Breakfast Empanadas

Breakfast is a very important meal at our house.   I love when I find a recipe that is not only a hit with the family, but tasty and transportable as well, given my tendency to be running late at all times because somebody doesn’t want to get dressed, put on their shoes, or get into the car seat!    

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
• 1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
• 3/4 teaspoon seasoned salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese of choice
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 5 large eggs, beaten
• 1 (17.3-ounce) can refrigerated jumbo flaky biscuits
• 8  Bacon Slices, cooked and crumbled
• 1 egg white, lightly beaten
• feel free to add your favorite ingredients…mushrooms, tomatoes, chives…etc!

 

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Stir together first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl until blended; stir in cheese.
3. Melt butter in a 9-inch skillet over medium heat; add eggs, and cook, without stirring, until eggs begin to set on bottom. Draw a spatula across bottom of skillet to form large curds. Continue cooking until eggs are slightly thickened but still moist.  Remove from heat, and let cool.
4. Flatten each biscuit into about a 5-inch circle. Spread cream cheese mixture evenly over tops of dough circles, leaving 1/2-inch border around edge. Top evenly with scrambled eggs and bacon.
5. Fold dough circles in half over mixture, pinching edges to seal; place, 2 inches apart on baking sheet.
6. Brush tops evenly with egg white; press sealed edges with tines of a fork.
7. Bake at 375° for 14 to 16 minutes or until golden brown. Remove empanadas to wire rack, using a spatula. Serve warm

Be very careful to not overfill the flattened biscuit…I have a tendency to want to do that.  Today I was mindful of my habit and they honestly turned out perfect!   Makes 8 very nice Breakfast Empanadas. 

Store leftover empanadas, completely cooled, in zip-top plastic bags or wrapped in plastic wrap in refrigerator. To reheat, wrap empanadas in paper towels and microwave at MEDIUM (50% power) for 1 to 2  minutes or until thoroughly heated.

Happy to report that the fuzzy fussy eater at our house (4 year old) asked for one of the leftovers at 10:30 PM…WAHOO!

Hip Hip Hooray – It Was Warm Today

 

A Day of Fun -

Sprinkler and slide fun…no pictures

BBQ and Cake…no pictures

Tie-Dye Shirts messy but cool

Squirt and splatter…

All over Grandma’s hand…………..

Ready to wear!

On to the backyard movie time…we wait and wait and wait for it to get dark enough…Dusk at 9:15

We roast marshmallows and strawberries ….a few S”mores…in our little fire pit!

Our Movie choice …………..Nut Job…

We thought is was going to be the story of how the squirrel learned to survive in the big city…well it was more like some violent, crude humor……….. Smacking, kicking, farting, and burping…..which of course Little Man thought was extremely funny.   He didn’t spend to much time watching….

lots of running around and getting really close to the big screen!  The day was worth it……..just to see his big smile!  

Memorial Day Weekend

The backyard water hose and sprinklers are put to good use today with the temperature reaching into the 80’s ….

Tomorrow the forecast is for a high of 86 degrees……..we couldn’t be happier!

Flowers for Decoration Day

Yes, I know it is now called Memorial Day.
Yes, I understand the purpose of this day is to honor those who have fought for our freedom.  Yet, I am not a fan of war.  War kills people and destroys human creation; but as though mocking war's devastation, flowers inevitably bloom through its ruins and life returns to what war has destroyed. I am grateful to all those who have fought for our freedom and I  honor their service. 
Yes, because of my family traditions I know it is also a day devoted to picnics, road races, graduation celebrations, and hopefully a few double-headers. 
My grandmother was one to celebrate this day with flowers from her garden – taken to the cemetery to adorn the gravesites of those who have passed on.  She did it faithfully every year of her life.

Driving along the road I happened to notice the flowers she always used on Decoration Day. Memories immediately came to mind about how much I loved being her granddaughter and being able to walk along side of her as she carefully placed those beautiful flowers. 
The quote from Neil Gaiman seems so fitting for how I remember her wisdom and Decoration Day.

“I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously,
that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it,
that you will be loved and that you will be liked,
and that you will have people to love and to like in return.
And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now),























that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.”

May we all enjoy our freedom, our blessings, and our loved ones.  And may our gardens grow with peonies, snowball bushes, and bridal wreath…to celebrate life anew!

Our Last Day of Toddler Baseball Camp ~ And We Are Already in Love

What kind of love is the best kind of love?
The one above all the rest of the loves?
Grab a hat, a bat, a ball and a glove
It's the love that I feel for you.

 
What kind of day is the best kind of day?
Makes up for all the rest of the days?
The park, the backyard, I don't care where we play
As long as I'm with you.

 

You know I miss you deep inside.
I wish we could go outside
To have a catch or two...

 

What kind of place is the strange, scary place?
And who put these tears and this dirt on my face?
No matter the score or the count at the plate,
I'll still be swinging for you.

Cause I need you in my life,
I wish that we could go outside.
Just to have a catch or two,
Me and you.

What kind of love is the best kind of love?
The love above all the rest of the loves?
Take the ball, the hat, my bat and my glove
They're a whole lot of nothing without you.

And I'll be waiting here outside
Spring or fall, rain or shine
To have a catch or two. . .
Cause your kind of love is the best kind of love
The best that love could ever do.

