Thursday, June 30, 2016

Thursday, June 30, 2016

What the Beck???

Recipe Review

Today’s Recipe and Location: Cheese Toast

Found in: The Pioneer Woman blog

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/cheese-toast.html

I figured out that there are 646 calories, if 6 servings are made. (Please note that the calorie counts vary depending on the specific brands of ingredients that you choose to use.)

Whenever I spot a bread recipe from Ree, I must make it. This is the third bread recipe that I LOVE. The three recipes that have similarities are: Olive Bread – fabulous and my all time favorite, Jalapeno Bread – a wonderful party bread, and Cheese Toast. These are all amazing, and everyone has commented on how much they love them when I serve them.

 Here are the ingredients that I used to create this recipe.

 I began by combining the Cheddar, Monterey 
Jack, and mayo in a large bowl.

 In went the Parmesan cheese, butter, 
salt, pepper, and seasoned salt.

 Then it was time to mix it all together.
The butter and mayo act as the glue.

I cut the loaf in half with a great serrated knife.

I just piled gobs of the cheese mix on the bread.
 I love using the word "gob."

Using a butter knife, I spread the cheese 
mixture over the top of both halves.

Now, it is ready to go into the oven.
Because I was giving it away, I wrapped it in foil,
and put it in the freezer for Mom.
I kept the smallest piece (upper left) for me to enjoy.
I so longed for more.  Thank God, I promised it to Mom.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

What the Beck???

Recipe Review

Today’s Recipe and Location: Spicy Scrambled Eggs

Found in: The Pioneer Woman blog

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/spicy-scrambled-eggs.html

I figured out that there are 184 calories, if 3 servings are made. (Please note that the calorie counts vary depending on the specific brands of ingredients that you choose to use.)

These eggs were wonderful! Who knew that adding half and half and hot sauce could make such a difference. I added Sriracha as my hot sauce, because it is a new favorite of mine, thanks to Ree. I made half a serving instead of an entire one.

Here are the ingredients that I used to make this recipe 

 I put the eggs in a large measuring cup

 I added in the half and half

 and salt

 and pepper.

 The final ingredient was the Sriracha. She called for a 
couple of dashes of hot sauce, but I put many squirts!!!  YUM!

 I used a miniature whisk to blend everything together

 I melted some butter in a skillet

 and poured in the egg mixture.

I used one of Ree's cute spatulas 

 to make the scrambled eggs

These were absolutely amazing!!!

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Sunday, June 26, 2016

What the Beck???

I NEED A MOVIE BREAK!!!!!

I am taking some time off working on my Bucket List. So, I am going to be spending a lot more time cooking than viewing movies.

Recipe Review

Today’s Recipe and Location: The Bread

Found in: The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime

Pages:   336 - 337 Copyright:  2015 Harper Collins and her blog

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/the-bread/

I figured out that there are 243 calories, if 12 servings are made. (Please note that the calorie counts vary depending on the specific brands of ingredients that you choose to use.)

This is an absolutely crazy recipe, because it has been made so many times, but I think I know the secret to its success.  Ree adds a lot of butter and by using the oven and broiler, it really does make it better than normal!  Who knew???

 I used a traditional French bread

 I showed you a photo of the huge loaf, but if
I ate that much bread I would gain a lot of
weight, so I bought the individual mini loaves
at Walmart and made one that I could handle.
I also used the large loaf to make Cheese Toast
(coming soon to a theater near you - or in my upcoming blog)

 Gosh, doesn't it look great!!!!

 Here is "The Bread" with my amazing brisket dinner.

Friday, June 24, 2016

Friday, June 24, 2016

What the Beck???

Welcome to the family Baby Hudson Scott!!
Great Nephew #7 

 Not too happy for Great Uncle Greg

 How darn cute is he??
So wide eyed and alert with Great Aunt Kim

 Here he is with my sister, Diane (his grandma)
and Uncle Matt and Aunt Heather

 He looks so grown up now!!
This is the beginning of Molly's photos.
She is an amazing photographer!!!!

 Hi Hudson

 He is so precious

 The teacher in Molly makes her use books
with Hudson at an early age!  I love it!

I am so blessed to have such a growing family filled with love 

Bucket List Update

Academy Award Nominated Movies

1969     Midnight Cowboy

starring: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, Brenda Vaccaro,              John McGiver

plot –  A Texas guy moves to the Big Apple to become a rich gigolo. It           doesn’t work out, but he befriends a conman whose health is
        rapidly going downhill. He tries to make the end of his life               better.

This movie won the Academy Award for the year. I really would have voted for Hello Dolly or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

1970     Five Easy Pieces

starring: Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Sally Struthers, Susan Anspach,            Helena Kallianiotes

plot – A very young Nicholson plays a classical pianist who chooses to        work on an oil field until he is told that his father is ill. He              returns home to find out his Dad had two strokes. Nicholson has        to rethink his life choices.

