Cheese Straws

I ripped this recipe for cheese straws out of a Southern Living magazine way back in 1994!

No, I am not going on a KonMari kick and throwing away recipes! (at least not this one) The reason I saved this recipe to begin with was it brought me joy!! I was probably initially attracted to the vintage aluminum cups!

Cheese straws are a classic Southern snack. They can be fancy and served with wine or casual and served with football! You can buy them at the store, but they are so easy to make! I made cheese straws to give away as gifts this past Christmas.

I was in a hurry and didn’t even fancy up the cellophane baggies! How sad! At least they were cute baggies.

The cheese straws were very fragile. I had to be careful putting them in the bags. They made a great non-sweet snack to give as a gift! Everyone loved them!

Parmesan Cheese Straws

2/3 cup refrigerated pre-shredded Parmesan cheese or use fresh cheese plus 1/4 cup of flour

1/2 butter, softened

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

1/4 cup milk

*Put the cheese and butter in a food processor fitted with the knife blade. Whir it around until blended.

*Add the flour, salt and red pepper. Process about 30 seconds or until the mixture forms a ball. Scrape down the sides from time to time.

*Divide the dough in half. Roll each portion into a 1/8 inch thick rectangle. Cut the dough into 2″ x 1/2″ strips. (You can also shape the dough into 3/4 inch balls; flatten to about 1/8 inch; brush with milk and top with a pecan half.) Place on a baking sheet; (I used parchment for easy cleanup!) brush with milk.

*Bake at 350˚ for 7 minutes for strips (10 minutes for rounds) or until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack.

**Makes about 5 dozen cheese straws! I put about 25-30 in each baggie.

**When cutting out the straws, you can use a regular knife, pizza wheel, pastry cutter…whatever you want to make it fancy! You can also use a cookie press if you have one.

So, we had a few cheese straws leftover. After Christmas we were all tired of eating Christmas food! I decided experiment with (and disguise) the leftover straws. I crushed up the cheese straws (This was very easy since they were fragile to begin with!) and made Chicken Parmesan!

I dipped the chicken in a little melted butter, then the crushed up cheese straws, then into the oven. (again, parchment paper makes clean up a breeze!) Sorry, I don’t remember how long I baked it. I’m thinking 425˚ for about 15-20 minutes depending on the thickness of your chicken. Once baked, add a little marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese! Back in the oven for another 5 minutes-until the cheese melts. YUM! The red pepper that is in the cheese straws was really yummy in the Chicken Parm! It was yummy in the cheese straws, too!

 

Tea Ball Tree

A tea infuser, sometimes called a tea ball, is what you put your dried tea leaves in in order to make the tea. It keeps your tea leaves from floating around in your teacup. Of course, tea bags do the same thing but aren’t nearly as cute.

Since my chorus has hosted a fundraiser Tea for the past six, going on seven, years, I became interested in tea infusers. They come in all shapes and sizes. I had one aluminum infuser that had been my grandmothers. 

One day, while browsing Pinterest, I came across this picture…

Oh, my goodness! Tea balls as Christmas ornaments!! I loved the idea and started hunting yard sales and estate sales. One Sunday afternoon I ran into my friend, Donna, at an estate sale. I told her about my idea. She joined me in my hunt, so did my mother-in-law, Brenda. I’m not sure I actually found very many of the tea balls in my collection my self. Every time I saw Donna she was handing me another treasure. Brenda gave me a box full of tea infusers for Christmas one year! 

This Christmas I finally had enough “ornaments” to fill a tree!

Ok, I think I need a better tree. This was actually a branch off of an old tree I pulled off the curb! 

I thought the tree needed a little color, so I added these fake poinsettias I’ve had for a while. 

You can’t tell from the pictures, but I had the greenery stuffed into some styrofoam in a piece of crockery. It made me happy to see it on the counter. However, I will have to do something different next time. It took up too much valuable space for setting out nut clusters and rolling out cookie dough!

I loved my little “tea tree”. It would be cute to add little teapot ornaments to it. Tea bags or other tea items would be fun, too, and add more color in the process. 

Thanks, Donna and Brenda, for my fun Tea Ball Tree!

 

Sunday “Crafternoon”

Well, the girls and I had a fun afternoon of giggles and crafts a couple of Sundays ago!

While Chip was off at a church meeting, we played!

Both of the girls had projects they had already started. I decided to work on some seasonal decor. Of course, my Pinterest boards are full of ideas!

Katie is working on her first quilt! She saw a pattern on Pinterest (like mother like daughter!) and loved it. I was able to track it down for Christmas last year.

She had a BLAST picking out all of the colorful fabric! She is well on her way to having all the little pieces cut out and ready to start stitching!

