BB: Backtrack

The second Barefoot Bloggers recipe for May was Outrageous Brownies, selected by Eva of I'm Boring. After the Lemon Cake I just couldn't eat another sweet, so I used the Backtrack option and made the Tomato and Goat Cheese Tarts that Anne from Anne Strawberry picked in March before I joined in. Tim and I loved these! We each had two for our dinner. We are anxiously awaiting fresh tomatoes from our garden to make these again. And Tim mentioned right away that there are so many ways we can change these up. I think puff pastry will become a staple in our freezer. The tarts also introduced us to goat cheese which is so creamy and delicious. Can anyone give me other ideas to use goat cheese? We had a few scraps of the puff pastry leftover that we couldn't let go to waste, so we made some little Parmesan pinwheels that made a delicious little snack. It was a great recipe - super easy to make and very tasty. I highly recommend it.

BB: Lemon Cakes

What a great Memorial Holiday Weekend. It was a cooking frenzy. And it was all yummy. On Saturday afternoon we made hamburger buns. We used my friend Diana's recipe. (Also check out her cooking blog.) They turned out so pretty - with an egg wash and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. On Sunday we went to some friends for a cookout. I made Smitten Kitchen's Slaw Tartare which I loved. Tim even liked it and he doesn't like cabbage very well. We used our homemade buns with blue cheese burgers. Last night we made salmon patties which we had with leftover slaw. The recipe made enough patties for us to freeze some for another meal. Good friends, good food - you can't ask for much more. I want to say a special thanks to Tim who helped with much of the cooking (bread making and patty frying) and most of the dishwashing.

Sunday, I spent most of the afternoon making the Barefoot Contessa's Lemon Cakes. McKenzie of Kenzie's Kitchen chose this month's bonus recipe for the Barefoot Bloggers. Thank you McKenzie! I love this cake. The recipe makes two cake loaves. I have one in the freezer for later, and I brought the other unfinished loaf into work. It's getting raves reviews. I did find it a little time consuming with all the zesting and juicing, and the syrup and then glaze steps. But it was so worth it.

A Very Good Day for a Bike Ride

I finished this layout a couple of weeks ago after carrying it in my bag for over a year. These are pictures of Tim doing a road bike ride a couple of years before we met. These pictures were taken in 1989 during James Madison Days in Madisonville, KY. He is with his friend Diane White and her brother Story.
For the background I used SU Soft Sky and matted the photos on Real Red. The circle is Very Vanilla and matted on Not Quite Navy, and the punched arrow are also NQN. The red and vanilla stripped paper is SU and the turquoise scalloped paper is Sandy Lion and the darker blue strip is unknown. I used the SU arrow punch and SU On Board Loads of Letters chipboard, which I painted red. The circle on the right has Making Memories rubons and a self adhesive accent from SU's Simply Scrappin kit Genuine License.
I was please at how these pages turned out after looking at them for over a year. And I think Tim was pleased with them too.

Mailbox Monday - May 18, 2009

Only one book in my mailbox last week. Book Club Girl sent me a copy of the memoir The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. I am really looking forward to reading this book, though I'm afraid it might be a little depressing since my Uncle just died of cancer and one of my sisters-in-law is also struggling with cancer. I plan to join the on air discussion with Book Club Girl and Kelly Corrigan on May 27th. Thanks to Marcia at The Printed Page for hosting Mailbox Monday's. You can go to her blog and see what new books other received in their mailboxes.

BB: Tuna Salad

Kate at Warm Olives and Cool Cocktails picked this weeks recipe for the Barefoot Bloggers.

She picked Tuna Salad. Now this isn't any old tuna salad - the canned tuna and mayonnaise kind of tuna salad. Oh, no. This is yummy, fresh tuna with a spicy dressing tuna salad. Tim grilled our tuna steaks on the grill. We cooked the tuna for longer than the recipe suggests, but it was still pink inside - just not raw. To the lime juice and soy sauce dressing I added a bit of sesame oil. And the wasabi powder and hot sauce added some great flavor. I might just become a fan of hot sauce. I served the salad over some orzo pasta. It was a great meal - quick and easy to prepare, very tasty, and fairly healthy.

Late, as always...

Yesterday morning I had lots of energy and was able to get a lot of things done before I had to go to work - Walked Away the Pounds, planted Impatients on the front porch, and made Mother's Day cards. Yes, I just made them. Going to mail them today. So, Mom, don't look if you don't want to see what your card looks like before it comes in the mail. I did make two versions of the card - one was Mother's Day and the other was just general thinking of you.

I used SU Whisper White, Basic Black and Delicate Dots designer series papers. The image is Jolies Fleurs from Lizzie Anne and stamped in SU Basic Black ink and colored in with SU Real Red, So Saffron, Regal Rose and Orchid Opulence markers. The greetingon this card is from Delight in Life by SU, for the Mother's day cards I used a Happy Mother's Day greeting from the All Year Cheer stamp set.

Mailbox Monday - May 11, 2009

Every Monday, Marcia, from the Printed Page hosts Mailbox Mondays. I got two great looking books in the mail this week to share. If you've read either of these, let me know what you thought about them.

From Drey's Library I received A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal. I have a thing for Holocaust and WWII literature, so I am anxious to read this one.

Gayle at Every Day I Write the Book blog has chosen The Local News by Miriam Gershow for her June online book club. There have been lots of good review about his book and I'm looking forward to reading and discussing it.

Books Read in April

I had a good and busy month of reading in April. I read thirteen books during the month. Last year I had only read a total of 18 books by the end of April.

1. Moon Women by Pamela Duncan. Traditional Southern novel. I heard Ms. Duncan speak recently and she is very entertaining, a great story teller. 3/5

2. The Eleventh Man by Ivan Doig. Beautifully written, but the story and characters did not interest mer. I did not finish this one.

3. Hone Safe by Elizabeth Berg. I enjoyed the realistic mother/daughter relationship - irritating and loving at the same time. Very realistic. The book had a good solid ending. 4/5

4. 84 Charing Cross Road by Helen Hanff. Classic. 5/5

5. Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy. As always, Binchy creates a cast of wonderful characters and we get to know them all. We also see characters from previous books. 4/5

6. The Big Beautiful by Pamela Duncan. Sequel to Moon Women. Humerous. 4/5

7. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Beautifully written but very depressing and sorrowful. 4/5

8. The Late, Lamented Molly Marx by Sally Koslow. A fun novel. Molly Marx is dead and she's trying to figure out how she died. In the end it doesn't matter. 4/5

9. Astrid & Veronika by Linda Olsson. One of the best books I've read so far this year. Full of poetry, and beautifully written. Ms. Olsson has a new book coming out soon. 4.5/5

10. The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickenson. Ms Dickenson is the new Ann Landers. This is her memior of raising her daughter with the help of the women in her family and the small town of Freeville. 4/5

11. No Choice But Seduction by Johanna Lindsey. A romance novel, and not her best. Part of the extended Mallory series. 3/5

12. The Year that Follows by Scott Lasser. A a sister and faher's post 9/11 serch for family and what it means to be a family. 4/5

13. At Last Comes Love by Mary Balogh. Another romance novel. The last of a trilogy, and probably the best of the three books about sisters of a young man who suddenly inherits a title and thrust them into socity. 3/5

I've already read several good books this month.