Happy Birthday !!Rich!!

My posts are a bit out of order these days due to the demise of my mouse-pad-thingie on my macbook. Thanks to Facebook, one of my high school friends was able to suggest a solution that worked quite well and allowed me to download my pictures! Aug 19 was Rich's birthday (which he shares with Bill Clinton...). We both worked all day however that did not stop me from making him a yummy birthday dinner. Rich's favorite meals usually involve meat, cheese, potatoes, bread, and A-1 sauce. Don't mess up his celebratory meals with veggies or salad, unless it is Caesar, and smothered with bacon bits and croutons. On my lunch break I rushed home to peel and slice potatoes and make a delicious sharp cheddar roux for homemade potatoes au gratin. Filet mignon and a loaf of rosemary & sea salt sourdough bread completed his birthday dinner. I made him his birthday "cake" which was Jell-O no bake cheesecake. Yes, that is his favorite. After dinner we went out for a while and came home ready for sleep like 2 oooold people. And he's only 25....Happy birthday babe!

A happy face :)

 "Real men eat meat and potatoes."

 This was a great recipe. See below if you'd like to try it.

Orange is his fav. color!

--->>Potatoes Au Gratin

4 russet potatoes, peeled & sliced thinly

3 tbsp butter

3 tbsp flour

2 c milk

2 c shredded Cheddar

salt & pepper

onion powder

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

Butter a 2-quart baking dish. Layer 1/2 the potatoes in the baking dish and sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, and onion powder. Add remaining potatoes and repeat salt, pepper, and onion powder. 

In a medium saucepan make your roux--melt butter over medium heat, add flour and 1/2 tsp salt, and whisk constantly for 1 minute. Whisk in milk. Stir constantly until mixture has thickened. Stir in the all cheese, and continue stirring until well melted, 1-2 minutes. Pour the cheese mix over the potatoes and bake for 1-1/2 hours. 

**if done in the crock pot you may cook on high about 3 hours. This is what I ended up doing, but I prefer this done in the oven.

Enjoy!

Pennsylvania Pictorial

This summer Rich & I decided to take a long weekend and go to visit his family in Pennsylvania. Rich was born in Harrisburg and grew up in Pennsylvania for a large part of his childhood. I have been there before but my most vivid memory is the King of Prussia mall. :)  Yes, I categorize places by malls. How else is a girl to remember everywhere she's been?!? I really don't remember being struck by all the open space when I was there before. Years of city living has damaged my mind into thinking that open space is uncommon. I enjoyed snapping random pictures of things you just don't see every day in the city...like tractors, trees, and houses actually on LAND. haha! Rich was making fun of me the whole time! 

I also really enjoyed meeting his aunts, uncles, and cousins, many for the first time. We had a great trip! 

 Grandma & Grandpa Layson, Adam & Roxy, and baby Abby (in Roxy's tummy!) Roxy was sooo sick but they made the drive over to see us! 

 Wherever I am, chaos is sure to follow...

 Awww...we're all smiling...

 Ain't we cute...

 Roxy & me

 Uncle Rick & Aunt Dee

 Rich & me at Hershey Chocolate World. There is a huge sign for Hershey Choc World in the background. The lady who took the picture for us didn't get it in the picture even though we asked her to take our picture in front of the sign.....SMH!!! These things always happen to us! I didn't even think to check!

 A house that Rich lived in as a kid

 I guess way out in the country you get lonely and you'll talk to anyone who will...drive by? If you click on this pic to enlarge it you will see what I mean!

 There's literally nothing behind these houses for miles. It's weeeeeeiiird!!!

 I like oooold barns. Maybe because they are red. Or maybe, because they are a novelty. Either way, I like old barns.

 Three Mile Island

  We drove through miles and miles of roads with nothing to see but trees

 Another house that Rich lived in as a kid

 Everywhere I looked were barns, valleys, hills & trees.

 Seriously who builds a one way bridge. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

It's always good to be home, crashed out on the couch.


We didn't take pictures with everyone while we were there but we did remember to take a few which is better than we normally do! Although we had a GREAT time I was reminded of how much I like living within 5 minutes of the grocery store and mall. :)

Hurricane Irene!!!

