HAPPY VALENTINES DAY 2024

Found this last year, after Valentines Day sale, and picked it up.  It sort of matches the one 2nd Man found for Easter a couple of years ago (that one had a vintage pale blue truck filled with Easter eggs).

Made up some bags of Lindt truffles for my coworkers.  We are trying to stay away from chocolate (except for a small piece of antioxidant rich dark chocolate) but I can live vicariously through others, ha.

Saw these below in the grocery store the other day and thought it was a pretty brilliant marketing idea.  They used heart-shaped foil pans to create meals to go for Valentines Day.

These were boneless ribeye sweetheart cuts with garlic butter...love the way they even sliced them and placed them opposite each other.  Pretty cool.

Then there were the New York Strip Steaks with garlic butter but they put them in a ready to go meal combo; one with crab cakes and asparagus, and the other with loaded potato and bacon wrapped asparagus.

Since red meat is no longer on our list of things to eat (none since 12/8), we won't be buying this of course, but we'll give props to whoever came up with the idea.

RAINY SATURDAY AND STORMY SUNDAY

We thought the rain was gone and so off to the farm we ventured...

It was overcast and getting darker and gloomy.  We had to bring some things out there to put up plus I needed to drive the truck since I didn't get to do that last weekend because it was so wet.  Also watered the porch plants but that was about it because...

...it started raining.

We headed back into town.

Then yesterday, a very strong line of storms came through, hail, strong winds, heavy rain and of course...

...a tornado in the area!  It was far enough away from the farm and from Houston, but the same line of storms that produced the tornado moved over the farm and parts of Houston earlier in the morning.

This picture is from a few weekends ago.  Several of you have asked how the wild pear tree is doing, the one we had to butcher prune at the request of the power company last Summer.  Here it is.  It's doing great and this is even after the hard freeze.  Now whether it produces fruit this season, we have no idea, but at least it's still doing well.

So ready for Spring...

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART BIG GAME SUNDAY

 It's been a stormy weekend so it's a a good time for some healthy food and some Hobart!

Here's a simple one...we had some pan seared salmon over mixed veggies and topped it with avocado, Greek Yogurt and chives.  Very good.  Side note, we are obsessed with plain Greek Yogurt as a sour cream substitute...zero fat and and minimal sodium...and tastes exactly the same as sour cream.  It's all about healthy choices, right?

So a package came the other day and Hobart did what cats do.  Here he is looking back and saying, "WHAT?  Haven't you ever seen a cat in a box?"

"Now leave me alone and let me sleep..."

And of course we did.  Because...

#notspoiled

BARGAIN LANDSCAPING ITEMS

 So, one of my very sweet coworkers thought of us on a great deal.  Her Sister was liquidizing her late husbands's landscaping business and she asked us if we wanted any of the great "pre-sale" deals.

Sure!

An industrial wheelbarrow, in my favorite color red!  It's in great shape (just needs to be hosed off a bit) but it is otherwise in excellent condition and ready to be used around the farm!  One can always use an extra wheelbarrow, you never know what you might be pushing around on the property.

Then there were hoses.  We got six unused garden hoses, each 50' long!  They also had some brand new sprinklers, so we got four impact sprinklers and two circular spot sprinklers.

These will all come in handy with new flowerbeds and garden areas as we develop them around the farm.

All of the above for $15.

There may be one more thing our future, something really cool to have, but trying to figure out the logistics of it (if they still have it) so stay tuned on that front.

HOW TO ROAST GARLIC IN THE OVEN

.Since we didn't plant garlic last year, we don't have our usual good supply.

So, we got a 2lb bag (that's a lot of garlic, ha) and decided to roast some so we can enjoy the added flavor with our new diet of healthier cooking.  Plus garlic is SUPER heart healthy.

Cut off the top 1/4 or so, to expose as much surface area of the garlic as you can and leave the tighter paper skins on (some just fall off naturally).  Other people just cut it in half but that's wasting too much garlic, ha.  

I like to make a little foil packet, you can put it in a dish and cover with foil, whatever you prefer.

Then drizzle them with olive oil.  You want the oil to really get down in there so I drizzle it in a small stream and let it get into all the nooks and crannies.

You can also add herbs here, salt and/or pepper, etc.  We aren't doing added salt so we just used the pure garlic and olive oil flavor.

