February 18, 2012

• the latest from my neck of the woods…

  So I see that Xanga has now forced me into using the new editor…no choice about it!  I do like the way pictures are now uploaded within the post..or at least I think so, they are uploading now as I am typing this. We shall see.

  The latest & greatest news from here is that daughter has been excepted into the study abroad summer program that she applied for!! It is a 5 week Central European travel seminar.
  It is just perfect for her being that it isn’t a whole semester abroad (I could not have handled that!) Plus it has always been a dream of hers to be able to visit Berlin, which is the first stop on the trip!
  After a week in Berlin the other cities include Erfurt, Dresden, Prague, Brno, Vienna, Budapest & Krakow. What a trip! She is over the moon about it with excitement as are we!

  She also has a wonderful man in her life. She has been seeing him close to a year & they are both so good for each other. He also spoils her rotten!  For Valentine’s Day, he gave her a beautiful tennis bracelet with hearts & diamonds. He gave this to her about 5 days early, as they were celebrating early since he had to work the day of Valentine’s Day. Then on the actual day, he gave her a diamond heart necklace & later that day she got a floral delivery of red roses! Wow, what a guy!  She so deserves it though.

  Hubby & I had a fun Valentine celebration. We stayed home but had a nice & a fun evening together just eating, drinking, talking & laughing.

   

  Had crab legs & artichokes for dinner & shared a bottle of wine. Made a wonderful new dessert…so quick & easy & soooo good!

   

  Nutella and Strawberry Crepes

  

   

  Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup Nutella
  • 8 egg roll wrappers
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 cups frozen strawberries, thawed, drained and halved

  Preparation

  1. Spread 1 Tbsp. Nutella evenly in a 1/2-inch-thick line across bottom quarter of each egg roll wrapper. Fold up tightly to form crepes.

  2. Melt 2 Tbsp. butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add 4 crepes, seam-side down, and sprinkle with 1/2 Tbsp. sugar. Cook until golden brown on bottom, 1 to 2 minutes. Carefully flip crepes and cook until golden brown on other side, about 1 minute longer. Transfer to a platter. Repeat with remaining crepes, butter and another 1/2 Tbsp. sugar.

  3. Add berries to skillet, sprinkle with remaining 1 Tbsp. sugar and cook, stirring, until berries have softened and sugar has melted, 1 to 2 minutes. Spoon berries over crepes and serve immediately.

   

  On the subject of food & new recipes, I made an absolutely delicious new pork roast recipe for dinner last night. The flavor was out of this world!

  Easy Pork Roast
  (from Allrecipes.com)

  
     
   
  Prep Time: 20 Minutes
  Cook Time: 5 Hours 10 Minutes
     
  Ready In: 5 Hours 30 Minutes
  Servings: 8

  Ingredients:
  1 (4 pound) pork shoulder roast
  2 (16 ounce) cans cannellini beans
  1 (12 fluid ounce) can beer
  1 (28 ounce) can stewed tomatoes,
  drained
  2 large onions, coarsely chopped
     
  10 shallots, peeled
  10 cloves garlic, peeled
  salt and black pepper to taste
  2 bay leaves
  3 sprigs fresh rosemary
  Directions:
  1.     Preheat oven to 275 degrees F (135 degrees C).
  2.     In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown the roast on all sides, about 10 minutes. Place roast into a large roasting pan. Pour beans, beer, and tomatoes over roast. Arrange onions, shallots, garlic, bay leaves and sprigs of rosemary around the roast, and season with salt and pepper.
  3.     Cover, and bake for 4 hours. Raise the temperature to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C), and roast 1 hour more.

   

  I followed the recipe exactly, except found that that last hour on 425 was not needed & was too high…so I just left it at the 275 degrees until it was time to eat.
  I made some roasted herbed potatoes to have with this, using rosemary & garlic also. And some thick crusty bread to dip in the juices…****it was outstanding!

   

  I will leave you with a couple of pictures from recent activity around the house…

  

  coyote wandering through in the middle of the day…

   

  

  Mr. Cocky strutting his stuff & shaking his tail feathers!

  

  February’s full moon setting….

  hubby called me on his way to work to tell me to check it out…

  it was a brilliant orange color.

  

   

  OK, I have decided that I do like the new editor! So far, no problems, and it seems more smooth than the old one.

  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

   

   

  • 12:47 pm
  • 6 Comments