Mystery of the Missing Eggs

Our duck eggs are no more. Yesterday afternoon I saw the eggs. This morning they are gone. Daphne (our name for the female Mallard) was on the nest this morning when my husband left for work about 6am. At 7am I heard quacking and found a distraught Daphne in my lawn. The eggs were all gone without a trace. No shells, nothing.

We live on a quiet cul-de-sac. People do not generally walk down our street. There are no children on the cul-de-sac. If a predator was involved there would be shells left. There were eight eggs, a raccoon can’t make off with them all at once. Also, it was light out. If she had hatched them overnight wouldn’t there be some evidence of that? They don’t travel for about 10 hours, and she would not have left the ducklings to return to our yard.

I have no answers. Anybody else have any thoughts on this?

~Marla

Tasty Tuesday: Poached Eggs on Roasted Garlic French Bread with Bacon, Asparagus, and Tomatoes

I LOVE Eggs Benedict! It is by far my favorite way to eat eggs. Unfortunately it is also one of the least healthy ways to eat eggs. When I came across this recipe I thought it would be a wonderfully different way to satisfy that urge for poached eggs with lots of other flavors. I think it looks delicious!! 

Once again I borrowed this from Pam, who writes the blog For the Love of Cooking. It is a wonderful blog and she generously allows others to repost her recipes on their own blogs. The recipe as well as the pics are hers. So a big thanks to Pam! Just click on the link above to enjoy her talents!  ~Marla

Poached Eggs on Roasted Garlic French Bread with Bacon, Asparagus, and Tomatoes

Do you like eggs? Asparagus? Tomatoes? Bacon? If so then... You. Must. Make. This. Recipe!!

My son had a play date after school so I had time to make a special lunch just for me. I roasted the bread, asparagus, tomatoes, and bacon in the oven. I layered the bread with the bacon, asparagus, and tomatoes then served a poached egg on top. It was truly mouth watering and I enjoyed every single bite. I actually loved it so much I made it for lunch the following day too. This is by far my very favorite egg dish and I have a feeling I will be making it again very soon. I highly recommend this recipe for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!

Poached Eggs on Roasted Garlic French Bread with Bacon, Asparagus, and Tomatoes:

Recipe and photos by For the Love of Cooking.net

• 1 thick slice of Roasted Garlic French Bread (or your favorite bread)
• 2 slices of bacon (I used precooked)
• 2 thick slices of tomatoes
• 3-4 asparagus spears, ends removed
• Drizzle of olive oil
• Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silpat mat (or tin foil) for easier clean up and coat it with cooking spray. Place the bread on the baking sheet along with the 2 slices of tomatoes, two slices of bacon, and the asparagus spears. Drizzle the tomatoes and asparagus with olive oil then season with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper.

Place in the oven for 5 minutes then remove the bacon, if it's cooked, and place on a paper towel. Flip the bread over and cook for an additional 4-5 minutes, or until the bread is toasted and the tomatoes and asparagus are softened and warmed through.

Add water to a pan, filling it two thirds full; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Coat a poaching cup (or custard cup) with cooking spray then place in the water. Break the egg into the cup then cover the pan with a lid and cook for 6-8 minutes or until the whites are firm but the yolk is soft.

Layer the bread with bacon, asparagus, and tomatoes. Place the poached egg on top of the tomatoes then season with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Garage Sales!

I love garage sales! And this weekend I am in heaven here in Derby! It is the city wide garage sale weekend and over 150 garage sales are listed in the paper. That doesn’t count all the people who just throw out a few things and put up a sign and join in. So a good guess is probably over 200 sales in our city of 23,000.

My daughter and I started out early yesterday morning to begin our adventure. Not everyone had their sales going on Thursday, but there were enough to keep us busy until we wore out at 1:30 in the afternoon. We really didn’t buy a lot, and no great scores like I have found in the past, but it was fun to be out together for the day.

We did make a few observations, as usual, at the sales. Nothing new, but things that make you wonder about people. We came across sales where everything was priced ridiculously high…”Oh, I paid twice that much when I bought it new!” Well guess what? Nobody cares! It is a garage sale! People are looking for bargains! Then once again we saw at least two sales where people were selling toothpaste and other toiletries they had gotten for 25 cents or even free with their couponing skills. These were in VERY nice neighborhoods, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they really could not have donated these to a local charity or to the Joplin relief efforts instead of trying to sell them for $1.

On the other hand there were less money hungry people who had some nice bargains and were doing a brisk business. They will make more money in the long run and have fewer leftovers to deal with in the end. One very kind lady came down $10 on something I wanted when I explained I was going to repurpose it for a Christmas present for a child and had a very tight budget. It really was worth her original asking price too. Those are the sales I love.

