Special Breakfast Treat

When I woke at 9am to the sound of clanging and clunking in the kitchen my first thought before my eyes opened was Jerry's in the pantry.

Jerry is our 3 legged bunny who lives in the kitchen.

She likes to get into things like an open cabinet, under things like the refrigerator or behind things like the stove...so we have to bunny proof the kitchen for her safety. Sometimes, Charlie leaves the pantry door open (I probably do too but I don't think so) and I worry that she will get electrocuted chewing on wires under the fridge. Today I could tell by the clanging and clunking she might be in the cabinet with our baking pans and dishes. I was relieved that no electrocution would be happening today.

When I opened my eyes and saw the shades were pulled shut on the windows I remembered a conversation Charlie and I had earlier in the week about Saturday morning. It seemed like we made the plans ages ago even though it was probably 2 or 3 days ago. Charlie wanted to sleep late and make breakfast. The pulled shades and the dark room reminded me of our plans and I stayed in bed for a while listening to the action in the kitchen. The clunking turned into clinking of measuring spoons and cups and whisking.

I finally got out of bed and found Charlie whipping up a batter for waffles. I helped clean up the kitchen a little and made some coffee. Charlie said he woke up around 7am...so much for sleeping late! I could stay in bed for hours and doze and drift in and out of dreams; Charlie wakes right up and starts his day. I hope our kids inherit my sleeping abilities.

Charlie cut the recipe in half since it made 12 waffles, and ours came out larger since we have a Belgian waffle maker. So we got 3 waffles from his concoction and they were delicious with black berries mixed in. As I was taking my first bite, he let me know there was an entire stick of butter in the batter.

The recipe said the butter makes the waffles really delicious so...

I ate a third of a stick of butter this morning.

And Charlie ate two thirds.

I'm going to crochet now and then we are going to my parents house for the rest of the day. Lauren's there with Ryan, we're bringing Grandma and Allan and Dad will be there later after they get home from work. Rachel and Mom are there, of course, and they are going to a church garage sale now! I hate missing out on steals, deals and finds. Oh well!!

We are going out for dinner to the Skylark Diner in Edison. Its so fun and yummy!

BYE!!!
Sandra

Still Celebrating

Hi! My Birthday was yesterday but I'm still celebrating! Maybe that explains the insane look in my eye in these photos!?!?!?

Last night we went to Magic Fountain for ice cream and I opened a present from my parents that came in the mail. Its a jigsaw puzzle of all kinds of candy!

I got a fun package from Mami and Papi in Florida today, it was full of Polish Pottery.

I also got the first 3 seasons of 90210 on DVD from Charlie because I love that show. Its on Soap Net weekdays from 5-7 pm but now I can watch it from the beginning and get obsessed with it all over again.Theres still a present on the way from Charlie, I'll have it tomorrow! I'll still be celebrating tomorrow with my whole family...this is the best birthday ever. I love getting presents...can you tell??!?!?!?

Work has been crazy between Teen Arts at Bergen Community College and the Art Show at my school. I set up my room and even had a guest book for everyone to sign. I am impressed that no one tore down or scribbled on any of the artwork. Here are some pics of the rooms all set up.

I guess cinder block walls are cinder block walls no matter what you do! It looks a lot better in person! Well, thats enough about me...until tomorrow when I celebrate my birthday some more!

Kisses

Sandra

Happy Birthday Sandra!

Today is Sandra's birthday! Happy birthday!

Why don't you all pop over to her new Etsy store and buy a little something to make her day?

Delta Bars

Has anyone ever heard of Delta Bars? I'm on my way to a barbecue this evening, and spent a long time this morning pouring through my bookmarked recipes to find something to bring with me. We were getting slammed by thunderstorms, no shopping for me, so I had to work with the ingredients I had on hand. I ended up choosing Delta Bars from the Betty Crocker Cooky Book. Our copy is so old and worn, with the cover falling off. Anyway, these bars jumped out at me because 1) They're totally weird, and 2) There's no photo of what they look like.
The concept is a basic sugar cookie crust, with a brown sugar meringue (mixed with some chopped nuts) spread over the top and then baked. The description says "Nutty brown sugar meringue bakes into cooky base to make chewy butterscotch bar. Popular with young and old." I wonder how they'll turn out!!

Here's the recipe.

Delta Bars
From Betty Crocker's Cooky Book
Makes 24 bars

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup granualted sugar
1 whole egg
1 egg, separated
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Heat oven to 375f. Mix shortening, granulated sugar, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla well. Measure flour by dipping method. Stir together dry ingredients through salt. Blend into shortening mixture and mix thorougly. Spread in greased baking pan, 13"x9.5"x2". Beat egg white until foamy. Gradually beat in brown sugar. Continue beating until mixture is stiff and glossy. Fold in nuts. Spread meringue over dough in pan. Bake about 25 minutes. Cut while warm in 2" sqaures.





Edit to add: These bars are, um, totally underwhelming. You can not cut through meringue, warm or otherwise. It is dry and crunchy. The top layer of these bars crumbled and broke into a zillion pieces when I tried to slice through. Also, note to the world: Shortening does not make a delicious cookie base. Because it has no taste.

Lake Lounging

So I missed Sandra's Memorial Day bbq, but for good reason! I was here instead. Who could blame me?



Hope you all had a great long weekend!

Baseball and Fun-B-Q

Hello & Happy Memorial Day! What better way to spend the weekend than going to a ball game and having a fun-b-q!!

Me and Charlie saw a Yankee game on Sunday; it was really exciting since they made a come from behind win. My favorite part was when the whole stadium did the wave!

We took lots of pictures, Charlie got this great one of Mariano closing out the game.

And heres a shot of me outside the new stadium they are building across the street.

Today, we had a fun-b-q at the house. My mom, sister, nephew, grandma and best friend came over. We didn't do much in the way of cooking anything fancy so it was a fun relaxing day. Just burgers, hot dogs, macaroni and potato salad, corn on the cob and grilled veggies.

Charlie manned the grill by the blooming rose bushes

and whipped up some icy strawberry lemonade...mom really liked it!


Ryan likes to play soccer (and basketball and baseball) and he's not even 2 years old yet!


We all had so much fun!
(Ryan, Lauren my older sister, Mom, Charlie, me and Grandma)

Rachel was away with her friends for the weekend. I hope she had fun! Maybe I'll talk to her tomorrow, we have lots of catching up to do. We might go visit my friend Stephanie in her new place next Sunday. I hope Rachel doesn't have plans yet!
Kisses
Sandra

Good things start out small

We haven't gone missing, I swear! Sandra and I have been pretty busy. I was away last weekend, and this past weekend was Mother's Day, so we've been out of the Sunday Dinner loop. Next week doesn't look good either.

However, I was able to run to the garden center on Saturday and pick up some plants in anticipation of gardening this weekend. They didn't have a few things that I wanted, so I'll have to go somewhere else, but I picked up some herbs and gave them a new home.

Basil (front), Lavender (left), and Thyme (right)

Lavender

Sweet Basil