Adventures in cooking

Friday, my friend Alma was supposed to come over and have craft night and I was going to cook a special dinner. She has pneumonia, so she stayed home. I still made my special dinner though. And it turned out awesome. Jeff even really liked it. He's a picky eater, so I consider that a huge success. Both recipes are from KraftFoods.com, my favorite cooking site. Click the recipe name for links to the recipes.

Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread

One note about the bread... It has an icing recipe to drizzle on top, but I left that off and just sprinkled more cinnamon-sugar mixture on top.

Bruschetta 'n Cheese-Stuffed Chicken BreastsThis was really awesome chicken. You drizzle dressing on top to give it more flavor. I used Sun-Dried Tomato Vinaigrette because it's what I had on hand. Very yummy ... and it's fun to pound the chicken breasts to stuff them. :)

Today in Randomness

So here's how I caught the dogs the other day. They really are taking over everything!
Also, I notied this week that I hadn't taken down the wreath my mom sent me BEFORE CHRISTMAS! I can't believe it's still green and it's not falling apart. I might as well leave it up and see how long it lasts.
And today, we are having quite the thunderstorm. It was really coming down for a couple hours. I looked out the window and saw we had a pond forming. It wasn't able to drain very well from the yard because it was coming down so hard. I ran out (very quickly) and took this photo.

Sunny days

Today I was talking with my parents and telling them how beautiful it was here. It was close to 90 today, and I spent some time doing yard work and soaking up the sun. It was a perfect day. Then, my parents tell me that it's been raining and still SNOWING in Montana. I'm definitely a world away!

Case in point: Here's the temperatures at 12:15 p.m. Central.
Cedar Hill, TX
73°F Clear
Today84° 52°
Sat70° 46°

Trout Creek, MT
24°F Couldy
Today36° 22°
Sat34° 21°

Mmm ... mmm... Good!

Alma and I went to lunch at the Art Institute of Dallas' restaurant today. It was so amazing. I had Pork Scallopini Marsala and she had Sweet and Sour Pork. Of course, I forgot to take pictures of the entrees. But we did split dessert, Bananas Foster, prepared tableside (insert oohs and aahs) here. Here are a few pictures of the preparation and our excitement!

We decided we'll do this once a month as a treat for ourselves. They change the menu once a quarter, so we'll get a chance to try lots of goodies.

Where's Oz?

So this was what we woke up to on Tuesday morning. I was excited to see that we'd get a little snow this winter. Pinky and Oz weren't that excited. She kept jumping around because it was cold on her feet!
Fast forward to this morning. Can you spot the Jack Russell Terrier in the picture? Thursday and Friday are definitely winter days in Texas. Some areas north of Dallas got as much as 9 inches! Plenty of icy roads to go along with it. We didn't have that much, obviously.

The little shed in the backyard looks pretty this morning. The weatherpeople say no more snow, and knowing Texas weather, it'll probably be 70 by Sunday!

It's beginning to look a lot like ... MARCH?

IT'S SNOWING IN TEXAS! Yesterday it was in the 70s, today it was in the 40s, and tomorrow back up to the 60s. Crazy weather here in Texas. A cold front moved through today (obviously). Here's a look at our short-lived winter. It's the first snow of the season. Hopefully the last, too!

When my friend Jeff (above, who I work with, and am not married to ... too many Jeffs! :) ) walked out of the building, he said "OH MY GOD!" Apparently he didn't believe it was REALLY snowing outside.
My car in the work parking lot.

I was going to take a picture of the flowers blooming in our front yard when it was so nice last weekend. Instead, it's a picture of our flowers blooming ... and covered in white stuff!

This was the Torrent in the driveway when I got home in Cedar Hill. I think there was actually a little more snow downtown that at the house.

So that was the snow day. We got out of work about 20 minutes early, so nothing too exciting there. And it's no match for the mountains in Erika's front yard.

I still may have some hot chocolate tonight.

Dave & Buster's

Friday night I went to Dave & Buster's with some friends for games and dinner. They have this trivia game that's really fun. Here's Alma and Jeff, with support from Jose, playing trivia. They all look so serious! It's a very intense game. :)

They had a new Deal or No Deal game. That's my favorite game show, because I love cheering for (or against) the contestants. I was a better spectator than player at Dave & Buster's.
Here was a first for me. I've never played one of those dancing games. The game was confusing, and we didn't do so great. Plus, you didn't get any tickets for playing. I'm all about the rewards!
Speaking of tickets (you play games at Dave & Buster's and then can cash them in for prizes, most of which are just silly little kid things), I did this one game called Spin-N-Win. You pull a lever and the light starts moving around the circle. Then you press a "stop" button and you get the number of tickets of the space where the light stops. My first try, I got 500 TICKETS!!! That's the most you can get. I was so proud of myself. Here's me and my endless string of tickets...

Chloe and her quilt

The day I left Coeur d'Alene, Chloe was kind enough to submit to a few more photos for Auntie Annie. I wanted to get some of her hanging out on the quilt I made her.

In this one she kind of has that "are you done yet?" look.