3 Blue Apron Meals and a Review from Youtube

Hi there everyone, how you all doing? Well, it's the last day of October....Halloween and no scary people dropped by our house. Glad for that. There were lots of parents and kiddo's walking by. I didn't have the light on....maybe they just knew there was no candy being passed out at this house.

Well, today I am going to show you the 3 Blue Apron meals I made this past week. I have cut down on my orders from Blue Apron to one box every 6-8 weeks. I still enjoy doing the meals but not so many a month. Blue Apron could come every week at $60 a week...that would be $240 a month. If JP does not like a meal, too spicy, too this or too that, it's kind of a waste. I still like making things on my own and keeping things simple. But, I have learned lots of new things, new spices, vegies and techniques in cooking with Blue Apron.

Following, is a YouTube tutorial making Lemon Thyme Turkey Cutlets. I have not made this meal, but it sure looked good. I liked the way this guy cooked....sort of reminded me of me in some ways. The end result though, is always delicious.

The meal below was really good, "Baked Whole Wheat Rigatoni with Cone Cabbage and Sage" (4 stars). Did you ever use a Cone Cabbage? I didn't, and it was sure quite different from a regular cabbage, easier to cut and slice. So all the vegies had to be cleaned and chopped.

A potato chopped, onion, cabbage and sage, seasoned with salt and cooked till the cabbage wilts, water was added and stirred occasionally. Pasta was cooked. 

Then a Béchamel sauce was made with butter, garlic and flour, milk added slowly then 3/4 cup reserved pasta cooking water. Half the Fontina cheese was added and well combined with salt and pepper to taste. The cooked vegies, pasta and sauce are added together then baked. Fontina cheese and parmesan cheese topped the casserole with more salt and pepper to taste.

In the picture below is JP's meal for the night. His fruit with some yogurt, tomatoes and home-made pickles and the Baked Rigatoni and cabbage.

In this next meal, I really enjoyed this one. "Roasted Pork Steam Buns with Black Garlic Mayonnaise & Spicy Cabbage Slaw." (was a bit too much cabbage for these two nights....so I had to make this meal 2-3 days later) This was really good though (I gave it 4 stars). The pork is fried in a pan, then roasted in the oven for 20 minutes till the temperature reaches 145 degrees. The cabbage is combined with the white bottom of the scallion, sesame oil, ginger, vinegar and as much of the spicy gochugaru as liked....This would make the cabbage salad spicy and JP does not like spicy.

The buns are steamed, the roast has been resting. Cucumbers have been marinating in ginger and vinegar, salt and pepper. Black garlic is mixed with the mayonnaise and salt and pepper added to taste. This will be spread on the steamed buns, topped with the sliced pork roast and the marinated cucumbers. Yeah, I really liked this pork and steamed bun combo. The cabbage was a bit too spicy. I ended up throwing a lot out, cause JP did not touch it.

This was a good meal, "Spicy Chicken & Carrots with Harissa, Dates and Chickpeas." (another 4 star) although JP does not care for carrots that much. Rice was cooked and chickpeas roasted, then mixed together as a side dish. The chicken thighs and carrots are cooked together for 8 minutes then dates, water and harissa paste is added, depending on how spicy you want it. After cooking, almonds, parsley, salt and pepper is added. Below is a picture of the meal....I forgot one ingredient.

The sauce, labneh and vinegar seasoned with salt and pepper. I decided to add a taco shell to JP's meal....he did not eat it nor a lot of the carrots. I have to say, the meal looks better with the labneh sauce on it in the picture below.

So there you have it....3 delicious meals. I enjoyed them, which is why I am going to have to be very choosy in my next selections from now on....seems to be a waste when I include JP.

Well, time to close. I need to get some cards in my Etsy store and ride my bike yet tonight. Dinner is cooked for JP, so I don't have to worry about that. What is he having? Chicken, pasta, with cheese casserole....a simple comfort food with no spice.

You have a great day and keep looking up, better days are coming.
Cheers ~ Louise

Hospital Visit, Prayers and Cards

Hi there everyone. How did your Friday go today??? I was pretty busy. JP had an appointment with the Urologist today. He had an ultra sound and biopsy of the prostrate. I guess they are looking for cancer. His brother had the same procedure and there was no cancer, so hopefully it will be the same for JP. Prayers for JP would be appreciated.

