Take me out to the auction!

This morning after donning my North Face and my houndstooth rain boots, Danl took me on a date to the 41st Annual Walnut Hill Ruritan Club Farm Equipment Auction! I love a good auction, and this one always provides in the way of entertainment! ANYTHING, and I do mean ANYTHING imaginable can be on the line! From completely worn-out creepers, 5 gallon buckets, old gas cans, chicken condos {portable coops}, to an old Mercedes car! Today they also had some cool vintage items like old trunks, antique school desks, industrial light fixtures, and a darling little black pot-belly stove! The auctioneer wasn't the speedy type - I could actually understand what he was saying - so we didn't hang around long enough to see very much of it get sold. Danl scored some big chain binders for $7 each. I really enjoyed seeing a lot of the awesome community people that I knew from working at Walnut Hill Farm Supply! And I enjoyed my hot dog with the works! Eating at an auction is kinda like eating around a fire; it makes the food taste better! We found an old table to perch me and our diet Pepsis on, and this country girl was smilin'!

The guy far left in this pic made me so lonesome for Uncle Kale...he always loved a good auction too! 

the power of 15 minutes...and pot stickers!

I'm on Winter Break today through Monday! {WHCS is calling it Semester Break - I don't know why because it's not at the semester - since it still feels very much like winter, I am calling it "Winter Break!"} Anyway, we will be keeping the home fires {and heaters!}burning, so I made a lengthy list of things to accomplish over the long weekend, with the two greatest goals being to get our income tax info sent to our accountant, and to prep and paint the guest loo. Both tasks are towering over me like the Leaning Tower of Pisa! Finally, after making flour-less & butter-less deep dark chocolate cookies {which were absolutely amazing!} and pittering with other various things all morning to avoid the inevitable, I cleaned up from our lunch of leftover lo mein and POT STICKERS. {more on these babies at the end of this post!} Then I morbidly repeated FlyLady's mantra - "2015 is your year to shine, 15 minutes at a time!" and sat down to do taxes for ONLY 15 minutes, but ended up excitedly working on them for an hour! After supper, I decided to start cutting in with Kilz for 15 minutes before sitting down with my maple tea, but lo and behold if that mere 15 minutes didn't also morph into an hour! Needless to say, I was happy with the progress made in both areas! If it doesn't prove to be too bothersome, I am going to keep a tally of how many "15 minutes" it takes me to complete both projects! Usually, things aren't nearly as big of a deal as I make them out to be in my mind! Unless they are a bigger deal, which happens frequently. So, who knows which category these will fall in! I am still bonded with the notion that a very pale, fresh mint with British accents will be posh for the pot room! LOVE this mint bedroom! It is Benjamin Moore's "At Sea." We haven't chosen the exact tint we want yet. Please comment with color ideas!

And BREAKING NEWS FLASH! You can buy these tantalizing pot stickers at Dollar Tree for only $1!!!! I'm hooked! I made some homemade ponzu sauce to dip them in. Asian food just does it for me these days. Really, just FOOD in general! I think it's the grey, winter weather that has been making me so hungry lately! :) My recent posts have all been quite foodific! Oh well, it's who I am! I might as well add the recipe for the chocolate cookies!

Flour-less Dark Chocolate Cookies-recipe adapted from the Divine baker

Makes about 24 cookies

Each cookie is approx. 72 calories

Ingredients:

• Nonstick vegetable oil spray
• 1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips (about 9 ounces)
• 3 large egg whites, room temperature
•  2 cups powdered sugar, divided (plus 1/2 cup for cookie coating)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray 2 large  baking sheets with nonstick spray. Set aside.

Melt 1 cup chocolate chips in glass bowl in microwave, stirring frequently, about 2 minutes. Set aside and let cool slightly.

Using electric mixer, beat whites in large bowl to soft peaks. Gradually beat in 1 cup sugar. Continue beating until mixture resembles soft marshmallow cream.

Whisk 1 cup sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Then, on a low speed, add these dry ingredients into the marshmallow cream mixture.

Next, add remaining 1/2 cup chocolate chips to lukewarm chocolate mixture (dough will become very stiff).

Add chocolate mixture to cream mixture and blend well.

Place remaining 1/2 cup powdered sugar in bowl. Roll 1 rounded tablespoon dough into ball; roll in sugar, coating thickly. Place on prepared sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, spacing 2 inches apart.

Bake until puffed and tops crack, about 10 minutes. Cool on sheets on rack 10 minutes.

Transfer to rack, cool.

last night's lo mein

EASY LO MEIN

Prep Time10 minutes

Cook Time15 minutes

Total Time25 minutes

Yield4 servings

The easiest lo mein you will ever make in 15 min from start to finish. And it's so much quicker, tastier and healthier than take-out!

INGREDIENTS

• 8 ounces lo mein egg noodles*
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups cremini mushrooms, sliced
• 1 red bell pepper, julienned
• 1 carrot, julienned
• 1/2 cup snow peas
• 3 cups baby spinach
FOR THE SAUCE
• 2 tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce, or more, to taste
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon Sriracha, or more, to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

• In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, ginger and Sriracha; set aside.
• In a large pot of boiling water, cook lo mein egg noodles according to package instructions; drain well.
• Heat olive oil in a large skillet or wok over medium high heat. Add garlic, mushrooms, bell pepper and carrot. Cook, stirring frequently, until tender, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in snow peas and spinach until the spinach has wilted, about 2-3 minutes.
• Stir in egg noodles and soy sauce mixture, and gently toss to combine.
• Serve immediately.

NOTES

*If lo mein egg noodles cannot be found, spaghetti can be substituted.