At first, I didn’t like the film, but it eventually sucked me in to the problems and choices these two men were making. I was anxious to see if they solved their problems.

1972     Sounder

starring: Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, Kevin Hooks, Taj Mahal, Carmen             Matthews

plot – The Morgans are a close black family who are sharecroppers. The        father steals bread from a neighbor, and is discovered, and sent        to jail. The family, led by Tyson must pull together to keep their        home.

This was a GREAT movie. Tyson is wonderful as the strong woman who is forced to make family decision alone. She is inspiring!!!

1982     Missing

starring: Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek, Melanie Mayron, John Shea

plot – Based on a true story of the execution of an American Journalist        in the Santiago National Stadium on Sept. 18, 1973. The coup            was organized by the CIA and Chilean military. Charles Horman,        an American, was beaten, tortured, and gunned down. He was a        filmmaker and journalist.

This was a FABULOUS movie.  I don’t remember ever hearing about this, but it was awful. Lemmon and Spacek are excellent as wife and father of Horman. I learned so much from this movie.

1993     In the Name of the Father

starring: Daniel Day Lewis, Pete Postlethwaite, Emma Thompson, John            Lynch, Mark Sheppard, Saffron Burrows

plot – Lewis plays a thief in Belfast in the 1970s. He goes to England          and meets a friend. While they meet, a bomb is set off nearby.          The main character goes back to Belfast and is thought to have          set off the bomb. He goes to jail for 15 years and keeps trying to        clear his name.

This was an intense movie. It was hard to see someone innocent trying so hard to clear his name and continue to be persecuted.

A great movie.

2012     Amour

starring: Jean Louise Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert

plot – A foreign film with subtitles – oh yeah - yuck. This was the love         story of an elderly couple. Anne, the wife, suffers a stroke. She         hates hospitals, and makes George, the husband, promise to keep       her in her home. He takes care of her until he death. A shocking         twist near the end of the movie.

This was a wonderful love story. The twist shocked me.

2012     Beasts of the Southern Wild

starring: Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly, Philip                   Lawrence, Gina Montana, Lowell Landes

plot – Wink and her Dad live in the Delta. Her Dad is ill and has been          preparing her for the end of the world. Ice caps melt, prehistoric        animals are out. Wink struggles to find family.

I could never live in a delta. I have grown up in a comfortable home with all of my needs met. Wink’s life is to unpredictable for this girl.

2014     The Imitation Game

starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goude, Rory          Kinnear, Allen Leech, Matthew Beard.

plot – Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing who is with the British                  intelligence agency. He and a team break an “unbreakable”              German code. The team becomes famous. The authorities                find out Turing is gay, and they give him a choice: prison or            hormonal therapy to “fix” his homosexuality.

This was an issue at the time. Queen Elizabeth pardoned him later, but he committed suicide two years earlier. There were more than 47,000 homosexuals arrested in that time.

2014     The Theory of Everything

starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Tom Prior, Sophia Perry, Harry           Lloyd

plot – Set in the 1960’s, it is the story of Stephen Hawking and his wife        after they discover that he has a motor neuron disease, also            known as Lou Gerig’s disease. Stephen studies TIME and breaks        new ground in medicine and science.

This was a great movie. The world lost a brilliant man, and I think Lou Gerig’s disease is awful, and we truly need to find a cure.

2014     Whiplash

starring: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Paul Reiser, Melissa Benoist, Austin           Stowell, Nate Long, Chris Mulkey

plot – A teen named Andrew Nieman wants to be a great drummer, so          he enrolls in a premier music academy. He is pushed to                  greatness by a brutal, explosive professor, played by J.K.                Simmons.

This was an intense movie!!! I was amazed and frustrated by the brutality by a teacher. Simmons was so verbally and physically abusive that I cringed at his explosions. He did, however, actually really care about Andrew’s ambitions. I love J.K. Simmons from his work on Law and Order SVU as a psychiastrist and The Closer as the Capt.. This was a major change in character type!!!

2014     Boyhood

starring: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Elijah Smith, Ethan Hawke,            Lorelei Linklater

plot – This movie follows a boy from childhood to college.

This was a good movie. It was so interesting to see the path this child took to adulthood.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

What the Beck???

Recipe Review

Today’s Recipe and Location: Mexican Salad

Found in: The Pioneer Woman blog

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/mexican-salad.html

This was hard to figure out calories for this salad, The salad itself is 302 calories if 6 servings are made. This recipe makes a lot of salad.

Molly, for you and Bryan, I only used 2 or the 3 heads it called for because the roasting pan was too small for the amount of salad.  Who knew it could be considered too small?? I think this salad could easily serve 8 to 12 people. The dressing made a pint and a half which could also serve a lot of people.

