Choice Morsels

Today's picture is of a vase of long-lasting red, white & green flowers I bought to bring home and arranged. (I used to be a floral designer) Hubby asked if I enjoyed myself and I said, "I did."  To make it, I snipped some Gardenia greenery, since it's so glossy and pretty, then arranged this still life for a photo, which includes a few slices of home-made fruitcake. The Gardenia I clipped the greenery from out front, is the one that's  still  happily making buds and blooming. 

Our Christmas tree, a live Frazier Fir, is decorated with memories. (the photo is of our Christmas tree this year, 2018) When my sisters and I were kids, beginning when I was about 10, we started getting fancy pin ornament kits in our Christmas stockings. These kits contained a pattern for decorating a foam ball and all the pins, sequins, bits and ribbon to create it. Many were spectacular designs back then. I was talking on the phone with Mother about this and she remembered it all got started because my younger sister got an ornament kit on her birthday a couple months earlier. After that, we were hooked and got a new kit every Christmas. When I left home and was in the Air Force, I continued ordering these kits every year for myself from Wards craft catalog. Mother said she didn't know that. So, today I'm going share a few photos of ornaments I made after I left home: This little Santa in a Chimney pin ornament is a fond memory to me because it was the first orn...

Today's recipe is "Eggnog Crumb Loaf" It's this month's new quick bread Pinterest recipe I tried. It's a good Christmas Holiday bread, because when else are you going to have Eggnog around? Actually, it was posted as a muffin recipe, but I just put it in a loaf pan because that was easier. So now it's a Quick Bread recipe here. This is a little baking trick to remember: You can turn any muffin recipe for 12 muffins into a loaf or any recipe for a single quick bread loaf into 12 muffins.  Baking time changes though: short for muffins; longer for a loaf. I think getting enough flavor in a Eggnog quick bread is a trick, because it depends more on the spices for flavor then the Eggnog. Just a bit of nutmeg isn't enough. This Eggnog Crumb Loaf recipe has cinnamon & nutmeg in the mix and in the crumb topping! So plenty of flavor! Having made it, I think it would benefit from having pecan pieces added to the mix. (photo is my Eggnog Cr...

After several days of gray cold gloom, I was quite happy to see sunny days again today and yesterday! I actually went outside today. I wanted to water my containers and some of the newly bulb planted areas in front bed with Miracle-gro. Also the garden veggies. Broccoli is just starting to head. I walk around and see so much growth---everything that blooms in the spring is poling up it's greenery right now to energize from the winter sun: Dutch Iris, Easter Lilies & Daffodils greens so far. Today's Garden Pic is my Oakland Holly all decorated up for Christmas! It's about 4 feet tall now. I had a box of unused plastic ornaments and bought two strings of 50 light battery lights. Those are genius.  No worries running extension wires to power anything. Once turned on, an auto-timer runs it a few hours nightly. This Holly was bred for the Southern climate. It's self-pollinating. The berries are edible for birds. It doesn't grow overly tall.

Today's recipe: Easy Mexican Casserole I found it on Pinterest in a collection of Weight Watchers Casseroles and tried it because I liked the recipe. But it wasn't Weight Watchers anymore once I got my hands on it, because I didn't think a 1/3 cup smidgen of cheese on top was near enough---so used a whole bag (1 1/2 cups) 2% Milk Mexican Cheese Blend!  (Might as well. I didn't have any other use for it.) I always find these sorts of recipes calling for "8 Corn Tortillas."  I've never found Corn Tortillas packaged in "8." Ever. I had a choice of 10 or 30. I chose the 10 pack and for a 10 x 13 pan, 10 worked perfectly! I also used light sour cream instead of fat-free and for diced tomatoes I had on hand a can of Mexican diced tomatoes with Green Chili's added, which was a plus. I also used Ground Sirloin, which very lean and makes next to no grease during browning.  The original recipe was super spicy with a lot of jalapeno, bu...

I have all these teacup planters all sorts of places with various succulents in them. This particular cup was empty before I moved it to this spot pictured and where it was, wasn't working.  One thing about teacup planters outside is they need to be put on a slight slant, because though they drain, they drain so slowly they overflow in rain if they're set flat. So I moved this teacup to this spot between red blocks out front in my new landscape project area, on a slant, filled with Chicks and Chinese Stonecrop and a few red lava rocks in and around the cup. The next picture below shows a larger perspective of where it is. (red arrow) This bit of landscape is planted with ground covers plus shamrock, daffodil and grape hyacinth bulbs and a couple other things. I intend it to be a no-mow area. The grass never liked it there anyway.

I had a can of apple pie filling and a box of yellow cake mix I wanted to do something with, so I searched through Pinterest for dump cakes. Apple Dump Cake calls for 2 cans of pie filling, so that was out. I did have pumpkin. Then I found this:  Apple Pumpkin Dump Cake! It uses both apple pie filling and pumpkin and yellow cake mix! Perfect! It was so delicious, my guests gobbled-up the whole pan! It's super easy and only calls for 4 main ingredients! Nuts are optional. Apple Pumpkin Dump Cake Ingredients: 1 20oz can Apple Pie Filling 1 15oz can plain packed Pumpkin  1 box yellow cake mix 1 stick butter or margarine (1/2 cup) 1 teaspoon ground Cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon ground Nutmeg Optional: a handful of pecan pieces or walnut pieces. Directions: Preheat oven to 350 and s pray a 10 x 13 baking dish or pan with cooking spray. Open the Apple Pie Filling and dump it in the baking pan, then spread out over bottom. In medium bowl, a...