Crock Pot Pinto Beans

For the pinto beans I rinsed and sorted, removing any bad beans. I then added to the crock pot enough water to cover beans by a couple of inches. Put in two beef bouillon cubes and 2 packets of Goya brand ham concentrate. Cooked on high for one hour and then low for four hours. I did check half way through cooking time and added a couple more cups of water. When done I topped them with my homemade relish. They where delicious. I only have a half jar of relish left. Next year I will defiantly be making a larger batch. 

"NOT" going to last through the winter

Making Some Mini Fruitcakes And Other Goodies For A Local Holiday Bake Sale

Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

Ready for the oven

Just out of the oven, cooling

Christmas cookie ready for sampling
 
Eggnog Truffles

I will be making more of the mini fruitcakes to give as gifts. A good use of the extra fruit I have. 

Happy Thanksgiving !!!! Blessings To All, May Your Day Be Filled With Love And Peace and May You Be Surrounded By Family And Friends On This Wonderful Day !! God Bless Us All And May We Be Thankful For All We Are Giving !!

My little helper

Or is that Santa's little helper

                 

       Doing Some Holiday Painting

These are a few things that I have been working on. Trying to get ready for the holiday season.

"HO HO HO" Painted Onto Mini Block Canvas

This One I Am Still Working On, Few More Things To Do Before Finished

"Believe" Painted On Canvas With Snowflake Embellishment's

                                                                                 

Large Clothes Pins Painted With Christmas Theme

                 Making Pecan Pie

In the mood for making some pies today. Thought I would try pecan pie. Simple to put together, with delicious results. The recipe was for one (9-inch) deep dish, I decided to make two regular pies. I did add about 1/2 cup extra pecan, just for good measure. I also covered the edges of the pie crust with foil to prevent over browning. They turned out great. The recipe can be found on the back of Karo corn syrup bottle or at the link below.

www.karosyrup.com

                        Soups On!!!
Was hoping for much cooler weather today but that did not happen. I have wanted to make this soup for a while now. Made cheesy potato and ham soup today, left to warm on the stove until dinner time. The most time consuming part was peeling and cutting the potatoes into tiny cubes. The rest was a breeze. A simple and satisfying soup the whole family will love. When my family gets hungry, dinner is served. My daughter is a picky eater, and she told me that she would eat this soup again. I take that as a compliment.

Cheesy Potato and Ham Soup

3 lbs. russet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes

3-14.5 oz. cans chicken broth

1 lb. Velveeta cheese, cubed

1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, extra for topping

1 pound package diced ham

1- 0.4 oz. packet Ranch (Buttermilk Recipe) Dressing Mix

salt and pepper to taste

Peel and cube potatoes. Cover cubed potatoes with water, bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook for about 20-25 minutes, or until tender. Drain, then add chicken broth to the cooked potatoes. Gently stir in both cheeses, the diced ham and the dressing mix. Keep warm until ready to serve. Top soup with additional cheese, if desired. Serve with you choose of breadsticks. 

             Happy "Hat" Scarecrow
Saw a scarecrow like this at a craft show once and did not buy it. When I got home I decided to make one for me and another one for my sister. I bring him out every year for Fall/Thanksgiving time. I have always loved him. He is so cute. The scarecrow is made using two straw hats. One straw hat is cut in half to make his hat. Paint the face, glue on the hat piece, add a bandanna of your choice, some raffia for hair and artificial flowers.

                     Santa Painting

This is a whimsical Santa that I painted just for fun. Decided to paint him in pink. I think the pink and green go very well together. Added some simmer over the green background, for some holiday sparkle. The photos do not do him justice. You can not see the sparkle very well. I would like to paint another one in purple and one in blue. When I get those done. I'll post them as well.

                 Rotisserie Chicken

We are in the middle of October already and there will not be many more afternoons that we can spend outside. So with that in mind we decided to put a couple of whole chickens on the grill tonight. Enough for us and plenty to share with family. I have been wanting to do this for a couple of weeks know and have just been so busy. Tonight no excuses. Just moist delicious fall off the bone chicken. To me there is no better way to prepare chicken, always turns out so good. This chicken was simply sprinkled with rotisserie chicken seasoning and left to spin slowly on the electric grill rotisserie, until cooked to perfection, about 1 1/2 hours. Leftovers for tomorrow night, it doesn't get any better than that.

Need I say more

Fall/Halloween Decorating Inspiration

Hope this post gives you some great decorating ideas, as well as some inspiration for getting it done. Some ideas from this year some from the past. Lots that I use year after year. But I always like to change things up a bit, as I come up with my own new twist on things.

Fall-Front Yard Display
This was so much fun to put together, later we added mini pumpkin and gourds to the ladder.

Fall-Front Porch Display

Pumpkin Patch Greeter (my sister brought this guy to life)

Pumpkin Patch for the children

Bone Chilling Grave Yard

Another Friendly Greeter (again by my sister)

Goblins enjoying some Halloween goodies 

Giant Spider Web with Spider Family

Halloween Fire Pit ( Simply add purple play sand around the rocks )

          Multi-Purpose Mannequin
This is a mannequin that I use for different holidays. I got her at a yard sale, I was thrilled to find her, with the idea of course to use her as part of my holiday decorating. I have used her for Halloween And Christmas thus far. For Halloween she is decked out in all black, a witch's hat, gloves, with a crow perched on her arm and broom by her side, black boots add the finishing touches.

