it's arrived!!

Well, as some of you may have read in past postings I was soon to be getting a new laptop – HP6910. It has arrived!! I’ve been waiting a long time for this new laptop as my old Thinkpad was just not keeping up. The ole' girl just wasn't what she used to be, she had a good life but it was time to bid farewell. I now have a brand spankin' new HP laptop that is taking some getting used to. The buttons that I didn't have to look at on my keyboard I now feel like I'm in a hunt & peck mode. I went to go hit the escape key the other day in a meeting and accidentally hit the Power button which shut my laptop down. Oops. Thankfully it boot up pretty fast unlike the 5-8 minutes it took my old one. I’m now able to retrieve pictures off my camera’s memory card which is a good thing. No excuse not to post pictures now.

I want to thank Shannon from Tales From the Fairy Blogmother who started What’s Cooking Wednesday for letting me know that I don’t have to cook on Wednesday's to post under What’s Cooking Wednesday. I can post a recipe that I’ve made that I would like to share with the blogsphere. THANK YOU!! So, I will join the other What’s Cooking Wednesday bloggers. It doesn’t mean you won’t see a Linda Cooked – Wahoo post because maybe I might just whip up something special.

Here's a picture of my furry feline Oreo.

Until then, ciao.

what's cooking wednesday's - not so much

One of the websites I read is Michelle’s Bleeding Espresso. Michelle has a What’s Cooking Wednesday’s segment she does on you guessed it – Wednesday’s. She got the idea from Tales From the Fairy Blogmother. You should check out their blog/web sites. I enjoy it when people post what they are cooking and the recipes. I find it interesting to see what dishes are eaten around the world and it helps me try out new recipes.

I enjoy the pictures too. As they say, “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words” and I agree. I can read a recipe or have someone explain it but when I see a picture or watch a cooking show you get to see the process and outcome. Can be important to some recipes and takes some of the fear factor out of trying something new. I know many people that think Italian cooking is difficult, tedious, and laborious, I used to be that way too. Now I know that the American’s have tweaked Italian recipes and made them heavier and ingredient/time intensive. It does not have to be this way. After watching many cooking shows, i.e. Lidia’s Family Table, Ciao Italia, and Everyday Italian and visiting Italy three times you learn that it takes just a few ‘fresh’ ingredients to make a great dish. The key word is fresh. If you have good olive oil, garlic, onion, pepperoncino and some pasta – oh my gosh, watch out. Oh, I forgot the cheese, how can you eat Italian food without a good parmesan or pecorino graded on top I ask? I can’t.

I thought of doing a What’s Cooking Wednesday segment on my blog but there’s just one problem, I don’t cook that often. To try and cook on Wednesday’s might put too much pressure on me let alone posting it up on the blog on the same day. Yicks. So, what I thought might be more appropriate is a segment called, Linda Cooked - Wahoo. It will be a post of what I cooked when I cooked. No pressure on me and hopefully there will be a recipe or two that you can add to your collection.

Watch for this segment, if you have any favorite recipes you want to share please leave me a comment.

If you’ve read some of my previous posts you know I’ve been having some technical problems with retrieving photos off of my camera’s memory card and saving to my laptop so I can post photos. I’m getting good vibes that this may be fixed in a couple of weeks. Yes, my friends I see a new laptop in my future. A brand new HP6910. Yahoo!! I should be careful not to count my chickens before they’ve hatched but this old IBM T40 is a piece of garbage to put it nicely and I’m getting pretty frustrated with it. I’ll keep you posted.

how does your garden grow?

I’m very lucky living in the southwest, spring arrives early here and because of our HOT summers our planting schedule whether its for flowers or vegetables is different then other parts of the U.S.

Unless you are a really dedicated gardener and can coax your garden to stay alive in 115º (46C) temperatures, most annual flowers and vegetable gardens are done by June, maybe July if you’re lucky. I love to garden but when it’s really hot I’ll give the plants the water they need and watch them from inside my house. They’re really on their own; they’ll sink or swim depending on their heartiness. Cruel I know but it’s hot.

We plant our ‘summer’ gardens in February and our ‘winter’ gardens in September. Strange but necessary in the southwest. Here are my typical plantings:

February
Flowers: pansies, petunias, viola, primrose, stock, and daisies.

Veggies: eggplant (Japanese & white (this one is new to me, will let you know how it turns out), jalapeno pepper, purple bell pepper, zucchini, red cherry tomatoes, small yellow tomato, string beans, and arugala (aka rucola/rocket).

Herbs: rosemary, basil, parsley, cilantro, oregano, thyme, marjoram, and sage.

September
Flowers: pansies, petunias, snapdragons, sweet peas (planted in fall, bloom in spring).

Veggies: carrots, beets, lettuce (arugala and spinach), and onions.

Herbs: if they didn’t survive the summer heat then I replant the same fall herbs. The only one that is frost tender is the basil.

So blog readers – how does your garden grow? I would love to hear about your garden and what you grow. Do you have a green thumb?

I’ll post pictures when my laptop allows me (see previous post) so you can see the progress of my garden.

Now go out and play in some dirt.

friends, food and fun - what more can one ask for?

I had some friends over for dinner this evening. I tried out several new recipes that I found on other blogs and it was a delicious success. Since I’ve redone my kitchen/home it is now a pleasure cooking with a new gas stove. I promise to write and post pictures about my home remodel experience soon.

