Kim, Amy, Peggy, and Peggy’s daughter, Samme, came over yesterday afternoon to make Silk Tie Colored Easter Eggs. We had a lovely time decorating eggs and relaxing together. Those are my dozen above.

I’ll show you the rest at the end of the post, but before I do, I have to share with you something I am totally in LOVE with and OBSESSED with!

This morning, as I perused through Pinterest, I spotted the most wonderful thing.

I am amazed and in awe of people and their talent.

If someone created these cookies for me, I know that I would never eat one!

No, I would put them on a pedestal. I would shellac them and place them in little individual shadow boxes to admire every day! Call me crazy, but honestly, I would!!

The chalkboard effect is beyond fabulous.

Seriously! Shut the front door!

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Happy Birthday to two of my dearest friends. Two women whom I adore.

Their birthdays are only two years apart, but I won’t reveal who is older or their exact ages.

Let’s just say that one is a tiny bit more than decade younger than me and the other is just less than a decade behind me.

Yeah, they’re young and they are both gorgeous, inside and out!

You may not be able to see them, but they are both in the image above. You can easily see that I am cooking with Tram Mai on the old Valley Dish. We are making Amy’s Famous Taco Soup. Because it is Amy’s recipe, I’d brought along a framed photo of Amy and her family… you can barely see it down in the lower right corner of the image.  Can you see it?

Since then, Amy and Tram have been together at my house a couple of times, but unfortunately, I’d never gotten a photo of them together, so until I do, this will have to do!

Before our mutual friend, Lori, moved to Chicago, we used to celebrate Amy (on the right) and Lori’s (center) birthdays together.

Happy Birthday, Amy! I love you!

This fun photo was taken in August 2010 when Tram invited me to cook with her on stage at Phoenix Cooks. Good times!

Happy Birthday, Tram! I love you!

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I made myself smile after I typed that heading. Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update has always been one of my favorite sketches on SNL. It is the show’s longest-running recurring sketch and has some memorable anchors, from the original, Chevy Chase, to the current, Seth Meyers. I especially loved Jane Curtain and more recently have enjoyed when Tina Fey and/or Amy Poehler were paired with Meyers.

But I digress, this isn’t about SNL, but rather my own weekend happenings.

Saturday’s activity could have been an SNL sketch. It involved an 81-year-old man, my dad, who will be 82 on April 18th, myself, and my 21-year-old son, Connor. The humorous part would have been watching us try to move a large, bulky, very heavy, double recliner La-Z-Boy loveseat from the bed of my dad’s truck and into his condo.

Just thinking about how it must have looked makes me wish there was a surveillance camera in the area filming us – it would be hilarious to watch back! We struggled every inch to get that monster in the house. We first stood it up on end atop a large piece of carpeting and intended to drag/push it along the narrow walkway that leads to the front door. It would not budge.

It was too heavy to pick up, so we ended up just flipping it lengthwise, from end to end until we reach the “L” turn on the sidewalk that is near the door. There, we struggled to get it around the corner. When we finally reached the door, I pulled out my phone and snapped a photo of Connor leaning his head on the recliner. We squeezed it through the door and through the even more narrow entry and finally got it into place. I hooked up the electric connectors (the recliner is electric, not lever-operated) and my guys took their well-deserved rest in the beast!

Sunday was much more relaxed and fun. I was invited to an event honoring my dear friend, mentor and colleague, Barbara Pool Fenzl.

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mishmash: noun \’mish-mash, -mäsh\

1. A collection containing a variety of miscellaneous things.
2. hodgepodge, jumble
3. A popular Bulgarian summer dish made with tomatoes, peppers, onion, feta cheese, eggs, and fresh herbs.

That is what today’s post is; a mishmash of items. Plus a recipe for Mish Mash!

First and foremost I want to wish a Very Happy Birthday to my dear friend and former neighbor, Lori Vento.

Lori is pictured below, doing what she does best, looking beautiful and giving back to others! This is a photo from when she generously hosted one of many charity events at her home … while posing with two little angels.