Adapted from The Woks of Life

Faircloth Kitchen NOTES: We used this recipe from damndelicious.net as a basis for last night's lo mein! We left out the snow peas, and added some onion, pre-cooked sliced venison strips, green bell pepper instead of red, and of course added a "leeetle" more olive oil and a dollop of real butter. We substituted linguine noodles since I couldn't find lo mein at Piggly Wiggly. We rated our finished product with 5 stars! I was especially impressed with the wilted spinach. If you don't have sesame oil and Sriracha as kitchen staples, you need to buy them! Also keep a supply of chopsticks handy for such occasions as eating with the authentic utensils enhances ethic food flavor! All we lacked was the fortune cookies! 

!

Tea forté

Isn't this little tea bag just adorable? 

But calling it a  "tea bag" is much too common!

 "Silken infuser" suits it much more handsomely. 

Alisha gave me a box of Tea forté Reader's Teas for Christmas and I have been thoroughly enjoying them! And they are as delicious as they are darling! That little green leaf peaking over the brim of my cup just gets me every time! Tonight I had a cuppa White Anjou Pear - white tea, with a sweet taste of pear and the zing of ginger. 

10th anniversary!

As of February 20, 2015, it has been 10 years since we said "I do, I do... I will, I will!" Just like the old cliche, time truly has flown! Daniel and I both find it hard to believe that we have been married for 10 amazing years! And I'm not just saying this because it's the expected thing to say, but every year truly has brought us closer together and has made our relationship better. Sometimes I wish for the naiveness and unabashed optimism we embraced in the first few years of married life, but overall, the depth of our current relationship is far better than the carefree days of yore. I wonder what I will say in 10 more years on our 20th?!

That said, let me give you the details of the past weekend! At first, as this momentous date was fast approaching, we entertained ideas such as, "We should go back to Helen again!" "What about a cabin in south Georgia? We love Georgia." "Umm, let's not drive so far..." "Any state parks closer to home?" "I want to go somewhere we haven't been before, like maybe New Orleans?" "NO, definitely NOT New Orleans!" "Destin?" "Pensacola??!" "Now we're talkin'!" "Check out Topsail and Gulf State Park's cabins." "No, they are too ugly and too expensive!" "Let's go to Orange Beach, back to the Perdido Beach Resort! We know what to expect there, and we know we like it!" "Ummm...that's boring! We've been there twice..." And then finally after many hours of perusing the web, calling state parks and being on hold for 40+ minutes, we irrevocably reserved two nights at our old haunt, the PBR! Since we had been in the "cabin and cooking in mode" from the get-go to avoid purchasing all our meals, Daniel had the bright idea that we should take our toaster oven to the hotel! I latched on to this light bulb moment and bought some grub accordingly, to the extent that Danl was even a bit dubious, and asked, "Are you sure this is OK?" I replied, "Of course it is! It was your idea!" So I packed our little Black & Decker securely in a suitcase with food stuffed all in and around it for the ride. We headed out around 4:30 Friday afternoon and checked into our 493 square foot Gulf front room featuring our choice of king bed providing a panoramic view of the beach with a private, furnished step-out balcony {quote PBR's website lol!} just as the sun was setting. Awwwww.....now this is my style of "camping!" 

We knew we had to have  Lillian's pizza, so a shrimp scampi and a veggie patch pie were soon delivered and devoured. Superb as always! Then it was time to break out the toaster oven for freshly-baked, white chip macadamia nut cookies! Saturday dawned quite grey, but the wild winds provided perfect waves for the undaunted surfers! Some were quite amazing! Watching them really gives one an appetite! Toaster oven time again! Hot pigs in flaky crescent roll blankets... Lunch was sliced, chilled, peppered salmon on crackers, along with diet Coke, sparkling apple cider, and hostess cupcakes! {Thanks, Rhonda! You  know what kind of gift we like!} As evening fell, we felt to give our wee oven a much-deserved rest, and ordered room service. Danl got a philly cheesesteak, and I had fish tacos, which were really more like fish nachos. Very tasty! Then some feta cheese-stuffed, colby jack-covered mushrooms sounded good, so out with the B& D again! We were totally cracking ourselves up by this time and chortling over the fact that we are such foodies! The balcony door stayed open to air the room of food fumes! By and by it was brownie time! I hadn't even known you could buy a tiny snack size brownie mix perfect for a toaster oven, but yes, you can! I felt like I was 10 years old playing with an EasyBake! :) 

Sunday was sunny, contrary to the predictions, and it was so hard to pack up and get ready to go home! 

But after our breakfast of fresh Pillsbury Orange Rolls and Hormel pre-cooked bacon, we soaked up some sun on the balcony, and then tucked away the toaster oven along with newly-made memories of a perfectly relaxing weekend of no expectations, no obligations, and no reasons for getting up or dressing up! Quality time in quantity for once! Just us. 

{and our toaster oven.}

bringing back the blog!

I don't think a day passes that I don't think about this blog in some way or fashion. The thought, "this is blog-worthy," or "I would really love to write about about that and get some feedback" flits through my mind incessantly. And way back in the recesses of my brain, I just plain miss writing! Like I said in my last post, school does feel that creative void, but I still miss that satisfied feeling of putting my real thoughts on digital paper...the challenge of finding the perfect words to express myself! And I miss the connection with our friends and family! "Thankful Wednesdays" &/or "Thankful Thursdays" have been a blessing in the way of connections, and I love the glimpses into y'all's lives! But listing the things I'm "Thankful" for on a certain day hasn't stuck with me other than a sporadic attempt every week or so, since what I really want to do is to blog about life more in depth than a list allows me. So! I am back! Officially! Tomorrow I will be posting about our anniversary getaway weekend! It was the best! Definitely what we both needed! And just as a little preview, let's say that we both have a new appreciation for our humble toaster oven!