When we cook with foil, if foil comes into contact with the food, we like to put a piece of parchment over the food so that's what I did here but again, not necessary, you do whatever you like!

Seal it up and pop in a preheated 400 degree oven for 45 minutes...

At the end of 45 minutes, take it out, carefully open the foil (remove the parchment if using) and leave them exposed and put back in for 15 more minutes...

...or until you like the color, we feel this is a good place to stop, so we always do a total of one hour at 400.  It has always worked well.

Then you just squeeze them out one by one.  If you are trying to keep them intact, you will have to be gentle as you remove the papery skin and the usually pop out pretty easily.  A few get squashed when I do it but it's OK, they are going to get spread onto bread or stirred into a dish so it's all good.

We put them in a small jar (Mason/Ball of course, ha) and keep them in the fridge.  They will keep a few days in the fridge without oil, or you can pour olive oil over them and they'll keep about a week.

*note: they will spoil and garlic in oil without oxygen can actually run the risk of botulism...so be safe!

They are delicious this way.  Here are a couple of bagels spread with just a touch of heart healthy butter and a couple cloves of roasted garlic...

OH MY.  SO DELICIOUS!

PENCIL BOXES AS STORAGE CONTAINERS

 This is a storage tip for something we use that works great.  We like to be organized whenever we can  One thing we found that works great for inexpensive storage is a pencil box.

During the school year, you can find them almost everywhere.

I found the long one on the left at our local grocery chain, and the other smaller one on the right was from Walmart.  The bigger one was $1.75 and the smaller one was .99 cents.

What makes them great is that you can put just about anything in there as long as it fits.

This one stays in a large drawer to keep our chip clips and similar items all together.  That way, they are in one place and don't move around ending up at the back of the drawer, ha.  It's also nice to pull out the box and find just the right clip for the job.

We used the longer one for the attachments to our hand held mixer.  Again, keeps them all in one place (this sits on a shelf behind the mixer) and bonus, they stay dust free and clean until you use them.

Check this out!  Eight spice containers (from Penzey's anyway) fit perfectly in another one.  It makes it easy to keep similar spices together.  Right now we only have this one, but 2nd Man wants me to pick up some more so we can put jars in others and have "theme boxes".  For example, Mexican cooking, Italian, seasoning blends, baking spices, etc.

But, they are not only for the kitchen.  This one stays in our bathroom drawer and keeps our bandages and minor would care needs all in one spot.

Grab the box and go!

Of course, you could use them in a desk or craft room.  In our smaller apartment, it helps with organization for sure, but this will be something that helps at the house as well.

Always great to stay neat and organized!

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART SUNDAY

 Good and healthy food!

We are eating more fish than ever and it's so good.  We had a salad with homemade dressing and then Mahi-Mahi as the main course.  2nd Man pan seared it, minimal oil, with just some lemon pepper as seasoning.  He served it over a bed of brown rice with green onions and dried cranberries.  It was wonderful!  We really like the Mahi-Mahi, it's so mild and tasty.

I was in bed the other morning and Hobart was next to me.  I got him to stare into the camera for a at least a moment.  He was waiting for breakfast but also enjoying the warm sheets.  Because...

#notspoiled

NEW EXPERIENCE RUTABAGA COOKING

With our new eating style, we're trying new things.  One thing we neither of us had ever had, rutabagas!

First I had to find them in the store.  You can see here, they were near the corn.  Not sure how you pick a good one, so I picked a couple that looked OK, ha.

We had read up on them and you have to peel them, not only to remove the outside skin, but rutabagas are usually covered in wax, one of the few vegetables that is treated in this manner.  They are very prone to drying out and contain a lot of water as they have no natural shield against evaporation water loss so during shipment, they are waxed.  We peeled them well...

...and sliced and diced them up.

2nd Man took them and added them to a skillet with a little bit of olive oil and a few seasonings (no salt) and just cooked them like you were cooking potatoes.

After a few minutes of cooking on medium high heat, they had nice color on them and resembled diced potatoes you might have for breakfast.  They were great!  They are in the brassica family which includes mustard, cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts.  I thought they tasted similar to a less sweet carrot and 2nd Man thought they tasted more like a turnip.  We really liked them though and will definitely add them to our rotation of vegetables.

Not sure if they will grow here (they are a Winter vegetable so we'd have to plant them in the Fall), but we'll check that out.  They apparently store very well so it has the potential to be a great option at the farm.

