Deviled Eggs….

These deviled eggs are just the cutest thing I’ve seen in a long time.  They don’t look hard to make at all, either.

Carlene sent me the link from Savoring Time in The Kitchen.

Cut a slice out of the bottom of the egg so they stand up, then another slice down a bit from the top, scoop out the yolks, overfill them when you put  the yolk/mayo mixture back in, slice olives for the eyes, and carrots for the webbed feet.  Pretty cute, huh?

Here’s the click if you want to check them out further.

Savoring Time in the Kitchen is a great read!

Auntie Em’s Cupcakes, worthy of Jan’s Hall of Fame….

OMG, MAKE THESE!!!!!  They are absolutely, fantastically delicious.  It’s the combination of the vanilla and the almond that makes them so special, the oil makes them moist. We heaped coconut on the frosting, they are decadent!!!  Seriously, one of the best recipes, ever!  Trust me, you’ll love these.

We also made Carrot Cake Cupcakes from Simply Elise.  They aren’t frosted yet. They are filled with cinnamon, cardamon and orange zest.

You can find the carrot cake recipe here.

I’ll post pictures later….

Just for fun I called Auntie Em’s in LA, the cupcakes sell for $3.50 apiece, the recipe made 22, that’s $77 dollars worth of cupcakes we have sitting in our kitchen.  Amazing, huh…

The lyrics to the Easter Parade, just in case you want to hum along…

Never saw you look quite so pretty before
Never saw you dress quite so handsome - what's more

I could hardly wait to keep our date
This lovely Easter morning
And my heart beat fast as I came through the door
For...

In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it
You'll be the grandest fella in the Easter parade.
I'll be all in clover, and when they look us over
We'll be the proudest couple in the Easter parade.

On the avenue, Fifth Avenue,
The photographers will snap us
And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure.
Oh, I could write a sonnet, about your Easter bonnet
And of the guy I'm taking to the Easter Parade.

On the avenue, Fifth Avenue,
The photographers will snap us
And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure.

Oh, I could write a sonnet
About your Easter bonnet
And of the girl I'm taking to the Easter Parade.

Auntie Em’s Cupcakes

Lindsay and I are going to make these tomorrow.  Auntie Em’s Kitchen is a popular restaurant/bakery in Los Angeles, I got their cupcake recipe from the LA Food Times.

You might want to check out the recipe for them, it’s archived in Jan Can Cook.  We’re doing half with coconut, half with sprinkles, I’ll update you on how they turn out…

Here’s the quick click to the recipe -

My annual Easter story, aka how I got personally escorted out of the market by the store manager

I’ve blogged about this before, so if you’re an oldtimer, just skim past it.  This is for all the new kids on the block that read my blog and haven’t heard this.

Some of you may not realize that I’m a double amputee, following a bout with meningitis when I was forty-four, and you also may not realize that I have a healthy sense of humor about the whole thing.  Oh my, there are a million stories in the naked city, this is one…

The year was 1995, I was slowly getting my life back and determined to prove to myself that I was “normal” which of course I wasn’t, but I wasn’t ready to admit that quite yet.  The boys were in college, coming home for spring break and I decided to go to the grocery store alone, my first mistake.

I was going to make them sloppy joes for lunch, and being really cocky, I decided that I didn’t need a cart, I could just carry the burger and the buns.  I didn’t have a good sense of balance yet, and I staggered when I walked, but I didn’t need a cart, of course not, sure I didn’t.

So I get a package of buns, trudge on to the meat counter where I pick up the burger, but I decided that I didn’t really want to make them from scratch, so I also picked up a can of Manwich.  Oh, I needed a 2 liter container of soda, I forgot the soda.  So I’m staggering thru the store with all of this in my arms, trying to decide if I could also carry a bag of chips, and by this time I’m starting to get really fatigued, as my energy level wasn’t good yet.

