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My college friend Bitsy posted her family’s meatloaf recipe in the comments on the Mike’s meatloaf dinner post. It substitutes pepperidge farms stuffing mix for the typical bread crumbs. That got me thinking about how to make that tweak a full-on new recipe. Here we go: 1 lb. ground chicken 1 lb. ground pork 1/2Continue reading “Thanksgiving Salisbury Steak–inspired by Bitsy’s meatloaf recipe”

My grandmother used to make broccoli rice casserole a lot. I have updated it here to make it more flavorful with a better broccoli to rice ratio. Broccoli Rice Casserole: 2 lbs. frozen broccoli florets–thawed, drained, and cut into bite sized pieces 1 1/2 cups of water 3/4 cup long grain rice 2 cans creamContinue reading “Just like Grandma used to make–pantry/freezer side dish”

Warm-up 5 Burpees 15 Jumping Jacks 20 High knees Set One 15 Curtsy Squats w/lateral raise/side 15 Reverse Lunge w/upright row/side 15 Alternating Lunges w/shoulder press/side 20 Mountain Climbers Set Two 20 Chest Fly (heavy) 20 Chest Press (heavy) 20 Lat pullovers (heavy) Don’t let the weight hit the mat 30 Bicycle Crunches (total) SetContinue reading “Pandemic Physical Fitness–30 minute total body workout”

When we bought this house, one of the first things that we did was to spray weed and grass killer on areas around the house to create garden beds. There was grass (weeds) in this front bed, which made no sense to me because it would be such a pain in the butt to mow.Continue reading “Spring Fever–the front garden bed (an involved project)”

My husband LOVES meatloaf. And when we have meatloaf, he always wants to have homemade garlic mashed potatoes, and peas (because we both like to mix our peas with our mashed potatoes.) So here we go. Aunt Josefa’s Mashed Potatoes–My dad’s youngest sister who lived in Chicago 4 lbs baking potatoes peeled and quartered 1/2Continue reading “Mike’s Favorite Meatloaf Dinner”

I used to work out with a personal trainer. I did it for year and years, and had to stop when I took my last job because of the long commute. I left that job in April of 2020, and was finding it difficult to be motivated enough to start working out on my own–IContinue reading “Pandemic Physical Fitness”

I cleaned this bed up when we had the really pretty day a couple of weeks ago, and wanted to be sure to get it mulched before the weeds started growing again. This side of the house is the side that faces the road. It is a little tough because it is the north sideContinue reading “Another bout of Spring Fever–the perennial border”

As you might imagine, I have a lot of cookbooks, but there are just a handful that I reach for when I need a sure fire great dish. Here they are: This is a petite book of nothing but cakes and just a few other sweets. These are old standbys that are generally easy toContinue reading “Favorite Cookbooks–since we’re all doing more cooking these days”

I took down the Christmas wreath and realized that the porch really needs a wreath on the hook by the front door. I had a spring wreath that I had made a couple years ago, but it was too small for its location. So, I took this wreath apart and reused the small white flowersContinue reading “A Spring Wreath for the Porch”

Earlier this week we had an absolutely glorious day–70 degrees and sunny. So I was out in the garden beds trimming stuff back and pulling weeds. (The backs of my legs were complaining about it the next day!) The next day, the weather was terrible, but I saw that Home Depot had their bareroot flowersContinue reading “Spring Fever–the Cutting Garden”