Posts from — May 2018

I served these chicken breasts along with the pop-pop-popular Baby Back Ribs at my Memorial Day BBQ. People raved about the ribs but must have enjoyed these too, since they were all gone at the end of the evening.

I also made a couple of Harmony Boards, one fruit and one crudités.

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These ribs were the hit of my Memorial Day BBQ. Today, I had planned on posting another recipe from Connor’s birthday dinner, but several of the guests asked that I post this recipe first and I love nothing more than pleasing my friends and family. <3

There is only about 15 minutes of hands-on prep time and another 15 or 20 minutes of grilling time, the rest of recipe  is hands-off time in the oven. See, easy!

You can use your favorite barbecue seasoning rub, or use my favorite Food Network rub. I’ve been using it for nearly 10 years. The recipe for that rub is included.

I used purchased BBQ sauce, but of course, if you have a favorite recipe, use that!

Linda’s Easy and Delicious Baby Back Ribs

• 5 to 6 pounds baby back pork ribs
• 3/4 cup barbecue seasoning rub *recipe below
• 2 cups barbecue sauce

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Line the bottoms of two large baking sheets with heavy-duty foil.

Lay ribs out on the baking sheets. Season all over with the rub, using all 3/4 cup. Cover baking sheets tightly with heavy-duty foil.

Roast in oven for 1 hour.

Gently remove top foil and brush ribs with half of the barbecue sauce. Carefully and tightly re-cover with the foil and return to the oven for 30 minutes, ribs will be very tender.

Heat grill to medium-high. Grill ribs, brushing with sauce and turning several times, until slightly charred and glazed, 15 to 20 minutes.

Transfer ribs to a cutting board. Cut into one or two rib portions and serve.

Serves a crowd

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Thursday, May 24th, was Connor’s 27th birthday. He requested a Cajun dinner with a banana cream pie for dessert.

He specifically wanted shrimp and sausage, so Shrimp Creole fit the bill perfectly.

I especially love the vibrant colors of Shrimp Creole. It just screams, “celebration” and makes any occasion a party!

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I’ve wanted to put up a post about the wedding reception I did for Cody and Chanté over Mother’s Day weekend, but I don’t yet have the photos to do so.

So, while we wait for those, I have a sneak peek at a new business venture that my friend and colleague, Kim Howard, and I are looking into embarking on.

I put together this 3.5 x 1.5 foot Harmony Board for the reception. It consists of a cheese board, charcuterie board, crudités and fruit board.

We’ll call it Harmony Board 1.0.

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A month can seem like a long time or fly by in a minute. I’ve experienced both on my backyard remodel.

It took only one month for the wonderful people at Garden Plus Landscape & Pools to tear out my old backyard and install something beautiful and new.

And it’s taken an entire month for me to round-up and Photoshop all the photos so that I can finally get this post up. No time like the present, so let’s get on with it! These first four photos are the renderings that Garden’s Plus presented me with.

Lovely, aren’t they?

The rest will be the before, the between (the progress) and the after photos.

As a refresher; in May 2017, I moved out of a 4,000 sq ft house that I’d lived in for 18 years, into a 2,000 sq ft rental that also served as my storage space. Then in November 2017, I moved into this 3,000 sq ft house. I adore this house and it felt like home immediately.

Well, except for all the excess stuff that was piled deep and high on the back patio and along the very narrow eve on the north side of the house.

Thankfully it doesn’t rain in AZ very often! If it did, there would have been much more of this situation.

It all felt so very claustrophobic, suffocating and downright awful.

To rid myself of that stuff and those less than warm and fuzzy new home feelings, I needed to pare it down and spread it out. The paring down came in the form of a garage sale on March 3rd and 4th.

And the beginning of being able to spread it out began at the same time, in the form of a new covered patio that would be nearly 3x the size of the original covered patio.

This is something that has been in the works for a while now. The original covered patio needed revamping because it was just so damaged. It didn’t look good in terms of appearance and it was probably even dangerous to walk on. So, this is why we are all super excited to contact somewhere like this Milwaukee Concrete Brick Edging service to get it recovered with better material. This will definitely add some spice to our renovation project.

How amazing does that sound? I’ve always dreamed of having a great patio space that will allow us to spend more time outdoors so we can make the most of our surroundings. This is what it’s for, after all. To expand the life and workability of the pool deck and walkways, we decide to look into construction materials that are resilient to all weather conditions. We may look into concrete flooring options, perhaps consult a BM Concrete Reno or in our neighborhood, so that we can utilize our outdoor space to the fullest. Moreover, there are just so many options that you can take advantage of when it comes to your patio space that I’m slightly worried that it could become dirty as soon as it’s fitted. And, of course, I would hate for this to happen straight off the bat.

When I told my friend about my initial concerns, she told me to get in touch with a professional pressure washing service like Malachi Exterior Wash (www.pressurewashingclarksvillemalachiexteriorwash.com) to come as often as is needed to ensure that every inch of my patio, as well as my driveway and walkways, have all been cleaned to the highest quality. And as soon as she said this, it filled me with great joy and relief.

Knowing this bit of information allows me to enjoy the renovation process and to take in every second.

At the same time, the chipping plaster and cracking border tile of the original pool needed to come out and be replaced with new tile, coping and pebble finish. The old cement under the long but narrow covered patio, the faded cool-deck and a good part of grass area were to be replaced with travertine.

A built-in gas grill with dinning table was getting built, along with a beautiful accent wall/planter, which was inspired by a vintage French wall fountain I scooped up at Sweet Salvage several years ago.

Being installed in between the accent wall/planter and the pool, an eye-catching harlequin-pattern of travertine tile and faux grass. I’d love to take credit for that design element, but all credit goes to Adrian at Garden’s Plus. He spotted the French fountain among all the stuff piled on the patio and came up with the idea and design.

Had he told me that the first order of business to upgrade your patio was to get everything off the patio, or not, that’s what I somehow wanted to do. I moved all the boxes into the garage and figured out what would be kept and what was to go in the sale. I moved all the outdoor furnishings onto an extra-large tarp in the grass on the far north side of the yard and then the guys covered it with more tarps to protect it from possible rain. It rained for two days before I was able to move stuff to the grass, but it hasn’t rained since … that was February 27th.

Note: As if to prove me a liar, it rained only hours after I pushed “schedule” on this post. Yes, it rained last night! Hallelujah! Praying it’s raining up north and helping put out or at least control the Tinder Fire.

Actually now that I look at the photos, I remember that the guys started putting up the masonry columns even before I moved my stuff off the patio. That seriously lit a fire under me and put the pressure on!

This was travertine delivery day. In a future post, I’ll share with you all the drama that occurred on granite delivery day. It was quite the thing.

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