A special treat for us...I bought some pop-corn and a cup of coffee at the Hospital. Our next visit, next Wednesday to find out the results....maybe we will hit the Hospital's "Market Place" for a hamburger and salad....shall see how things go AND if I have $$$ for that day.

We got home about 11am, I took a nap till 1pm then got ready to take off for shopping and pay some bills. Hit Sam's Club, Hobby Lobby and Pic N Save then home. For some reason, I was feeling a little bit queasy with hot flashes in Hobby Lobby....whatever that was I do not know. By the time I got home....very tired. Uge old age is not for whissy's.

Following are 4 cards I made at Betty's last Friday....yeah, I am a bit behind. But I really have been busy making cards for Hospice lately, mostly Christmas cards. I should have enough to send out personally, put in my Etsy store and give to Hospice with some left over for next month.

So with these two cards, the top card is embossed with a cuttlebug folder and little die cut birds glued on, a bow tied and the flowers have speckles dabbed on them. Very simple yet beautiful.

In this Christmas card.....the background embossed with a Christmas folder then die cuts for the fiddle player, holly and Noel were glued on the card and a bow added.

This was really a nice technique. The picture was colored in with copic markers....any colors we desired. then after that we inked the picture with versa mark, then covered with embossing powder and heated to get that glass affect. Die cut birds and a stamped "Happy Thanksgiving" were added. Which reminds me, I need to get some Thanksgiving cards made too.

The last card was a snowman, colored in with copic markers and speckles to enhance the snow. Sequins were added to embellish the card and make the card look like a "snow-globe" Cute huh?!?!?

As I am typing this post....watching the Cubs game which is still playing, I did turn on the Hockey channel and watched the Hawks beat the Devils in overtime 3-2. So now I think the Cubbies should win too.....couple of more endings....Go Cubs!!!

Tomorrow is SATURDAY...my favorite day. We really need to rake leaves and cover the rose bushes. Maybe I need to take some tomatoes of the vine if they did not get frost bit. I was covering the plant for a couple of  days....time to do that. Where did this month go???? November is right around the corner, along with my birthday on the 21st and I shall be 70 years old......OH MY!!!

Time to close this post for today....I will come back on the 31st with 3 Blue Apron meals that I cooked this month, oh and maybe a video from YouTube.

You all have a great day and keep looking up, cause better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise

Blue Heron and 10 Ways to Use the MISTI

Hi there everyone. How you all doing??? Surviving all the Politics and the World Series? I have not been much of a Baseball fan....but I'm rooting for the Cubs. (Being from Chicago, I do root for most of the teams there, except for Da'Bears. Green Bay Packers are my first pick.) It does not look too good right now, Cubs are losing 2-0, 3rd ending. Indians pitcher just got 8 strikes against the Cubs....nope, not looking great.

So now that I know I can share stuff on my blog via You Tube, thought I would give you a tutorial on how to use the Misti. I had been wanting a Misti for a long time and finally the chance came last May when I actually won a Misti. I use it quite a lot for most every thing I do. There are a few tricks to using the Misti that I have forgotten. So saving this tutorial on my blog will be of benefit to me.


I have been working on making cards the last couple of days...using my Misti to stamp these Great Blue Heron cards. (I made about 14 of these birds) Here is what the finished card looks like. I already sent a card like this out to a friend for her birthday. Gave one to JP, just because. The Misti really helped because quite a few times the image needed to be re-stamped because the ink did not cover the stamp completely. 

In making these cards, I used my distress inks, a paint brush and water and Copic markers. Made for a nice affect. My next few cards, I think I will use gold embossing powder to emboss the Heron in gold.

The rubber stamp came with no rubber backing (EZ Foam). Betty Helped me with that, as she had some extra EZ Foam and gave it to me. Note: I need to get a sheet or two of EZ Foam, because I have a few stamps without backing. Although, I can use the Misti and get a good image without the EZ Foam.

I finally took some pictures of the cards I made at Betty's this past Friday. So they will be in my next post....stay tuned. Oh, and I got a Blue Apron box last week, so I will be posting about those lovely meals I made.

Well, it does not look good for the Cubbies, score is 3-0 and in the 9th.....oh well, can't win them all. I think the Cubs celebrated too much Saturday and have not re-grouped as yet.