So I’m carrying all of this stuff in my arms, bobbing and weaving and it starts to slip thru my arms.  I know I’m in trouble, I’m trying to keep my balance, and I totally lose it and crash into a display of jelly beans. 

The store had made this huge pyramid of jelly beans, they had repackaged bulk jellies into deli containers, and it was high to the sky on a table.

Well, I fell into the damned thing,  and those containers spilled to the ground, and literally thousands of jelly beans poured out of them onto the floor….

OMG, I was horrified.  There were jelly beans everywhere!  The clerks all came running, with the most gawdawful expressions on their faces, so I quickly went into my poor pitiful pearl routine about how I didn’t have any feet, and I was so sorry and I would pay for all those jelly beans.  Heaven forbid they think I was a drunk with all that weaving going on…

The store manager came up, I was trying to explain to him what happened, while he was hurriedly trying to get me thru the checkout lane. He just wanted me gone!  We cut in front of the other customers, I paid for my groceries (no, he didn’t make me pay for the jelly beans) and then he  escorted me out to and put me in my car!  I remember sitting  in that parking lot, laughing hysterically and  thinking that if I ever got home, I would never go anywhere again in my entire life.

Of course I did, but I must admit it was a couple of years before I had the courage to go back into that market…

And that’s my annual Easter story, I hope it gave you all a smile today….

What a great way to start your day…

Carlene sent me this story. It just made my morning, I bet it will yours, too.

A mom was concerned about her kindergarten son walking to school. He didn't want his mother to walk with him. She wanted to give him the feeling that he had some independence but yet know that he was safe.

So she had an idea of how to handle it. She asked a neighbor if she would please follow him to school in the mornings, staying at a distance, so he probably wouldn't notice her.

She said that since she was up early with her toddler anyway, it would be a good way for them to get some exercise as well, so she agreed.

The next school day, the neighbor and her little girl set out following behind Timmy as he walked to school with another neighbor girl he knew. She did this for the whole week.

As the two walked and chatted, kicking stones and twigs, Timmy's little friend noticed the same lady was following them as she seemed to do every day all week. Finally she said to Timmy, 'Have you noticed that lady following us to school all week?

Do you know her?'

Timmy nonchalantly replied, 'Yeah, I know who she is.'

The little girl said, 'Well, who is she?'

'That's just Shirley Goodnest,' Timmy replied, 'and her daughter Marcy.'

'Shirley Goodnest? Who the heck is she and why is she following us?"

'Well,' Timmy explained, 'every night my Mom makes me say the 23rd Psalm with my prayers, 'cuz she worries about me so much. And in the Psalm, it says, 'Shirley Goodnest and Marcy shall follow me all the days of my life', so I guess I'll just have to get used to it!'

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you; the Lord lift His countenance upon you,and give you peace.

May Shirley Goodnest and Marcy be with you today and always.

I know you smiled!

I sure did, Pass this on and brighten someone's day!

Eating out, what a BUST!!!!

Why is it that if you go to lunch with a man, you pick the restaurant and if the food is bad it’s the end of the world, but, if they pick the restaurant and the food is bad, they won’t admit it for anything…..

I’m eating healthy so we went to Salad World for lunch.  Some guy at work told hubby that they had the best salad in town, so he wanted to try it.

BEST SALAD IN TOWN, OMG, OMG, it was absolutely, positively HORRID!!!

No atmosphere, no comfy booths, a stupid little overpriced menu, the salads all had a badzillion calories in them, so I opted for a plain baked potato with steamed veggies on top.  He got a philly cheesesteak, he didn’t even order a salad!

They had vegetarian chili on the menu, so I asked the waitress, some poor  woman on the wrong side of sixty who, I’m sure, would much rather be home with her feet up on an ottoman watching As The World Turns instead of taking our order, if it was healthy.  She said she didn’t know, it came from a container from GFS (wholesale food distributer).  Egads, why did she tell me that?  Total turn off before we even ordered.  

