Our Thanksgiving Weekend

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving! From the ones I talked to, it sounds like they had a nice time.

Fortunatly for us, we managed to get on the road about mid-day Thursday. We were literally the next to the last truck to get loaded before the warehouses closed for the day. Whew! Lucky us! The others were left sitting till Friday to get loaded.

We also managed to get a good Thanksgiving meal, even if it wasn't home cooked. There is a resteraunt there in Yuma, AZ where we've eaten before. It's right next to a truck stop, so we're able to park and walk there. And they were open on Thanksgiving and of course had the traditional Thanskgiving dinner on special. We got it all, including the "I've over eaten" gross feeling afterwards! Actually Malcolm had the Prime Rib. He's not a big turkey person. But I had the turkey and dressing with mashed potatoes, carrots, salad, and a roll, and it came with your choice of pumpkin pie or caramel apple bread pudding. I had the bread pudding and it was really good, but I could only eat about 3 bites of it cause I was so stuffed and it was my turn to drive. Good thing it was still daylight or I would have been asleep as soon as the truck started moving.

So that was our Thanksgiving day. We drove all day, all night and got to Billings around noon on Friday. We dropped the trailer at Steve's and went home. Malcolm's mom and sisters had come to Billings to do some shopping so we did go out and meet them for dinner, and afterwards ran to Lowe's so Malcolm could try and figure out why our smoke detecors are going off everytime we come home. He thinks maybe they are going out. They are the type that are wired into the houses electracal system so we have to flip a breaker to turn them off and that turns off the power to the upstairs bedroom and bath. While he was doing that, I looked at artificial Christmas trees. I think I'm going to try and get one in the after Christmas sale. I'm tired of spending money on real trees, and I'm really tired of putting lights on trees. Those pre-lit trees are a magnificent idea. Wish I could come up with somethign brilliant like that and make my fortune!

Saturday when we woke up, Malcolm had a head cold, and was feeling rotten so he spent the day in the recliner with all three of the girls. They watched the Star Wars marathon on Spike TV. Ella also mastered the going up and going down of stairs all on her own in less than a day. She loves to go up to our room and play....and potty....so we have to watch her. She'll follow Carlie upstairs, and then Carlie will leave her and come back to the basement where we are. Ella won't go down those stairs yet, so she gets left by herself upstairs to do who knows what!

Yours truly went Christmas shopping. I got a little done, and had a good time, and also had a lot of other places I wanted to go, but I decided to hit Walmart and head home early because we were leaving that night. So I got home around 3:00 and fixed dinner. All I have to say is "thank you Walmart" for the rotissery chicken. I've heard they are really good, so I decided I wasnt' going to cook and make a mess and I wasn't going to have yet another boxed pizza. I grabbed a chicken, and boiled some new potatoes when I got home. Add to that the left over biscuits from breakfast and it was a great meal. Delicious. And since we hadn't had a "home" Thanksgiving, I also bought a frozen cherry pie and some vanilla ice cream and we enjoyed that while we watched more Star Wars.

We started to leave around 8:00 last night, but once we got to the truck in the garage with all our stuff and the girls, Malcolm discovered we had a flat tire. So he has to patch it and air it up, and so we didn't actually get out of there till almost 9:00. And so here we are, in Salt Lake City on our way to Los Angelas.

I talked to Grandma on the phone Thursday and she asked if we had moved in yet, which reminded me that I had pictures of my kitchen that I wanted to post. Its one of two rooms that are finished in the house, and its my favorite room right now. Check it out...

And because its a log house, it has these little cubby holes that just happen to house my chicken collection perfectly.

Well I guess they don't show up that well, but you can kind of get the idea.

Back to my rotisserie chicken from Walmart. I have a recipe for you that I cooked last time we were home. It calls for two cups of shredded rotisserie chicken. I didn't have one so I just used some regular chicken, but here's my thoughts....go buy yourself a walmart rotisserie chicken adn have it for dinner. But before you serve it, pull off two cups of chicken. Now you've got two meals out of the same bird. Also this has two jalapeno peppers in it, but it is NOT hot! Seriously, its really good.

One more note before I share the recipe. The recipe calls for bacon, but its used as a garnish, so my non-bacon eating friends can easily leave it out. And it used the bacon drippings for sauteing the veggies, but just use olive oil or butter.

Easy Posole Skillet

4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

1/4 c snipped fresh cilantro

2 plum tomatoes, seeded and diced

1 med zucchini, sliced

1 mid green pepper, diced

2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and finely chopped

1 sm onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 c chicken broth

2T all purpose flour - or - masa harina

1 can hominy, drained and rinsed

2 c shredded rotisserie chicken

2 c shredded chihuahua cheese (or mozzerella)

Cook peppers, onion and garlic in 2T bacon drippings over medium heat for 2 minutes.

Add broth and flour and cook 1 minute.

Add hominy, chicken, and zucchini and cook three minutes or until slightly thickened, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low and stir in half the cheese. Top with reserved cheese, tomatoes, bacon and cilantro. Cover and cook two more minutes.

Now, mine got too thick so I ended up using the whole can of chicken broth, which ended up making it more like a stew, but it was really good. And I held back the tomatoes, bacon, cheese and cilantro and just used them as garnishes on top of the served dish. And I served it with cornbread muffins.

This recipe was really good, and it was a perfect meal for two with some left over for lunch the next day. Hope you give it a try and enjoy!