Italian Nachos

Italian Nachos

Pasta chips

Alfredo sauce (or 4 cheese sauce)

Italian sausage and/or chicken finely chopped or shredded

Chopped tomato

Sliced green onion

Sliced Olives

Jalepeno peppers (optional)

Peppercini peppers- sliced

Mozzarella cheese

Parmesan cheese

Place pasta chips on serving tray or plate, pour on sauce, add toppings as desired. Top with Mozzarella cheese and melt in microwave. Sparinkle with parmesan cheese if desired. Enjoy!

Here is the secret part~ How to make pasta chips

1 package wonton wrappers

Olive oil flavored pam

Cut wonton wrappers in half forming a triangle. Spray cookie sheet generously with Pam. Lay wontons in single layer on cookie sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 6 minutes. (It took 4 batches to cook the whole package. There was plenty to serve 6 with a few left over. They could be cooked ahead of time. I saved the leftovers in a plastic bag and they still were crisp 2 days later. Could probably be re-heated in oven, I wouldn't recommend a toaster oven.) The wontons can be deep fried instead if desired or you can use olive oil instead of the flavored pam, but who needs the extra calories?

So Off Track

What do you do when you have been out of town, sick, and have lost track of what day it is and what you should be doing? You catch up on blogs! Until you glance out the window because the noise of the garbage truck catches your attention. Oh! It's Wednesday, garbage day. So you jump up, gather the garbage, run it out to the can, and wheel the can out to the road, and grab the mail while you are out there. (Thankfully the truck comes on the other side of the street first.) While you are outside you realize it really is Wednesday and you have done no household tasks yet this week. You have a mountain of laundry and no groceries, not to mention a pile of dishes in the sink. You will go right in and start the laundry, get a grocery list together, and load the dishwasher. But some days just aren't meant for that so you sit back down at the computer and finish catching up on blogs. Oh, and pop a couple of those little Reese's pieces eggs to renew the energy you just spent getting the garbage out. Which, by the way, wasn't worth it- because when the woman of the house is out of town nobody cooks or cleans or even gets the mail so there really is not much garbage. Then you decide to update your own blog because, after all, you haven't done that all year and it is almost April! Now that is done I think I will catch up on Facebook! There is always tomorrow. (Kind of sounds like a "If you give a mouse a cookie" book)

Barbara's Cheese Ball

Every year my neighbor and I have a Christmas Open House. We just invite everyone we know, and some we don't but would like to try to get to know, to come visit and munch on Christmas favorite foods. We usually have about 30-40 ladies come during the 3 hours. It is a lot of fun. One of the things that is always a hit is my cheeseball. A lot of ladies asked for the recipe so here it is.

2 8 oz. pkgs. cream cheese ( I use the 1/3 less fat mostly because it makes a softer ball)
1/4 tsp. mustard (spicy brown or deli is best)
2 tsp. Bon Apetite
3-5 stocks green onion, chopped

Mix together in food processor or in a bowl with a hand mixer. Form into a ball or log and roll in nuts. (I like slivered almonds). Chill till firm.

I'll post a picture next time I make it, I forgot to get one yesterday.

Ring-a-lings

I have been asked to share my ring-a-ling recipe. I do so somewhat reluctantly. It is a one of a kind item and is my specialty. But here it is complete with pics so you can see how it is done.

Makes 2 dozen, can easily be doubled.

Ring-a-lings
2 T. yeast
1/4 C. warm water
1/3 C. butter, melted
3/4 C. milk (warm)
4- 4 1/2 C. flour
1/3 C. sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. grated orange rind ( I use the dried kind you buy in the spices)
2 eggs

Mix yeast in warm water with a little sugar. Combine butter and milk in large mixing bowl. Beat in sugar, grated orange rind, eggs, and yeast mixture. Gradually add flour to form stiff dough. Let stand 30 minutes. Prepare filling

Filling
1/3 C. butter, softened
1 C. powdered sugar
1 C. walnuts or pecans finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp maple flavoring

Beat butter and sugar till creamy. Add nuts and flavoring.
Roll out dough to a 24X10 inch rectangle. Spread 1/2 of dough with filling. Fold dough in half. Cut into 1 inch strips. Twist each strip, tie twisted strip into a knot. Place on greased cookie sheet or parchment lined cookie sheet. Cover and let rise in warm place until double in size, 45-60 minutes. Bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes. Frost with glaze. Best if eaten warm.
I often freeze mine in ziplock bags as soon as they are cool enough to not sweat in the bags. Let them thaw at room temp. and microwave for 10-15 seconds.
The filling will goo out of the rolls and bake onto the cookie sheet. We scrape it up into a bowl and call it ring-a-ling candy.

