Midway Through The Week

Twinkling Lights have invaded my front room....

I love filling my trees with lights.  I think this year there are 8 strands.

And I don't care for fru-fru ornaments.  We keep it pretty simple.  I mean, I'm just fine having my lights.

For the kids though.....

Thomas comes on over

And Miss Pinkie Pie

Hiccup & Toothless

Even Ironman himself

And last but not least, Ben 10

I'm so excited to play around taking pictures with the kids around the Christmas Tree.  I mean I took this one which was out-of-focus; look at all those lights.

ahhhh.  I love this time of year :)

Weekly Winners : Nov 20-26, 2011

-All shots taken with my Canon Rebel xsi-

Click on the button below to visit some other Weekly Winners :)

So I kinda forgot to post last week; I got caught up editing pictures for some friends that I took.  It was so much fun taking their family pictures :)

 

I put curlers in my girls hair, just to see how it would turn out.....and gosh darn't, I forgot to take a picture of it.  Just imagine her having an afro poof :)

This is how I spent my Thanksgiving.  On my couch, watching "Dark Knight" & eating out of a tupperware container.  My oldest was sick, so a Momma's got to do, what a Momma's got to do.

What goes great with Gumbo???  Orange-White Chocolate Chip Cookies......

Thanks for stopping by!

Pomegranate Week 2011 : Pomegranate Couscous

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I love Thanksgiving because we get to eat alot of fun food, so I'm very much excited for this afternoons gorging on Turkey.

But, for today, since I decided to post Pomegranate recipes {since they are in season right now}, I've got a very yummy side dish to share with ya'll.

Pomegranate Couscous.

My family loves couscous, so when I saw this recipe, I was like "ooohhh".

Of course, I didn't follow the recipe, but I take the essence of it and made this wonderful side dish {it went along great with some simply-seasoned grilled chicken}.

I loved the addition of the dressing to the already cooked Couscous...I've never done that before.  I also loved the fact that we had extra & I was able to eat it the next two days during lunch.

Would you like to try my version of this dish?

Click on the link below to print out a copy.

Pomegranate Couscous

Thanks for stopping by; Enjoy!

 

Pomegranate Week 2011 : Pomegranate Choco-Chocolate Chip Cookies

Now....first off,  how can you go wrong with a chocolate cookie.  I don't think that you can.  When I was gathering recipes to try out with Pomegranates, I saw this recipe {from a blog I read daily}, looked at the recipe & decided to give it a try.

When looking over the recipe & the contents of it, I realized that my basic go-to recipe for cookies would work perfectly in creating these interesting cookies.

Again, the hardest part to making these cookies......getting all the arils out of the pomegranate.  But I took my time, so that way I wouldn't have pomegranate juice all-over the place.

I was very happy with the end result.  Imagine a very fudge-like cookie with pops of pomegranates.  When offered to friends, they always asked what was inside the cookies, and when I would answer they would say, "Ohhhh".

I wasn't sure at first if the combination of chocolate & pomegranate would go together, but they do go together quite nicely :)

Would you like to try out this recipe?????

Click on the link below to print out a copy.

Pomegranate Choco-Chocolate Chip Cookies

And if you wanted a breakdown of the cookie, here you go....Not bad for an afternoon treat. Nutrition Facts Pomegranate Choco-Chocolate Chip Cookies Serving Size 1 each
Amount Per Serving
Calories 125.49 Calories from Fat 60
% Daily Value
Total Fat6.37g	10%
Saturated Fat 1.58g	8%
Trans Fat 0.91g
Cholesterol11.93mg	4%
Sodium57.6mg	2%
Total Carbohydrate16.44g	5%
Dietary Fiber 0.83g	3%
Sugars 9.84g
Protein1.43g	3%
Vitamin A (IU) 240.05	5%
Vitamin C 0.01mg	0%
Calcium 5.23mg	1%
Iron 0.54mg	3%

Thanks for stopping by; Enjoy!

   

Pomegranate Week 2011 : Pomegranate Scones

For todays recipe, I'm bringing you Pomegranate Scones.  I remeber this was one of the first things I pinned when I was looking up recipes.

Pretty?

Yes.

Flavorful?

No.  Not exactly.

Although enjoyable, it could have been sweeter to counteract the whole-wheat flour.  I guess after making Cranberry-Orange Scones, I was expecting a sweet dough with yummy granules of Pomegranate.

I guess I should stick to the more "fattening" version; which I'll be happy to try out again once I make another trip to the grocery store.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Pomegranate Week 2011 : Pomegranate Salad

A couple of weeks ago, my Husband's Cousin  messaged me that she was going to on "Good Things Utah" a couple of days later.  I would have loved to have gone to see the show in person, but alas, due to school commitments & children, I had to watch the show from my comfy couch.

Jan did fantastic as always.  She made this Pomegranate Salad.  I instantly wanted to make it.  So the ingredients went instantly to my grocery list.  In fact, this salad inspired me to find recipes utilizing Pomegranates {which I'll showcase throughout the week}.

This is a semi-super-easy salad to make....at least once you get past the Pomegranate & getting all the granules out.  I, of course, couldn't make the recipe as listed, so I tweaked it my own way.  Want to see how I made mine???

Pomegranate Salad

First, I chopped up 2 good sized Gala Apples.  I love Gala Apples.  I eat an apple everyday at lunch.  That's how much I like them.

Then, I added in some chopped Walnuts.  That's what I had in my freezer.  I figured I should use up something that I had instead of buying something else {like the pecans mentioned in the recipe}.

I then added in a whole Pomegranate.  I took my time getting all the pieces out; I didn't want juice squirting all over the place.

This is where I cheated.  Instead of buying some Whipping Cream & whipping it up, I bought a container of Cool-Whip & dumped it in.  I'm lazy like that :)

And that's that.  I stirred it all together & scooped them into individual glasses for an after-dinner dessert.

This was very delicious!  I can see how one could sit & just eat the entire bowl :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Enjoy!

 

Tasty Kitchen Review : Mushroom and Blueberry Balsamic Pot Roast

A couple of weeks ago, while I was writing up a menu for the following 2 weeks, I wanted to try out some different pot roasts.  So I headed over to PW's Tasty Kitchen and typed in "Pot Roast".  This particular recipe stuck out at me.  Blueberries.  Beef.  An interesting combination.

Mushroom and Blueberry Balsamic Pot Roast 

This was a very delicious piece of meat.  Although I didn't get it fork-tender, it was still moist.  The addition of the Balsamic Vinegar & Blueberries was very good.  I didn't even give a mushrooms a chance.  I don't like them.  So I let my husband steal them off my plate.

It's nice to change up traditional recipes.

Give this a try.  Enjoy!