Today I may go on my own to a few. Not many, my car is more difficult for me to get in and out of than my daughters. I am looking for a seven iron for my son. That is golf club, for those of you who like myself may not have known ;) If you live in the Derby area, maybe I will see you around!

~Marla

Thursday Travels: Millennium, Dominican Republic

If you missed my last Thursday Travels post, I mentioned I am doing these posts entirely for myself. I am terrible about journaling when I travel…but I want to write about the experiences before they totally fade in my mind. If you like travel logs…enjoy!

And that’s the wonderful thing about family travel: it provides you with experiences that will remain locked forever in the scar tissue of your mind.    ~Dave Barry

Our first cruise left out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. This cruise included our children, who were then 17 and 19 years old. Our hotel had shuttle service to and from the airport as well as a shuttle to and from the cruise port. We signed up for a shuttle that would take us to the ship the next morning. I was surprised at how early the shuttles ran as my cruise info said to be there at 2pm for boarding. We were at the dock before 11am, and on the ship by 11:30am. We were cruising Celebrity and as we boarded they were handing out complimentary Champagne! We boarded directly into the main area of the ship with the beautiful grand staircase. They let us know the buffet area was open and ready to serve us lunch. I could see right away that this was something I could easily become accustomed to!

We crave sustenance! ~Dusty (Twister)

The ship itself was unbelievable. The Celebrity Millennium, it was big and beautiful. It was very tastefully decorated in teak and marble. My only cruise ship views prior to this were pictures from Carnival ships. I am not knocking Carnival, but they are called the “Fun Ships.” Celebrity is a premium line and somewhat more upscale and refined. I have since become a “Loyal to Royal” girl, but more on that later. The common areas of the ship were much larger feeling than I expected. And the cabins did not feel as small as I expected. We had two inside cabins booked. We stuck the kids on deck two while we enjoyed a much quieter deck eight cabin.

Give your stress wings and let it fly away. ~Terri Guillemets

Port #1: The Dominican Republic

This was a port I expected to like the least…but thanks to astute planning DD (Dear Daughter) and I had a blast! DH and DS (you get the idea, right?)…not so much. We decided to book two different excursions as we wanted to do different things. DD and I went horseback riding, while DH and DS went kayaking. Sounded like a perfect fit. The men would be doing manly things while the women would be bonding with their lovely horses. The horseback riding ROCKED!! It was a gorgeous ride through green spaces backed up to beautiful, expensive homes…we waved at Sammy Sosa’s house and enjoyed the scenery. Or at least I did. DD was busy talking to a young man who was one of the trail guides. He was busy admiring scenery as well…he kept commenting on DD’s beautiful blue eye’s ;) When it came time to gallop he became our personal trail guide. We started out with the group, but when they stopped galloping to walk the rest of the way, he would have us just wait and talk and then we would gallop to catch up. This was the theme for at least the last 1/3 of the ride. It was a blast…nice to able to benefit off DD’s beauty J

Upon returning to the ship I was eager to hear about the guys kayaking fun. Instead I listened to DH complain about our DS whom he insisted did not pull his own weight in the rowing department. Add to the fact that this was OCEAN kayaking, not a nice river or lake…guess I should have read the description more carefully…and they were constantly rowing against the tide…though how that is possible I have no idea…I mean they did leave from and return to a shore…right? At any rate, a good time was NOT had by all. We all showered and enjoyed dinner on the ship. We were in port until about 10pm, so following dinner we took a bus to a cute little mountain town called Altos de Chavon. It was actually built on the model of an early Spanish town. It was lovely and relaxing, absolutely gorgeous at night with all the lights. We returned to the ship feeling good and ready to conquer our next port of call…San Juan, Puerto Rico!

Bon voyage! ~Marla

The Lost Art of Sacrifice

Sacrifice: a. the surrender of something for the sake of something else  b. something given up or lost

As a child I loved to hear my mother’s stories of her own childhood. They seemed to take place in such a different world than the one I was living in. Stories of outhouses, swimming holes, and Oklahoma dust storms. Born in 1924, my mother grew up in the heart of the depression. She was the second of four children, all girls, all within five years of age. She was four years old when her father died in 1928. Her mother was only 23 years old. One year later the Great Depression began.

