Recipe Round Up

Here is a quick, delicious, and easy meal adaptable to the items you have on hand. I hope you enjoy it and I invite you to share in more yummy deliciousness over at the Krazy Kitchen.


Shrimp (Or Chicken) with Feta Cheese

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1-2 garlic cloves
1 14 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 lb cleaned/deveined shrimp, medium size 21-25 per lb. (Can also use cooked, diced chicken or Extra Firm Tofu, cubed.)
1/4 to 1/2 cup Crumbled Feta Cheese (Can use Parmesan cheese if preferred.)
Cooked rice or pasta

1.Heat up 1 tablespoon of olive oil in skillet over medium heat.
2.Mince 1-2 garlic cloves. Saute garlic until golden. (Not burned like mine and then I have to start over.)
3.Add one 14 oz can of diced tomatoes, heat thoroughly, don't allow to boil.
(I use the tomatoes with basil and Italian Seasonings. Any brand will do, I buy them on sale and stock up because Canned Tomatoes are one Versatile Vegetable. Our local dollar store carries national brands also.)
4.Increase heat to medium high and add either Shrimp or Diced Chicken.
5.Cook Shrimp thoroughly until pink. Cook Chicken or Tofu until heated through.
6.Spoon tomato/meat mixture over steamed rice or pasta.
7.Sprinkle with Feta or Parmesan Cheese.

This recipe serves four and is a great source of Vitamin C and Protein.
Bon Appetit on The Cheap and Quick.

Thank you so much from my kitchen to yours.

The Power of No

It never ceases to amaze me that a word that is so easy for a 2 y/o to say is often quite difficult for so many of us adults, (myself included.) This magic word is the Word, No. One syllable, no waiting.

I've had a couple instances to practice my "No" muscle power recently. Once at our neighborhood swim meet this past weekend, and just now with a phone call.

Saturday at the Swim Meet, I volunteered to cook, (as I have for the last 5 years!!), making up the breakfast burritos and hot dogs, several dozen at a time. I'm good, fast, and clean. When I was in the middle of removing the hot dogs from the boiling water for the lunch rush, another parent who volunteers as a Stroke and Turn Judge, comes into the kitchen with a Coach from the competing team. He requests that I immediately stop what I am doing to assemble a Chicken Salad for this Coach.

I tell him politely, calmly, "I will be done in approximately twenty seconds and then, I will make a salad."

He says, "I will finish the hot dogs and you can make the salad because you are so much better at it than me." (KMA, you patronizing so and so.)

Internal groaning, restrained eye brow raising on my part, I immediately realized that the distraction technique was called for Because Clearly He's Not Listening. This technique works great with dogs and toddlers also.
"Please go wash your hands."

He washes his hands and low and behold, the hot dogs are done, and lookie, an assembled salad for the coach. We exchange a meaningful look.

He comes back a few minutes later and asks me what just happened. (This confirms that the Word No is a new and foreign concept to him.) Using a simple analogy because I couldn't draw him a picture, I inform him that I don't tell him what to do and when to do it, and Guess What?? You can't order me around either. Especially when I've got sharp knives and boiling water nearby. GGGRrrrrr.

Practice makes perfect as they say because I just hung up the phone with a telemarketer and I told him "No Thank you", and to PLEASE take my name off their call list before the guy could even take a breath to ask for a donation to his high overhead charity. That's also a very nice, "No".

Any Good Uses of the Word No for you lately??

"No is my final answer, not my opening bid."

Mellow Yellow Monday "Around My Garden"

Welcome to Mellow Yellow Monday, a celebration of All Things Yellow.

I hope you enjoy these pictures of my cheap therapy and workout program aka My Garden.
I recently installed a rock and flower garden with roses, agapanthus, and alyssum.
Day Lilies are perennial and thrive on neglect. My kind of flower.
Here is White Alyssum, Yellow Cornflowers, and Blue Cosmos. (Doesn't Blue Cosmos sound like an alcoholic beverage? Blue Cosmos for me and my girlfriends, please. Gosh, let's invent the drink if they haven't already.)
All done trimming my roses to prepare them for another rounds of blooms.

Thank you for sharing in the Sunny Delight of my garden.

Living in LA

Here in beautiful Los Angeles-

Driving time isn't dependent on "weather permitting" but Traffic. Traffic can get so bad, it's got its'own special name, a Sigalert.*

A street map that is approximately 1 inch thick is mandatory along with a car.

Yellow signs with black lettering mean a film crew is nearby with the potential for star sightings and movie trailers. Usually all you see is the security guards.

Many retail businesses like the dry cleaners, restaurants, and the corner drugstore will post the head shots of the famous people who cleaned, supped, and drugged up at their place of business. (Head shots are the black and white photographs that actors use as their professional calling card.)

The journeyman movie actor next door works hard and the job is not so glamorous.

People from the East Coast and Europe don't really get the importance of flip flops here. 60F is chilly.

Architecture fifty years old is considered "historical".

There is a district for everything in L.A., Fashion District, Fabric district, Jewelry District, Design Center, Wholesale Flower Mart, you name it. The shopping will blow your mind and I'm not even talking about Melrose, Rodeo, or Fashion Island.

There's every kind of ethnic neighborhood. Chinatown, Little India, Little Armenia, Little Ethiopia, the list goes on and on. There is a cheese cake sold at a Filipino bakery that will have you craving it for years.

I think Los Angeles is the most underrated international city in the World.

What are some unique joys of your part of the world? Thank you.

* (Mrs.Spit gave me the courage to use both the possessive and contraction forms for IT in a Sentence. I thank her for her faith in me.)

Pink Saturday - Jasmine and Geraniums

Here is a hanging planter with pink geraniums against a wall of flowering white jasmine. I wish we had Smell-O-Vision over the internet, the jasmine smelled That Good. Pink is a happy color and one I am delighted to celebrate today on Pink Saturday.

Drive By Blogging - Tough Day for Icons and Politicians

Any politician who espouses family values needs to keep track of which brain is doing the talking. In this transparent society, you can't get it on in a glass house with someone/s other than your Own spouse. (Especially on another continent or with an employee.) How scary is it that these public officials are too Stupid to figure this out on their own??

Today is ONE Tough day to be a Celebrity Icon in Los Angeles. First Farrah Fawcett died, now, this just in, Michael Jackson, The King of Pop has gone to meet his maker. (Or is that Producer??) Michael Jackson was an artist of Worldwide influence, there is no Aspect of music, dance, or performance that he left untouched. His caliber of artist won't be seen for a long, long time, if ever again.

"Good Morning, Angels, Live Life Off The Wall".

Peace to you and those who loved you and always will.

Double Trouble - <3 My Pets

Please double click the photo to ascertain proof of Abigail's beautiful green eyes.

The Double Trouble Photo Meme brings to mind my best four legged friends, well, bestest friends with any number of legs, my pets, Abigail and Charley. They are quite the pair. Like most big sisters, our cat both adores and disdains her little brother. Abgail loves dogs over the company of cats and all cat-friendly dogs are welcome in our home. Our neighbor's piebald daschund, Chloe is a regular visitor and will seek out the cat in her hiding places to say Hello. It's so cute to see the daschund run up the stairs and zoom under the bed to roust the cat from her nap. It's a good life and I'm glad my pets have friends.

Do your pets have special two or four legged friends outside the family circle??

For those not owned by any animals, any cool animal stories to share?

Thank you.