Bird House

The old bird house bit the dust and I do mean bit the dust. During our windy days this winter it blew from the tree onto the stones below and broke in two. It was to be replaced anyway because some critter made the hole so much bigger. So now there is a new bird house out there, I hope I'm not too late for the birds to use it this year.I had some gourds left from when I thought I wanted to be a gourder, so just make a hole, clean it out,  decorate and hang..

Too Nice

Its too nice of a day to spend it in the church basement making quilts. I wonder if they all will show up. I made a cole slaw with mandarin oranges and pineapple for the soup supper tonight. It's supposed to be 80 today, a little warm for soup.
I've been working on a new gourd bird house. The old one blew out of the tree and broke in two. Some critter already had made it useless by chewing around the opening to make it big enough for it to get in. I suspect a squirrel.

Lifeline Screening

Our Church was the sight of a Lifeline Screening event, so I went down for an hour and a half to welcome people, offer coffee, juice and cookies plus Portals of Prayer booklets and even a Bible if anyone wanted one. There were 80 people coming through for the screening today.
Next week we will have Spring, just hope old man winter doesn't return.

Chili Cook-off

Last night was the chili cook-off at Church We had 14 chefs submitting their chillies to be judged including me. At first they had few chefs so I signed on but couldn't use my normal recipe because my husband called it "its not chili chili" so I made up a recipe using chuck steaks and adding different ingredients that I though would be good. I didn't win but I thought my chili was pretty good. My friend that made the turkey chili won the for best chili and for the mildest. I guess we had a bunch of wimps voting for the best.

I also want to post this picture of my daughter. As a baby we used to call her the Michelin man because of all the creases on her chubby legs and arms. So here is my Michelin baby.

Chicken Supreme

 I tried a new recipe I made for a Lemont Clergy lunch my Pastor was hosting. It was pretty good, but I would make a few changes. I will post the original ingredients and also what I would do to make it better in red.


Chicken Supreme
1 cooked rotisserie chicken, cut up in bite size pieces [I baked 3 boneless chicken breasts and 4 thighs seasoned with McCormick Rotisserie chicken spice]
1 medium sweet onion, chopped
3 cans cream of mushroom soup [ I would use 2 cans of soup and a can or more of milk]  to make it juicier
1 pint sour cream
1/2 cup freshly cooked or canned mushrooms [ I think I would use more, but I like mushrooms]
20 1" cube velveeta [ I would cut it up smaller because you get a big chunk of semi melted velveeta every once  in a while, also 20 1" chunks is about 1/2 of the large velveeta]
1-1/2 pounds of your choice of spaghetti[ I would use picolini, or mini shells or bowties and maybe only a pound]
1-1/2 sleeve of Ritz crackers, crushed
1 stick of melted butter

Saute onion till almost carmelized and add to chicken. Add the soup and sour cream to chicken and stir in. Cook the pasta, drain and add to bowl and mix. Add cut-up velveeta and stir in. Pour into buttered 9x13 pan. Add cracker crumbs to butter and mix  thoroughly. Place on top of casserole.
Cover with foil and cook in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. For a browner top uncover for the last 15 minutes.

Paczki Day

I wasn't feeling well Sunday night and yesterday, but today I am feeling better and had to go to Celina's for my fix of paczki., 2 raspberry and one rose. I never heard of rose jelly until I read an article in the Trib about a bakery making hundreds of paczki and they mentioned this rose jelly made from rose petals. I tried it and it sure is strange tasting, a sort of floral sweet. My "Busia" used to make them and as I recall she used raspberry and maybe prune. They were good.
I took my dose of Sudafed and hope my sinuses get tamed down and my headache goes away. Have a meeting to go to tonight and Cut and Sew tomorrow. We are now making quilts 2 times a month, so should have more to give away to those that need them.

Drawing 101

This is a drawing I did of VanGogh's  At Eternity's Gate. Mine is on the right. So then I decided this would be cool to carve, but I needed a side view to cut out my block. I drew the side view easily and did the  front view,  but  with a few  suggestions from my teacher, I managed to get the front view in sync with the side view. This should be a fun project.