Ever since we moved to Florida, I have been dreading our first "real" hurricane. Most people here think I am crazy to be so freaked out by them since I have no issues with earthquakes. But I just don't think earthquakes are nearly as scary as hurricanes! As of last night we were expecting Irene to sweep through Florida like an evil stepmother. As of tonight it's supposedly going to stay slightly east of the coast and we won't catch the major brunt of it. However, my worst nightmare is going for a week with no water or power. Or worse yet, having my floor to ceiling massive glass doors shatter into my living room! With these ominous threats looming, Rich and I dutifully set out to Home Depot and Wal-Mart.

I have never seen more chaos at Wal-mart in my life. Today is the first day of school, as well as 2 days before Irene hits. People were flooding Wal-Mart. There was parking only in the auxiliary lots. When we went  into Wal-Mart we headed straight for the water aisle. There were only 44 cases of water left in the store. By the time we left the store, it was all gone. Wal-Mart ran out of water and toilet paper! We laughed our way through the list of hurricane foods to buy...water, juice, powdered milk, canned foods, canned meats, crackers, peanut butter, beef jerky, trail mix, granola bars, etc. all of this made sense (except...powdered milk? um. no.) until we got the bottom. From an official government website, it actually said to stock up on snack cakes, including Twinkies, Little Debbie snack cakes, etc. We still can't figure out why we needed snack cakes but I guess we will know if we lose power cause we didn't buy any. Lol!

I currently have 4 sheets of wood and some 2 x 4s in my dining room. The kitchen table is full of hurricane food. And I am just trying to figure out how to stay alive.

The DPC Blog

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Happy Tuesday!!

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The Hamster Wheel

I feel like I am running circles this week. I have had a ridiculously busy week and tomorrow I have to work from 7am-7pm, drop off my pets at 2 different sitters on my lunch break, pack, try to get some rest and make it to the airport by 5am Friday morning in vacation mode. Ha!

Hopefully I will make it to Friday with a better attitude than some of these dogs...

This might be how I am feeling by bedtime tomorrow night!!!

Tropical Fish Fry

When I have had an especially ridiculous day, I make something new for dinner so that I can focus on just cooking. Cooking is relaxing and helps me de-stress. I had 2 mahi mahi fillets in the fridge that I had planned for dinner tonight. As most of my new recipe escapades, I fly by the seat of my pants. I made up a ridiculously weird recipe tonight. I was really in the mood for macadamia crusted fish with a mango sauce. Seeing that I had no macadamias or mangoes, I puzzled for a moment. I had cashews. Perhaps I would roll the fish in crushed cashews and flour?? Wow. Bad idea. Cashews and cornflakes? Maybe. I opened the cupboard and that is when I spied the box of Mango Peach Passion flakes. Hmmm.... I crushed some of the cereal, and some cashews. As I was getting the basil that's when I spied some coconut flakes. So in went some coconut flakes. Now I had a mix of tropical cereal, cashews & coconut. My plain egg didn't seem good enough to batter the fish in. I added basil & salt, and about 2 tbsp of honey. Definitely not the full flavor I was hoping for, but the fish had a nice crusty layer of tropical-y batter after it was pan fried in vegetable oil. It was definitely something worth perfecting. I'm sure I'll revisit it again soon!

Not so bad for a Tuesday.

Curry Lentils

I had some really good curry-style lentils at the Whole Foods prepared foods bar several months ago. I decided to try to recreate them at home because I really liked them. I didn't expect to be able to nail them on the first try. The one tip I got from the cook was to use as little water as possible to keep the flavor full. I added chopped 6 fresh cloves of garlic, then added cumin, coriander, turmeric, dried onion & chicken bouillon. I initially covered the lentils with water and brought them to a boil, then reduced the heat to a simmer for about 25 minutes. The lentils were absolutely delicious. Halfway through cooking I did decide to add some more water to keep the lentils well covered.

My lentils turned out amazing and were great over brown rice. I can't take a picture because I won't be able to upload it until I get the mouse pad thingie on my computer fixed. Happy Monday!