Update on the fast few months...

Man, time sure flies when you are having fun. You blink and a few months have already gone by and then March is knocking on the door.

First it started with a huge snow storm right after Christmas. Between Christmas and New Year's, we ended up getting 14 inches of snow...very unheard of for our area...that hasn't happened since 1989. We've had 2 more snow falls since then, which is still highly unusual for our area.

Then January brought the selling of Girl Scout Cookies and we are currently still in the midst of that. You should now be seeing the girl scouts selling the cookies in front of your favorite stores. My Daisy and Junior are having a blast selling cookies this year and are still taking orders if you are interested!


February brought us to Valentine's Day! The girls and I made these tasty treats for their classes. We made pink popcorn balls and "cutie bugs" out of nutter butter cookies and pretzels. They were alot of fun to make and even more special was the look on the kids faces in their classrooms when they saw them.

February was also spent aboard the Spirit of Norfolk. We got to share a cruise with good friends of ours, Audrey and Tim. A great time was had by all, enjoying the food and fellowship.

I'll leave you with a great recipe that you will definately have to try. We recently re-discovered Zataran's Black Eyed-Peas and Rice. What makes it so special you ask? It's the "Hoppin John" recipe on the back that will get to purchase this by the case load. I say we rediscovered it because we haven't been able to find it in our local grocery stores anywhere. Believe me, we've looked! We've also tried the recipe with other versions of Zataran's rice and beans and it's just not the same. On a recent trip to the commissary, I found this and purchased 4 boxes of them.

Here's what you need:

1 box of Zataran's black eyed peas and rice

chicken broth (box will tell you how much)

onions - sliced

4 large bone-in pork chops

salt and pepper to taste

oil for frying pork chops

Start by adding some oil to the hot pan. Season your pork chops with salt and pepper on both sides. Sear them just until you get them golden on each side, they will cook later in the rice/broth mixture. Remove them from the pan. Add chicken broth to the pan (it will tell you on the back of the box how much to add..although it says to use water...the broth will give it so much more flavor) and the box contents. Stir to combine. Add your pork chops back into the pan and add a sliced onion on top of each chop. Cover and simmer for about 30-45 minutes, depending on how thick your chops are.

This one pot meal is definately worth trying. We wrote to Zataran's when we couldn't find the exact rice/beans we were looking for and they said that we could order directly from them if our area stopped selling this particular flavor. So definately be on the lookout for it.

Hard to imagine Hannah will be turning double digits in just a few short weeks and Sami will be 7 not far behind her! Yowsa!