Spinach Salad with Pears

I ate this salad at The Wedge in OKC on North Western. I love it! It has fresh pears, sugared walnuts and Asiago cheese and a wonderful Balsamic vinegar dressing with a bit of a hot spicy bite. Pretty simple but great flavors mixed together. If you try this you have to make the perfect bite, some spinach, a piece of pear, some walnut and cheese and make sure there is some dressing on it. It's wonderful. I will say my dressing is not exactly like theirs but it's close.

Fresh spinach
1/2 cup Asiago cheese, grated
1 cup sugared walnuts
1 whole juicy pear, cut in half and sliced
2 tablespoons of brown sugar

Place walnuts in a baking dish and sprinkle with brown sugar. Place in oven until walnuts are golden and brown sugar starts to melt.
Assemble ingredients in individual salad bowls. Coarsely chop walnuts and sprinkle on top.

Dressing:
1/4 to 1/2 cup Balsamic syrup
1/4 cup Sweet Balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2-3 shots of hot sauce

Mix well. These are the ingredients for 2 salads.

Henry David Thoreau - Great Quote

IF YOU ADVANCE CONFIDENTLY IN THE DIRECTION OF YOUR OWN DREAMS AND ENDEAVOR TO LIVE THE LIFE WHICH YOU HAVE IMAGINED YOU WILL MEET WITH A SUCCESS UNEXPECTED IN COMMON HOURS.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU


Another Good Quote!

NOTHING HAPPENS TILL SOMETHING MOVES.
ALBERT EINSTEIN

Little Touches of Spring

Making little changes in your home can change your state of mind. If you've been saying to yourself, "I'm tired of looking at the same old thing" try rearranging your furniture or if you don't or can't rearrange the furniture; maybe you can move something small. Change your lamps around or flower arrangements. Create a whole new setting on your coffee table or dinning table. Do something new on your mantle.

Make or buy a new flower arrangement, buy some new kitchen towels and new rugs for the kitchen, new bathroom towels or rugs, new tablecloth, new throw pillows, buy some living plants instead of having all artificial. If you are real energetic you could paint one wall a special color or wall paper one wall. I'm not saying do all these things but you can do a couple of things and it makes a difference in your home and you will enjoy looking at it and so will your family. Everyone will like the change.

The pictures I posted are just some examples of little things you can do. The set of embroidered kitchen towels, I think look cute in a kitchen. That may not be your style. But the other kitchen towels I love too and you can find those and many other designs at the Wilshire Garden Market. They have wonderful candles, french soaps that smell wonderful, outdoor carpets and pillows. They are at N. May and Wilshire, one block east.

I put up all my winter decorations last week and so I'm thinking spring!!!! I was thinking that I would really like a new tablecloth for my breakfast table and I was wanting a vintage print and "wa la" I ran across one last weekend. The towel in our bathroom, I found packed away in a box of things I had forgotten about. It's something different and I really like crochet on towels.

I got a set of embroidered kitchen towels years ago for a wedding gift and loved them. I used them until they were so thin you could see through them. I had a set made for myself and each one of my daughters. The design for my daughters is different from the set on this post. I know someone who does excellent embroidery work if anyone is interested I would be glad to give you her name. You can't buy these embroidered kitchen towels anymore and I personally think they are great gifts.

Life on the Farm

I am furious to say the least. I started planting my seedlings yesterday. I had half of everything planted that I am planting and I went out this morning to turn the heat down under the seedlings and to my surprise the dirt was half way remove almost out of every plug and the seed was gone. Mice had got into the tray during the night and took the seed out and had eaten it. It had never dawned on me that the mice would do that. Years ago I had left some seed out after planting my garden and they ate that seed but I didn't know they would dig in dirt for seed. What is really interesting, I had another seed tray sitting next to this one and I hadn't put seed into it yet and that tray was not disturbed. Can mice smell seed? Who knows. The mice are history now, the Decon will be going out today. I had not put out Decon because I was concerned that one of my cats would slip in the building and get a mouse that had eaten the Decon but I will have to be careful with my cats because the Decon is going out!


