Happy Fall Y'all!

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I went to my first Holiday Market of the season - so to me, that makes it fall, even if it IS still just under 90 degrees outsite. (Can you perhaps guess from the photo what we bought, today? LOL!)

My site counter reached 1,000 visitors, today. WOW! 1,000 visitors in 3 months. I'd love to hear from some of you. You can click on any post and leave comments or I'm also trying out a new Tagboard Feature in my sidebar, you can also leave comments, there.

Dinner: Grown Up Grilled Cheese/Panini

I haven't posted any recipes in a long while due to the hurricane. Now that the kids are back in school I am back to work so I made an easy dinner, tonight. I first made these sandwiches a few weeks ago, they were a big hit with my family. Ethan is so enthusiastic about these that he was asking me to make him another before he had finished the first half, he ended up eating his entire sandwich plus half of mine! And I had been afraid he might be put off by all that green... Silly Mommy.

I have been doing a bit of grilled sandwich research (surfing) this morning. Lo and behold I came across this quote about the Monte Cristo sandwich (YUM!) On Wikipedia

"The first well documented appearance of the Monte Cristo sandwich is on menus at the Blue Bayou and Tahitian Terrace restaurants at Disneyland's New Orleans Square in 1966."

The Blue Bayou is where I have enjoyed most of the Monte Cristo sandwiches I have consumed and I have to say that they are WONDERFUL!

Pesto Mozzarella Grilled Cheese


I got this idea from Tyler Florence on the Ultimate Rainy Day Episode of Tyler's Ultimate. But he made pesto from scratch - I'm sure homemade pesto would be even better, but this is the quick and easy weeknight version & I have trouble finding fresh basil in large quantities, so I'm using prepared pesto.

Ingredients:
Loaf of Sourdough Bread
Tub of Prepared Pesto Sauce (find it in the refrigerated pasta section)
Mozzarella Fresca (Fresh Mozzarella it's with the specialty cheeses and usually packed in liquid - it's much softer than standard Mozzarella which has been aged.)
Olive Oil
1) Slice Mozzarella and Bread if not pre-sliced.

2) Spread pesto sauce on insides of bread, top one side with mozzarella slices and assemble. Brush one side of bread with olive oil (it actually tasted butterier than using butter!)

3) Place sandwich oiled side down on heated iron or griddle. Brush remaining side with oil.

4) Now in order to press the sandwich you will need something with some weight. Here is what I did. Top sandwich with a sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil, place the flat bottom of a cookie sheet on top of that (large flat surface that will press down on all the sandwiches) and top that with something heavy (I used my cast iron skillet or you could use some heavy cans.) Grill until browned and flip. When both sides are toasted remove to cutting board and cut sandwich in half.

Tips: On the TV show, Tyler used a nice artisan Sourdough and cut it into thick slices and grilled it on a Panini press. I found that when I tried to use my grill pan and weight with thick sliced bread, I did get those pretty panini grill marks, but only the ridge part of the sandwich browned, and the bread was too thick for the cheese to get warm enough to melt.
I did much better with both browning and melting using sourdough pre-sliced by the bakery (thinner uniform slices) and toasting the sandwiches on a flat griddle - still pressing the layers under under foil, cookie sheet, and cast iron skillet. You could easily make this a Tricolore Sandwich by adding slices of tomato. (The word Tricolore refers to the Italian flag: red, white and green - In Italian Cuisine dishes with these three colors are also described as Tricolore.)

Give Thanks Thanksgiving Card

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All Supplies by CTMH
Stamps: Give Thanks, Stoneware Texture
Ink and Cardstock Colors: Pansy Purple, Autumn Terracotta, Goldrush
Colored Using Waterbursh with ink pads and watercolor pencils

20 Mile Trek

I spent 2 hours of today getting Ethan's medication. The pediatrician's office building has not yet re-opened after the storm so she is working out of a satellite office out-of-town. It's a 20 mile round trip on surface streets (no freeways go out that way from here - going on the freeway would be the long way around.)

Along my trek thru traffic-y areas (mainly from a few major intersections with signals still out) I DID notice the beautiful cloud formations. As I sat in the drive-thru at the pharmacy I marveled at them. Texas clouds form so fast you can WATCH them forming - it's like time-lapse photography only it's not time-lapse - it's real time real life. With big giant clouds like this I think we may be in for a thunderstorm... but then the clouds move so fast (we must have a lot of wind at higher altitudes) they might blow off somewhere else before they drop rain or thunder.

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The Same Moon That's Shinnin' Down On Me...

I don't know why it was so funny to us, but for years it was a private joke between my mother and me. It's from the charming little movie Tammy and the Bachelor starring Debbie Reynolds. While gazing up at the moon it becomes apparent that Tammy has fallen in love with Pete (engaged to someone else) when she sighs with all her heart and says, "Just think, Miss Renie, that same moon that's shinnin' down on me this very moment, is shinnin' down on Pete's tomatoes!" It was so tragic and ridiculous, you couldn't help but laugh. I don't know how it became a quotable quote for us, but it did. Sometimes as a reminder not to take life so seriously, sometimes just out of the blue for no good reason... it never failed to make us laugh. I've tried to explain it to other people over the years, but nobody ever finds it as funny as we did. It was just our thing. Well, truthfully in the beginning it was just my Mother's thing, and over time it became OUR thing. (I've added the song Tammy to my playlist at the bottom of my Blog, I wish I could have found the original Debbie Reynolds version from the movie.)

When Ethan was 2 we lived in a neighborhood where the houses were very close together. You really had to search the sky to find a spot where you could see the moon in between the rooftops, but Ethan's upstairs bedroom had windows that faced 2 ways and usually we could see the moon from there. Before going to bed every night we had to look out the window and find the moon, he would not settle down for the night until he had said goodnight to the moon.

When I moved to Texas away from my parents and friends, I missed them so much. Less than a month after our move when the September 11th attacks grounded all planes, the distance between me and my family came to feel insurmountable. The sky is so big in Texas, you can see forever and I never have any trouble finding the moon in the big, wide sky. One night gazing up at the moon, I remembered that silly saying from the Tammy movie. It changed from campy, funny, to a thought of comfort. I could look up at the Moon in Texas and my family just might at that same moment be looking up at that same moon. After that for several years after we moved I went outside every night to "greet" the moon. Somehow it helped me feel at home until I felt at home in my new home.

So it has been a number of years since I developed my affinity for the Moon, since it became a kind of touchstone for family and for peace. So now I've tried to explain, and understand for myself, just why.

This picture of the moon was taken September 14 on the second night after Hurricane Ike.


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CLICK HERE for Take Flight Owl Card with Moon

Rustic Trail Park Pages II

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Click Here to see the other set of pages from this same day.

All supplies by Close To My Heart
Paper Packet: Rustic Trail
Ink and Cardstock Colors: Bamboo, Cocoa, Olive Dutch Blue
Stamp Sets: It's A Boy, Beauty Seen
Layout Design is Balanced Blocks from the book Cherish by Close To My Heart

Schools Re-opened Today!

We are one more step closer to back to normal. The kids went back to school, today. They have been out for 11 days! Imagine all the happy Mama's all over town.

Must fly, self has hair appointment at 1. Marvelous self-indulgence at this point, getting hair cut.

Supermarket Re-opens!

My local supermarket finally re-opened, yesterday! I hear they have not yet stocked a lot of things like milk and eggs and ice, but they are OPEN at last after being closed for a full week.

Robert reports that the broken pole hanging over the road has been repaired and the traffic signal out at the main road was blinking red last night. Perhaps it will actually be functioning today!

I also got an email this morning saying that power is back up at the church.