Tag Archives: Food

Tablescape Tuesday ~ Open House Buffet

Update: You can find the Pumpkin Praline Trifle recipe here. The Bavarian Apple Torte is here. I’ll be posting the Mount Rainier Chili recipe here.

We had a open house this past Saturday at our little condo in Southern California. There were 16 of us that enjoyed each others company and some food and drink.

 

I went with an autumn theme for the buffet table which triples as our dining table and my computer table every other day. It’s always funny when I plan events like this because I get a bit confused about what I have here at the condo and what is at my home in Washington. I always have to improvise because the majority of my stuff is in Washington. Mish Mosh works for me in these situations.

 

These are some of the food and drink we served. Our main course was Mount Rainier Chili that is made with white beans and chicken. We had a salad and lots of yummy bread from the Diamond Jewish Bakery on Fairfax in L.A. My BIL Nick and sister Vera always stop there on the way to our condo and load us up with Rye, Pumpernickle, and Challah. We had a cheese tray with fruit and salami, bruschetta, guacamole. Our desserts were a Pumpkin Praline Trifle and a Bavarian Apple Tart. I’ll be posting the recipes later this week. They are both great desserts. Most of the serving pieces are from thrift stores and target clearance. Instead of a punch bowl I’ve been using this great glass jug that I got at target for $12.95. It has a lid, too.

 

We were blessed with some great company at the open house. Friends from our past and new friends and family. I didn’t get a photo of everyone. My brother Tim and his wife Letty, my niece Michelle and her husband Ryan, My bloggy walking buddy Willow and her husband the Professor, and our old friends Ken and Heidi. My sister Vera and her husband Nick, my mom and dad, sister Kathy, and grand nephew Jackson didn’t get in any of the photos.

For more Tablescapes you can visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch on Tuesday.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and demanding a ransom for me to access them. I’m slowly cleaning up many of my posts where PB have added ugly black and grey boxes where my photos used to be. So frustrating!

Fridays Fave Five

 

It’s that time again. Time to look back and remember some favorite things from this past week. The collage is not in order but here goes my 5.

1. On Saturday I woke up early to rain and thunder here in Southern California. When the sun was beginning to rise I stepped out of the condo and look what I saw. It was a fabulous sunrise and I’m thankful that I saw it.

2. On Sunday we drove South across L.A. to a Nifty Fifty Birthday party. On the way Dear and I stopped at Jerry’s Famous Deli in Woodland Hills to eat. I love that we have great Jewish Delicatessen’s here in Southern California.

3. It was fun to see old family and family friends. My cousin Tanya turned 50 and we attended a Birthday Dessert in her honor. The Families represented in the photo of the ladies have history together way back to Iran and Russia. It was great to talk and enjoy each other.

4. I popped into Goodwill this week (surprise, surprise) and I spotted this great blue and white creamer that was calling my name. I really like creamers and I like blue and white. This little pretty cost me $2.95.

5. I’m having an Fall Open House on Saturday. I decided to try a new dessert to serve. The recipe says to make it two days ahead so the flavors can moosh (they didn’t say moosh but you get the idea) I like how it turned out and I’ll post the recipe next week. There are lots of detail to type out. It’s a Pumpkin Praline Trifle. So if you live in Southern California you might want to pop on over on Saturday.

For more Fave Five’s visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and demanding a ransom for me to access them. I’m slowly cleaning up many of my posts where PB have added ugly black and grey boxes where my photos used to be. So frustrating!

Ruby Tuesday ~ Autumn Fun

 

Decided to go with the Autumn theme again this week for Ruby Tuesday. We’ve got the pumpkin patch, my Turkey Cookie creation (hee, hee) and one of the happy ghosts from my string of lights for Halloween.

Have a great Tuesday everyone and if you’d like to see more Ruby Tuesday visit Mary here.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage demanding a ransom that I can’t afford. So frustrating as I try to clean up my posts and delete their ugly squares of black and grey off my blog posts!

Fridays Fave 5

This hasn’t been one of my favorite weeks for sure because of Dear and I getting sick and being “In” all weekend and Monday. But that won’t stop me from finding 5 things that made my week, anyway!