There were eight different varieties in those plantings. I guess I'm going to have to decide now what I want to reorder.

Well, I've vented now so I'll go on with my day.

Another Sunday Dinner

We celebrated my sister's birthday yesterday. She requested a fried chicken dinner. There are several things I wanted to share with you. One, As I was making fried corn yesterday I thought this might be something that my readers might enjoy. This is something simple and easy, yet it taste somewhat like fresh corn off the cob. It goes well with a lot of different meals. As my husband would say, "it's a good filler" and it's a favorite with our family.

We had coconut cream pie for dessert and I made my sister an egg custard cream pie for my sister to take home. It's one of her favorites. My paternal grandmother loved egg custard cream pie and when she came to visit our family she always made it for our family. This is her recipe.

Egg Custard Cream Pie

4 slightly beaten eggs
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. vanilla
2 1/2 cups milk, scalded
1-9 inch pie shell (unbaked)

Blend eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla. Gradually stir in scalded milk. Pour into pastry shell, sprinkle with nutmeg.
Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.


Coconut Cream Pie

1 1/2 cups scalded milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 t. salt
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 t. vanilla
1 cup shredded coconut

Put milk on low heat to scald. Beat egg yolks lightly; add sugar, cornstarch and salt to eggs. Pour this mixture into scalded milk; stir until mixture thickens. Add butter, 1/2 cup of coconut and vanilla. Pour into baked pie shell. Cover with meringue, and brown.

Meringue

3 egg whites
2 tablespoons of powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla

Beat egg whites till stiff peaks form. Fold in sugar and vanilla. Cover top of pie and sprinkle remainder of coconut over meringue. Bake at 350 until lightly browned.

If you make this for a 9 inch pie shell I would double this recipe. I have a really big nice pie plate and I tripled this recipe.

Fried Corn

When I make this for our family I buy the big bag of frozen corn. I don't know the ounces off hand. I have a cast iron skillet but you can use any skillet. This recipe would be for 6 people.

1 large bag of frozen corn
4 tablespoons of butter
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups milk

Melt butter in skillet. Pour in frozen corn and stir until corn starts to soften. Then add salt and pepper to taste. Stir a several more times then add your milk. Lower heat a little and stir occasionally until the milk cooks down. The corn is finished when the milk cooks down.

Happy Friday

Just checking in. I have thoroughly enjoyed the snow days. It has been beautiful. It's so nice just to have soft falling snow flakes without the ice. Our trees were terribly damaged by the ice storm last year, so I was praying for just snow. I wasn't sure we would have any trees left if we had another storm like last year.

Well, I have been decluttering. Our oldest son just moved out into an apartment so I have been cleaning out his room and closet and attacked the closet in the spare bedroom too. I also went through a lot of books in our school room that I wanted to get rid of. I took down all of our winter decorations and now I really need to clean house. :( But the nice warm weather that is predicted is calling me outside. I can't wait!

I've been working on some projects that I'm excited to show you. A new garden gate for my herb garden, huge concert pot that I am turning to a mosaic for my flower garden, some potting benches. I will be posting pictures as I get these things completed.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Champagne Vinagrette

I love Walt's Champagne Salad at Charleston's. It has chunks of fresh pineapple, fresh strawberries, dried figs, sugared pecans, sunflower seeds, feta cheese, sliced roasted chicken, small slivers of carrot and several types of lettuces and their wonderful champagne salad dressing. This salad is wonderful and I almost always order it whenever I go to Charleston's.

I came up with this salad dressing and it is pretty close to the one that Charleston's serves on Walt's salad.

1 shallot, minced
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon of Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons of sugar
1/8 teaspoon of salt
dash of pepper
1/2 cup Champagne vinegar
1 1/2 cups of canola oil or olive oil

Add first 7 ingredients into a blender. Start blender and slowly add canola oil.

I would also like to suggest Charleston's glazed carrots. They are the best glazed carrots I have ever eaten.

Hello February!