Noni's Gingerbread House

A couple of weeks ago April had to work a Monday night shift so I wanted to do something fun with the kids for FHE. I got a gingerbread house kit thinking they would enjoy it. Caleb preferred to watch TV than help because he just thought he could eat the candy for it. Noni got really into it and wanted to do every step. But I realized a little late that it was kind of challenging to get it to stick together properly. It took a little more time than she was willing to wait. Finally I got her distracted enough to hold the house myself until the frosting set. Then I let her decorate it. She drove me nuts. It took her 5 minutes to choose where to put one candy! An hour and a half later I convinced her to just stick the candy on! Voila, here is her gingerbread house! Notice her chimney with smoke coming out.

Why We Have Reservations

Camille and I have been in Utah for 3 days. Camille and I took Ellie home (she had been here for Leanora's birthday party), I helped my mom with some stuff, and we spent some fun time with Mindy and her cute kids. We were later than planned coming home because we stopped at Lakeview Hospital to see one of Camille's best friends from High School and her brand new baby. This is what I came home to.The empty spot is where my range is suppose to be sitting.

This is why we have reservations at Jaker's for our Thanksgiving dinner!

Straw Maze

I had to take some stuff to Millie in Rexburg today and she had a great idea. She suggested that I bring April and the kids with and we go to the Straw Maze. I wasn't too thrilled with the idea but thought it would be good motivation for the kids (and myself) to get stuff done and something to keep them busy.It was a rather ominous sky, cool, and windy as we pulled up to the maze. Side note- it was just down the road from Ruth's childhood church in Archer. So I am sure it was also very close to her house but I couldn't recognize anything. The first thing to happen was for Noni and Caleb to start a straw fight. So fun (not really).

Caleb and Leanora waiting to ambush us.

Leanora got Jessica (Camille's roommate) good.

This is what I call claustrophobia! There were a few spots that made my heart race and my breathing shallow but over all it was ok. At first the kids didn't think they needed to wait for us. But after the first "wrong turn dead end" they decided they better not get too far ahead. Even if they were just around the corner their voices sounded muffled or like they were on the other side of the maze. About 3/4 of the way through they thought we should turn around and go back the way we started. We explained that we didn't think we could remember all the turns. Caleb decided that we would never get out of there. Well . . . if your ever lost hope that Leanora is with you. She led us right out after that and was pretty proud of herself!

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but I was sure at a couple of spots we would be holding one of the kids up to get one of the workers to direct us out! It was a fun but chilly adventure for a Fall Saturday afternoon.

Annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch

We recently took our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch. April, Caleb, Noni, and I headed out right after school one day. We couldn't have asked for better weather that day. I guess it was a little windy but what day in Idaho isn't? The kids took about 2 minutes to pick their pumpkins and played in the straw maze, slide, and pulled the wagon around for another half hour. It's a great place to go.

We really missed Mindy and the kids this year. Hope they can make it next year!

San Francisco/Oakland Get Away

Dave had an Oracle conference in San Francisco. He found out about it in May and asked if I wanted to go. DUH! Mostly because it is a hop, skip, and a jump from Becca. After investigating the details we decided it wouldn't be much fun for me to hang out in San Fran while he was at the conference. Most of his meals and activities were included in the price of the conference so I would be on my own most of the time and it would get expensive. The week of the conference was a big tax deadline (October 15) for Becca so she would not be able to take time to hang out with me. So we decided I would fly out at the end of the conference and we would spend a couple of days in Fremont with Becca and Steven. Dave took a shuttle from the conference to the Oakland airport and was waiting for me when I got off the plane. Becca picked us up at the airport and we picked up Steven for dinner at Chili's.
The next day they played hooky from work and picked us up to drive to San Francisco. We caught a ferry to Alcatraz. It was a fun place to go.

