Greek Yogurt with lots of fruit and a cheesy omelet with vine ripe tomato.

For the yogurt
1 cup plain Greek Yogurt
1 teaspoon Limoncello Liqueur (this is a lemon liqueur)
1 tablespoon honey

For the fruit
1/2 cup blueberries
1 small banana sliced
4 to 5 strawberries sliced
1 teaspoon of Lemoncello Liqueur

Granola
4 cups oats (not instant)
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup walnuts
1 1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 cup of dried mixed fruit (don't add this until after you cook the granola or the fruit will get hard)
1 stick of butter or oil (I prefer real butter)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon of cinnamon



I used my homemade granola, fruit and yogurt and I did a layering effect to built this most delicious  wonderfulness.  The yogurt I put a teaspoons of Limoncello Liqueur and 1 tablespoon of honey and mixed. The fruit I cut up and placed in a bowl and added Limoncello.  The granola I made last week, I keep it in an air tight container.

In a large bowl, mix the first 5 ingredients leave out 1/2 cup of coconut and save it for the end when you add the fruit.  In a small sauce pan add the butter, brown sugar, honey and cinnamon bring to a boil for just a few minutes until everything is bubbly and melted.  Pour over granola and mix well spread granola on a large cookie sheet pan.  I use my jelly roll stone pan from Pampered Chef.  Spread granola evenly where it is not piled up but laying flat out on the pan.  I hit it again with  a few shakes of cinnamon and bake it at 375 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes.  Don't walk away from this, it has a tendency to over cook very fast.  If you smell it, it's time to pull it out of the oven this usually happens 10 to 15 minutes of cooking.  Turn granola over and place back in oven for another 5 minutes.  Let granola cool in pan for 15 to 20 minutes, no eating  just kidding you won't be able to help yourself, it's okay, go ahead.  Now add the dried fruit and the other 1/2 cup of coconut.  Enjoy!

The first thing you should know is I absolutely love my omelets very thin.  I do not care for those fluffy puffy omelets, so if you are looking for that you won't find it here. I scrambled two fresh homegrown eggs in a small bowl and I used no water or milk, just strait up eggs.  I used a stainless steel frying pan, turned the head to medium high. I added a about a tablespoon of butter and let it melt to coat the bottom of the pan evenly.  I poured my eggs in and just waited until it set slightly on the bottom.  Once that was achieved I started swirling the pan around and moving only the un-cooked egg toward the edge of the omelet and pan to get the egg cooked completely.  I added a slice of cheese and turned the heat off and flipped the omelet over with a spatula onto one side, and slid it right out of the pan onto my plate.  Hey, I am very proud of this achievement it took me many years to be able to make an omelet in this kind of pan without it sticking or turning brown.   I diced up a very ripe tomatoe and wella!  So yummy!

Vine Ripe Tomatoes with Shaves of Parmesan Cheese and Basil

I used one very juicy vine ripe tomato cut it into slices, shaves of Parmesan Cheese, a drizzled of white wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, 3 fresh Basil leaves, a sprinkle of sea salt and cracked black pepper.  Enjoy!

Shrimp Scampi

Preheat oven 425 degrees F.

Just a side note:
You can cut this recipe in half if you don't want to make so much and you can use medium shrimp. A shallot works best but if you don't have a shallot you can use onion but make sure it's very minced.  I find this recipe work best if the topping is very brown and crunchy, so try to get it as brown without burning the top.

2 pounds of large shrimp 12 to 15 per pound ( I buy the devein with the shells on)
3 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 tablespoons of white wine
tsp. Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 tsp. minced garlic about 4 cloves
1/4 minced shallots
3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1 tsp. minced fresh rosemary
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 tsp grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 extra large egg yolk
2/3 cup panko bread (Japanese dried flakes/crumbs)
Lemon wedge for serving.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F

Peel and butterfly the shrimp, leaving the tails on.  Place the shrimp in a mixing bowl and toss gently with the olive oil, wine, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper.  Allow to sit at room temperature while you make the butter and garlic mixture.

In a small bowl, mash the soft butter with the garlic, shallots, parsley, rosemary, red pepper flakes, lemon zest, lemon juice, egg yolk, panko, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper until combined.

Use a 14 inch oval gratin dish, starting from the outer edge of dish arrange the shrimp in a single layer cut side down with the tails curling up and towards the center of the dish.  Pour the remaining marinade over the sprimp spread the butter mixture evenly over the shrimp.  Bake for 10 to 12 minutes on the bottom rack of you oven until hot and bubbly.  To get the top top browned, place under a broiler for 1 to 2  minutes keep your eyes on it don't walk away!  I keep the oven door cracked open while you do this.

Enjoy!

I made homemade granola with lots of dried fruits, oats, cinnamon, honey, nuts and coconut. I cut up strawberries and banana's and I use Greek Yogurt to make this parfait. Now that's a great way to start my day.

How I made the granola.  I used about 4 cups of Oats (not instant), 2  cup of nuts, I used 2 cup of sliced almonds because that's what I had on hand but you can add walnuts, pecans or seeds.  Sometimes I add all the nuts when I am making granola. I added about 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1 tablespoon of cinnamon and  1/4 cup of honey to 1 stick of butter and melted this in a small sauce pan over medium low heat. Once it comes to a bubbly boil and its all melted I added it to the oats and nuts, mixing it really well until everything was completely combined.  I spread it on a  cookie sheet.  I put the oven at 375 and baked for 15 minutes making sure not to walk away and keeping a close eye on the cooking process because, I know this has a tendency to burn very quick.  At 15 minutes of cooking I took it out of the oven and turned over the granola mixture and added the 1 cup of coconut flakes, I then placed back in the oven for another 5 minutes.  Once done and cooled I added a 8oz bag of mixed dry fruit and 1/2 cup more coconut flakes.  I like my coconut both ways cooked and raw.  I keep this in a sealed tight container.  I use this on yogurt, ice cream, peanut butter or I use it as a cereal. 