Lori, her sweet husband Jonathan, and their gorgeous daughter Kylie moved to Chicago nearly 2 years ago. I miss them so much! Kylie is attending college in Michigan, while Lori and Jonathan are now doing business and living in Tokyo … temporarily. I hope Jonathan has some very special Japanese plans today for Lori’s big day! I wish I could be there to celebrate with her. But sending my love, admiration, and thoughts across the miles and through cyberspace will have to suffice. xoxo

Secondly, let’s talk about stress and old people!
Stress and Crazy Old People!

I’m quite certain I haven’t previously mentioned the fact that my mom has Alzheimer’s. Fact is, she does.

When I say Crazy Old People, from here on out referred to as CrOP, I’m not only referring to Alzheimer’s because, trust me, my mom has been crazy for my entire life! Ask anyone who has known me for more than a few years and who has met my mom, they will confirm that I’m not being mean when I say so, it just is!

Anyhow, my sister, Sloane, and I (more so Sloane, than I, until recently) have been dealing with trying to convince our mom and her husband, Bill (her 3rd husband, by the way) to move into assisted living. Mom turned 78 on March 8 and Bill turned 90 in February. We believe that Bill has Alzheimer’s as well, he is being tested for it next week. They need more help than we can provide!

Sloane and I found the place and had the lease papers drawn up yesterday. We then took the papers to their house to have them signed. We stayed and packed for several hours while the two CrOP, followed us around and repeated themselves and asked the same questions over and over and over for the ENTIRE time!

In the middle of that, while removing and packing up thousands of dusty framed photos from a dusty floral wallpapered hallway, I cut open my wrist on a nail that was invisibly protruding from said nasty floral wallpaper. It would not stop bleeding. It made me nauseous to look at. I finally got it under control and now it just aches. Anyhow, at one point in the middle of all that fun, Bill actually said to me, “You know that you and your sister will be going to heaven for this!” Amen to that!

OK, enough of that drama and downer news. Back to some more fun and uplifting mishmash!

The next fun thing – my horoscope for today – is spot on! I am working like a fiend on “the space around me,” so this horoscope must be correct. The final full sentence, which you can not see, is “Beautiful changes are coming.” I believe that indeed they are!

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I’m adding a new tag to the blog. “Skinny” is the name. My long-time friend, Karen Mock (seen below with her husband, Bob) has become a Health Coach for the Take Shape for Life program. I started working with her last week. So from now until, who knows when most recipes I post will be “lean and green” and tagged with “skinny.”  It’ll take a while for “skinny” to show up on the tag cloud over there on the left, and who knows, it may knock “vodka” off of there. That would be kinda sad!

I don’t think you’ll mind my new skinny recipes, in fact, the last three recipes I posted have been “skinny.” Some of them, I will create, others I’ll be modifying from recipes that Karen has sent me from the Take Shape for Life recipe files.

I modify them to add more flavor; not more fat, calories, or carbs. Mostly, I’ll be achieving this with the addition of spices and herbs, or with a change to the cooking technique.

For instance, the recipe I’m giving you today was a TSL recipe, but instead of just throwing the raw boneless ribs into the slow cooker, I brown them first in a skillet that I’ve sprayed with Pam and then deglaze the skillet with water and pour that in the slow cooker too. More Flavor – No Added Fat!

One of the products that Karen turned me onto that will help me boost flavor is the line of condiments from Walden Farms. All Walden Farms items are currently “BOGO Free” at Sprouts. The sale goes through 3/13/13. I saved $16 on my purchase of the eight products shown below!

I honestly don’t think you’ll even notice a difference in the recipes I post.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the TSL Program, you can email Karen at karenmock@cox.net. You will LOVE her! And be sure to tell her that you learned about her here.

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My dear friend Karen recently turned me on to a gluten-free noodle product. The noodles are made from either tofu or white yams. The brand is Shirataki and they can be found locally at Sprouts and Fry’s. At Sprouts the everyday price is $1.69 each, at Fry’s a bag is regularly $2.29. They are found in the refrigerated section, near the tofu.

(Thanks to a kind comment from LCDC, I learned that the brand of the noodles I found is House Foods and that Shirataki is the type of noodle. I happily stand corrected. Thank you, LCDC!)