But order we did, then waited forever for our food and our waitress finally came back to our table and said they had screwed up my potato and put cheese all over it, and they had to “microwave” me another one.  Arughhhhh, why did she have to confirm what I already knew, that the potato was microwaved…  

Hubby declared that his cheesesteak was good.  It looked awful, on an icky dry roll, no grilled onions or peppers, just some shredded beef with a squirt of cheese on that sad looking bun.  And mine, well, it was a microwaved poato with steamed veggies on top.  *sigh*

I had iced tea, he had water – it was  almost $20 for lunch, and it was awful!  But he said didn’t think it was bad.  HE DIDN’T THINK IT WAS BAD???????  FOR TWENTY DOLLARS???? 

We shopped all day, and tonight I had to run back to yet another store, so he said “we’ll just get something out.”  Okay, great, I was tired and didn’t really want to cook, but there isn’t a lot of restaurants to choose from close to our house that aren’t totally calorie laden,  but we do have Long John Silvers, which I’m not a fan of, but they have 350 calorie meals now.   That worked, it was quick, and I ordered the tilipia with rice and steamed veggies.  It sounded good and looked great in the picture on the menu board.  They brought our order and sat it on our table, hubby had this HUGE pile of food on his plate,I looked down at mine and there was a tablespoon of veggies, maybe a couple of tablespoons of rice and a sad little piece of fish.  Apparently you don’t get much for 350 calories.  I looked at his and I’m thinking if mine is grilled and 350 calories, and his is fried and is a huge amount of food, he must have 3500 calories in his dinner!  No wonder America is a fat nation, it’s those damned restaurants! 

So I came home, made myself a bowl of fresh strawberries, topped with a cup of vanilla fat free yogurt, and you know what?  It was the best thing I ate all day. 

Cupcakes with coconut and jelly beans...

I’ll bet your mom made these for you when you were a little kid, too!

I was talking about these cupcakes with my buddy V today.   Mother made them for me when I was a little girl 50+ years ago.  She would tint the coconut, make a little nest and fill the nest with jelly beans.  I would help her in the kitchen, and be so excited, because it was such a special occasion.  We always tinted our grass green, and the cupcakes were always homemade.

I carried the tradition on with my own boys, and when I asked Ryan today if he would like to have them again, he said, “No, I hate coconut!”  So much for that memory…  But I have to admit, I never really liked the jelly beans on them  either.  V suggested putting a Peep on top,  no surprise there, the woman has been obsessed with Peeps for years!  I think yours truly would much rather nest some miniature Cadbury eggs in the coconut.  Oh, I do love those eggs!  Especially the caramel ones….

Mother also had a lamb cake mold similar to this that she bought when I was a baby.  Money was scarce when I was little, so I’m sure buying this mold was an extravagance.  She was always so proud of it, and she would bake buttermilk cakes, with me standing on a chair while she unmolded it.  Then she would frost it with buttercream frosting , carefully cementing the two halves with icing, and when I was old enough, I got to cover it with freshly grated  coconut.

I still have the mold, but sometimes I worry that my family won’t know the old stories, and when I’m gone things will just be tossed, because they don’t realize the connection and how important they were to me.

I’ll make lamb cakes for my own grandchildren, that’s what I’ll do, and the tradition will continue.  Good memories….

Our 3 Little Amigos, BFF’S, London, Mollie and Maggie…

London is my friend, Trish's, Yorkie. She's the little half-pint on the left, all three pounds of her. Next is my Molasses Maybelline, and that's my Maggie Moo on the right. Oh yeah, they are just as cute as they look in these pictures. You have no idea how much fun we have with these little fur kidz!

Your daily dose of cuteness, today it’s a video…

 

source:  john4kc/flickr

Crazy Over Daisy….

This is absolutely, positively adorable.  Just the kind of thing we all need to remind us of how simple and fun life really can be.  Too cute for words!

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Eating Right has a brand new look….

