Tyler's birthday

EIGHT years ago Tyler, our first grandchild, was born! I thought I'd post a few pictures I had of him that he may not have seen before.

Here he is at the beach in July;Here he is, in the black shirt, when they visited Thanksgiving week and helped us move in. He was a big help and I hope had fun too.

Tyler, It has been great having you in our family. I loved having you visit last summer by yourself and visit last fall with your family.

Quilts

I posted a picture of a stack of quilts almost 2 weeks ago. Just like this:
And asked you how many quilts you thought were there. I finally walked over to the stack and counted; I included the quilts on the rack behind the stack and counted 45! I did not count the 4 that I did not make. Now, that includes my miniatures which I hadn't realized were in the pile. Pretty hard to see the edge of those from across the room or in the photo.

goal

This week's goal was to figure out the color for the boy's bathroom. Since we moved back in in November no one has been able to take a shower. The bare plaster on the walls would absorb water. The boy's bathroom had a new ceiling that needed texture and paint. That is done but now there is still bare plaster on the top 6 inches of the walls and a few patches.... I thought we would just use the same paint as before but there wasn't enough of the bright turquoise that I had ragged a milky white on top of. The boys were tired of the pretty blue with flowers shower curtain that Liz had picked out 8? years ago.
So I went shopping for a new shower curtain. It is easier to choose the shower curtain first and then the paint. Bed, Bath and Beyond had a great selection, with about 6 that I liked. WalMart, not so many, and none I liked. Kohl's, nothing that interested me. Amazon had this that I thought the boys would like, no, that was vetoed. Finally I went to Anna's near the mall and found one that had seashells and a line of gray/blue that I thought would work. It was approved by the men and I got the gray/blue paint today...Maybe tomorrow you will see the finished room.

Garbonzo Bean Burgers

Inspired by my son requesting a chick-pea patty, falafel, he'd had at a local Greek Restaurant and this recipe I made chick-pea burgers tonight;

Garbonzo Bean Burgers
1 Tablespoon tahinni
1 small onion, chopped into chunks
1 heaping Tablespoon Knorr vegetable recipe mix
2 teaspoons garlic
1/2 handful cilantro
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 carrot chopped into chunks (would be better grated)
1 can garbonzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

Basically throw everything in food processor (everything but the beans first; then the beans,) form into patties. and bake at 400 degrees for12 minutes then turn over and cook another 10 minutes. I used my ice-cream scoop to get uniform patties and placed them on parchment paper. Since I doubled the recipe (and had a hard time getting them ground in my food processor; too much stuff for my regular sized processor) I got 18 burgers.verdict; good but a bit dry. Needs a sauce or some fat? in the burger. Maybe I cooked it too long? The flavor was good, the boys liked it and it's something that could be packed to school in a sandwich and look a little normal. I'll make this again with a few changes....

Okra

I'm from Colorado and had never even seen a whole okra until I'd lived in the south for many years. Thanks to a friend, Diane, we LOVE okra now. It is the easiest vegetable to fix for dinner; here's how I do it: Rinse them, drain the water-it's okay if water clings to them. Put them in a glass dish;
Then cover, I use plastic wrap.

Zap in the microwave; I did 4 minutes for a mounded bowl of okra. You want them to be bright green still. Take the cover off and serve;
They are wonderful dipped in butter; but we just sprinkle with salt and pick them up by the handy dandy handle God gave them and bite the other end off. Yummy. EASY. Low fat AND low calorie. WIN. WIN.

great northern beans

Another recipe I found on the internet; great northern bean stew.
When I read through the recipe I missed the 'canned beans' so used a small bag of Great Northern beans. Started them cooking and then re-read the recipe; consequently it was changed.

• Start the beans; no need to pre-soak them just rinse them and cover them with an inch or 2 of water.
  
• Add salt.
  
• Get your head of garlic out and break it apart. Realize that it will take a week to peel them and set them in a cup of water and go(melt the chocolate for the cookies you want to make...write a letter...look at a few blogs.) After awhile...1 hour? peel them and drop them in with the beans.
  
• An hour later start the onions, I only used 1. Fry them in a bit of olive oil.
  
• Dump in the tomatoes and the onion.
• Add the end of the bag of carrots
• simmer until done....
• Add the rest of the bag of spinach from the fridge; since there is no parsley.

No need to cook the spinach just stir it in and then serve. High protein. Good. And she was right the garlic is very mild. I got brave and actually ate a whole clove....after Roger tried it first.The boys ate it and took it to school for their lunches on the next day.

deep dark chocolate cookies

I found this recipe on the internet and tried it last Wednesday. I bought eggs for the first time in about 10 months to try it.I made cookies for the first time in... 8 months? I did not roll them in sugar; they would be prettier if I had but frankly I was out of steam by the time I got that far. I added nuts. Frozen nuts which thickened up the batter to the point I could barely scoop them out. If I do these again I would use semi-sweet chocolate chips; although they taste great...you can only eat 1, maybe 2; on the other hand that's a good thing. ;)