A New Form of Chocolate

New Food Night

Expectations

Mouth Watering

I have so been looking forward to someone saying 'Let's have Italian' when it's time to choose our theme for the next weeks new food.  I have been waiting since Christmas!  More on that later.

We set the scene.

We set the table.

Now for the food and friendship.

Let's start with a salad.

Just your basic salad with some carrots and croutons to add to it.

Some spaghetti --

Some meatballs.

And you have spaghetti and meatballs.

Of course you need garlic toast.

And pizza is also Italian.

As is garlic knots.

And now for the dessert I could not wait for.

Chocolate pasta!


That's right!  Gary and I first tried this when we visited our daughter in Seattle.  Loved it -- chocolate and pasta.  Whoever invented this was a genius!!!!!!

I wanted to try it again so looked on Amazon and order Gary a package for Christmas.

What do you think?

The first time Gary made it a year ago he made a white chocolate sauce for it.  This time he went with Vanilla cream sauce.

Isn't this a great presentation?  And I gotta say - the Vanilla Cream Sauce was the perfect choice.

So, if you like pasta and you like chocolate - try this.

I ordered it from Amazon and am sure I will be ordering it again.

Another Holiday

I know, everyone is still eating their chocolates, admiring new jewelry, appreciating flowers and love from Valentine's Day but in our family this is the day we look forward to.  

HAPPY PRESIDENT'S DAY

That's right President's Day!!!   

We have a grandson who is a history buff and loves to learn about the President's.  He has been this way since he was a toddler.  I remember he used to call me when he was living in Arizona to ask me to look up different information on presidents. 

It was not a stretch to make this a celebrated holiday when the family moved to Oklahoma when he was in Kindergarten. 

Now, the nice thing about this holiday is -- WE MAKE OUR OWN RULES!!

That's right. No expectations. Whatever we want to do we do.  No need to feel like we have to do certain things. It's just all about enjoying the day and learning. 

We always have a special meal together. And we always do Presidential trivia.  

We have expanded our mode of celebration now that the kids are older and we do reports on Presidents. Not everyone has to do a report but we usually have 3-4 (or even more) reports on various Presidents.  We try to remember who has been reported on previously so we can learn about different ones.

A few years ago we added a little skit to our festivities.  We had auditions for parts and everything. We are doing a skit again this year as well.  The first skit involved President Taft and his pet unicorn. Lily wrote that skit.  

K.C. has written our skit this year about President Hoover. 

Gary has had a challenge for the last few years for anyone who can name all the presidents in order. The reward is a pound bar of chocolate. Knowing how we all like chocolate you would think we would work on that harder.  

We have learned a lot of facts regarding Presidents from our trivia games:

•  Franklin Pierce gave his 3,319 word inaugural address from memory without any notes.   
• Andrew Jackson was the first president to ride a railroad train.
• Zachary Taylor received his nomination for presidency late because he refused all postage due correspondences.
• Grover Cleveland personally answered the White House phone.

But one of the best pieces of of trivia we learned early on that became a favorite of the kids is that William Taft was so big he got stuck in the White House bathtub.  They had to order a bigger one.  

So here's wishing all of you  a Happy President's Day. My family and I would like to encourage you to make this a holiday you celebrate.  You are welcome to use any of the activities we use or create your own.  If you do this, let us know what you do.  Remember this is a holiday that has no expectations and you can embrace in any way you want to. However you do it - enjoy it!

Let's Get Twisted

So last week was Gary's birthday.  We let him choose our food for New Food Night since it would have been his birthday week.  However, he has been extremely sick with sinus crud forever and last week he was to sick to have our New Food Night so we moved it to this week.

Gary had chosen  traditional American food 'with a twist'.  What's more traditional that cheeseburgers and fries?  So here is our Twisted American Food night - a week late.

I fixed up a simple Winter Wonderland centerpiece just for fun because, after all, it is still Winter.

Now for the cheeseburger aspect of our meal.

Cheeseburger Bacon Pie.

Yeah that kinda twists it up, don't ya think?