I was skeptical at first, considering they come packaged in a water and look a bit slimy … but they were delicious! Shirataki noodles are quite a bit more expensive than dry noodles, but considering they are precooked, quick to use, and the yam variety has zero calories, the tofu style – only 20 calories… it may be worth the extra dough.

They have a long (about 3 months) expiration date, so if you find them on sale, stock up!

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At the January Sweet Salvage sale, I spotted something “fabulous” as I was standing in the checkout line. It was something very similar to a thing I’ve been dreaming about for months now. I looked at the price, looked at all the stuff I already planned to purchase, and knew I could not have it all. I let the “fabulous thing” slip away.

(Hint #1 – the “fabulous thing” is in the photo above. I swiped this image from the Sweet Salvage blog. Can you guess what it is?)

For the rest of the month, I regretted not putting everything else I had in my hands down and getting the “fabulous thing” instead. But I held on to a glimmer of hope that “fabulous thing” would not be sold and would still be there when I returned for the February sale.

Kim and I walked into the door on the Friday morning of the February sale, and I headed straight for where it had been the last month. And…

IT was still there!

(Hint #2 – the “fabulous thing” is also in the February Sweet Salvage photo above – this image is also swiped from their blog. Do you spot it yet?)

I was so relieved! After being filled with regret all month long, it was still there, a sure sign that I was meant to have it! At least that’s the ‘sign’ I read.

(Hint #3 – I’ve been dreaming of this fabulous thing ever since I first learned that such a thing even existed. I had seen something very similar to it on the blog of the talented person I love to stalk. A year and a half ago, I read THIS post on Heather Bullard’s blog and have been coveting the item ever since.)

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On March 4, 1933, in his inaugural speech, newly elected U.S. President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, uttered the now-famous words, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!”

That was exactly 80 years and 1 day ago, today! This past week, that idea has proven to be very true for me.

For many months now I have been afraid of letting others in on a very difficult decision that I made.

I was afraid of letting people down.
I was fearful of people’s reactions.
I was afraid of possible backlash.

Turns out I was only afraid of fear – there was nothing to be fearful of after all!

On March 1st, I sent out an email to my entire mailing list and also posted it on the “Classes and Summer Camps” page over there on the left side, at the top, of this page.

March 1, 2013

For dessert, I put out a pink-candy sweets tower, a gorgeous pink birthday cake, and individual mini Bourbon-Butterscotch Puddings.

I bought the birthday cake from Honey Moon Sweets, a bakery in Tempe that my sister uses all the time. Sloane is the wedding and special event coordinator at The Buttes Resort in Tempe. Birthday cakes were also ordered from Honey Moon Sweets for My Dad’s 80th birthday party and for my 50th Surprise Party.

I requested a pink ombre ruffle layered cake, like one I’d seen on Pinterest, and the pastry chef at Honey Moon Sweets made it exactly as I imagined it would be. So Pretty!

The pudding recipe came from Bon Appétit. I doubled it and used mini-flare dessert dishes instead of ramekins, otherwise, I made it exactly as it was written.

Anne, Lorraine, Connor, Peggy, Stevo, Samme, and Natalie – happy after enjoying dessert!

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For our sit-down birthday dinner we had stuffed pork loin, green onion and Parmesan mashed potatoes, and a cold succotash side dish. The potatoes and the succotash have been posted here before, there are links to those recipes near the bottom of this post.

Peggy is not a big fan of beef. Occasionally, she’ll indulge in a hamburger, but put a plate with beef tenderloin in front of her and she turns her nose up at it. (I know, sometimes I think there is something wrong with that girl!)

It was a blessing when you were feeding 25 people, though! Beef tenderloin would have been on the expensive side, to say the least. But a pork loin – now that is doable!

I was initially planning to use pork tenderloin, but when I compared the price of the loin to the tenderloin – well that made the decision for me. I purchased two huge pork loins at Costco, they were about $18.00 each.

This recipe would work just as well using beef tenderloin, so choose whichever you prefer. If you can’t find Manchego cheese, use Monterey Jack or Pepper Jack instead.

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