Megan had a pre-printed world map that she wanted to quilt. She loves anything having to do with world travel!

She ended up not liking the way she had stitched around the countries AND the latitude and longitude lines and ripped out some of them. It has been a fun project for her to work on while watching the World Cup!

I worked on some patriotic decor for our 4th of July church gathering at our house. I got the “wreath” idea here. I liked hers better. She used fancy scrapbook paper. I used what I had–construction paper. I liked how hers had a darker, more muted tone to it. Oh, well. I liked mine well enough! Plus, it was fun to make.

Nothing too fancy about toilet paper tubes wrapped in construction paper to look like little rocket!

I had not really done much crafting lately. I realized my NEED for a craft room! So, I spent a good amount of my craft time tracking down supplies! One day I will have a space to corral all my supplies!

My constant supply tracking was just one more thing to laugh about on our fun-filled “crafternoon” that bled into the evening.

 

 

Tea at Faulkner Lake Orchard

Welcome indeed!

The group I sing with, Top of the Rock Chorus, hosted our 6th Spring Tea the Saturday before Mother’s Day.

As our event has grown, finding just the right venue has been a challenge for our non-profit checkbook! I think we hit a home run this year though!

Our Spring Tea this year was held at Faulkner Lake Orchard, just outside of North Little Rock, AR.

Faulkner Lake Orchard is a working farm. They have a you-pick-it area. There is also a general store full of freshly picked produce, canned items and local honey.

The farm was just so peaceful and relaxing. I plan to go back sometime when the trees are in full bloom. There are a few pictures on their website showing different events in the orchard. It makes a beautiful setting for a wedding.

The peaches were not quite ready while we were there. Faulkner Lake Orchard hosts a huge peach party in July. They will have food, fun activities for the kids, peach tea and peach ice cream all for FREE! Mrs. Karen said to get there early!!

Speaking of Mrs. Karen…

…she was the sweetest lady! Karen Martin is the owner of Faulkner Lake Orchard.  She was so laid back and happy to help however we needed.

She even provided a shuttle from the parking area to the main event center for our guests.

Stay tuned! I have lots more to share with you from this year’s Tea.

 

Christmas Decor 2016

Welcome to our house!

Why do we all love decorating for Christmas?! I suppose nostalgia has something to do with it. There is also the fact that our homes get a face-lift for free, unless you buy new decorations each year.

I pulled this little wagon out of a dumpster this summer! It is perfect filled with fake presents and a cookie jar on our porch coffee table.

I was thrilled to find this fun Christmas ribbon on sale at The Paul Michael Company while on vacation this summer.

My husband’s childhood sled came to live with us! Oh, if that sled could talk! I’m sure there would be stories it could tell!

I made this North Pole as decoration for the seasonal membership recruitment for my chorus. The flower-pot base worked well with the empty wrapping paper tube I got from a gift shop. A little paint and ribbon and voila! I couldn’t stand to just throw it away, so it found a home on my porch.

Look what I made to go in my fancy new kitchen!!! Well, actually, I made three!

If you look closely…

you might recognize the fabric from another project! I love “free” stuff!

I love my new kitchen!

I enjoy the old things we have, too!

…like plaid Christmas plates

and vintage decorations!

I picked up these “JOY” ornaments at last year’s after-Christmas-sale. I wish they had had all the right letters in the plaid. Oh, well. I like the was the light shines behind them at night.

This great German crate (a hand-me-down from my in-laws) got relocated this year. Skeeter seems to approve.

The gray and red from the kitchen came into the den. I picked up the snowflake pillows on sale last year. I guess that is where I got to thinking about the gray for the kitchen. The sweater pillows came from Goodwill. I couldn’t commit to cutting the pillows just yet. So, these are held together with safety pins.

I truly hope you all can find TRUE JOY this season-which is only found in Christ the LORD!

“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good news of great joy, that will be to all people.” Luke 2:10

 

Artwork from Alsace

There is a new piece of artwork in our kitchen that I didn’t show you in the “big reveal”.

When we were originally discussing paint colors, I told Chip I wanted to paint the cabinets gray. He kinda looked at me like it was not a good idea. I told him it would be a “French Country” look. That idea he liked. The idea of a French Country kitchen got him to thinking about using some photos from our trip to France last summer. We finally agreed on a photo to use! I thought I would first share other photos related to our new artwork. We may even get some more printed!

Here is a map to show you where the Alsace region of France is located. As you can imagine, France and Germany argued and fought for many years to see who got to keep the area. So, while Alsace is in France, there are lots of German influences.

We drove in to Alsace from Wittenberg, Germany. Wittenberg is about halfway between Leipzig and Berlin. Our car time was about 7 hours.  The scenery was breath-taking! Gorgeous vineyards and quaint little villages were everywhere.