This was a combined effort of K.C. and Lily.  Browned up hamburger with some onion, bacon and cheese.  Mix up eggs, bisquick and some milk and pour on top. Bake until golden brown.

How good does that look?  Well it tasted better.  Excellent twist on cheeseburger.

Now what do you normally have with a cheeseburger? Fries, of course!

Now Mr. Rick took the 'twisted' part of our theme literally.  He took some curly fries and put them in the crock pot with cream of chicken soup, cheese, cream cheese and I'm not sure what else and let them cook all day. (I really do need to keep a notebook handy so I can give you better ingredients for our food.)

What do you think? Don't you wish you were eating with us on Tuesday nights?

Now I wanted to fix something and thought 'What goes good with cheeseburgers?'  I thought to myself macaroni and cheese.  So I went to Google and searched for macaroni and cheese with a twist. I found the perfect recipe.

I made Pumpkin Macaroni and Cheese!

Now, since my recipe might put some people off if they knew my secret ingredient I didn't divulge my recipe until after everyone had tasted it.

I cooked up some macaroni and drained it.  I then made a roux (which I learned the correct spelling of when referring to cooking) of butter and flour, added milk and thickened.  I then added some salt, pepper and nutmeg. Then I added one cup of pumpkin and some cheddar cheese.  Stirred until melted and then add the macaroni and stir until coated.  I put all this in a baking dish and sprinkled more cheddar cheese on top then baked.

Gotta tell you, this was very good!  The pumpkin was very subtle and gave a delicious new flavor to an old favorite.  I would make this again.

Now Miss Annette decided to make some cookies for dessert.

She took a recipe of the Pioneer Woman and mixed it up a bit.  She took some chocolate chip cookie dough and baked them then added a Reese's Peanut Butter cup,  The twist was when The Pioneer Woman makes them she uses peanut butter cookie dough

There you have it - our twist on American food.  Who wants to make a reservation for next Tuesday?

New Semester - New Stories

Well another semester of school is underway!

Wow what fun!  (Do you hear the sarcasm there?)

Now don't get me wrong, I really do want all our students to succeed. But if you don't use a little common sense and take on some initiative yourself; then I don't have a lot of sympathy for what you are experiencing.  

Just a few examples:  

1) Classes for the semester are scheduled to start on Monday. This has been know for several months.  Students who call the week prior to start of class and have yet even applied for admissions then get upset because their application has not gone through.  

Did it not ever occur to you that it takes a few days for things to process?  If you do not apply until 2 days prior to the start of class, there is a distinct possibility that you may not get everything done in time to take classes. I appreciate that you want to 'better yourself' but procrastinating on doing so is not to your benefit in this situation. 

2) "What do you  mean I am not enrolled in class?'  

Well it appears that you never attended a single class or did a single assignment the first two weeks of class so your instructor has withdrawn you from the class.  

"What?  What am I supposed to do now?"

Well your only option at this time is to contact the instructor. have you done that?

"No, but I will."

Same student calls back two days later and again gets me on the phone.  

"Yeah, my class isn't showing for me."

I once again look at account and advise that instructor has withdrawn him for non participation. I ask again if he has contacted the instructor. 

"No - maybe I better do that."

Yeah, maybe you better.  

3)  No, I cannot put you on any kind of wait list. If the class you want to take says it is full then it is full. You will not be able to enroll in it. No there is nothing you can do and there is nothing I can do. You will just have to find another class to take.  

4) No I'm sorry but I have no way of knowing when your financial aid will pay out to you. This is done in batches and there is no way of know what batch you are in. I am sorry that you were counting on receiving it in time to pay your rent (buy your takeout, buy gas for your car). 

If you do not turn in the paperwork that is needed, it takes longer for your financial aid to process. No I cannot do the paperwork for you nor can I expedite it once you do get all the proper forms turned in.  

I don't expect every student to be an Einstein but I would expect them to be responsible and accountable.  

There you have it - just a few stories from the first weeks of classes.  I'll update you later with more stories as the semester rolls on.