Maeve Binchy’s Last Novel ~ A Week in Winter

Ms. Binchy passed away in July 2012, shortly after she completed this book.  A Week in Winter is a warm and cozy read that looks right into people’s hearts and lets us see intertwined lives touching one another. I am sad to say it wasn’t my favorite Binchy book. The book starts with Chicky who grew up in Stoneybridge, on the Irish coast, and ran off to America with a boy who came for the summer.
Chicky’s family thinks she’s a wicked fool to run away with him. So Chicky doesn’t tell them what’s really happening:

She wrote home week after week and believed in the fairy tale more and more. She started to fill a spiral notebook with details of the life she was meant to be living. She didn’t want to slip up on anything.
To console herself, she wrote to them about the wedding. She and Walter had been married in a quiet civil ceremony, she explained. They had a blessing from a Franciscan priest. It had been a wonderful occasion for them, and they knew that both families were delighted that they had made this commitment. Chicky said that Walter’s parents had been abroad at the time and not able to attend the ceremony but that everyone was happy about it.
In many ways, she managed to believe this was true. It was easier than believing that Walter was becoming restless and was going to move on.

Chicky does quite well, even after Walter leaves her. When her nieces talk about coming to visit, the kind husband of her letters suffers a tragic accident. And then, after some time, she goes back to Stoneybridge and purchases the Stone House on the water, using a “legacy” that is really her own hard-earned savings. She works with the last remaining Miss Sheedy (of the three sisters who had owned the house) to make it into a hotel.
Next, we take a look at Rigger, the son of one of Chicky’s friends. He gets into trouble, and needs to leave Dublin for awhile. He comes to work for Chicky, and meets a girl and starts settling down.
Then there’s Orla, Chicky’s niece, wanting some change after her best friend in Dublin gets married. She comes to work for Chicky, only for a year, which turns into more than a year!
Chicky is finally ready to welcome the first guests to Stone House’s big warm kitchen, log fires, and understated elegant bedrooms.
1. John, the American movie star, thinks he has arrived incognito.
2. Winnie and Lillian are forced into taking a holiday together….and get trapped in the cave when the tide comes in and must be rescued. 

3. Nicola and Henry, husband and wife, have been shaken by seeing too much death practicing medicine…and leaving Cruise Ship Doctoring behind!
4. Anders hates his father’s business, but has a real talent for music.
5.  Miss Nell Howe, a retired schoolteacher, criticizes everything and leaves a day early, much to everyone’s relief.
6. The Walls are disappointed to have won this second-prize holiday in a contest where first prize was Paris.
7. Freda, the librarian, is afraid of her own psychic visions.
With each person who comes to visit, we get to look at their life leading up to this momentous week, as well as at how the week changes them.
The story is gentle and cozy. No big earth-shaking moments, but lots of rejuvenating ones and life-changing ones for the guests involved. One guest does manage to shake off the charm of the place….the ornery Miss Nell Howe (Retired teacher)  but most will leave the better for their vacation.  My biggest complaint about this book….there were so many “Short Stories” about people’s lives.  It seemed to me like Ms. Binchy knew this would be her last and she wanted to touch on each of the character she still had in mind for novels.   Each short story could have been made into it’s own.
Thanks for the photo Mary Clare…the real deal!

Alphabet Blogging Letter B.

I came across a study on Books in the Home and was pleased with the findings.  For years, educators have thought the strongest predictor of attaining high levels of education was having parents who were highly educated.

But, strikingly, this massive study showed that the difference between being raised in a book-less home compared to being raised in a home with a 500-book library has as great an effect on the level of education a child will attain as having parents who are barely literate (3 years of education) compared to having parents who have a university education (15 or 16 years of education). Both factors, having a 500-book library or having university-educated parents, propel a child 3.2 years further in education, on average.parents who have books in the home increase the level of education their children will attain,  
And that is why the library in our home is well over 500 books….

There are several copies of the Bible on our book shelf…one for each of us!  As I looked for reference to books I realized that His Word is the Key to our salvation.  Therefore reading, the scriptures is of utmost importance in furthering our knowledge.  

2 Timothy 3:15  And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 

President Ezra Taft Benson stated:  “Encourage students to be more consistent in their scripture
study so that they might be fortified against the evils that surround them.
“This is an answer to the great challenge of our time. The word of God, as found in the scriptures, in the words of living prophets, and in personal revelation, has the power to fortify the Saints and arm them with the Spirit so they can resist evil, hold fast to the good, and find joy in this life” (“The Power of the Word,” Ensign, May 1986, 80)

REMEMBERING CHILDHOOD:

There are perhaps no days of our Childhood we lived so fully as those we spent  with a favorite book.   Here is Little Man - "Baby Boy" retelling his favorite story from his book The Three Little Pigs...the big bad wolf scares him right into submission...but he still insists on reading it on a daily basis. 




I am so grateful to have been a part of  BC (Book Club) for so many year.  It has forced me to pick up a book when I thought that life was to busy to do so...Love the little suitcase filled with books taking us to places we never really get to go.   

Between the pages of a book is a lovely place to be!

Cold Springs Trout Farm

A day trip to Cold Spring Farm ….there is nothing better than being able to enjoy a day outdoors!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A beautiful May day with the sun finally giving us the warmth we have been waiting for!

Water splashing under the bridge …….

Fish swimming in school after school after school….this place is stocked!

It is just simply magical to help this little man catch fish…..7 of them today!

He would have fished all day long without food or drink, if we would have let him. 

 

As I watched his determined face, his eyes fixated on the pond below as he tried to lift his pool out of the water, and then as he grabbed it from the ground and carried it to the water bucket,  that’s all it took to make me the happiest mom around.  

Home to cook up our catch… Citrus Grilled Fish

Strewing citrus slices over a grill keeps fish from sticking and infuses it with flavor at the same time. Slice oranges, lemons, and limes about 1/4 inch thick, then spread the fruit generously over tin foil which has been sprayed with Pam.  Place the fish, skin on, on top of the citrus. Sprinkle with your favorite seasonings.  Cooking times will vary according to the thickness of the fish. Today it took 12 minutes and it was done to perfection!