Vineyards were not the only crops we saw. We came across a lovely cherry orchard. Alsace is crazy about cherries!

 

I loved the flower boxes everywhere.

These trees looked like they were straight from a fairytale!

Finally, we arrived at our bed and breakfast. Part of the home was built in the 1700s!!!!

The weather was lovely! Our hosts welcomed us with coffee and delicious coffee cake.

Here are a few pictures of the inside.

This is the view from our room.

The girls stayed in the loft attached to our room.

After a little time of resting and getting acclimated to our new digs, we headed out to find some dinner.

The first place we stopped was a little out of our price range. We had already taken this cute picture to remember where we had eaten! Then we didn’t eat there.

We did not get the group shot at our actual restaurant. To tell you the truth, we looked pretty tired in most of the pictures.

We were actually lucky to get to eat. The folks at this restaurant only spoke French. Fortunately, Megan had worked with a French language app before our trip. She was able to order dinner for all of us. We were all very grateful and she felt pretty proud of herself.

We did learn to order water without “gas”. Carbonated water is apparently a big deal in Germany and France.

The food was very good. The fried egg on the pizza was a little weird. I ordered that for the local experience. I do not plan to repeat that experience any time soon, however.

We had our dinner outside. Right next to our table was a lovely patch of lavender. We noticed something buzzing around in the flowers. Katie is a bit scared of bees, so I went to check it out for her. It looked like a tiny hummingbird! I tried and tried to get a good  picture. Look closely at the picture below, just left of center.

I did a little research on what I thought was a tiny hummingbird. It turns out that what I saw was a hummingbird moth! Here is some good old Wikipedia info for you. I thought it was cool and had fun trying to capture it in a picture.

When we got back to the B & B we decided to stroll around the little village a bit.

The currants were beautiful!

We stayed in Alsace a little while and took day trips to the town of Riquewihr and the Haut Koenigsesbourg Castle. Hopefully, I will get around to sharing those pictures one day, too!

As we left our quaint little B & B to head to Paris, we stopped to snap a few more vineyard photos.

The grapes were far from ripe. I’d love to go back during harvest time.

Oh, I almost forgot to share the artwork we had printed for the kitchen!

The canvas is actually a little larger than the actual window was! You can see the original photo above with the other photos of the bed and breakfast.

I liked this photo because it reminded me of all the window boxes we saw while in Europe! I loved them! This picture kinda felt like it was part of our kitchen. The wall in the photo kinda matches our cabinets. We ordered the print from a place called canvasdiscount.com. When we ordered it we had the option of ordering a hanging kit. We had not planned to order it originally. However, it was only a few bucks, and by ordering it, we were bumped into the category of getting free shipping. Ordering more saved us money!

Well, that is all for now. I’m ready to go back to Alsace!!

 

Death of a Microwave

I guess you could say I am sentimental. Ha! Understatement of the year!

We lost our microwave this past February.

It was good to us.

(Sorry about the messy kitchen in the reflection. Yikes! I guess I was too grief-stricken to notice at the time.)

This Hotpoint had been my mother’s first microwave.

It was passed on to me and my husband as we started our home as newlyweds in 1992.

This baby was with us and as our babies grew into teenagers, residing in three different states!

The microwave was always an unexpected conversation piece.

The analog dial charmed all of our friends.

The size was much larger than modern microwaves.

Of course, by the looks of it, I am surprised we don’t glow from excess microwaves!

But, alas, life goes on, and microwaves must be replaced.

The new one is sleek and fancy.

The buttons aren’t nearly as charming as the dial. The beeping, that never stops when your food is finished cooking, is annoying. Our old microwave had a lovely, one time “ding”.  You could forget your reheated coffee for hours.

 

Tea for One

I’m enjoying a little tea on this cold, rainy day. How about you?

 

 

Game Night and Specialty Pizzas

When I was a kid, my grandmother gave me a set of Rook cards for my birthday. I never played. The cards looked weird. They were different from standard cards. I could never get anyone to play with me, probably because they didn’t know how. The instructions were long and confusing.

Last weekend, we were invited to our friends’ house for dinner and a Rook tournament. Yikes!

Dinner I was excited about-but Rook?!

It did help to learn that none of the other folks attending knew how to play either. (At least that’s what they said! I think John and Leta had played a time or two!)

We knew, of course, that we would have fun regardless of the game.

I asked what I could bring (I took Carrot Cake) and didn’t bother to ask what we were having for dinner.

Boy, was I excited to find John in the kitchen making Petitzas! Leta has mentioned John’s Petitzas several times. Always saying “Oh, we’ll have to make them for you!” Finally that day had come!

