Sunday, June 15, 2008

Family Secret Recipe...

So, I just made the most delicious lunch EVER...it was an eazy-bake version of my favorite Greek delicacy, spanokopita. I used a family secret ingredient. Maybe, you have used this product before...
Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastries. They are these delicious pastry cups/shells that come frozen, (they are located in the frozen food section, next to the pies and cakes.) Anyhoo - when they come out of the box, they are flat little cookies...once they are in the oven for about 20 minutes they rise into these buttery flakey morsels of goodness. You can use them for anything. My mom fills them with her Chicken a'la King mixture. I have began to use them as the phyllo replacement in my spanakopita-esque creation. (I bet they would be wonderful with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce too ;) The options are endless. Okay, enough of my infomercial and back to my new recipe...(I cook to taste, so the measurements may be a bit off.)
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- 1 pckg of Pepperidge Farm Puff Shells (large or small, my store just recently started carrying the product...actually just the small ones. They are just as delicious, and would make perfect appetizers!)
- butter
- 1/2 c. garlic (chopped)
- 1/2 onion (chopped)
- 1/3 cucumber (chopped)
- 10 oz chopped spinach (frozen)
- salt & pepper
- 1 c. feta cheese (crumbled)
- 1 egg
Go ahead and preheat your oven and place the pastry shells into the oven for the alloted 20 min. On the stove, saute the onions in the butter and garlic until clear. Then place the frozen spinach and cucumbers in with the onions. Once the spinach is thawed, Scramble the egg with a little bit of milk and pour while continually stirring the mixture. Add salt & pepper to taste. Continue to saute all ingredients until piping hot. Then you simply fill each of the pastry cups with your spinach concoction...VIOLA! It is delicious and much easier then layering phyllo leaves w. butter, I must add.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Did You Miss Us?

We're BACK!! Wow, a lot has happened since April so get ready for a doozy entry. Let me start by explaining the lack of postings...our home was robbed the day after my last post. Our digital cameras and camcorder were taken. With that said, I practiced a lesson I quickly learned at a young age, reading is much more entertaining when pictures are involved. Since we had no new pics...no new blogs. THEN it hit me! I have a photo scanner!(Thanks Mom & Dad.) DUH! Sorry, it took me awhile to come to that obvious solution.

So back to the day of the crime...I was on the phone with my dear childhood friend, Heather on my drive home from work. Checked the mailbox prior to entering and noticed that our house key was missing (the drywallers were supposed to come that day to finish up some last details.) The key was missing, so I assumed that they came. I walked in (still on the phone) and checked the back pantry area...nothing was done, and our back door was unbolted. Interesting enough, but I figured that the workmen just innocently forgot to lock it back up. I then walked into our life room, and noticed my pillow was LYING ON THE FLOOR, disgusting, when I went to pick it up I noticed that the pillowcase was missing, (luckily, it was a plain white one, not my darling 70's tiny-flower in fuschia/pale pink pillowcase which was also on the bed.) WTF? My first narcistic instinct was to think that I had a stalker and he stole my pillowcase to smell my hair...hahhahahaha (I guess I have watched way too many Lifetime cinemas). That is an embarrassing reveal but must be told...for those of you not up on the patterns of a habitual thief, they use your pillowcase as a convenient "insta-bag" to shove all of YOUR items into. They don't show you THAT in all of the mystery dramas on TV. Luckily, the cameras were the only thing taken and thank goodness we weren't here! I honestly think that the "perp" might have been in the house when I got home, and that is why the damage was so minimal. Anyhoo - the Knox City police and Crime lab were very helpful and thank goodness for my neighbor Kathy. Pj was out of town, and she stepped in with quite the gust-o and compassion. Okay, enough of the bad news...(check out the pic below.)
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**WE ARE EXPECTING OUR FIRST BABY!**

(Notice my eyebrows - they looked awesome that day for some reason.)

We tried several times to get a photo of the "pregnant" reading on the test, but it never came out...but you get the point. Other than Pj's initial "intense" moment concerning having a baby in our death trap of a house - when he tried to sell it from right under my nose, we are over-the-top excited!! So far we have been blessed with a wonderful pregnancy. (Pj has moved past the freak-out stage, thankfully). I was exhausted the first 3 months and my boobs felt like punching bags, but other than that I wouldn't even know I was preggers! (Actually, I was a little weepy at work, which led my co-worker, Carrie a.k.a "Veronica Mars" to sniff out the trail very early on, probably before I even knew it myself. She has amazing super-senses and sometimes I actually believe she might be the Private Investigator version of a superhero....I am dead serious, a breathing lie-detector.) So, here are a few of our ultrasounds from our first two Dr. appts. Fyi* We have nicknamed him/her "Chicken Little" in honor of Pj's minor "episode" mentioned earlier...

*Chicken Little at 8 wks 4 days from the back* He was squirming all over the place!!

*13 Wks, 1 Day*


Here are the 3D shots! He looks a bit like Skeletor, but one must not forget, Skeletor was an extremely powerful wizard. I expect no less from our Chicken Little. It was pretty amazing, he was already playing with/swatting his umbilical cord and punching the air! I don't think he liked the ultrasound, I read somewhere that babies hear the ultrasound as a high pitch ringing. Dr. Yang mentioned that they do indeed hear it, but it is not proven that it is bothersome...ummm, someone should tell baby Chicken that.)


Well, I will leave you with these last images. These pics of our home were taken in 1915 (our home would have been about 16 yrs old.) A nice woman came knocking on our door last summer, and said that she had purchased the images at an antique store many moons ago. She made the connection after attending the auction sale here at the house after Mrs. Wilson (previous owner) had passed. She was kind enough to bring me the pics, and I was so overwhelmed with excitement, that I rudely forgot to get her name and number! Unfortunately, I was never able to send her a proper "thank you" gift. Anyhoo, Enjoy!



If you look closely to the right of the front stairs, you can see a climbing rose bush. We actually discovered that survivor after hacking down an overgrown bush when we first moved in! The maple tree to the left is still there, but the one to the right is long gone. I only wish I could tell what color the house was originally painted!