It wasn’t until around noon that I realized I let Chops go off to work without cutting open the squash for me *le sigh*. Worried about changing my dinner plan, I confirmed that he would be home early enough to cut thie squash so I could cook it and get some into Butter before her hip hop class, it was on!

Team Dixon loves some squash. Our most preferred way is with a little brown sugar and, as always, REAL VERMONT MAPLE SYRUP from our friends at Rocky Ridge Sugarmakers. In keeping with my “pin a day” project though, the grownups decided to give an herbed version a try. What I really LOVE about this recipe is the simple fact that you can just ROAST a squash. NEVER AGAIN will I worry about burning myself with a pan of boiling hot squash water! Awesome! And SOOOO easy!

I used THIS recipe from my nemesis, Martha Stewart (I had the same initials before I got married, coincidence? I think not…) but mostly just for the squash roasting directions. That part IS important.

What’s NOT important is what herbs you use. I keep a potted fresh basil on the counter, so that went it, cut with scissors. Some dried parsley flakes and garlic salt too. If I’d had oregano or rosemary, that would have joined the party. And a generous handful of good aged Parmesean (not that junk in the green can). I would encourage you to try different seasoning blends that your family already likes. Also, for those not in the know, spaghetti squash is downright AWESOME! It doesn’t have the carbs or gluten regular pasta does and you can enjoy it herbed, sauced (like spaghetti) or sweet. Very versatile!

First, I want to say that I chose the PERFECT day to make these…The Diva has a little cold, so I kept her home, which meant keeping Butter home from violin as well. It was POURING rain too, so I didn’t figure it would be so great to put both kids in the car and drive up to Butter’s school for only 45 min of vioin…It was a great day to stay inside and eat comfort food.

Around noon, I figured I better get the Ranch House Crock Pot Pork Chops from Real Mom Kitchen started. Shown here with mashed potatoes, which I didn’t do…

I paired them with these Crispy smashed potatoes from finecooking.com.

These pork chops were PERFECT! I am always worried about undercooking the pork, but after 4-6 hours, there is NO WAY these could be underdone! They literally fell apart with a fork, like pulled pork. The potatoes combine the best of smooth mashed-ness with a crispy outside that I am particularly fond of. Team Dixon gives these items 2 thumbs up and I’m planning to cook more pork chops in the slow cooker!

Oh…how about a BONUS? After I started the pork chops, us girls snuggled up to watch Lemonade Mouth again with old fashioned popcorn! I know lots of my friends scoff at how I do this all the time, but it’s really fast and worth it to have almost no “old maids”. I use Orville Redenbacher or the Boy Scout popcorn. Quality popping corn is a key ingredient here.

I did the ganache first because I was sure I was going to screw it up, hahahah! That was almost a mistake because it was so yummy, I kept dipping things in it (Girl Scout trefoil cookies, pretzels, apples) to make sure it still tasted good, hahahah! My family pronounced them DELICIOUS and made them disappear faster than Ron running from a spider!

Today (Sunday), I was going to start with a blueberry loaf, but realized I am almost out of BAKING POWDER! I can’t believe it! Honestly, I can’t remember when I bought that last can, but it boggles my mind to realize I’ve finally run out of something that you use so little of…anyway…I reached for a can of crescent rolls, thinking I’d make cinnamon crescents instead, but had grabbed a can of Grands instead, so we just had biscuits with jam, maple syrup from Rocky Ridge Sugarmakers, or honey from wild Hawaiian bees. Ok, so I have a thing for food, good food, quality ingredients…you should too.

Now I have to make it up to the tummies…Greek Feta dip coming up! In fact, it’s in the fridge now, flavors mingling. Picture to follow.

And now I’m going to find a craft…I need to make something that’s NOT food before I explode, hahha!