1. Seeing this photo of all my kids together having fun with two of their cousins at the Japanese Gardens in Seattle.

 

Niece-Michelle, Daughter-Katie, Niece-Melissa, DIL-Laura, Son-Dan, Son-Josh

2. Cracking myself up creating these Turkey Cookies!

 

3. Meeting my niece Michelle and my Grand Nephew Jackson at the Pumpkin Patch!

4. Hearing that our 911 neighbor is moving out soon. Hopefully peace will be restored around here…

5. My last Fave is having a little Attitude Adjustment at the Beach on Thursday morning this week.

 

I’m throwing in a few more photos of my kids from the Japanese Gardens as a bonus for ME! :0)

My Boys (Men)

Josh and Laura!

My Niece Michelle (Jackson’s mom) and daughter Katie.

 

Thanks Michelle for letting me steal these photos of you all at the Garden!

For more Fave 5 visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage demanding a ransom that I can’t afford. So frustrating as I try to clean up my posts and delete their ugly squares of black and grey off my blog posts!

Friday’s Fave Five

 

This week was filled to the brim with the regular and the unexpected. My favorites were…

1. A early morning hike on Saturday with dear where our reward was a beautiful view of the Pacific.

2. While we were hiking our ribs were slow cooking to a totally comfort food perfection that we enjoyed later in the day.

3. One of my favorite things to do every week is to thrift store shop and there’s a photo of my favorite little Christian thrift store in Camarillo where I have found some really reasonably priced goodies.

4. I saw an interesting recipe for Bruschetta while at the bank. (Isn’t it weird how they have these tv’s where they show the food network chefs cooking at the bank!) Anyway I made it for an appetizer and it was good. I’ll be posting the recipe later today! Update: I posted the recipe here.

5. I had a fabulous treat on Thursday morning at Dawn. I walked out on my little patio and looked to the east and saw an amazing Sunrise that prompted me to praise God.

Here’s a photo of one of the goodies I found at the thrift store this week. These 7 pieces of ceramic fruit with gold leaves and stems were $4.00. I thought I could come up with some sort of Thanksgiving centerpiece with them…

 

For more Fave Five’s or to join in visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

Photobucket is holding my photos hostage from 2007-2015 and replacing them with an ugly black and grey squares demanding money to release them, so frustrating.

Fun in Seattle!

Our short time in Seattle has been filled to the brim with activity, work, and just plain fun. On Friday night after a day of working in the basement and around the house we went out to our favorite Mexican Restaurant with all of our kids except for Dan. (He was in Colorado Elk hunting). It’s fun to go to a restaurant where the staff knows us and comes over and wants to know how long we’ll be in town this time. :0)

 

On Saturday Lana G. and I went to our favorite shopping place…the Goodwill! We have a tradition that whoever spends the most on these shopping trips has to treat for lunch. We had some very good finds at Goodwill and Lana managed to spend the most so lunch was on her. (Oh I’ll be showing my goodies later this week) We have always been intrigued with Burgermaster but never stopped in before. Saturday was the day and it was a load of fun. It’s a drive in and dine in your car place. The staff comes up to your car window to take the order and they deliver it there, too. Lana and I had a great time. Our server was very happy to have his photo taken! After dropping our goodies off at home we zipped over to Ste Michelle and Columbia wineries to pick up some wine and to take some photos of fall color.

 

We came home and our kids made dinner for us to celebrate Dear’s belated birthday. Dan made it home from Colorado just in time for dinner and it was so nice to all be together for this meal. In the collage Columbia Winery is in the top right photo and Ste Michelle Winery is in the bottom left. They are across the road from each other. Lana G., her husband Steve, and Katie’s boyfriend Ben joined us for dinner. Oh and that is Lana donning the pirate garb!

Yikes we fly back to L.A. on Monday evening and we still have a mile long list of things we want to do before we leave. I’ll be back to visiting my bloggy friends on Tuesday. Have a great week everyone…

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage on their site. All my photos that I stored and uploaded from that site are now big ugly black and grey boxes with a message to pay big bucks to get them restored to my blog. It will take me a long time to restore thousands of posts.

Tablescape Tuesday ~ Bridal Shower

Welcome to Tablescape Tuesday hosted by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. This week I’m sharing a Bridal Shower Tablescape.

I’ve been experimenting with a new Picasa program. Here’s something new in collage formatting for me.

For more Tablescapes visit Susan on Tuesday here.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!

