Sunday always stands out to me. Repeating the traditional Easter greeting to everyone we see on Easter…Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

3. Spending time in Downtown Seattle with Dear. We had a hair appointment together and then headed downtown to have lunch at the Pink Door. It happened to be one of the sunny days in Western Washington so it was nice to walk around and enjoy Downtown! The Market and all the fresh flowers, the tall buildings, our yummy lunch and buying dessert for the taco dinner we were having later that night with our kids.

4. Fresh mowed grass! I really enjoy mowing the lawn at our home here. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as seeing a freshly mowed neat looking yard! Dear does the weed-wacking and I do the mowing. The first Spring mow is always a bit time consuming and I had to empty the bag more often…

5. Flowers! It was great to see flowers blooming in the yard when we arrived. My Lenten Rose was full of blooms which made me smile. I love the shape and colors of this plant. Seeing all the fresh cut flowers at Pike Place Market was great, too. So many beautiful varieties of tulips and daffodils. I bought a bunch of yellow with orange daffodils to bring home for Taco Night!

Thanks to Susanne at Living to Tell the Story was hosting this weekly event. It’s good to look back and think about the good times and blessings we enjoy each week.

Friday’s Fave Five!

This past week has been full of some memorable events. Seems most of these events centered around food. Makes me wonder if I should just give up on losing weight, but this is a post about favorite things so onward and upward.

Topping the list of favorites was the fact that our daughter was here with us for several days. We walked on the beach, did some vintage shopping, attended her good friends wedding, and ate a lot of good food.

Worship on Sunday was really powerful with a challenging sermon about the Holy Spirit. There was a wonderful sense of unity in the Body that was really cool.

Katie and I made a trip to Glendale Forest Lawn and it was stimulating to see so many beautiful works of art. The grounds are so well kept and the little churches are filled with beautiful stained glass.

This is the Wee Kirk O’ the Heather at Glendale Forest Lawn

One of the favorite food items this past week was this hot fudge sundae Katie and I shared at the Tam O’ Shanter after our trip to Glendale Forest Lawn. It is served with the original fabulous C.C.Brown’s hot fudge that seriously tastes like very good candy! I can’t remember the last time I had a Hot Fudge Sundae! I’m salivating just thinking about it!

On Wednesday I met my Women’s Bible Study ladies at Cheesecake Factory to celebrate Fran’s birthday. We had such a great time laughing and enjoying each others company and celebrating Fran! Ok I’ll go ahead and show you what I ate…

So anyone want to place a bet on whether or not I gained weight last week??

Please visit the lovely Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in the fun or to see other Fave Fives!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.