 I used a large roasting pan for the salad,
and I only used 2/3 of the lettuce in the recipe.

 The tomatoes made this so pretty

 The onions were sprinkled over the top

The roasted corn was next. Did you know that
they have preroasted corn in the freezer section??
Use it!!!  They also have it with other mixes.

The cheese went on next.
Prior to serving, you would sprinkle the
tortilla chips on top, but this was for Molly and
Bryan, and they would be eating this in increments
so, I left them off and gave them to them in a baggie.

 This is the fabulous dressing!
I thought it was filled with so much flavor,
and could be used often.

Monday, June 20, 2016

Monday, June 20, 2016

What the Beck???

Cleaning the Pond

 The pond was filled with leaves and slimy after
winter so it was time to clean it out.

 This picture was taken after I had used the wet dry vac to suck
out most of the water. 

 This is the debris from the vacuum

 I strongly suggest this Craftsman model.
It worked great!

 Once again clean, and the waterfall sounds wonderful

 I call this Maddie's pond because the two 
of us built in one weekend

This is one of the five frogs that call the pond "home."

Bucket List Update

Academy Award Nominated Movies

1935     Les Miserables

starring: Fredric March, Charles Laughton, Rochelle Hudson, Cedric              Hardwicke, Marilyn Knowlden

plot – Jean March’s character is put in jail for stealing bread. Once             freed from jail, he discovers that people are not very forgiving           and he has to constantly hide from the law. He has taken in a           young poor girl and raises her.

This was a GREAT MOVIE.  The storyline was great, but the acting was outstanding. I actually forgot that it was in black and white. 

1935     The Lives of a Bengal Lancer

starring: Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone, Richard Cromwell, Guy        Standing, Kathleen Burke, Douglas Dumbrille

plot – In India, Lt. MaGregor (Cooper) is overseeing some new men. The        men go on a mission to overthrow a ruthless chief. 

This was an okay movie, but I can’t say that anything really stood out to me. Cooper is always good, but I wasn’t really interested in the acting or the movie.

1940     Our Town

starring: William Holden, Martha Scott, Frank Craven

plot – Thornton Wilder’s story of like in a small New England town. It          chronicles the love, struggles, and tragedy of a young couple.

This was a marvelous movie. I love the town, but maybe that is because it is the type of town that I am looking to move to next year. The town and people are quaint, and live in peace and harmony.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, this one.

1941     How Green was my Valley

starring: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O’Hara. Anna Lee, Donald Crisp,               Roddy McDowell, Barry Fitzgerald

plot – The story of a large Welsh mining family. They struggle with            differing opinions about belonging to a mining union.

This was a Great Movie. It was easy to see how this movie won the Academy Award for 1941. I totally understood both sides of the union issue at that time in history.

1942     49^th Parallel

starring: Lawrence Olivier, Raymond Massey, Anton Walbrook,        Leslie Howard, Glynnis Johns

plot – A group of Nazi’s are stranded in Canada when their sub      sinks. Seven Germans escape into the countryside. They try to          blend in to the communities and plan to make it to the USA who        is not yet involved in the war.

I really liked this movie. The idea of Germans stuck in Canada was a plot that I had never seen before. This was enjoyable.

1945     Spellbound

starring: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Rhonda                Fleming, Leo G. Carroll

plot – Another fabulous film by Alfred Hitchcock. The head of a mental        hospital needs a replacement, but the man who arrives in an            imposter. Peck plays the new leader, and Bergman plays a              colleague who falls in love with him. Together they try to                discover his past that he does not remember due to amnesia.

I liked this movie, too. To watch the actors play characters with extreme mental illness was fascinating since I do not know much about the topic.

1947     Great Expectations

starring: John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Bernard Miles, Francis L. Sullivan,            Martita Hunt, Alec Guiness, Jean Simmons

plot – Originally written by Charles Dickens. Pip’s parents die, and he is        taken in by the blacksmith. A wealthy lady named Mrs.                  Haversham who becomes Pip’s new benefactor. She wants to            teach him to be a gentleman. He fits the bill and is helped by a          convict. He wants to repay the kindness.

This was a pretty good movie. I was interested in how life would turn out for Pip due to his humble beginnings and struggles.

1948     The Snake Pit

starring: Olivia Havilland, Mark Stevens, Celeste Holm, Lea Geno, Glenn           Langan

plot – A disturbing movie about a woman who suffers a breakdown and        is put in a mental hospital. The “treatments” used on the                patients are cruel and inhumane.

It was refreshing to see how the doctor helped her regain her sanity. DeHavilland plays such a different type of character in this movie. After this movie came out in theaters, many states investigated mental hospital practices and treatment.