Michelle’s Birthday Party

My niece Michelle turned 30 this year and a celebration was in order so family and friends headed to Orange, California to Debbee’s townhome for a party. There was lots of great food including everyone’s favorite Piroshky. We had meat filled piroshky, potato filled piroshky and a cabbage filled pirog.

Here are some of the usual suspects.

The Parentals/Grandparents ~ Nadia and Moisi

Some of Michelle’s aunts and her mommy

Michelle and her auntie ellen b.

Michelle and her son Jackson

Nana and Jackson

Jackson making a serious point!

This photo turned out so tiny in the collage I wanted to add it here since it’s the only shot of Ryan I managed to get and I wanted M. Lou to see her son. So here’s Michelle and Ryan (Jackson’s Dad)  with cousins David and Kristin. I also realized that this is the only photo I took that has Michelle’s sister Melissa in it. There she is way back there behind Michelle.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!

Potato and Ham Chowder

 

This is a simple recipe from a blogger I tried and it was very tasty for boxed pototoes! It’s a slow cooker recipe…

Potato and Ham Chowder

1 pkg. of boxed scalloped potatoes (any variety you prefer)
1 cup diced ham
2 stalk of diced celery
1/8 teaspoon pepper
2 cups half & half
1/3 cup flour
5 cups chicken broth
1 diced onion (any size you like)

Mix potatoes, sauce mix, ham, broth, celery, onion & pepper in crock pot. Cover and cook on low heat for 7 hours.

 

Mix half & half with the flour, gradually stir flour mixture into chowder until blended. Cover and cook on low for one more hour stirring occasionally until thick. For a less thick soup, use regular milk instead of half & half. Garnish with chopped green onion, shredded cheese, or sour cream if desired.

 

Very thick and yummy soup. Since I served it up on blue dishes I thought this would be a perfect choice for Blue Monday. I bought these blue dishes from Target on a super clearance. They were from their Christmas collection a couple years ago.

 

Enjoy!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!

Saturday in Huntington Beach with Hope ~

My brother Leonard, his wife Mandy and their 7 month old daughter Hope paid us a surprise visit from Dallas the last few days. Leonard had to travel to Southern California for business so Mandy and Hope joined him for the weekend.

 

Leonard is my baby brother, Lana G’s twin. He’s been married to Mandy for 2 years now and they were blessed with sweet little Hope in January of this year.

 

When my family gets together there is a lot of everything. Lots of people, lots of food, lots of plates, lots of talk and lots of laughter. We generally meet up at my sister Vera’s house in Huntington Beach because her and her husband Nick have the gift of making lots of food. We joke around about what 3 meats they will be preparing this time. The rest of us bring something to accompany all the meat they prepare. This time we had ribs, chuck roast, pineapple chicken, roasted chicken, spaghetti and meat sauce. My brother Tim and his wife Letty were all dressed up because they were headed to a wedding from our get-together. I don’t know why I had to explain that except for they are so dressed up compared to the rest of us.

 

Hope finally woke up and she just couldn’t take her eyes off of Jack. Jackson is my niece Michelle and Ryan’s 3 year old son. Michelle’s a blogger too and you’ll catch her in some of my photos with her camera in hand. Her blog is “Wait for It”

 

Some fun with Sweet Potatoes. Yes people there are going to be lots and lots of photos of Hope. I had to get my 4 hour fix before I see her again at Christmas.

 

After we stuffed ourselves with all that meat and salads and dessert we decided a walk down to the beach was in order. That’s the other great thing about Nick and Vera’s, it’s just a very short stroll to Huntington City Beach.

 

 

On our walk we met up with more guests for the evening and when we returned there was a gift for Hope. It was so stinkin sweet to watch her pat her Pooh Bear and give him loves.

 

We are so happy that our huge family does not overwhelm Hope. She seems to be able to relax with all of us. Did you catch Michelle with her camera?

 

Jackson entertained us with his dancing skills. He seems to be doing well with not having all the attention on him when Hope’s around.

 

Hope really lights up and kicks her feet when her Dzeda (grandfather) pays attention to her and he loves to entertain her. She loves her baba (grandmother). Aunt Kathy is great too. Now look at that expression on daddy and Hope’s face…hmmm.

Thanks Nick and Vera for opening your home for another fun get together.

Here’s the verse that Leonard and Mandy chose for Hope’s Baby Announcement ~

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, Therefore I have Hope in Him.”

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!