Healthy food, recipes from my favorite sites, YummyTweet, The Cream of the Crop blogs, as well as a lot of archived recipes.

Give it a look, I’ll be updating it often, and if you scroll down in the right sidebar you will see an area to subscribe, so that you won’t miss updates.

You can always access Eating Right from Jans Daily Dish Index, but here’s a quick click for you today…

Looking ahead to Easter…

  The family is going to be home, I’m thinking a brunch, definitely going to be making Seana’s Lemon Pancakes with Raspberry Butter for the girls, malted Belgian waffles for the guys, some kind of breakfast casserole, fresh strawberries and pineapple, juices, coffee…  If anybody has other ideas, I would love to hear about them.  Or tell me your own thoughts for your Easter meal.  Just leave a comment, we would all enjoy the input.

The country smells of my childhood….

My world is full of memories for me today.  Freshly mown grass, clean, fresh air, and later this afternoon, burning leaves.  You never smell leaves burning anymore, but someone nearby was burning today and oh, it was wonderful!  One whiff and in my mind I was a little girl again, running  and playing in the fields of my childhood.

The renewal spring brings, hopes, dreams and plans.  It’s been this way forever, and I feel so lucky that I still get to experience all this.  The daffodils and the tulips, the baby animals, even Mr. Squirrel, shinnying up my bird feeder, to rob the redbirds of their food, made me smile.  It’s been a perfect spring day, and I took time to be thankful for what I have.  Peace, tranquility, sunshine, nature, my dogs by my side enjoying the sun.  It doesn’t get better than this…

How many times have I said to you all, it’s those simple things….

Yogurt, toilet paper, and sinus meds, random thoughts on a cloudy day…

Now that’s quite a combination, isn’t it? Let’s start with yogurt. I’ve had a love/hate affair with yogurt for years. I vow to eat healthy, buy it, it sits on the shelf far beyond expiration date, hubby throws it out and the cycle starts all over again. This has been going on for, oh, decades now. I really don’t like yogurt that much, and I didn’t realize why. I now know it was all of those artifical ingredients and flavors. I’ve discovered Stonyfield Farms Plain Yogurt in the past year, and I’m hooked. I add fresh fruit to it, strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, or if I don’t have fresh fruit I add applesauce. Then I add Splenda, and it’s wonderful. I’m even getting hubby to eat it. I must confess that I originally bought it for the M&M’s, and since they are spoiled little pooches, I bought them the good stuff instead of the lesser brands, so we all eat it now. We can’t get greek yogurt at our local grocers, but if you have access to it in your town, oh my, it’s thick, satiny smooth and absolutely to die for. I used to have a yogurt maker years ago, I only used it when fresh fruit was in season, I never added anything to it, just cooked it with milk, ate it with fresh picked blackberries and I remember really liking it. Now why didn’t I try plain from the store? Who knows, I guess it took my dogs to show me the way.

Now on to the sinus meds. I have horrid sinus problems, and wake up frequently with my infamous tri-state boomer headaches. So many of my friends suffer with sinus problems as well, and so does poor Dilly. Nisha had told me before that she takes Mucinex (plain Mucinex in the purple box) every single night and she never wakes up with a sinus headache. I meant to try it, kept forgetting, but a few days ago I was in Walgreens with a rockin’ headache, and I bought a box of it. I’ve taken it faithfully for four nights now, our weather has just been horrid, rain, fronts coming thru, and I’m waking up headache free. I feel pressure some mornings, but no headache. Amazing, huh? I found an article online about sinus and Mucinex, here’s the site if you want to read about it.

An finally toilette paper. The soft kind. It’s eluded me for years, and I’ve tried every brand that promises to be kind to your tushy. Well those companies lie, I never think it’s pillowy soft, I even Googled it, and Yahoo answers say Charmin Ultra and Cottonelle. Of course I’ve used both and don’t think either are that soft. So when I saw a commercial for Quilted Northern Ultra Plush, I picked it up in the grocery store. It’s pretty soft, I must admit. It has 3-layers with Plush Quilts. And heaven knows, we all need Plush Quilts… Here’s a click for a downloadable coupon if you want to give it a try.

