In My World

2 servings 220 g chicken breasts, boneless, skinless, cut into thin cutlets 1 egg 1 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated 1 tbsp bread crumbs 2/3 cup My Mother's Tomato Sauce (recipe below) 2 bocconcini/fresh mozzarella 1-1/2 tbsp canola oil salt and ground pepper to taste Spread the tomato sauce into the bottom of a baking dish. Slice each breast horizontally into thin cutlets.  Flatten the cutlets between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and tenderize them using a meat pounder or rolling pin. Beat the egg in one shallow dish and combine bread crumbs and grated Parmesan in the other.  Dip one chicken cutlet at a time in the egg, let the excess egg drip off before coating the cutlet with the bread crumbs mixture.  Turn the cutlets to coat both sides. Heat the oil in a skillet on medium heat.  Saute the chicken cutlets 3-4 minutes on each side, until golden.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Transfer to the baking dish, placing them side by side on top of the...

This is one of the  best grilled pork chop recipe s I've ever tried!  The mushrooms weren't too exciting though. For 2 servings 1 clove garlic, finely chopped 2 green onions/scallions, finely chopped 1-1/2 tbsp. fresh cilantro, chopped, plus some whole leaves for garnish 2 tbsp. fish sauce (nam pla) 2-1/2 tbsp lime juice, freshly squeezed 1 tbsp. soy sauce, low-sodium 1 tsp sugar 1/2 tbsp. sesame seed oil 1/2 tbsp. whiskey 2 pork chops with bones or boneless 4 Portobello mushrooms 1 tbsp. canola oil 1 shallot 1/2 dried chili peppers, to taste 2 tsp. cornstarch. Finely chop the garlic, half of the scallions and half of the cilantro leaves, then put them in a shallow dish.  Pour in 1/4 of the fish sauce and 1/4 of the lime juice, the whole soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and whiskey.  Arrange the pork chops in the dish, turning them a couple times to cover well with the marinade.  Cover the dish with plastic wrap, then let marinate in the re...

For 2 servings 7 cups baby spinach (120 g) 6 button (white) mushrooms, thinly sliced 1 tbsp. lemon, freshly squeezed 1/2 orange, pressed and zested 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil salt and ground pepper to taste Prepare the spinach and put it in a large bowl.  Set aside Prepare the mushrooms by thinly slicing them and transferring them to a small bowl.  Season with salt and pepper and pour in half of the lemon juice.  Set aside. Grate half of the orange to obtain the zest, then juice it.  Put the zest and juice into a small bowl.  Pour in the remaining lemon juice, mustard and oil.  Add salt and pepper to taste, then beat well using a fork, until the vinaigrette is emulsified.  Pour the vinaigrette over the spinach. Peel the remaining orange, cut into small pieces and add to the spinach.  Add the mushrooms and toss well.  Serve. From soscuisine.com

I received my first royalty cheque today . . . WOO HOO! It's not huge but it certainly is nice. I think I can call myself a professional writer now . . . LOL To CELEBRATE, I have dropped the price on all my books by 20% until Friday at midnight. I hope you'll order at least one. See the tab at the top of my blog that says Book Store ?  Just click to see them all.

So I had this scathingly brilliant idea ** that each of us would create a layout with our New Year Resolutions.  First I had to explain what resolutions were . . . The next part of the plan was a photo of each of us on January 1st, 2012 to add to our resolution layouts. Have you noticed who is missing . . . sigh ?? ** scathingly brilliant comes from an old movie The Trouble with Angels **

Grandpa and I volunteered to have the boys for a sleep over on New Year's Eve.  We spent the night eating lots of snacks and making pizza; watching movies; and playing a serious game of Monopoly.  Love these photos.

Preparations are nearly completed for "A Day at the Beach" Letterboxing Mini-Meet in beautiful Port Stanley, Ontario. The Little Blue Team (our grandsons) have been busy carving a series of stamps which they will be planting themselves (with supervision of course) and it sounds like the clues will be kind of tricky. The boys had a great time at the Box ON event at Rockwood last year and want to use some of the ciphers they learned there in their clues. Grandpa and I have also been busy. We hope you will enjoy the locale and some of the surprises we have in store for you. I doubt if it will be warm enough to swim, but you just never know, I could be wrong. There are tons of amazing things to do in this picturesque little village . . . AND we will be planting letterboxes near many of these wonderful sites. The clues to all our boxes will go "live" at midnight on June 16th. To pick up a copy of the clues and a goodie bag full of local information and maps, meet u...

Austin is soooooooo excited to open his package of socks!! Every year since the beginning of our family we have always made sure that each boy's Christmas stocking contained socks, underwear, an orange and a candy cane.  My sons are now all grown up but every year I continued this tradition . . . until the year they made fun of the oranges.  So I stopped giving them oranges.  One year they made fun of the socks and underwear so the next year I stopped giving them as well.  I was surprised that they were disappointed not to get socks and underwear that sad Christmas morning.  Their reasoning was that they counted on those presents every year.  Traditions can take the weirdest forms.  I guess they better not make fun of their socks and underwear anymore.  Now I have two girls to buy for and they can expect socks every Christmas as well.

We asked our grandson where he wanted to go for lunch last week and he wanted Popeyes.  I'm surprised Grandpa agreed.  We've heard several bad reviews for the St. Thomas Ontario restaurant and Grandpa hates spicy.  But he did agree. I ordered popcorn shrimp combo, Grandpa ordered 2 pc chicken combo and T ordered the chicken bowl. We got our drinks and waited for our names to be called to pick up our order.  When the food arrived it was hot and delicious and fresh.  And by hot I mean temperature.  The mild is nice and mild. Hal and I really enjoyed our chicken.  Yep, that's right.  I got chicken.  I thought about complaining and waiting for my shrimp but I would have been eating my lunch while Hal and T were finished.  So I ate my chicken. I would go back again in a minute.  And so would Hal.  But next time I will double check my order before I sit down.  And I wouldn't order the mac and cheese -- taste...

photo taken December 2010 I haven't been to King's Buffet (St. Thomas ON) in almost a year since they got a new manager.  One reason is that Hal isn't home much so I don't go out to eat as often.  The second reason is because I did order in a couple of times and noticed the food wasn't nearly as good quality as it used to be.  One time the pan-fried noodles didn't even have soy sauce -- it was bland, white and dry.  I added soy sauce and it was okay.  The next time I ordered the lemon chicken was petrified.  That time I made them send out a new order free.  The third reason is that a year ago Christmas we all bought the new customer card.  We didn't get 12 months use of the card even though we paid full price.  A friend and I were going to go in for lunch in October but when they wouldn't let us use our customer card we left.  King's Buffet has been my husband's favourite restaurant since it opened here.  Even he refused to g...