Time to close, need to get down stairs and ride my bike for a couple of miles and work on some cards. Next week, Friday is Hospice meeting, so I better get my cards ready. Keep looking up, better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise 

More Christian Prophets Are Confirming That Trump Is Our New President!

Hi there everyone. Hope you are having a good day....it's Saturday again, my how time flies. Just wanted to let you know. I watched this video last night and thought it was a "Keeper" so I saved it to my blog rather then to Facebook. I actually wanted to see how close this prophet came to prophesying the Word of the Lord, and the election of Trump as President. I don't expect you to watch it, that's okay. This is just for my information.

I was quite surprised that I was able to save this to my blog....who knows, you may see more videos on my blog now that I know I can do this....maybe you will see some cooking tips or something from Blue Apron via YouTube....who knows.

Won't be doing anything special today....maybe just raking some leaves and preparing for winter time and the coming awakening!!! You all have a great weekend and keep looking up.....better days ARE COMING!!!! Cheers ~ Louise

Blah ~ Blah ~ Blah

Hi there everyone. Do you ever feel like this some days.....stick your tongue out at everything??? Yeah, that's the way I have felt for these last couple of weeks. Only thing I can think is, POLITICS??? I am so tired of all the lying on both sides. The news media keeps lying about everything too...all wanting their 15 minutes of fame.

I know who I am voting for, just hope that person gets in as President....it will definitely be more easier to pray for that person. Yeah, blah, blah, blah!!!!

I have been looking at different cards on the Internet......getting ideas for Christmas cards. I saw this little gem yesterday and totally fell in love with it......isn't he cute??? Need to find this stamp.

I ordered this new stamp, an addition to my collection of many. A woman I knew years ago, borrowed me this stamp and I made a few cards with it. I had to return it and so naturally, I have looked high and low for this stamp.

Found it on the Internet, someone had made a card with this Great Blue Heron.....where did they get that stamp????? So I followed her link and found it at Repeat Impressions in Maine. I can hardly wait to start making cards with this Great Blue Heron. Hopefully I have the backing to start making a few cards for Hospice.

So today, we had the Electric and Gas Co. put in a new meter, no charge to us.....they change up their gas meters every 25 years.....we have lived in this house 25 years. The gas man found 3 gas leaks and fixed them temporarily, the fix will last 6-12 months, then we should get the furnace guy here for fix it further. Maybe after winter, we might have a little bit more money then, I hope.

Today I returned At&t's 2 receivers and cords and 3 remotes to UPS. UPS packs and sends the product back to AT&T for free and if I did not return them by November 4th......BAM! I would get charged $300.00!!!!  

Next week, Friday, JP has to have a biopsy of the prostrate. He is not looking forward to it. It seems the Doctor thinks he has cancer. I guess we will find out then what the outcome will be. If you think about it, prayer would be appreciated for him and me.

Looks like in the next few days I will be raking leaves, our tree is really shedding, leaves all over the place. And it is time to get my ceramic critters in the shed....no, I still have not done that yet.

Time to close here....you all have a great night and keep looking up, better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise

Stampin'Up Camp Last Sunday

Hi there everyone. Hope you are having a good day. I started working and cleaning the yard....getting ready for winter...leaves are falling and our first frost is tonight. So I pulled off the tomatoes, don't want them to freeze tonight. The weather will get warmer after the frost....but then that would be too late and I don't want to lose the tomatoes that are growing still. But then again....this is October, and maybe I should be bringing things in and winterizing the yard for winter.

So last Sunday I went to a Stampin'Up camp. $15.00 to make these 4 items...PLUS I got one of the door prizes.....YAY....winner, winner, chicken dinner!!!! The top card is a 6x6 card stock folded up to make a pocket to hold a candy bar....pretty cute huh??

The card above was a little putsey, it took extra time to make, but the end product turned out really neat. The yellow star border was a punch....(thinking I will get that punch some day), the stars are a stamp. Now the star slides on the card. The slider part is a die cut. The star is mounted on two pennies to make the star roll along and glide on the card.

This is a the Halloween card. Turned out fun. Kathy has all the pieces put together, we just put the card together and color in what needs to be colored. Although "Frankenstein" was stamped, colored then punched with a punch. I may send this card to my daughter....she loves Halloween.