And that’s it from Heavensville this Friday, random thoughts from cluttered mind…

Vin Diesel…

I saw this clip on GMA this morning.  I was never a fan of the guy, but omg, he is a total marshmallow talking about his baby girl.  This is so sweet, ladies.  First you have to get thru the silly car chase trailer, but trust me, it’s worth the wait…

Here’s the link ~

The deal of the day, and a free ship coupon…

A few years ago I bought a salad shaker from Avon.  It was sort of like the salad shaker container they used to have at Mickey D’s, except larger.  It was a large cup with a domed lid. You put the dressing in the lid, took it with you, and when you were ready to eat, you pushed on the lid, the dressing distributed on the salad, you shook it up, and wahlaa, it blended perfectly.  It also came with it’s own insulated bag, which kept it cool.  I’ve used it a lot over the years, and today I stumbled across the new and improved one from Avon.  Yeah, Avon, I don’t quite get why Avon sells this stuff either but anyhoo, here is the latest and the greatest. 

This one is a pint container, instead of a cup, it comes with an ice pack that you freeze and snap under the lid, then pour the dressing in the little holder in the lid before you travel, and the salad and dressing stays cold for several hours.  Be sure and remove the ice pack before you distribute the dressing or you will have dressing all over the ice pack. This one also comes with a knife and a fork stored in the lid.  It’s $12.99, but I found it for $7.99.  Apparently it was a promotion with Curves, I don’t know if they are closing it out or what, but these things are great for people that work, picnics, eating healthy on the go, etc.  The shipping on this is $5.99, , but, I Googled Avon coupon codes and found that if your order is $10.00 you get free shipping.  The code is SPRING 910.

So did I order it, of course, you all know what a sucker I am for anything in the kitchen.  And what else did I buy to get the free ship???

I got these ergonomic tweezers for $5.00.  They got really good reviews, and I can’t find my Tweezerman pair that cost $20+ anywhere, so I’ll give these a try. My grand total, shipped to my door, including tax, was $13.90.  It’s  a good thing….

Are you interested in either one of these?  Here are the links if you are:

Curves Salad Shaker

Ergonomic Tweezers

And again, the free shipping code is SPRING 910.  This code is valid thru April 9.

Reba’s See Thru Red Dress Story, an oldie, but a goodie…

Reba's Red Dress Story - watch more funny videos

A special daily dose of cuteness…

At a zoo in California , a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger  cubs..

Unfortunately, Due to complications in the pregnancy,  the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size,  they died shortly after birth.

The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health,  Although physically she was fine.  The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve.

After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother.  The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment.  Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species.  The only orphans' that could be found quickly,  were a litter of weanling pigs.  The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger...  Would they become cubs or pork chops?

Take a look...you won't believe your eyes…

 

I’m on a roll…

Now that I’ve revamped Jan Can Cook, it’s time to give Eating Right a new look, even though the old one is great, it doesn’t flow with the new magazine theme.  Don’t rush over there, nothing done yet, but it’s next on my to-do list.

I also had plans to put a live webcam on the birdfeeder, yes I know, bor-ing, but hey, I have heavy bird traffic in Heavensville, some people might like it.  But unless I come up with a workaround it isn’t going to happen, as the screens are in the window permanently, and who wants to look at the birdfeeder thru a screen.

The girls look pretty spiffy in their new haircuts, but I don’t like the way she didn’t trim their faces, not at all, so I’m going to take the scissors to them myselves.  What do I expect for $80 anyway.  Eighty dollars, that’s a lot of money for two little dogs.  Same price for an english sheep dog, go figure.  Obviously, they don’t groom by the pound…