Today's breakfast Greek Yogurt and fresh picked blueberries

Today's breakfast is a healthy Greek Yogurt that I added lemon and honey. I added my homemade granola and blueberries that I picked.

Today's agenda is running a few errands in town and back home to work in my Art Studio. I have a few birthday cards to make and some organizing to do.

Dinner tonight is Baked Chicken, Smashed Red Potatoes and Roasted Green Beans

I roasted Chicken Breast with skin and bone attached. I drizzled olive oil over skin and I put seasonings, like onion powder, garlic powder, cracked black pepper and All Season all over and baked for 1 hour at 375 degrees. I took fresh green beans and tossed them in a little olive oil, sea salt, black pepper and 3 cloves of minced garlic. I roasted the green beans for 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven. I boiled the potatoes until fork tender about 20 minutes but not falling apart. I then put them on a oven safe mat and cookie sheet, if you don't have a mat make sure you drizzle olive oil on pan so the potatoes won't stick! I then smashed them and brushed the potatoes with olive oil and then sprinkled sea salt, black pepper, and fresh rosemary and minced garlic. I backed them at 425 for about 20-25 minutes. That's it! So yummy in my tummy!

Look what I made! Baked Chicken, Rice and Spinach in Fillo Dough

I was experimenting today, and I made chicken wrapped in Fillo Dough, it is not fried. This is how I made it. Take the Fjillo Dough out of freezer to thaw, keep it wrapped, so it is not exposed to the air. I first cut a chicken breast in half length wise. I then made a marinade for the chicken, I used White Wine Vinegar, olive oil, black pepper, Dijon Mustard, Curry Powder, honey, orange Marmalade and sea salt, wisk this all together place chicken in a medium size bowl and pour this over chicken and pierce chicken with a fork and place in fridge for a couple of hours.

I made Jasmin Rice, I saute a half minced onion in olive oil and smidget of butter until onion looked clear. I put onion in pot and added Chicken Broth 1 tablespoon of rosemary and 1 tablespoon of flat leaf parsley. I brought the broth to a boil and added the rice and cooked it for 20 minutes. After it was cooked I took the lid off and fluffed the dry rice and set it aside to cool down. I then saute 1/2 onion in olive oil until translucent. I then added 1 clove of minced garlic for less than a minute before adding 1 bag of fresh spinach. I kept tossing the spinach and onion garlic mixture and saute it until the spinach became wilted. I added about 2 tablespoons of Dry Sherry. I would say I cooked it on medium heat for about 3 to 4 minutes, making sure all moisture was all out of the spinach. I set this aside to cool down. I took the chicken out of the fridge and patted it dry. I took out a baking sheet and laid a Silpat mat down, on a cookie sheet. This mat is a rubber silicone mat for the oven. I then took one sheet of the Fillo dough and laid it down on the mat, I brushed it with melted butter and I did this with 4 times with 4 sheets of dough. I then put about 1 cup of the cooked rice and flatten it out, lay the spinach on top of the rice, lay the chicken on top of the spinach. Now Start with the Fillo Dough, laying it over the chicken, brushing it with the butter. I think I used about four sheets of dough. I cut off excessive dough and left about a half inch lip and tucked it under. I brushed the Fillo Dough with an egg wash and hit it with cracked pepper and about 2 tablespoons of Parmesan Cheese on top. I baked it at 425 for 7 minutes and then turned the heat down to 375 and baked for 40 minutes. I covered loosely foil over top for the last 20 minutes of the cooking process. This was so yummy full of flavor.

Lemoncello Chicken for Dinner July 12, 2011

Dinner tonight is; Lemoncello Chicken! I added thyme, lemon rind, lemon juice and garlic infused chicken. I also had, Jasmin Rice infused with garlic, rosemary, onion and parsley and Cuban style black beans with garlic, oregano, bell pepper, onions and a secret ingredient. I wrapped it up and took it to my Health Class. I was running late.

I made granola today to have with my yogurt for tomorrow. While I was making the granola I got distracted and it didn't come out as good as it usually does. Some dishes fell off the shelf and broke in my pantry and I ended up forgetting a couple of ingredients, I hate when that happens.

When your marriage goes to a whole new level.

My mind was on the task at hand and it was a very hot day. It was right in the middle of the afternoon when I ventured out to go pick blueberries, at my friend’s house. I pulled up to the open field in my pick-up truck, as I glanced at the blueberry bushes there were bee's flying all around my truck. I just sat there inside the truck, waiting for them to fly away! I thought I wished I would have remembered to bring Skin-So-Soft, to repel any bugs off of me.