Anyone else ever cooked with them or have a great method/use for them?

COOKIE CUTTERS

With our recent cookie jar gift, it was time for some more cookie cutters.

The last year or so, I've been picking up cookie cutters for 2nd Man.  Usually around or after a holiday when I can find some on sale/clearance and of course they are holiday themed.

This year I picked up a "Santa with his toy sack", "star", "snowflake" and the two at the top, a "cat" and a "dog".  Hey we have to have pet equality in our cookies, right?!  I paid $3 for all of these. 😉

Now we need to find a good sugar cookie recipe, perhaps one that is "healthy" for us and "regular" to share with others.

MY THREE FAVORITE VEHICLES

Took this picture last Summer...

I always have to move the truck and my car at the end of mowing so I can mow the grass underneath where they were parked.  When I was pulling them back, I ended up having them side by side.  I finished mowing where they were parked and I parked the mower next to them...I went to the porch to get some water and I looked back and saw this.  Too funny.

One of these things is not like the other?

Can't wait to be cleared to mow and get back on the Zen Machine.  The timing is working out well since this is the time of year when I'm not mowing anyway, so  until then, it's almost time to get the Zen Machine 2 in for its first ever annual maintenance and get it all ready for the Spring.  And we all know that will be here before we know it.

2nd Family said final rain gauge total was 8.25 inches of rain for all of last week.  Thankfully, it was not all at once so, while the yard was flooded, the roads were clear and no creeks or rivers were in danger.

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY

Not going to the farm this weekend.

Too much rain.

Click to enlarge. These are multi-day rainfall totals around the area.  2nd Family said we had a little over 7" total but that was before yesterday's rain.  Yep, it rained Mon/Tue/Wed and Thursday was beautiful, but heavy rains came back Friday afternoon/evening.  We are probably at about 8" of rainfall out there at this point.  Speaking of all that rain... 

This is the view from 2nd Family's front porch.  This is looking out into their front yard, toward the road where we drive in.  She said it is SO wet and standing water EVERYWHERE.  We decided to skip this weekend.  We certainly don't need to water, ha, and it's too wet to even try to do anything like moving stuff to the barn/shed, etc.  No sense in risking getting stuck or having the yard messed up.  Plus it's damp and on the chilly side so we'll run errands today.

I'm meeting some coworkers for breakfast, and then 2nd Man and I will make a Costco run to stock up healthy food items.  We're really getting into soups and trying different versions since it's Winter.  We can make a huge pot of whatever soup we decide on and with a salad before, we can eat on it for days.  Easy for weeknight meals and minimal shopping.

More later, hope you all are having a great start to the weekend and stay warm/dry wherever you are.

FOLDING TABLE TRASH TO TREASURE

 Regular readers know that I have a favorite place to look for bargains...our downstairs trash area!  Our building has trash chutes on every floor and they feed into a separate room, but for boxes and other things that people can't put in the chute, there is an area (indoor) near the loading dock where people can put the things they don't want.  I've found quite a few cool items over the last few years.

You all know I'm feeling better when I'm back to my old self, searching for a deal/bargain, ha!

Saw this up against the dumpster.  I thought it was broken at first but picked it up and moved it over to the door so I could see it in the light...

Was it an easel?  Hmm, I moved it around a bit and then realized what it actually was...

A nice folding desk/table!  It's a really good size, about 4 feet wide when folded out and very sturdy.  It's painted in a gray stain/wash kind of color.

It is in perfect shape, no damage at all and the cool part is being able to fold it up and store it away until needed at a later date.  Not sure how we'll use it, we have two nice desks for use in the house now.  One is 2nd Man's desk for work here at the apartment and the other is a really neat desk in the foyer of the current house.  I thought about using it in the barn/workshop as extra space or even as a gardening/potting table type of table?

Any other ideas?

RED BARN COOKIE JAR

This is a wonderful "get well" gift we received and we just had to share.

Check this out!

A beautiful, ceramic, red barn cookie jar!  It has great little details and is the perfect shade of barn red, complete with hen!

Of course, the roof lifts off with a good tight seal from a rubber gasket and a place to store cookies inside.  2nd Man is currently researching healthy cookie recipes so we can put it to good use. I remember my grandmother having two or three ceramic cookie jars and she was always putting cookies in there.  Haven't thought of that in years and this brings me back.

It will have a special place on the counter for sure!