We learned a lot of the history of Alcatraz with a audio tour. We wore a headset with a listening device. You could stop or repeat or fast forward so you could spend more or less time at any spot. The cell blocks were three tiers with a caged shooting gallery at the end. The guards would walk up and down the shooting gallery to watch the rows of cells.

This was the extent of the activity yard.

After 3 trips to San Francisco we finally got a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Everyone kept telling us October was a good time for the fog to leave and they were right. The last picture is the view of San Fran from Alcatraz. The other was just a cool sailboat we saw while on the ferry.

After our escape to Alcatraz we headed down to Pier 39. There are a lot of fun shops there. We decided to eat at Bubba Gumps. It was a lot of fun for everyone except Becca. She got a little queasy from watching Steven and Dave eat their steamed crab. I enjoyed the Shrimpers Heaven and Becca stuck with fried chicken. Sorry Garry I know that was a no, no!

While we were eating a BIG SHIP came into the big. This was really a BIG SHIP! It was from China. Half the people in the restaurant pulled out their cameras to grab a shot of it.

There was a fun carousel on Pier 39, it was a double decker. After dinner we headed to Ghiradelli Square for an ice cream and to buy a couple of candy bars of course.

On Saturday we went to a session at the Oakland Temple. We caught another fine view of the bay area from there.

I thought this was an interesting sign. Someone wanted to be very specific on the speed limit!After going to church with Becca and Steven and them cooking us a delicious dinner they took us back to the Oakland airport. It was a fun 3 days with them. They were so good to be our chauffeur, feed us, and show us around. It was so nice to spend some time with them, getting to know Steven a little better and seeing how well they have started their new life together. They seem to be meant for each other!

I'm not thrilled with this picture but it was such a momentous occasion that I had to snap it. In nearly 31 years of marriage this is the first time Dave and I have flown together. WOW! Thanks Becca and Steven!!!

Oregon Trip Part II- The Coast

On Saturday morning of our trip we checked out of our hotel in Portland, found an IHOP for breakfast (much needed normal breakfast), and headed to the coast. Again it was a beautiful drive. It kind of reminded me of heading into Island Park only with a denser, wetter forest. We hit the coast at Seaside, big mistake, it was the Hood to Coast weekend and the closing activities were there. Thousands of runners and support personel were there. We made a not so quick pass and headed on down the coast to Cannon Beach. There we checked out the shops and had lunch. Further down the coast we took a long, no very long, walk to Haystack rock. Thankfully the sand was very easy to walk on because it was so compacted. It was a bit on the chilly side though. We stopped at a couple of other spots until we ended at Rockaway Beach where we had a condo for 2 days. Our condo was right on the beach and we found the sound of the ocean to be so relaxing. We had a lot of fog while we were there and thought we would be totally skunked at seeing many sights but it cleared just in time to see some great views. We took a drive further down the coast to the 3 capes area and a stop at the Tillamook cheese factory for a tour and ice cream. Dave had a cold and was a real trooper to still go see the sites and walk on the beach while he wasn't feeling very good. I guess it was payback for when I got a cold on our St. George trip in February.
The rest will be mostly a picture tour of the coast in no particular order.Cape Mears Lighthouse. I should give some kind of historical facts about it but am too lazy to look up what we learned about it but it was very cool! This rock is covered with seashellsHaystack Rock, probably the most famous Oregon Coast landmark.Saw this wash ashore in a wave and get left laying in the sand. I thought it was a very artistic looking pic.There actually is a lighthouse on that rock.This is what we saw a lot of . . . fog and outlines.We had to have a "Becca & Steven" Shot.Every afternoon the birds would nestle into the warm sand just past our deck, I guess for their siesta or something.The Octopus Tree. It has 8 trunks coming from one spot.These two were the views from our living room/deck, one with the fog and one at the clearest time we were there. I kind of like the fog look.
This was the best we could do at a sunset. Too much fog for brilliant reds and oranges but still very pretty! If you have never been to the Oregon Coast it is a MUST for your Bucket list!