Anyways, the bees finally flew away after a few moments and I hoped out of the truck, grabbed my baskets, put on my wide brim straw hat and got busy picking blueberries. The sun was really beating down on me as I wedge myself in between the bushes, to reach those big fat berries at the very top of the bushes. Now these blueberry bushes are probably over 6 feet tall and I am only 5 feet 2 inches, so it was a struggle to reaching them. I also had to fight off the red ants that were on the ground. I notice the ants at only one of the bushes, I was picking from.

I think I was there for about an hour picking, maybe a little longer. I really got a lot of blueberries, maybe too many! Can you have too many blueberries? I don't think so! I came home placed the blueberries on the kitchen table and didn't think anymore about them, except when I ate a few, while I made dinner that night.

I jumped in the shower before bed, put on my Pj's and went to bed. I woke up in the early hours of the morning to itching and scratching! I said to my husband, "I think a spider bit me while I was sleeping". I ripped back the blanket and the sheet; I was on a mission to find the little bugger who bit me, but I could not find anything, not a bug to be found. I was so itchy, how could there be no bug, I thought.

I jumped in the shower again, to ease the pain from the bite, with the cool water. When I got out, I had all these welts on my upper thighs, butt, crack of butt and belly. I said to Jeff what the heck could have done this; does a spider bite this many times? I said, "I think it was ants" but there was no evidence of ants or spiders. He said, "it must have been a spider!"

What does a person do next? You got it, they Google bug bites! You know, I am a doctor in my spare time, thanks to Google! Jeff say's "maybe it's bed bugs." I said "oh no"! I left my computer and ran to my bed with a magnifier glass and tore my bed apart! I took the blanket, the sheets, the pillow cases and the bed cover off my bed and I inspected everything with a magnifier glass. I even checked all the seams of the mattress, to find no evidence of anything. Thank you Jesus! I saw a show called Infested, where these people had bed bugs and they could not get rid of bed bugs and I didn't even want to go there.

Back to the computer, I looked up bed bugs, spiders, ants and looked at pictures of bug that have bitten people! You want to get creped out, take a look at pictures of spider bites or bug bites, it will scare the bejesus out of you! That is some scary stuff! People with open leaking wounds, legs and arms amputated because of bug bites. Then there it was for all to see, "chiggers" and chigger bites, with pictures and they looked just like my bites and in the comment section it read, you can get chiggers from picking fruit. In other words pickers can get chiggers! I told you I was a doctor!

Did your mom ever tell you not to pick? Well she was right, don't pick your buggers, scabs, fruit or on your siblings! So don't be a picker! Chiggers and Blueberries, who would have ever thought they would go together, but oh do they ever! I bought 2 kinds of ointments sprays and lotions to treat this horrible thing! Later that night, Jeff and I went to the pharmacists and asked what else could I take orally, to stop the itch. He said, "There really is nothing else you can take." He said, "You could take, clear nail polish and paint each bite, to help!"

So there we are, my husband painting my body with clear nail polish! Our marriage has gone to a whole new level in the past two weeks, between the nail polish and the mustard we have really bonded in a whole new way! Remind me to tell you about the mustard later; it has nothing to do with the chiggers! The nail polish is supposed to pull the chiggers out or suffocate them.

Now here is where men think different than women! Women would see red bumps all over her man and think oh gosh, that is gross, stay away from him and say I am scared! Men on the other hand, see you in your birthday suit, while they paint your bites with polish and think, oh this would be a perfect opportunity to make the best out of this situation and they get frisky! You gotta love um.....don't you?

Making greeting cards!

Well here are my two cards that I made in a flash for the card exchange. They are both birthday cards. I waited to the last minute to make them, so I didn't smother them with my love to make them, oh well next time. A handful of us girl's get together and have crafting moments together. We make cards and teach each other to make the cards we design. We bring all the things that we used to make the cards, so everyone else can make that same card. It's fun!

This is what greeted me this morning as the sun was coming up! I love my flowers! I love how the sun just touches the flowers petals. I was watering and ran inside to grab my camera. Notice the bee flying in between the flowers, I caught in flight.

I got attack by either a spider or ants, I'm not really sure, but I have these welts on the back side of my legs. Oh yeah, this happened while I was sleeping last night, funny thing my husband never gets bit by anything. I wonder if that has to do with him not killing any bugs ever. I mean it he will not kill bugs, if they ever get in my house he will pick them up with a piece of paper and carry them outside. Me on the other hand, I do a stamp dance on them and then I cover them until there is foam covering their back from the bug spray, so basically I kill them a second time.

I have a busy day today, errand to run and a girlfriends day! I still have not made my cards to exchange with my peeps, I better get busy!