I use Plain Greek Yogurt because it has the highest in protein coming in at 23 grams.  I add about a teaspoon of honey to take that tang away and a squeeze of lemon juice.  The lemon juice gives it that fresh taste.  You can use any fruit you want to make your parfait.  Enjoy!

She likes it!

I made this late Christmas present for my daughter and myself.  What is it you ask?  Well it is a journal box.  What you do is you journal one thing you did for that day all the way throughout the year.  Then the next year you start all over and then when you look back over that past 5 to 10 years you can see what you have done everyday throughout the years.  I  modge podg the box from all the magazines that I have.  I used a Christmas box that I got from Party City.  I modge podged the whole box top bottom insides too.  Then I made these cute dividers and gave them some bling and pizzas!  I used index cards and cut them down to fit the box and there you have it.

My Art Studio La de dah.... A place to be creative!

I have been working at organizing my art studio and this has been a huge job! This is therapy for me to show you the before and after pictures the last picture is what it looked like when I started working at cleaning this mess up!  Well I deleted ALL the before pictures, I just couldn't show you my dirty laundry, I guess I still need therapy, oh well and besides that I don't see anyone else showing there messy spaces. This room turned into a catch all room for some of the things we didn't put away where they really belonged.

Now it is my Art Studio La de dah ....a place to be creative.  Now if I can just keep it this way.  If you know me at all, you know I am not a stuffy kind of person who has to have the finer things in life.  Well it wouldn't hurt to have some finer things, so when I say la de dah with my pinky sticking out, I am totally laughing at myself.  My husband built the large white art table for me, which I just love.  I had Christmas decoration thrown in this room along with everything else.  It feels so good to have a creative space to work again.  I am donating a lot of books and magazines to the art class at the middle school and I am still looking to donate a lot more.  I am not finished organizing this space.  I have the shelves with the scrapbook to organize and I have only organized half of the plastic bins. I still have work to do in this space but I thought I would share with you, what I have been up to the past two weeks. I am so happy that's for sure.

Products I love....

It all started right before the Christmas break.  I was sucking on a peppermint candy and bit down on it and a sharp pain went strait up to my head while I was drive down the road, can you say holy mother of raccoons!  If I never feel that pain again, I will have lived my life to its fullest.  Then while I was on Christmas break it happened again, while I was eating the most delicious French toast.  Now French toast is soft, so it got me thinking, is it the sweets that is hurting my teeth?  I decided I better get to the dentist because I have been avoiding eating on the one side of my mouth for to long now.

I also went to the dentist, because I have dental insurance, that's right!  The dentist looked around in my mouth where I said the crime happened; he said  that he did not see anything that was wrong, so he took an x-ray.  He came back and said there is nothing showing up on this x-ray.  He took a baby hammer out.  That's right I said a hammer!  He hammered all the teeth around where the crime happened and he said, "do you feel any pain?" I never in a million years would have thought, that I would say, ”no that does not hurt, I don't feel anything". For God sake the man is tapping on my teeth with a dam hammer, have I lost my mind!  He said well, there is no abscess in your mouth or around your gums or teeth and nothing is showing up on the x-ray.  Then he asks me.......the question....."Do you think you might be grinding your teeth?"  "Holy mother of raccoons," that's it! I said, "YES!" I do think I am grinding my teeth! He says "do you wake up with mild headaches and a sore jaw?"   I said "YES I do!" It's like a light bulb went off in my head.  He said keep an eye on it and if it gets worse then you might need to get fitted for a mouth piece to sleep with at night.  I said well lets get that started right now.! He said "well, it's expensive".  I said how expensive?  He say's "500 dollars expensive and it is not usually covered under insurance.  I say "Holy mother of raccoons"!  Forget it, "I don't have 500 dollars to spend on my mouth".  He says just keep an eye on it and we will check it again when you come back for your cleaning.  Now I am thinking to myself, how does your eye keep an eye on your tooth?  Oh, it's my minds eye, oh you didn't no that either, your mind has an eye. Didn't your mother ever tell you she has eyes at the back of her head.  I said okay to the doctor and got up and left.

I tell my husband all about this and he says "lets just go get you a football mouth piece".  I said are you kidding me? I can’t sleep with that in my mouth.  So I forget about it until yesterday, when I got my declined statement from my Dental insurance in the mail.  You say what?  Yes, that's right you heard it, I got a declined statement from my dental insurance to pay for that office visit over the holidays.  The man looked in my mouth, hammered a few teeth and took an x-ray and the bill was $87 dollars.  So I did what every God Fearing American who gets pissed off, and called the insurance agency up to explain why they declined to pay my office visit.  I am rattling on to much again; I just better end this now.  So sorry.  You are not interested anyway! If you are, just ask me.  Oh wait a cotton pickin minute; I forgot this is why I wrote this whole long drawn out drama of a story in the first place.  I casually mentioned this whole thing to my son Brandon last night around 7 o'clock, when he told me the most wonderful news.  He says mom, "just go on line and look for "The Doctor's Night Guard," it's only $18 to $20 dollars".  So I did and there it was for all to see....the heavens opened and the angles sang a song and the reviews were amazing.  Jeff and I looked on the Wal-Mart site and they had it.  I called them to make sure and the lady on the other end of the phone says yes we have them and they are in the tooth paste isle.  We jump in the car and head to Wal-Mart.  Long story short, I woke up with no headache or sore jaw.  Thanks Brandon!

P,S. So sorry about my grammar and punctuation, I am a work in progress.