She is of course a "Good Witch"

At Christmas time she sits in my husbands old farm truck with a seat full of packages, a light installed in the floor board illuminates the inside of the truck cab for better nighttime viewing. The truck bed holds a real Christmas tree with white lights to finish the scene. I had so much fun with this. We had so many people stop to take pictures. The best part of what I do is having others enjoy it. Truly satisfying. This was my Christmas version of " A Women Getting It Done" One of our neighbors stopped to say he and a friend had rode by, thinking she didn't look to bad, they thought they would come back for a second look, only to find out she was a real dummy. It was so funny when they told us. We fell for it. Got to love good neighbors. 

 

          From Trash To  Treasure 
                  "HALLOWEEN"
This is a chandler that someone threw away, it originally had small black shades on it, they were all crumpled up not in good shape. I removed those as well as all the wiring and added small orange pumpkins. Loved the look and detail of this chandler, this now hangs on my front porch every Halloween, as part of my holiday theme. 

Removed shades and wiring and added mini pumpkin (flame)

This chair was white with blue pocka dots, did not work for me, so I painted it black and did a simple Halloween scene on the seat. Then sprayed with a sealer

This is the finished chair

This is a close-up of the seat

                                      

Great Yard Sale Find - Fall Decorating
Found this old dresser at a yard sale recently. Had my eye on it but waited before asking "How Much" the guy said $40, I quickly called my husband over to take a look at it. We both thought this was a great deal. Loaded it up and brought it home. It did need some minor repairs and some new drawer pulls, as well as some cleaning. But over all a great find. I think the fall accents really brighten it up . The wooden tool box, filled with faux gourds and the milk bottle are also yard sale finds. The milk bottle is filled with mini pumpkin pods (putka pods) and a artificial branch with leaves. I feel like we brought new life to this piece. Whoever owned this dresser in the past would be pleased, I know I am. If you are not familiar with putka pods, you can find them at link below. I love them, they are great for making fall potpourri, so cute.

Find putka pods (mini pumpkin pods) www.amazon.com

        Getting Ready for Halloween
Painted this colorful picture a few nights ago. When my mother-in-law saw it, she ask me how I did it. "Did you pencil everything on first" she said. I told her "No" all free hand, and then told her it took me about, three  hours to complete. All for fun, thought it turned out pretty good, I love the colors.

                                                      

           Pork Loin On The Grill
Grilled a pork loin on the rotisserie last night for dinner. This was a three and one half pound loin. Cooked it for twenty minutes per pound, simply dressed with olive oil, salt and pepper. Served it with mashed potatoes and sweet and sour red cabbage with applesauce. This was a delicious combination. 

          Cooking Apples Today!!

Processed my apples using my handy dandy apple peeler, which also cores and slices the apple. This thing was lots of fun to use. The apples were very juicy, got squirt in the face a couple of times. I will be making fried apple pies with these apples. I used a combination of Granny Smith and Stayman Apples. Cooked them nice and slow with sugar, cinnamon and corn starch. When they are good and tender I will place them into a plastic container and freeze, until I am ready to make my pies.

        Made A Pound Cake Today

 I have been making this pound cake for years. My mother-in-law  gave me the recipe many years ago. I had ask her for the recipe  after trying a piece of cake she had made. I loved it. When making  this cake I always use a tube pan, I find some of the bundt pans to  be to small for all the batter. I shared some of this cake with my mother-in-law. She called to say it was almost as good as what she made. This cake always turns out for me. A tried and true recipe. 

     Butter-Nut Pound Cake

3 cups sugar
1/2 cup Crisco
2 stick margarine
5 eggs
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 small can evaporated milk, add water to equal 1 cup
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons Butter-Nut flavoring

Start with a cold oven.
Cream shortening, butter, sugar, and salt.
Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. 
Add flour and milk alternately.
Fold in flavoring by hand.
Bake in a greased and floured tube pan.
Bake for 1 hour and 45 minutes at 325 degrees.
Do Not Open The Oven, during the baking process.

                 Pulled Pork BBQ
Made pulled pork a different way this time. Sometimes I cook my pork butt in the oven, low and slow. This time I cooked the pork butt in my Technique Electric 6.5 Quart Voice Pressure Cooker. It cooked in far less time, and the flavor that was infused into the meat was wonderful. The only thing I put in the cooker with the meat was chicken broth, as recommended  for the cooking process. I thought it was just as good as smoked BBQ. Topped it with a homemade sauce and homemade slaw, on a toasted bun, Oh My!!

                               

             Grilled Cheese Deluxe
For dinner tonight I made what I call, grilled cheese deluxe, if you have never had one, give it a try. I use white bread, two slices of American cheese, margarine for frying. After frying pull bread apart, while cheese is good and hot, be careful it will release steam and get your fingers. Coat one half with mayonnaise, to your liking. Top with two slices of tomato, sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Top with the other bread and enjoy! My tomato production is slowing down, I hate when that happens. Each one we eat these days is more precious, because they will soon be gone. So to honor the great tasting home grow tomato, I give you the "Grilled Cheese Deluxe".

Behold the beauty as we bid farwell

                     The "Reveal"
My son and his wife had a reveal party at our house. They are expecting their first child. This was a first for all that attended , but it was a wonderful and very special way to reveal the baby's gender. Everyone had a great time. We would be more than happy to do this again in the future.

Congratulations !!!! It's A Boy !!!!