Apple and Pear Harvest salad.

Quick, easy and soooo yummy!

What you need:

• Chopped baby Spinach
• Chopped and cored Apples and Pears (I kept the skins on)
• Chopped Walnuts (toasted or not!)
• Crumbled Feta cheese
• Lemon juice

So the amounts for the above is up to you.  For a large salad I used about 3 cups of the spinach, 2 apples, one pair, 1/2 cup of walnuts and like a 1/3 cup of the feta.

I first cut the spinach and added the feta and walnuts earlier in the day so it was ready to go. Then right before dinner I chopped the apples and pears.  I sprinkled the lemon juice on them right on the cutting board.  I gave them a little toss to make sure they were covered.  Then I threw them in the salad..

My dressing for this salad was http://szareksden.blogspot.com/2011/09/honey-poppy-seed-dressing.html
It was so good!.  We had it with grilled pork tenderloin.  I cut up my tenderloin and added it into the salad.  it was amazing. the dressing went so well with the pork.  In fact it was so good we ate all the pork.  The photo above is what is left of my amazing salad..I am taking it to work with some grilled chicken. 

Later this week I hope to blog about my grocery shopping experiment.  What I will tell you now is that the pork tenderloin was from Aldis – it was priced $3.99 a pound.  It only took about 15-20 minutes to grill on medium heat.  Pork tenderloin is so good for you and really not that badly priced.  15-20 minutes is not too much time for a good amazing healthy meal. 

I didn’t figure the calories yet for this dinner but I am not too worked…what was bad?  I added EVOO to my dressing but that was my daily fat intake.  Walnuts are good for you and I only used 1/3 of a cup. 

Try it you will like it…love it

Honey poppy seed dressing

I love quick and easy dressing.  You all know me by now, I don’t measure; I just whisk, stir and pour!  Back in June I posted the worlds greatest and easiest dressing.  The poppy seed dressing is the distant every happy cousin of the worlds greatest dressing!

So this is what I think I used to make it! lol sorry

• 1 tablespoon of honey
• 1 tsp of trivia
• 1 tablespoon of mustard (I love that Irish stout mustard by Hannaford's)
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup of Rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup of Extra virgin olive oil  (EVOO)
• 1 1/2 tsp of poppy seeds

In a glass measuring cup whisk the first 4 items together.  Then add in the rice vinegar to the mix.  Once everything is happy I start drizzling in the EVOO while whisking.  Once blended add the poppy seeds.

I serve mine right out of the measuring cup because it makes it easy to pour onto your salads.   You could also add a tsp of lemon juice or lemon zest if you wanted.  hmm actually I think Orange juice or orange zest would rock.  See this is why I love dressing just typing this I came up with 2 more!

Well for now Paul Newman dressing doesn’t need worry because I have work tomorrow and the kids start swim lessons. However, if I get a minute I could start Kristens dressing! You heard it first

yummy chicken

My addition to pinterest is growing.  Its mostly foods that I pin…Here is my newest!.  Its so easy I evened tried it Sunday night after I came home from shopping.

The line for the website and the photo borrowing is: here

It was really yummy and easy.  David liked it and so did Emma.  The only alteration I made to the recipe was that when it calls for added the lemons, I also added sliced zucchini, and button mushrooms.  While the dish was cooking I added a pinch of thyme and Lake George seasoning from old goat.

Less than a half n hour – so fresh tasting and yummy

Our day in Old Forge

I love fall camping in the ADK.  However its getting harder and harder to do so. Tyler is now in school and has soccer.  David and I always busy.  We wanted to go up and do some things in old forge on a fall day so we opted to just get a hotel room.  The kids have only stayed in a hotel like 2 or 3 times so it was exciting to them.

We arrived around 7pm and there were 2 deer waiting for us!  the kids were so excited they were jumping around the room.  We took them to the indoor pool to get some energy out.   Finally they crashed. David and I didn’t sleep two well – we were waiting for one of them to fall of the bed, around 2am Tyler did.  The kid slept right thru it – David picked him up sleeping off the floor and put him back into bed.  They wanted to know if we could sleep in hotels more often!

We took the kids to the muffin patch for a very expensive breakfast! Who knew that old forge had its own inflation rate.   lol  None the less, the kids loved their ginormous strawberry waffles!  The food was great!!