Because of my love for Italy when I do have friends over they expect to have Italian food. When I don’t serve Italian they seem a bit disappointed or at least surprised. First, let me say that I’m not a great cook whether it’s Italian or any other ethnic dish, but I do like to cook.

I try and plan a menu so some of it can be prepared ahead of time and what needs to be cooked fresh it won’t take long to prepare, especially during the week. When you work outside the home it’s all in the timing.

For this menu I had found a chicken dish at Jerry’s Thoughts, Musings, and Rants! and a to-die-for chocolate desert at Bleeding Espresso’s. Thank you for sharing your recipes, they were a success. Here’s the menu:

~Arugula salad
~Pasta w/pesto
~mini caprese kabobs
~Balsamic chicken with mushrooms
~Fresh bread and butter
~Chocolate and peperoncino mousse
~Ice tea and water

Arugula Salad – arugula/rucola/rocket lettuce lightly dressed with good olive oil, fresh lemon juice, fresh cracked pepper, kosher salt & shaved pecorino romano cheese – don’t skimp on the cheese!!

Pasta w/Pesto – I used Piccoli 3 pasta as I didn’t’ have enough Trofiette pasta which they say in the Cinque Terra region is the only pasta to serve with pesto. Pesto originated from that region. I had some homemade pesto in the freezer (did you know pesto freezes very well?) and used that. It was the standard pesto – basil, garlic, parmesan cheese, pecorino cheese, toasted pine nuts, salt, and olive oil. I’ve also used toasted walnuts instead of pine nuts and like that variation very much.

Mini Caprese Kabobs – I took cherry tomatoes, small mozzarella balls, and basil and stuck them on a toothpick. I really wanted to use longer wooden skewers but I haven’t unpacked those yet. Dang it! The toothpicks worked fine.

Balsamic chicken with mushrooms – Thank you Jerry @ Jerry’s Thoughts, Musings, and Rants! for sharing the recipe. The only change I made was I used cremini mushrooms instead of the button. It tasted great!!

Chocolate and Peperoncino Mousse – Thank you Michelle @ bleeding espresso for the recipe. The first batch I made I used the listed 2 tsp. of crushed red pepper. HOLY COW!!! I like spicy but this was off the chart. I guess I’m a wimp; I bow down to you Michelle. So, onto batch #2. I used only ¼ teaspoon of crushed red pepper and that was just enough to give it a little bite of spicy with the richness of chocolate. Oh, what did I do with batch #1 you ask? I could not throw out chocolate so I had some left over whipping cream and I whipped that up sweetened with a little powdered sugar and combined them together. It still is a little spicier then I’d prefer but its chocolate and it’s good. This is a very rich desert so ½ to ¾ cup a serving topped with sweetened whipped cream (powdered sugar & a little vanilla) and some shaved chocolate is sufficient.

Buon Appetito!

Let the games begin... After dinner we played Mexican Train, a game played with dominoes. We had a fun time, J came in 1st, I came in 2nd and B had the distinguished title of coming in last, I mean 3rd.

Thank you J&B for a lovely evening, we need to do this more often.

Table Centerpiece Suggestion: Clear vase with an inch of whole coffee beans and a vanilla candle in the middle. The scent of coffee and vanilla is scrumptious!

my favorite time of year

I love spring. Things are fresh and new, it’s like throwing off a heavy coat and putting on a light sweater. You can now breathe. Wild flowers are blooming, trees and grass are greening up, and yes allergies (awchoo) have arrived!!

In Arizona spring comes earlier then other parts of the US. That is one of the reasons why I live here; you have a lot of time to be outside enjoying the great outdoors. I can listen to the weather reports and hear about the record cold and tons of snow others are getting while I have my windows and doors open letting the light spring breezes and rays of sunlight into my home. There are draw backs too; if you hate hot and dry heat then this isn’t the place for you. Starting in May/June until September/October we have daytime high temperatures over 100º and lows in 80s/90s. This is no place for the wimpy I say. It is a real dry heat though. No, REALLY dry.

My fav fav favorite time is when my lemon and orange trees are blooming. There is just no other fragrance that can beat this in my opinion. If you live in an area that you can’t grow a citrus tree then the next best thing is having an Orange Blossom candle from Gold Canyon. They captured the smell perfectly. I don’t benefit from promoting this candle, it just smells good.

The blossoms are just starting to pop around here and every now and then you get a whiff - its pure heaven for me. Once the whole tree is in bloom hang on, your senses can go into overload. Unfortunately the bloom cycle only last a short time so I have my supply of candles to bring out when I’m in the mood for some citrus blossom smell.

I like to clip some of the branches and bring them into the house; the branches make a great table centerpiece too. They’re both beautiful and fragrant, really adds to a table.

I’ll post a picture real soon, currently my USB port won’t read my camera memory stick as it’s an old (IBM T40) but I’m supposed to be upgraded to an HP6910 within the next month or so and then hold on. I should have no limitations. Yes, this is a work pc. I used to have a laptop for work and desktop for home. I found I wasn’t using my desktop at all so now I do both work and personal computing on the laptop.

I hope you get the opportunity to enjoy your spring and let the sun splash upon your face. Doesn’t it just put a smile on your face?

I’d like to wish my father a Happy Birthday (a day late in this blog). He’s such a great dad who has taught me so much, given unconditional love, and is always helping out his daughters. I hope you had a great day and enjoyed your birthday dinner at the Mexican restaurant. Wish I could have joined you.

Happy Birthday Dad, Love Pete