What’s Cookin’ – Microwave Potato Salad

Okay, so this is a weird time of year to be talking about potato salad but we had a little thank you barbeque for our tile crew and I made some to serve with burgers and brats, Hawaiian salad, pico de gallo and chips. And the reason this dish is unusual is that I microwave the potatoes instead of boiling them. Fast and easy!

Microwave Potato Salad

8 red potatoes

small bunch of green onions, chopped

1/4 cup mustard

3/4 cup mayonnaise

salt

6 hard-boiled eggs, chopped

20 grape or cherry tomatoes, halved

crop circle a la potatoes

Scrub the potatoes and leave the skins on — that’s where all the good vitamins are. Arrange in a circle around the edge of a plate and microwave for 6 or 7 minutes. Flip each potato over and pierce with a fork 3 times to let the steam escape. Microwave for another 6 or 7 minutes or until fork tender. Let cool for about 15 minutes. Then rough chop them.

rough chop the cooked potatoes

In a large bowl, mix the mustard, mayonnaise, onions and salt. Add the potatoes, eggs and tomatoes. Mix well and chill. This makes about 12 servings and really tastes great!

If you’re having a mini potato salad craving during the winter months, you can just microwave a couple of potatoes and reduce the amount of all other ingredients to make a few servings.

mr. potato head is such a spud!

Wordless Wednesday – The Buppies

Skyler and Reggie at 5 months old - I miss these two!

Sorry … couldn’t go completely wordless. We got these two Yorkies in 1992, a few months apart, although they were only 2 weeks apart in age. They were so much fun. They played hard and got into trouble frequently. Reggie lived to be 14-1/2 years old and Skyler made it to 15-1/2. This is one of my favorite photos of them — they look like such ragamuffins! This was when the term Yuppies was popular so we nicknamed them the Buppies for baby puppies.

Wordless Wednesday

What’s goin’ on …

We are now on the downhill slide of home improvement … thank God. The tile is being laid in our home office and master bedroom this week. We cozied up in the guest room last night — cozy being the operative word. It’s amazing how small a full-size bed feels in comparison to a king. And the puppies would not be denied. They are used to sleeping up on the bed with us and proceeded to carry on until we picked them up. Is this where the term dog pile came from?

Here are a couple of shots of rooms with completed tile. The grout still needs to be sealed and then a good cleaning and everything can go back where it belongs.

dining room

family room

We took a field trip to Ikea Sunday. Hubby and I had never been to the store they opened in Tempe a few years ago. Youngest daughter had shopped there previously and went along. What a veritable wonderland of shopping. First of all, it’s huge — 2 stories of everything from complete room layouts of furniture and appliances to holiday decorations to linens and rugs and silk plants and dishes. There is a restaurant and a children’s play area and a little cafe where you can buy amazing cinnamon rolls for $1.00. It’s a good thing we don’t live anywhere near this store because I would put my car on auto-pilot for the cinnamon rolls alone.

In addition to the cinnamon rolls, 😮 we bought a very nice hanging rack to go behind the door in the laundry room for my aprons. I love aprons and I use them constantly. The granddaughter also has a number of kid-size aprons. We bought very cute matching Christmas aprons a few years ago. Got home from Ikea and, while we were still high from our sugar buzz, hubby put the rack up.

apron rack

I am throwing a baby shower for a friend in December. This is her first baby — they’re having a boy. They live in a mountain town a few hours outside of Phoenix and love the outdoor life, especially fishing. I decided to hand-make her invitations scrapbook-style and found the cutest little stick-on bears to embellish with. I scanned all the bears and printed the one that looks like a little pregnant mama on the front of the envelopes. I think they turned out really cute and I can’t wait for the shower.

baby shower invitation

Pioneer Woman Cookbook Signing

I escaped the house-in-progress last night and went to the “Pioneer Woman Cooks” cookbook signing with my youngest daughter. We arrived at the Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe just as it was about to begin at 7:00 instead of hours early, which we now know to do next time. We stood in line to buy our books and were assigned a letter code — Group N — for the actual signing. We were quite a ways from the action and the author, Ree Drummond, behind stacks of bookshelves so we couldn’t really see anything while she spoke. Audience members asked her questions and she gave charming, funny answers. A child asked her if she had elephants. She said, “You know, until this very moment, I didn’t realize that’s what was missing from my life. We have horses and cows, but no elephants.”

Once she sat down to begin signing, they announced that people with the letter A and anybody with children should get in line. At least an hour went by before they got to Group B. My daughter, who is currently working two jobs so believe me it was amazing that she even had last night off, was fading fast.

Ree signing her Pioneer Woman Cookbook

Ree Drummond, Pioneer Woman

Ree's sister-in-law Missy

Ree’s sister-in-law, Missy, and mother-in-law, were wandering through the crowd, chatting, signing their photos in the book, taking pictures with people. They were gracious and provided a nice distraction from the wait — for a while.

