Last night I was making potato soup and wanted something to go with it. The cheese bread episode popped into my head and I thought it would go perfect with the soup. I, however, couldn’t remember the exact ingredients and I didn’t have time to go online to find the recipe. So I made up my own concoction based on The Pioneer Woman recipe. And may I just say…It was AMAZING. Probably the best garlic cheese bread I have ever had. I only made a small batch since there was only 2 of us eating. Here is how I threw it all together:

2 Slices Sourdough Bread

Handful of Sharp Cheddar Cheese

Handful of Mozzarella Cheese

A Few Shakes of Lawrys Garlic Salt (probably about 1-2 tsp, divided in 1/2)

1 tsp Basil

2 T Butter, melted

2 scoops Mayo (about 1/4 cup or enough to bind other ingred. together)

Melt butter and add 1/2 garlic salt then brush over slices of bread. While you are letting the butter soak in, mix together both cheeses, rest of garlic salt, basil and mayo. Spread cheese mixture over both slices of bread. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes or until cheese is melted. Then move rack close to broiler and broil on HI for 5 minutes or until cheese is golden and bubbly. Remove from oven and cut into slices.  Enjoy!!

By the way…My son absolutely will NOT eat mayo. But he never knew that I put it into this recipe and said it was the best cheese bread ever. You really can’t taste the mayo, it is just to bind the ingred. together.

Garlic Cheese Bread

Looking at the big picture I know that there are people in worse situations that mine and there are people who have to deal with worse than what I’m gonna have to deal with. And it could be so much worse.  But in my world, at this very minute, this is devastating! And I’m mad! And I’m left wondering when I will ever feel like things are starting to look up again.

3 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup dry roasted peanuts (I substituted pecans and almonds)

1/2 cup flaked coconut

1/4 cup wheat bran or germ

1/4 whole flax-seed

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1/4 cup salted butter

2 Tbsp. honey

1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Toss together oats, peanuts, coconut, wheat bran/germ, and flax-seed.

In a small saucepan, heat peanut butter, brown sugar, butter, honey, and salt for 3 minutes over medium heat. Remove from heat and pour over oat mixture. Toss to coat. Spread mixture evenly on a lightly greased jelly roll pan. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring every 10 minutes. Yields 5 cups.

I doubled this recipe so that I wouldn’t run out so quick. And I enjoyed some right out of the oven in a bowl with Almond Milk. So yummy!!!  Would also be good on yogurt. Enjoy!

Made these for treats for Cade’s class tomorrow to help him celebrate his birthday. Sure hope they enjoy them!

Warning…..There is not 1 part of this recipe that is healthy.  But they are delicious!

1 1/2 cup oil

3 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 cup milk

1 1/2 TBSP vinegar

1 TBSP vanilla

1 1/2 cup cocoa

1 TBSP salt

1 1/2 cup hot water

7 1/2 cups flour

1 TBSP soda

Mix together vinegar and milk; let set.  Mix soda in water. Mix everything together, adding flour last. Drop onto cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Icing

2 egg whites

2 TBSP Vanilla

2 TBSP flour

2 TBSP milk

4 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 cup crisco (I substituted butter instead of crisco, used same amount recipe calls for)

Beat egg whites until stiff. Add rest of ingredients.

Enjoy!!!

How cute are these peppers. And so colorful.

Peppers anyone?

Their eggplants are beautiful. They have both purple and white. I am dying to try eggplant parmesan but I need to find a good recipe because I have absolutely no idea how to prepare it. Anybody have a good recipe?

In the background you can see the rows of mums. Won’t be long till they are in full bloom. Along with the mums in the fall, they will also have gourds and other fall decorations. I’m looking forward to decorating for fall. How about you? Be sure to check out Blessing Acres while they still have lots of yummy fresh produce.

36 Hot Peppers (I use Hungarian Wax Peppers that I grow in my garden)

1 Quart Yellow Mustard

1 Quart White Vinegar

5 Cups Sugar

1 1/2 Cups of Flour

2 Cups Water

CAUTION****Be sure to wear gloves when working with peppers*****

Grind peppers, seeds and all, in food processor. Combine with mustard, sugar, and vinegar. Bring to a boil. Mix flour with water for thickening. Add to boiling ingredients and cook until desired thickness (will thicken some after processing). Process jars in boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

This was very easy. I ended up with 8 pints of peppers.

• 4 cups of water
• 4 cups of white vinegar
• 1 cup sugar
• pinch of turmeric (mainly for color, optional)
• 4 cloves of garlic cut in half (you can also use a whole clove. just depends on how much you like garlic)
• pickling salt-1 tsp for each pint ( I used sea salt because I didn’t have pickling salt)
• olive oil-1 tsp for each pint

Heat the water, vinegar, sugar, and turmeric till boiling. In the meantime sterilize jars and add 1/2 garlic clove to each pint. Pack jars with pepper rings. Top with salt and olive oil.  Then add vinegar mixture to 1/4th inch of top of jar. Make sure to get rid of air bubbles. Wipe rim of jar clean before adding lid and ring. Put in water bath for 10 minutes.

This is the first time I have ever used this recipe so I’m anxious to see how it turns out. I got this recipe from 2 different places and just combined them. Both recipes were from the  Complete Book of Home Preserving by Ball.

Anyone else have any good recipes for canning peppers? Would love to hear them.

Tailor the material to suit your needs. If it’s for a boy, find some camo fabric. Flowers or butterflies for a girl. This would be a great and cheap idea for birthday party gift bags. The bow is stapled to the bag. Can’t get much more simple. Here are a few other ideas for this bag:

• Cookies for a neighbor
• Surprise bags for you kids
• Fill it with chocolate for a friend
• Thank you gifts for teachers
• Specialty tea or coffee for mom or grandma

Can you think of another use for this cute bag? Please share your ideas.

 I forgot how much I love the ocean.

I think I took a million pictures. Here are some of my favorites.

This is the first morning we were there. My cousin opened the front door and a lizard ran in. Her and I immediately jumped on chairs and yelled for Cade. He was excited to try to capture a lizard. They ended up out in the sunroom. Notice she is still on a chair. I probably should mention that I was also still standing on a chair when I took the picture.

Storm was rolling in. Lifeguards put the red flags out and we had to leave the beach.

I could get use to this view.

These little boogers can be annoying. But they pose nicely for pictures.

We had to improvise because there was no TV in the house.

Can you believe it? No TV!!!!! How could anyone survive?

So in the evenings we watched movies or played games on the computers.

It was so hot the day we went sightseeing. We treated ourselves to some ice cream.

Bradenton Bridge Street Pier

This was our view at supper. I mean can it get much better than this?

This is one of my favorite beach pictures.

Oh that kid! He is just silly! Hangin out with Captain Morgan.

This picture is crazy. It almost looks like a painting. We were on Siesta Beach at night. I don’t even know what settings my camera was on.But it turned out very interesting.

Toes in the sand!

Cade makes friends where ever he goes. Her name was Andrea. Coincidence? Cade brought her over to meet me.

And she took him over to meet her family. Oh my, he is too young for this.

The last picture before we left Florida. I have so many more pictures but don’t want to bore you with them all.

So glad I got to take Cade to the beach for the first time. He loved it! Can’t wait to go back.