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later that night…

Cheesy Vegetable Chowder from luluthebaker
This was SOOOOO good! Chops and Butter agreed it is better than Coco’s. The Diva seems to be catching a cold, so she’s ornery…and a picky eater…I added some toasted buttered bread and a ham steak for Chops “where’s the protein? I NEED meat.” But it would even be good diced and added to the soup itself.
What I liked best is most people probably have the stuff to make this at hand. Just some butter milk and a flour/water mix to thicken it, along with the potatoes. We all ate plenty and there’s enough left over for at least one more dinner. I’ll have to do the math, but this was a pretty inexpensive, as well as filling, dinner.
I didn’t find a craft to do, by the way. I do have a dozen or so dollies to finish and some Christmas trees (so I can be early for next year). But I did flip through some magazines and decided to finally get on making myself the perfect tshirt and yoga pants. I’ve set the shirt pattern out…

It’s cold and rainy today too, so I made Chops a big ol list of stuff to get from the store, with the promise of a full belly all weekend I have at least half a dozen recipes chosen for the weekend…
Up first…Chicken, Spinach & Goat Cheese Quesadilla with an Avacado Sour Cream from Sugar Cooking.

I substituted some cranberry sage turkey breast and skipped the jack cheese (but will include it next time)…

I guess you could really put just about anything in a tortilla or bread, grill it and it would be yummy…especially if there is some cheese too…there was some avocado sour cream left over as well, so I’m sure we will munch that later. I really liked this, the spinach makes it feel lighter and healthier. Chops gives it thumbs up too.

Happy Pinning!

Today was a lovely day. Chops has to take a couple of days off from when he didn’t actually get to take them as holidays because he was working like a madman all year. The Diva went to school, then we took Butter to school…I forgot that Mr A (the multimedia and guitar teacher) is at a conference, so she only had orchestra and wound up going out to lunch with us. I’ve been wanting to try this place next to The Diva’s school…The Linkery. It’s a farm-to-table place with locally made sausage as the main attraction…the beer’s not bad either It was worth waiting for Chops to join me…YUM!
I was still kind of full when I thought I should make dinner, but Chops is a bottomless pit, so into the kitchen I went to make this…

It’s my “pin of the day”…YUM!!! You can make it too, it was SUPER EASY! Get the info here, at kitchenconfidante.com. I just added some salad (I like dried cranberries, walnuts and a poppy seed dressing) and some French bread with butter. Easy peasy and so yummy! I totally thought the kids would give me a hard time, but even the picky pants Diva ate it up!

You should try it too…and let me know if you do
Happy Pinning!

This was so easy, I didn’t even need the directions from Older and Wisor, but if you want to go check them out…plus I always like to share a little blog love, it’s good karma…I used some rose printed scrapbook paper, a papercutter and stapler, that’s all it took! And, while this is floating around as a Valentine’s craft, how cute would this be as a count down chain until the time a loved one (like in the military) comes home? Love that, right? Yeah, me too

Do you love it too? Did you make it? Let me know in the comments…

I washed my hair and applied a curl enhancing mousse. Then the skinny elastic headband…I was pleasantly surprised to find this really comfortable. Usually headbands give me a headache after a while. I forgot to take a picture before I went to bed, but I slept fine all night and here is a picture in the morning. By the way, I am not wearing ANY makeup, and this is totally unretouched

And the after…

That’s pretty curly yo! But even Chops said “wow, that’s nice” and, if you have ANY straight men in your life that are NOT hairdressers, you KNOW it’s about impossible for them to notice your hair, lol! It’s raining today and like I said, my hair doesn’t usually hold a curl, so I’ll update at the end of the day too, jsut to see what happens. I also want to experiment with two elastics, one for the crown, more curl on top and with a wider headband to see how that turns out…

I also liked the way it looked wrapped in the headband. That could be pretty fun with a fancy little headband…guess that should be my next project

I’ve had this container with the cut paper towels sitting in it for some time now…it just took Pinterest to motivate me to make some solution and finish them off…

I always find the tutorials where people make their own container for dispensing interesting…why not just reuse an old cleaning or baby wipes container? That’s what I did. And for the solution, I just used half water and half white vinegar.

Now it’s your turn…what are you making that you found the inspiration for on Pinterest?

Yay! I finished something already! In our house, we have lots of flannel napkins that I made, as well as dishcloths for our laps instead of paper napkins or towels. We call them “lapkins”. You can make your own out of any fabrics really…I made some for a friend from old hooded baby towels and flannel. These are towels purchased from IKEA that I hand embroidered.

You could get fancy with lots of other embroidery, computer fonts or even machine embroidery. I just wrote the names I wanted with a colored fine tip Sharpie marker. It will fade eventually…or you could use one of those disappearing markers. I used three strands of embroidery floss for a nice thick look…

Easy peasy!