My mother’s stories of this time period are ones I treasure, a glimpse into a past so different from the world we live in now. It molded her as a person. She was very frugal. We would laugh at the collected butter containers and such. But we sure enjoyed all the canning she did! She grew up with two pairs of shoes, and two dresses. One everyday set for school and play, and one set for church and other “special” times. The shoes were worn until the hole in the bottom was too big for the cardboard to cover any longer. The dress was worn until it had to either be handed down to her younger sisters or turned into rags for cleaning or “that time of the month.” Really they were lucky; they lived just outside of town with enough land to plant a garden in the summer, and to keep chickens and a cow or goat for milk. During the school year the girls had eggs and milk for breakfast and took a butter sandwich to school for lunch. My grandmother supported her little family by cleaning houses for the more well to do in town, and taking in ironing, laundry and sewing on the side.

If you are young, and unaware of our country’s history, you may wonder why they didn’t get help. Food stamps, welfare, school lunch programs, social security benefits from the deceased spouse. These programs did not exist prior to the depression. They came about mostly in response to the depression, but took decades to put in to place. The first social security payments were made in 1940, and the other programs followed. These social programs are necessary, but they did allow a change to occur in the way some people see their responsibilities for themselves and their family.

As a society survival of the fittest no longer applies. What once drove us as a species to excel is being lost. If we can’t take care of ourselves, the government will step in and help. If that is not enough, then family will help support me. If that is not enough, other charities will pay my electric bill. If that is not enough then my church has a benevolence fund. And all of this is fine…if the person doing the asking is also willing to sacrifice. Yes, sacrifice! Give up your gym membership. Give up your smart phone and iPad. Give up your pack a day cigarette habit that costs $150 per month. Make a budget and stick to it. Get a second job if necessary, or even a third. Use government money to go back to school for a college graduate degree. Take advantage of the free financial counseling available. Give up the pedicures and manicures. Give up cable TV. Explain to your children that money is finite and if they want to be in an activity or buy something then they will need to find a way to earn money. Babysitting, mowing lawns, raking leaves, cleaning houses…something, anything, so they don’t grow up thinking others will take care of them.

If we are willing to sacrifice until it hurts, then we can approach others for help. See, often those we are expecting help from have made sacrifices of their own. Family members, volunteers at charities, the church members who tithe every week to support the benevolence fund, they are already sacrificing. Should they expect any less from the people asking for help? Perhaps it is time to relearn this lost art.

~Marla

Tasty Tuesday: Creamy Prosciutto Pasta

This is a super easy pasta dish from Taste of Home. It is quick and easy because it uses store bought Alfredo sauce. If you prefer to make your own, go right ahead. I only made one change to the original recipe; it called for 9 oz. of refrigerated pasta, and I used 12 oz. of dried. It came out delicious! One more tip; when buying prosciutto, buy it sliced fresh at the deli counter. This is cheaper than buying the pre-packaged prosciutto.

Creamy Prosciutto Pasta

12 oz. dried fettuccine

1/2 lb. sliced fresh mushrooms

1 small onion, chopped

1 tablespoon butter

1 pkg. fresh baby spinach

1 jar (15 oz.) Alfredo sauce

1/3 lb. thinly sliced prosciutto, chopped

Cook fettuccine according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a large pan, sauté mushrooms and onion in butter until tender.

Add spinach and reduce heat.

Cook just until spinach is wilted.

Stir in Alfredo sauce and prosciutto; cook for 1-2 minutes or until heated through.

Drain pasta;add to sauce and toss to coat.

This yields 4 large servings.

Bon appétit ~Marla

Being Still

One of my favorite things about retired life is the mornings. Generally they don’t involve an alarm clock or the frantic activity of trying to get ready to go somewhere. They are slow, quiet and a little lazy. They involve tea or coffee and usually some introspection. Time to be quiet…to be still…to pray…to think.

I had a dear woman in my life for many years that I admired greatly. She was my mother’s cousin, but she felt more like an aunt to me. She was a strong Christian woman who truly walked in Christ’s footsteps. I watched her, and aspired to be like her. Whenever I needed a helping hand in my mother’s care, I could count on her. She lived a few hours away, but she would drop everything and come for the week to help me out. When I had surgery, she was there to care for my mom, cook and clean, while I recuperated. Whenever my mom had a hospitalization, she would come to be at her bedside, so I could get some rest. She was not a perfect woman. She could talk your ear off. She had strong opinions about cooking. And she had a great affinity for the color orange. As in Oklahoma State orange. And once, on her way back to Oklahoma she stopped at the local winery for some tasting, and ended up stopping at the next McDonalds for coffee before she could continue down the road! That still makes me smile. She became a role model for me. The Christian woman I most wanted to be like. She was real. She was my Billie June.