We were fortunate to have found a couple of chairs to park ourselves in and spent some time going through the cookbook. I will say this is one of the prettiest cookbooks — lots and lots of gorgeous pictures of more than just food. There are many pictures of ranch life and animals and kids, family and friends. I know it’s hard work, but it sure looks lovely in the photos and Ree is an amazing photographer.

Ree's mother-in-law

I have already chosen a handful of recipes that I’m going to be trying out soon like the scones and chicken fried steak and jalapeño poppers and meatballs. My in-laws are coming for a 2-week visit around Thanksgiving so I’ll have a captive audience to cook for. And I’m throwing a baby shower for a friend in December, so I’ll be trying out recipes to serve for that as well. Missy said that when they hold their annual 4th of July get together, they make over 300 jalapeño poppers. Lots of food gets consumed on that ranch.

We lasted until 10:15 when they had made it to Group G and figured it would be at least midnight before they got close to our Group N. We ended up leaving our books to be signed and will pick them up today. The big bummer is that we didn’t actually get to meet Ree or have a picture taken with her. But I am truly excited about this gorgeous cookbook and wish her and her family the best of luck on the book tour and in the future. She mentioned that she would be writing another book on her love story with her marlboro man rancher hubby. Sounds scrumptious!

Visit her wonderful website at http://thepioneerwoman.com/

A Sneak Peek

Hubby had a cold over the weekend and I managed to catch it just about the time the tile guys were driving up Monday morning. Have been wandering around here in a cold medicine haze with snot for brains. Nonetheless, great progress has been made on the laying of tile. Here are a few photos, starting with the kitchen looking toward the entryway and office.

Next is the dining room. I just love that spice cake paint color. And the warmth of the gold tile makes me very happy!

Can’t wait until we’re done. We will be dismantling the office soon, which means all the computer equipment is getting disconnected so we can move the furniture out of the room. But, in the infamous words of the Terminator — I’ll be back!

Under Construction

The tile guys will be here this week laying new tile.

Will be back when I can.

Reading “Change of Heart”

Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors. I’ve read all of her books and enjoyed every one of them immensely. A few have even been made into movies — “The Pact,” “Plain Truth,” “My Sister’s Keeper.”

I just finished reading “Change of Heart,” published in 2008. This book kept me hooked from page one and right through to the end … 449 pages of pure enjoyment.

It’s about a man on death row in New Hampshire for killing two people — a police officer and his young stepdaughter. The wife/mother of the victims is pregnant at the time of the murders and gives birth to a daughter with an unfortunate, life-threatening medical condition.

Without giving too much away, I can tell you that strange happenings on death row brings frenzied public attention to the prisoner and he is believed to be the Messiah.

There are many moral issues in this story such as where do religion and state meet, what constitutes a religion and as the quote says on the front jacket of the book, “Would you grant your enemy’s dying wish to save your child’s life?”

Very well-written. Jodi Picoult is so thorough in her research. Her characters feel like people you know. There are twists and turns in this story right to the very satisfying ending.

Visit her website at http://www.jodipicoult.com.

Happy Halloweenies

Hope you have an exceptionally

and your candy consumption doesn’t leave you like this …

Cartoon Cottage http://www.cartooncottage.com/html/halloween.html

Free Gifs & Animations http://www.fg-a.com

The Future Looks Cold

We celebrated The Granddaughter’s 13th birthday a few nights ago with dinner and gifts. She requested dinner out at a Mexican food restaurant, which was way too delicious and a lot of fun.

While we’re sitting around chatting — and I’m not even sure how we got to this point in the conversation — Youngest Daughter says to me something like, “If you’re mean to me, when you’re old I’ll stick you in a home surrounded by snow.” Well, of course, everyone is horrified (and laughing) because they all know how much I dislike living in the cold and snow. I was born in a cold weather area, grew up in cold weather areas and have lived as an adult in numerous cold weather areas. This is why I have now chosen to live in Phoenix, where cold is in the 60s.

Hubby turns to me and says, “Better get some long underwear, girlfriend, ’cause I know you’re gonna be mean!”

*sigh* Sadly, he’s right. The older I get, the crankier I get. Better learn how to knit socks!!!

And then while we were opening presents, my cheap bastard frugality got a good laugh, too. In the garage, I have a bookshelf full of gift bags that we use over and over and over and over. You get the idea. So granddaughter pulls the tissue out of one of her gifts and

even I have to admit it’s disgraceful! The next time one of the neighbor kids comes by with a fundraiser for their school, I am buying a new pack of tissue!

Happy Birthday, Princess!

Happy 13th Birthday

to our sweet

Granddaughter —

our own

Little Mermaid!

Enjoy your

teenage years…

Nana and Bampa love you very much!!!