If I had known it was a Petitza Party, I would have brought the good camera! Thank goodness for smartphones!

John has been making Petitzas for YEARS! He learned from his brother when he was seeing this Italian girl.

The Petitzas don’t seem too hard, just a little time-consuming.

I’m sure you have to get a feel for exactly how long to leave the dough in the pan before flipping it.

Don’t those pizza shells look yummy?!

Leta and John have the serving of Petitzas down pat!

Check out those crock pots! Homemade pizza sauce-Italian Sausage-Hamburger

Leta also had a sectioned Tupperware dish for all the other toppings–ham, cheese, pineapple, olives, peppers, mushrooms-whatever you like!

This was how Leta showed us to assemble a Petitza. Sauce-Meat-Toppings-more sauce

John goes a little more extreme with his toppings!

Mine was rather conservative.

Nice air pockets!

John said the record Petitzas anyone had eaten at one of their Petitza Parties was seven. Ugh! I ate two.

We had a great time eating Petitzas AND playing Rook. Thanks, John and Leta!

By the way, the girls won!

Petitzas
1 pkg. active dry yeast
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. oil
3 ½ cups flour
1 cup water (warm)

Dissolve yeast in very warm water.  Stir in sugar, salt and oil and 2 cups flour.  Beat until smooth.  Stir in remaining flour to make a soft dough.  Turn out on lightly floured board.  Knead until smooth and elastic.  Place in a greased bowl; brush top with oil.

Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk. When doubled, punch down; divide in half.

Shape into hand-size shells and deep-fry.

Toppings include:

Your favorite marinara sauce
Cheeses
Onion
Sausage
Ground beef
Bell pepper
Pineapple
Mushrooms
Jalapeños

John’s Pizza Sauce
1 8 oz. can tomato paste for every 16 oz. can tomato sauce
Oregano, basil, garlic salt, onion flakes, salt, pepper, honey, Parmesan and Romano cheese.

 

 

The blog version of the “what I did last summer” paper

Well, here we are at the beginning of 2015. The time when many bloggers roll the highlight reel from 2014. (Much like the paper your teachers used to make you write every year on the first day back from summer vacation.)

Okay, I’ll play along. WordPress is so nice to send all the “best of” stats at the end of the year.

Most of the posts that were popular this year were not even from this year. I guess that is a good thing.

#1-Christmas Party Food is a post from 2011. It features a Snowman Cheese Ball, a Christmas broccoli appetizer, and a Turkey Cranberry Ring.

#2-I Say it Every Year-an adorable Nutcracker gift box craft from 2012.

#3-Banana Pudding from 2013. If you haven’t tried this yet, put it on your things-to-do list for 2015!

#4-Apple Slaw (2011) Ironically, this was a dish that my crew was not super wild about. I guess the pictures grabbed some attention. Hey, that is why I tried it!

#5-DIY Placemats (2013) I love this craft tutorial. I have used this method several times. I have some candy corn fabric I plan to try at some point.

So, those were the overall top five posts here at Pork Chop Tuesday.

Curious about 2014?

The busiest day around here was the day I posted my Project 180 photography project. It was so gratifying to work on something for so long and see it to a successful completion. Please go check it out. I really enjoyed it!

I did a series of posts about my trip to P. Allen Smith’s Moss Mountain Farm. It was a lot of fun with lots of opportunities for photography practice. You can check out the series below. I think my favorite was the Rose Garden.

• Moss Mountain Farm Part 1-Fashion Dilemma
• Moss Mountain Farm Part 2-Waitin’ with the Chickens
• Moss Mountain Farm Part 3-Home Tour
• Moss Mountain Farm Part 4-Gardens
• Moss Mountain Farm Part 5-Lunch
• Moss Mountain Farm Part 6-Rose Garden
• Moss Mountain Farm Part 7-Vegetable Garden

There was actually one more Moss Mountain post–a post-series post.

DIY Notecards

Lasagna Cups was a fun, new recipe to try. We all liked these! I need to make them again–soon!

We enjoyed trying out some new restaurants, well, new to us. Green Leaf Grill and The Root Cafe to name a couple.

Rounding out the year were Bananas Foster with friends and the Thanksgiving 101 series.

Most of the folks who visit Pork Chop Tuesday are from Pinterest or Facebook-along with folks who are subscribers.

To all of you, I say…

Thank you for visiting my little corner of the internet.

Subscribing to Pork Chop Tuesday is easy. Click the home button at the top of the page or here. Go over to the right. You will see a box with “Email Subscription” on it. Just click on the “sign me up” button!

You can also follow along on social media. Sometimes I post things there that don’t get on the blog. Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are the social media outlets I use.

Thanks for all the comments and support in 2014. I hope to hear from you in 2015.