Happy 4th!

How are you spending your 4th of July today? I am fortunate to be off of work. I slept in, drank several cups of coffee watching Bravo (my shameless addiction), and went shopping for supplies for a little project I will post very soon! We are going to a friends house for a fiesta later this afternoon. But, here is a little refreshing drink recipe to help you celebrate the holiday!

Watermelon Cucumber Granita:

Its so very simple. Since the watermelon and cucumber naturally have a lot of moisture in them, you won't need to add water AND...since they both have naturally great flavors you won't need to add sugar either! So, this is one guiltless pleasure of a beverage!

You will need:  

One small seedless watermelon-cut into small pieces

One cucumber, seeded, and skinned-cut into small pieces

The zest of one lemon

Lemon juice to taste

In a blender put your chopped watermelon, cucumber, lemon juice (about 2 tablespoons of the pre-squeezed kind) and lemon zest. Blend until liquid.

Pour in a baking dish that is safe for the freezer and place in the freezer for about 3 hours or until completely frozen. About every 45 minutes or so scrape with a fork so you don't have one solid block. 

When it is completely frozen and nice and fluffy pour into a glass and enjoy!! If you want to jazz it up to make a refreshing cocktail you can add a shot of rum or your choice of liquor.

You can make many different variations. My sister and I messed around with a recipe on my visit. We made Watermelon Basil Granita and it was delish! If you want to be festive you could half the watermelon, scoop out the contents to leave the watermelon shell and pour it back in when its frozen. Tons of ideas!

Cheers and Happy 4th! 

Dog Days Of Summer

It is hot here in Texas and I think this explains the heat very well....

It is hard to do anything but lay around!

I have the day off today for the 4th. So, I got inspired to make dog bones and use my new dog bone cookie cutter that I picked up in Santa Fe from Teca Tu. I surfed the net and perused various dog bone recipes, fused a few together, and came up with my own. My pooches love peanut butter so I decided to make peanut butter dog bones. Dogs and sugar don't mix well so it is important to use all natural peanut butter without granular sugar added.

Want to make your own? Here is the recipe I came up with. I am going to work on refining it to make it even more organically dog healthy friendly. I will update when I do.

Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits:

1/2 cup of cornmeal
2 cups of whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder
6 tablespoons of olive oil
1 cup of 1% milk
1 cup of natural peanut butter

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. In another bowl mix together the peanut butter, olive oil, and milk. Combine. Roll out on a lightly flowered surface. Cut your biscuits. Place them on a non stick cookie sheet. Bake for about 35-40 minutes. Cool them on a cookie rack. Feed to your doggies!

I made some for Luna and Millie.

And of course some for their best bud Max.

Luna scarfed hers down and Millie savored on it a bit. I guess they were good!

That is Millie savoring....

Cheers!


R.I.P Chica. You lived a full and very long life. You will be missed! You would have eaten the dog bones with the best of them.

Happy 4th!

So.....I had a nice quite night alone on the 4th. I can hear fireworks right now actually. At least my neighbor is not firing them off across the street like last year, but it is not 1 o'clock in the morning yet. I remember that last year the 4th was on a Thursday and I had to work the next day. Right around 1 o'clock I shot straight up out of bed because it sounded like I was under attack. I swear scud missiles were flying at my house. Then I realized it was my drunken neighbor and his friends. It had not rained in days and I thought for sure the house was going to catch on fire since we were in the middle of a drought.

Needless to say, I was not a happy camper and it kept me up until 3am, mostly because I was paranoid that he would catch the whole neighborhood on fire and...not to mention the screeching of the firecrackers. This is also the neighbor who's recycling bin fell over and all 3 trash bags of beer cans and bottles rolled into my yard and sat there for a few days and he never did anything with them. So, one morning, on my way to work, I picked them all up and put them in my recycling bin while beer leaked all over me. Hmmm....can you sense my animosity? Well, at least he is helping save mother earth by recycling, gotta give him props for that. Ha!!

Well, anyhoo, I stayed home and had a nice quite evening for the 4th. I updated my blog, had my favorite drink (rum, lime juice and Perrier), ate a skinny cow ice cream sandwich, watched Super Bad, and spun some more yarn. Meet Kate, Lazy Kate. She holds my yarn for me:

The yarn is called marigold. I am getting a bit better at this spinning thing, but I certainly am not perfect yet. I can't wait to knit with it! July is usually when I start making Christmas gifts, just because it takes from July until December to get everything ready. I have not quite figured out what I am going to do this year but I betcha it will have something to do with handspun yarn!

Cheers and Happy 4th!!