One thing she did every single day was to start the day with her devotion time. This was something I aspired toward, but was always too rushed to manage. Normally talkative, she would sit quietly with one of her many bibles open in front of her, meditating on God’s word, quietly applying it to her own life.  Being still. With retirement I am finding this easier to accomplish. I cannot say I am as faithful as she was in this, but I am trying. And it feels wonderful, this quiet peace in the morning. Reading, reflecting, praying. It feeds my soul. It is an added blessing in this situation that I never expected.

 Psalm 46:10 …”Be still, and know that I am God…”

~Marla

Tasty Tuesday: Mexican Shrimp Bisque

I became quite adventurous last night and decided to make a meal taking pictures as I went. This is not as easy as it sounds. I was making two new dishes at once and trying to snap pictures at each recipe step. This gives me a whole new appreciation for the cooking bloggers out there! The food turned out delicious…..the pictures…..not so much! But the recipe that follows more than makes up for it. This is easily the most delicious bisque I have ever eaten! The recipe is from Taste of Home, and I have doubled their original recipe. This makes 6 cups of bisque.

Mexican Shrimp Bisque

1 cup chopped onion

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

2 cups water

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 tablespoons chili powder

4 tablespoons chicken bouillon granules

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 pound uncooked medium shrimp, peeled & deveined

1 cup sour cream

Fresh cilantro & cubed avocado

In a large saucepan, sauté the onion in oil until tender. Add garlic and cook 1 minute longer. Stir in flour until blended.

Stir in the water, heavy whipping cream, chili powder, bouillon, cumin and coriander; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

Cut the shrimp into bite-size pieces; add to the soup. Simmer 5 minutes longer or until the shrimp turn pink.

Cube avocado and rough chop parsley. Set aside.

Gradually stir 1 cup hot soup into sour cream. 

Return all to pan, stirring constantly. Heat through (do not boil).

Serve garnished with cilantro and avocado.

I hope you enjoy this recipe....it really tastes great and is a nice summer soup!

Bon appétit ~Marla

Growing Vegetables in the Dirt

Every year I make some sort of attempt at growing my own vegetables. Every year my husband rolls his eyes and pretty much keeps his mouth shut. I have to plant a few vegetables; after all I am my mother’s daughter. My mom had an outstanding green thumb. We lived off the canned and frozen results of her labor year round. In the summer at our house, if you sat down you found a pan of green beans in front of you to snap. On the weekends the kitchen was canning central. Jellies, jams, butters, pie filling, and sliced fruit from the fruit trees, grape vines, and currant and quince bushes. Pickles, relishes, hot peppers, green beans, and whatever else she was growing that year, from the garden. It was all delicious, and wonderfully healthy.

I am not my mother. My attempts are not quite as successful. I can blame it partially on my small, mostly shady yard. My mom had at least a quarter acre just for her garden. Then of course there was the myriad of fruit trees; apple, pear, peach, cherry, apricot, plum and even black walnut. I have one measly grape vine that is rapidly losing out to the magnolia tree, and at most, a 7x7 area I could actually make into a garden and still have grass for the dogs. This has led to some interestingly creative solutions at times. Last year’s took the cake!

In the past I had tried gardening using pails. It seemed easier than tilling up the soil for such a small garden. I crammed these pails into my little area and tried to keep the more aggressive plants from overshadowing the smaller peppers and such. It was OK, but surely there was something better. I was considering a raised bed for last year, but then I came upon this interesting idea. Gardening using straw bales! 

The pictures were gorgeous! This perfect little garden at a nice working level…..and no soil needed! My husband rolled his eyes again and off we went into the country to find our straw bales. I can’t even imagine what our suburban neighbors thought as we unloaded 10 straw bales from the back of our little truck! Honestly, they worked pretty well, but talk about ugly! They most certainly did not resemble the internet sites I had perused for this project. And messy! I had straw all over the place! By this spring they had decomposed quite a bit and made a lovely mulch.

 This spring I went back to my good old standby….pails. I tried something slightly different. I worked them into my flower gardens. So far I am happy with this. After the straw bale fiasco of 2010, my husband didn’t even roll his eyes! I am not sure why I even do this…I really don’t get enough produce to make it worth my time and effort. I could go to a farmers market and get good quality, fresh produce. But I think the following lines from Steel Magnolias sums it up pretty well.

Ouiser - Tomatoes.
Clairee - Don't give these all to me!
Ouiser - Somebody's gotta take em. I hate em. I try not to eat healthy food if I can possibly help it. The sooner my body gives out the better off I'll be... I can't get enough grease into my diet.
Anelle - Then why do you grow them?
Ouiser - Because I'm an old Southern woman and we're supposed to wear funny looking hats and ugly clothes and grow vegetables in the dirt. Don't ask me those questions. I don't know why, I don't make the rules! 

