Frederick's Chicken Report

I hope you all had a nice weekend. We had a great one visiting with family and seeing some of the grand kids. Usually I am a bit nervous when the Mr. and I are both gone over the weekend as many times we have come home to sad stories from the coop. This time we decided to leave Frederick the cat in charge of the flock and the new, young rooster. Many of you expressed interest in how that might turn out (me included) so, let's go find Frederick and see. - There he is in the library.

Frederick's report: "Well, to make a long story short....It was gruelling...First, right off of the bat, Friday morning that nasty Falcon got on the run fence and started going after the chickens causing all kinds of feathers and noise..so, being the good sitter that I am, I quickly climb the fence and go into action at lightening speed, coming mere inches from the offending bird, it flies off and all of a sudden, I become the villain with the rooster chasing me right back over the fence!...Then Saturday, I hear several chickens making noise from the coop and go to investigate, with such a raucous, I'm sure that harm has come to them.. I get there in the nick of time as I find two of them trapped in small boxes fearing for their lives, I jump on the ledge to find out what could be after them and.....once again...I am the villain...they come after me and peck me on the head! Certain that they drew blood I ran for cover through my door in the house and to the safety of Library."




"The remainder of the weekend was more of the same! Now can I have my payment that you promised?"



Let's ask the girls their side of the story..."Hello girls, how was your weekend?"

"Brilliant idea mom, to leave the crazy cat in charge...He tried to kill us all weekend, you might as well have hired the coyote!"



"Alright Frederick...the girls confirmed your story...kind of, so here is your payment."

Lip smacking good, thanks mom!

*

Even though there seems to have been a huge communication gap, it all turned out in the end.

xo

Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

Happy Friday! It is such a beautiful day here at the City House and after some real nasty, grey weather it is a welcome sight. This has been a good trip with happy results from Kami's blood cell levels. She was house bound for awhile with daily shots to get those cells producing again (pesky chemo side effects) but with a positive lab report, we met at Fabric Depot for some retail therapy of the best kind...that would be, of course, fabric and notions with some discounts..yeah!

The Mr. is on his way down for a rare 3 day weekend and the grand kids will finally see Grandma and Grandpa at the same time. Frederick the cat has been left in charge of the chickens and will be making sure the new rooster keeps the flock in order....hmm, this will be interesting.

Hope you all have some happy plans for your weekend too! xo

Favorite Pan Share

Are you all ready to share your favorite pan this week? I realized after I suggested this, that it would be difficult for me to choose just one, so the Queen for the day will be the one I have been finding especially handy lately. Below is my versatile, enameled cast iron pot that slow cooked our steel cut oats all Saturday night and made our one pot dinner last night.




I though I would take this opportunity to share a meal that has been a go to for me on many occasions through the years.

If you do not have one of these steamer baskets, I stongly suggest getting one to have in your kitchen arsenol..it is a must. Turn the heat on, put in the basket and add water.


Last night I scrubbed up some potatoes and carrots quartering the potatoes and slicing the larger carrots in half lengthwise...most were small, sweet and thin.


Last, I cut large chunks of Polish Keilbasa rope sausage and added that to the pot with a sprinkling of dill weed to top it off. On goes the lid and about 20 minutes later....


Dinner is served and only one pot to clean. You can do the same thing with a Dutch oven or larger pot if you have a steamer basket that opens wide.
*
Now I will attempt to do a Linky trick so that we can all share....Hopefully, it will work and we can all go visiting each others blog...Off I go now...

Well, I couldn't figure it out and have no more time to waste on it, I have to travel today....I'm sorry and must say, very disappointed and am sick of feeling stupid over tech things....Maybe someday I'll figure it all out.

xo

Your Favorite Pan? and The Winner

Happy Friday all! Today we find out who won the cookbook and also an idea I have for next week. So I'll share the idea first.





We all have that favorite pan that we reach for time after time, you know, the one that never lets you down when you fry up Aunt Harriet's famous Chicken recipe. Well, how about if we all share our best pan..I will find out how to do that Linky thing and we can share with each other. I think it will be so much fun, we can actually see one of the tools that we use to feed our families.

Over the weekend you can be thinking about which one you want to share.

*

Now for the winner of the soon to be released cookbook "The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier".

Congratulations to....Carla from Favourite Vintage Finds Please email me your info and the book will be on advance order for you..ready to mail out upon the release on March 13th...Enjoy!

I hope you all have a joy filled weekend and please be 'looking' at those pans for next week! xo

New Family Member

We are welcoming a new member to the flock today. A week ago Saturday we had to say goodbye to Brewster the rooster. He was old and tired and just laid down and said I'm done, so off he went to the big 'run' in the sky. At first we thought the girls would be fine without a man to boss them around...Maybe not...
They misbehaved so bad, it was party, party, party escaping to all parts of the fields all around with no thought to danger. Monday, I put my foot down and went on Craigslist and found the handsome one above. He is only 5 months old and is afraid of the chickens...they went after him right off...but he will grow in to his responsibility.

We won't name him yet we will wait to see his personality. As he grows I will post and give updates.

Tomorrow night is the deadline for the cookbook giveaway, if you haven't left your comment you might want to hurry over here.

See you Friday morning! xo

Cookbook Giveaway

Happy Monday to you all and because tomorrow is Valentines Day and you all are such sweethearts, I will be giving away a cookbook. The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier. It will be released March 13, 2012 and you have a chance to have it show up in your mailbox.

It's easy to enter: All are welcome, no matter where you live!

Just tells us a favorite goodie that you will be preparing or having...maybe it is one that you had in the past or one that is on your wish list to enjoy.

The deadline to leave a comment is Thursday, 9:00 pm PST and I will announce the winner Friday morning.

A very Happy Valentines Day to you all! xo


Photo - Amazon.com

Garden Dreaming

There might be frost on the ground and temps in the 20's at night, but that doesn't stop me from dreaming about the garden.

The chickens are having thoughts of things to come also with their job of fertilizing and tilling the soil.



The seed catalogs have been arriving for weeks now and so I have been making lists while looking at the beautiful photos from this catalog put out by Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds...Oh my, the photos are stunning!



This is a very large, magazine style and size catalog and one that you really should have in your mailbox.



Territorial Seed Company is from Oregon and has built a broad audience and great reputation..I never go without this one and their seeds have been in our garden for over a decade.

Here are the links to Baker Creek and Territorial, I highly recommend them both to you.

Must run..I'm off again down the road and will check in on you all later today. Have a great Monday! xo

When Costco Gives You Lemons

Things have calmed down on the home front...whew, what a week! Finally there is hot water in the Little House again, a brand new water heater was installed on Thursday....Happy days are here again!

To celebrate, I am going to do something with my big bag of lemons from my trip to Costco and make sure my honey has something yummy next week while I'm down at City House.

I know what will be just the ticket......Lemon Cake and I will take one loaf with me to share with the hungry sweet tooth's down south!

Doesn't this look good...my mouth is watering. You can't go wrong with Barefoot Contessa's recipe. - Photo - James Merrel

I must be off to a much needed trip to the Salon (pesky roots).

Have a happy weekend! xo