It was still rather brisk about 45degrees, so we decided to do the train in the morning.  we would be inside the car and its heated.  We were hoping to go south to otter lake but the 10am train goes to carter station. As we were waiting the conductor came over and said he couldn’t get the heat working so dress warm! lol

The kids had fun, they saw deer and turkeys, even some kayakers!  The views were nice as the leaves are starting to turn!

After the train we headed over to McCauley Mountain for the scenic chair lift.  I wasn’t sure how this was going to go.  I have a fear of heights, Tyler gets nervous up high; David and Emma have no fear.  On the way up David took Tyler first, I was stuck with Emma.

She had no fear.  She was moving all around trying to look behind us, and then under us.  I could feel the chair swinging – I was freaking out inside.  This is why I don’t ski, okay its only 1 reason why I don’t ski! How do you keep a 2 year old still when your body is paralyzed by fear?  after a few minutes I started to relax (till the way down!lol)
It was so worth the ride to see the views.




Tyler was so funny on the way down (yeah I made David take Emma) he says look mom – look at that lake. if we didn’t go up this mountain we would of never known it was there!  He was looking at 1st lake!!
After that we had lunch and walked around the village.  We sat at the coffee shop and watched the firemen’s parade.  The kids received fire hats and tons of candy.  After that we headed south but we took a fast detour to the Buffalohead for dinner!!
It was a great trip that like all others, went too fast.

Kindergarten Flooding

Its funny how time just flies buy.  It seems like just yesterday Tyler was born, then he was walking, then he was in Preschool and now Kindergarten. 

Being a mother that fights change like the Democrats fight the republicans, the last few weeks have been challenging.  It would be so much easier if Tyler was going to Mrs. Murphy's class again.  She was an amazing teacher – and I hope it works out that Miss. Emma gets to go to her too.

Before taking Ty to school we snapped two photos at home:

The way our district starts school for the kindergarteners is unique.  On Wednesday we took Tyler to school at 9am.  We all met in the cafeteria until the teachers came and took the students and parents to the room.  There we stepped over each other to sort out supplies and find cubbies with our children’s names.  Most of the students were excited to be starting school and all the new things around them.  The moms were fighting the tears while taking in all the new things around them! In the middle of this David asked me what is wrong…really why would you ask that?!!!

After things settled down the parents left to sit in the cafeteria to have their first meeting with the principal.  No matter what I do I always end up in trouble!  The kids got to read a book, play a game and go on a bus ride.  After the bus ride they were given ice cream at 10am – yes that’s right the district wanted to show them how cool school is ice cream before lunch!  We finished up the day with a game before going home by 11. 

It was nice to go to school with them and see everything and be involved.  However, it was emotional all day.  It feel more like the band aid was slowly being ripped of me.  In some ways I was just looking forward to putting him on the bus and waving good bye.

Thursday was to be the first full (non parent at the school, riding the bus) day of school.  The bus was going to arrive at 825 at daycare….However, at 630am we were put into a 2 hour delay for the flooding of 2011.  Half of the town was underwater thanks to topical storm dumping about 5” of rain in less than 24hours.  By 7am that delay had turned into a cancellation as Route 233 was closed from the thruway to 12b. The town was a mess.

Friday became the new First full day.  David was home so I ran to work and was going to meet them at daycare to see Ty get on the bus.  These are the photos David took:

Think he is excited?!! lol

 

Dad really no more photos!! I just want to get on the bus!

And with that the bus pulled away with one happy kid aboard.  And pulling in behind the bus was mommy – who missed the entire damn thing. I didn’t get to wave goodbye. I didn’t get to see him climb those stairs that are half his size!  Ugh.  I drove to the school and watched him get off the bus.  I tried for him to not see me (but he did) because I wasn’t suppose to be there.  This was suppose to be his moment.  He wouldn’t look at me. I felt awful..what kind of mother misses that?  Everyone keeps telling me its no big deal the teachers don’t get to see their kids get on the bus. But they have 5 yrs to mentally prepair for that – I had to accept that as I pulled into daycare after a 10 minute road rage behind a stupid tractor trailer. No family photo, no sunshine, no mommy.

He seemed to love his first day.  He was happy and hyper all night.  The funny part – he had a sign around his neck that said eating lunch at school and buying lunch was his favorite part!  Lunch had been my biggest fear! lol.  So the day went down in history not matching up with my supermom visions that I had been dreaming of but it was a good day.