Have a wonderful day! ~Marla

Bearing Your Cross

Do you have a cross you bear? I do, in fact I have a couple of physical/medical ones that can really wreck havoc on my quality of life if I allow them to. But I imagine everyone can come up with at least one thing that makes their life a bit of a struggle. If we are not careful we can let these overwhelm us……at least I can. What can we do about these issues? Especially if they are due to circumstances that are out of our control. After a couple of discouraging days this last week, I was ready for some answers to this question.

Without a doubt the easiest and foremost is to pray. I know some people do not believe in prayer, but I do….and I am the one writing this blogJ God does answer our prayers. The Bible is full of examples of answered prayers. My favorite is 1 Chronicles 4:10

And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested.

Pretty straightforward; Jabez prayed; God answered; YES! But what if I don’t get those same results? I said God answers prayer, but not necessarily in our time, and not always with the answer we want. So if prayer is not bringing the result I want, then what?

Accept help from others, and offer help to others in return. This can be difficult. We are often so proud. So hesitant to reach out for help when we really need it. We are supposed to rely on one another. Be a help to those in need. And when you are the one in need, graciously accept the help offered. Galatians 6:2, says…

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ

And while we are unloading some burdens, let’s just go all the way and turn it over to God. Wait, I covered that in prayer, right? Well, not really. See, turning all my burdens over to Christ to bear means a measure of acceptance. It acknowledges that my prayer may not be answered with a yes, but a no. It is me accepting that answer and allowing Jesus to bear a load that may be far too heavy for little me to carry alone. Those heavy chains I tote around are pretty tiring. But if I let Jesus carry them…..well, they may still follow me around, but they won’t wear me down! In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says…

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Really it doesn’t seem so difficult now. Except for one more small thing I need to do. For me, this is the most difficult. Rejoice in my trials. Really? Who wants to rejoice in pain, in suffering, in difficult times? My human nature is more on the side of whine, cry, and complain. But I have to assume Paul knew what he was talking about in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

…. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

So I will go forward this week, relying on God, friends and family. And hopefully learning to rejoice just a little more in my trials.

God Bless ~Marla

Thursday Travels: Cruise Diva

I thought I might use Thursdays to start a little travel log for myself. Hope you enjoy it!

I love to cruise. Actually, I just plain love to travel; cruising just happens to be my favorite method. I took my first cruise in 2004 at the age of 42. Prior to that point, I had really not seriously considered a cruise as an option. As a family we traveled quite a bit. By the age of 18 our children had been to at least 25 states and deep into Canada. But a cruise? Not that interested. Then my mother passed away. I decided I needed a change for Christmas that year, and a cruise seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

Our Christmas cruise was planned for the Eastern Caribbean. We would leave out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Our ports of call were to be the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and the Bahamas. I remember being more apprehensive than excited. I had read reviews of cruising and there seemed to be a lot of complaints alongside the glowing testimonials. Then there were the critics who slammed cruising in general, the “Travel Snobs” as I now call them. They felt the only way to visit a place was to spend several days there soaking in the culture, not several hours. We were spending a lot of money on this vacation; what if we hated it?

We flew out of Wichita on Saturday for our Sunday sailing. We arrived quite late in Ft. Lauderdale and by the time we settled in at the hotel it was 1am. I recall feeling a little achy and under the weather that night and noticed a cough starting. I hoped it was just exhaustion, but I wasn’t that lucky. I ended up with bronchitis. I fought it the entire cruise as well as the next 4 weeks. As a nurse I had brought a small pharmacy along and immediately began antibiotics; and codeine for the cough. I slept a lot. On port days we were on the go. Illness was not going to stand in the way! At the end of the 7 day cruise I realized that it had been the best vacation I had ever taken, despite being ill! I had caught another bug, the cruise bug. And I have never been able to shake it.

I learned a lot that first cruise. Booking excursions through the cruise line is not always the best choice. Some ports are more conducive to wandering around on your own than others. Take as many pictures as possible. Don’t waste time going to the port of call shopping shows, the cruise line does not care about getting you the best deal, they care about the kickback. Avoid any store with the word “International” in its name. Wean yourself off pop/soda before the cruise, unless you want to spend $40 for a week’s worth of soft drinks. Finally, act like the responsible adult you should be. Most the fatalities/serious injuries on cruise ships and excursions occur because the person was incredibly drunk or incredibly stupid!

Bon Voyage! ~Marla