creative little daisy

Sloppy Joe, Sloppy, Sloppy Joe...*

I can't look at a sloppy joe without hearing Adam Sandler singing about the lunch lady.  Last night we had sloppy joes, sloppy, sloppy joes. I know you don't care, I just thought I'd share how quick and easy it was.  I may be the queen of lazy cooks, but I know I'm not the only one.

We had spaghetti one night this week, just Mitch and I.  Remember, our nest recently became empty. I haven't quite adjusted to cooking for just the two of us. The term serving size takes on a whole new meaning when you're cooking for a teenage boy.  Anyway, I made way too much sauce. Not usually a problem, since I happen to love left-over spaghetti. This time,  my sauce/noodle ratio was off, leaving me with no noodles and an excess of sauce. I know, spaghetti sauce freezes well and I could have done that. Instead, I squeezed another meal for this week out of it.  A meal that involved little more than reheating, my favorite kind of cooking. To the left-over meat sauce I added, some brown sugar, spicy brown mustard, and a little Worcestershire sauce. Throw it on a bun, open a can of green beans and you've got dinner. Not a great dinner, but dinner, and folks around here are perfectly happy with any dinner.

You have to click the Adam Sandler link for the title to make sense if you've never heard the lunch lady song

He meant well

He being the UPS man. He's a really nice guy, our UPS man. A thoughtful guy. That's why this evening he knocked on my door. He had a delivery for my cousin, who lives right next door. A delivery he assumed was a Christmas gift. As you can see in the picture above, it's quite obvious what's in the box. My thoughtful UPS guy, thinking it was likely a gift for my cousin's wife asked if he could leave it with us, just in case it was meant to be a Christmas gift. He's been our UPS guy for years. He knew we would let Ronald know we had accepted his delivery and no surprises would be ruined. This time of year, the busiest time of year for  deliveries, you'd have to be a thoughtful guy to do that, to take that extra time to protect a surprise.  Such a nice guy.

On the subject of  surprises, let me tell you about another nice guy. A really thoughtful guy who went out of his way to cover his tracks when ordering his wife's Christmas gift. You see last year, she got a confirmation email from the sender of her Christmas gift, letting her know the item had shipped. This year he wasn't letting that happen. He covered his tracks, right down to arranging for her gift to be delivered to the next door neighbor. Do you see where I'm going with this?   Yep, the UPS guy went out of his way to protect a wife's surprise and my sweet husband went out of his way to surprise his wife.  Too bad one nice guy's good deed canceled out the other's.   I found a great deal more humor in this than did my sweet and thoughtful husband.  He said next year, I'm giving you a gift card.

About what's in that box. A couple of weeks ago, while watching the food network, I noticed the most beautiful mixer, an aqua Kitchenaid Mixer. I dvr'd the show so I could show Mitch later. Not because I needed or wanted a new mixer. I have a Kitchenaid. It was my granny's and it used to be harvest gold.Used to be because Mitch painted it for me. Not something I'd recommend just anyone try, but he happens to have some decent painting skills.  He also painted my refridgerator, but that's a different story for a different day.   Anyway, back to the beautiful aqua mixer. I knew he'd recently painted a golf cart nearly the exact shade of aqua, so I told him for Christmas,  if he had any paint left over, I would like my Kitchenaid painted that color.
He said he had even planned to take my old Kitchenaid out to his shop so I'd think he was painting it. He tried so hard to surprise me. Such a sweetie!

He let me sneak a peek!

I'm having a blue Christmas

A blue (and white) Christmas.

 
 


Traditional? No. A little tacky? Probably, but that's ok. I like my fake white tree with it's shimmering, glimmering aqua blue ornaments.  You can color your Christmas red and green if you like, for me, I'll have a blue (and white) Christmas

I found the aqua lights with white cord on ebay.

Letters from our Recruit

Each day I check the mailbox in eager anticipation, hoping for a letter.  He's been gone four weeks now, four weeks and two days to be exact, and has 58 days to go. Each day I write to him, at least once, so he'll know we miss him, that we love him, and that we have faith that he can do this.

Soup for breakfast

Does anyone else like last night's leftovers for breakfast? Some things are just better the next day, don't ya think? Especially soup. And spaghetti. Meats, like roast... not so much. Chinese food, way better the next day. Pizza, we always order extra so we'll have leftovers for breakfast. I'm not a first thing in the morning breakfast eater though. Soup probably wouldn't be so appetizing at 7am, but by 10 it's pretty darn yummy.

In case I've tempted you with all this talk of yummy soup, here's the recipe (using that word loosely). When I make soup, it's usually just throw in what I have. In this case I had:

A pound of smoked sausage sliced into bite size pieces
One small to medium onion, diced
2 carrots, chopped into small pieces,
A couple cloves of garlic, finely minced
3 chicken bouillon cubes
1 large can of crushed tomatoes
1 can great northern beans
Water
Salt, pepper, oregano (dried), parsley (dried) to taste
Small seashell pasta ( ~ half of a one pound box)

Sautee the onion and carrots in a little oil
Add sausage just to brown slightly
Add garlic, give it a couple stirs to blend everything
Add two to three (maybe more, I didn't measure) cups of water and bouillon cubes
Throw in a large can of crushed tomatoes and a can of great northern beans (or the bean of your choice)
Add some more water if you need to, I just adjust the amount depending on the size of my pot.
Season to your liking with a little salt, pepper, oregano. I also added a few splashes of Tabasco sauce.
While this simmers, cook some small seashell pasta in another pot. Again the amount depends on how much soup you want to make and how much pasta you like in your soup.
After the soup has simmered long enough to soften the carrots, add the cooked, drained pasta let it simmer for another 5 minutes or so, just take care not to let the pasta get mushy, unless you happen to like mushy pasta. I do not.
Some Parmesan cheese on top would be good if you have it. 
Enjoy! Be sure to save some for breakfast.

Too darn sweet for words!

I know being her nana makes me biased, but, this has got to be the sweetest face. Ever.

 

An actual post that involves sewing

Some quilting bee sewing.

For Julia. She requested red crosses on the drab green background. I struggled with this one a bit. I hope she'll like it.

And for Beki,

She requested stripes.

Alyssa requested Christmas stockings for herself, Derek and Bayleigh. I'm not so sure Derek would have chosen lime green with polka dots for his stocking, but perhaps if Santa fills it will goodies instead of coal, he won't mind.