I really like this card....the leaf is a die cut....I think I might order this die cut, such a pretty card. I like the background embossing folder too. I tell ya, I could spend lots of money for Stampin'up products...I would go broke.

This was cute....Stampin'up has a monthly stamping kit...this months kit contained these little bottles, so Kathy gave us each one to decorate with the contents of the kit. (I brought the tube home, ate the m&m's, took the decorations off and put sequins in it. It became a useful tube to use.

This is my door prize. Lots of paper of different sizes and colors. I am sure they will come in handy.

So Yayyyyyyy, tomorrow is Saturday, what do you have planned??

I guess I will finish what I was doing in the yard today...maybe the next big thing is put the ceramic animals away for the winter, I may have to reorganize the shed where they are stored. You know how that goes, one thing leads to another and before I know it, I have 5 different projects going at one time. Whew...one thing that is nice, the mosquito's are not biting me.

You have a wonderful weekend and don't forget to watch the debate on Sunday....this should be the tale-tell debate and probably very dirty too.

Keep looking up cause better days are coming!!

Cheers ~ Louise

OH ~ NO How Can it be???

Hi there everyone....OH NO.....Christmas cards in the making. How do you like them...they actually are last years models. I bought the stamps and dies last year but never found the time to use them and was already making other Christmas card ideas.

So, I decided these will be my cards for this year. I don't have a lot made...this is just a start...but hey this is only October and I am already ahead of the game. I have about 35-40 people on my card list and I want to make at least 20-30 cards for Hospice using these cards.....so, I have maybe 70 or so cards to make????? With a few left over for just in cases. OH and then there is Etsy at least 10 cards each there (90 cards....hope I don't get board....maybe I will change them around a bit.) Guess that is why I need a head start for this year. Lol!!!

Between these two cards which one do you like the best....the top with 3 trees in blue, then stamped with black? I was trying a technique I saw last year and really liked it......helped a lot more using my "Misti" My thoughts? I like this card better, does not seem so busy with all the trees.

Or this card with 6 blue trees and not stamped in black??? Maybe if I made this card in the "landscape" position it would not look so busy. I shall try that idea tonight in my card making session. Doesn't hurt to try different things and ideas.

So here is a picture of the cards all stacked together....yeah, guess I have been busy lately.

I really need to get outside and winterize the house and put things away. I guess by this weekend we will be having some frost....so I better get my tomatoes in so they don't freeze.

Ceramic animals need to go into hibernation in the shed, and we need to cut things down and oh, oh the leaves are starting to fall....I will leave you with that one thought....it's a sure sign that winter is right around the corner.

In this card, are the die cuts I bought last year and never used.....I really like this card....but can't decide if I want to leave the top part white or color the sky in....still trying to decide.

I kinda like the top card, looks a bit more cleaner to me.

Here are all the cards together....fun to make, I rather like die cutting, it's like 1,2,3, and it is all done. Sequins, speckles and gems always add to the card.

So yesterday I had the "DirectTV" man at our house for about 4 hours. I changed from Uverse to Direct. Now we have a big Dish on our house......but hey, maybe I won't have to call At&t 3-4 times a hear to have them fix something and then get someone from a foreign country whom I cannot understand!!!!!

So now I have a phone number to call direct to "DirectTV" and skip the person I can't understand. So far so good....I even found a channel that has all day Hockey....now if that isn't fun, I really like hockey, maybe even more then football. At least one thing is for sure....hockey players stand for the National Anthem and if they don't, they can't play hockey that night. HA!!! take that Kapernack!!!

After getting DirectTV installed, I am supposed to get a $300 gift card from Sam's Club....that will be neat, maybe I will get a new TV or an Ipad or something I would never buy for myself.....or maybe use it to get food for a couple of months....have not decided yet. Whatever I get, it will help lots.

I have started a couple of other posts but have not finished them as yet. Sunday I went to a Stampin'Up Camp and need to finish that post and the third post I started but did not finish....just may not get finished....I was in a slump of sorts and am finally climbing out of whatever it was, must be the change in weather that effects me. I know my eyes were itching a lot....so I must have had allergies or something.

Well, time to close, need to walk Kylie around the block and for sure tonight I need to ride my stationary bike for 4-5 miles tonight. I missed last night, so I need to make up some time.

You all have a great couple of days and I will see you then, keep looking up, cause better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise