Thimbleanna – Page 146 – My little online diary.

Spaghetti Salad

20 Comments / April 3, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Recipes

Randi over at I Have to Say is once again hosting a recipe swap. This time she said we could pick the theme. I saw my first real sign of spring here today which means warmer weather is on its way, so my theme is going to be warm weather food. (My first real sign of spring happened this morning. On the way to work, I noticed our duck couple waddling across the front yard. They come back every year. We never see any ducklings though — maybe they just used our yard for their courtship every year and then move on to somewhere else to raise some little ducklings. I would have taken a picture of them tonight, but I couldn’t find them. They’re at the end of this post from last year, if you really want to see them.)

Anyway, back to my warm weather recipe: Spaghetti Salad. This is my boys’ hands down favorite pasta salad. I’ll bet your kids will love it — especially if you have one like TheSecondChild, who puts ranch dressing on almost everything. (TheFirstChild drowns everything in catsup — do you suppose it’s my cooking????)

Years ago, some work friends and I went to a local restaurant one day for lunch. This salad was on the salad bar. When we got back to work, we couldn’t stop talking about how much we loved this spaghetti salad. So, I thought, what the heck — I’ll just call and see if they’ll give me the recipe. They put the chef on the phone and he told me how to make it! Of course, he gave me proportions to feed an army, but I scaled them down. Please excuse the picture — there should be celery in this salad, but SOMEone (and I’m not naming names) forgot to get the celery that was clearly written on the shopping list. (The parsley is missing too, but it’s excused because I grow my own and it’s still too cold outside!)

Spaghetti Salad

Ranch Dressing**
1 t. parsley
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup celery
1 t. whole celery seed
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Approximately 1 lb. spaghetti

Cook the spaghetti according to package directions and drain. Rinse with cold water and let cool for 10 – 15 minutes. Add all other ingredients and enough of the ranch dressing to coat the spaghetti.
You’ll probably want to adjust the ingredient proportions to suit your family’s tastes. To be honest, I really don’t follow the proportions very carefully — I just look at the list of ingredients and dump them all in until it tastes about right!

** If you can’t buy Ranch dressing where you live, you can find recipes all over the internet. Just google “homemade ranch dressing”.

I hope you’re all having a good week and finding some time to squeeze in what YOU want to do!

XOXO,
Anna

There’s a Monkey on My …. Foot

35 Comments / April 1, 2008 March 8, 2016 / Knitting, Socks

I finally, finally, FINALLY got my first pair of monkey socks done. WooHoo!!! They seemed to take forever to finish — probably because I was so hit-and-miss when I worked on them — only once or twice a month. How pathetic!

It really took me a long time to get used to the pattern. I read on Ravelry where someone said that by the time you did the 11-row repeat two or three times, you’d have the pattern all figured out. At my remedial pace, it took me until the last half of the second sock to really “feel” the pattern. Up until that point, I found them to be a pain in the behind — mostly because I would mess them up terribly while talking to someone and have to rip back several rows.

All along, I thought I wouldn’t make this pattern again, but now that I’ve had my lightbulb moment, I’ll definitely try them again. Plus, I really like the appearance of these socks and they’re pretty cozy.

There does seem to be one drawback though. When my trusty model SweetiePie put them on, this monkey came screaming around the corner and grabbed her pant leg. And he wouldn’t let go. I was just glad his sister monkey didn’t put in an appearance — she’s lurking around here somewhere. (I think maybe TheEmptyNestChild absconded with her some time ago — you know his affinity for all things stuffed.)

SweetiePie tried to get him to let go by crossing her feet, but he was having none of it. He finally let go and ran off when he spied TheEmptyNestChild lurking across the room. It was such a relief to get that monkey off her … foot.

I hope you’re all enjoying your week and that SOMEone SOMEwhere is having a taste of spring, because it’s clearly still winter here!

XOXO,
Anna

P.S. My monkeys are made from Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Yarn (which is just yummy!) on size 2 dpns with this wonderful pattern.

Good Luck Comes in Threes

34 Comments / March 29, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Chat

Well, Hello! I’m back from my week’s travel, it’s a beautiful sunny Saturday, and I’ve got goodies to show you. I’ve been a very lucky girl in the last several weeks and I’ve received some adorable gifts that I’m so excited about that I can’t keep them to myself.

First up, that oh-so-sweet Mrs. Farmhouse sent me some awesome eggs made out of old quilts. I LOVE them! They came all wrapped up in a clear plastic bag and I could hardly bear to unwrap them. It was necessary though, in order to get a decent photo without plastic-glare. Aren’t they cool? I had never seen anything like them and I love them (oh sorry, I already said that — I think I’m saying love too much too, but oh well — I mean it!) I love the tag that came with them too. I’m thinking I’ll surely have to leave them out year round.

And what the heck??? Look who jumped into that bowl with those eggs. An Easter-Annie! I’m sure I don’t even need to tell you where she came from — but I will anyway — it was non other than Ms. Sharon! She’s soooo cute — I’m crazy about her! Look at the little easter bunnies on her dress. Both of these gifts were totally unexpected and I’m SO touched to have received them.

(Naturally, TheEmptyNestChild thinks EasterAnnie is for him…you may remember he loves stuffies. Have no fear however, EasterAnnie will be safely placed out of his reach!)

And last, but certainly not least, last summer I signed up for a PIF from the Fabulous Mrs. Locket and it arrived this week!!! She sent me a famous Locket Wallet, an adorable pincushion (with an embroidered depiction of her little Fred selling cakes) and some English tea. (The tea was an incredibly considerate alternative to candy — since we’re both watching the goodie intake. And may I just say that Ms. Locket has been much more successful than me!)

I Lurve my little wallet and pincushion. How cute is that cupcake fabric??? It’s the perfectly sized wallet for outings with my little felted purse — my normal wallet is too big.

And look how cool — I was worried about where to store coins with this little wallet, but it has a zipper on the back with a pocket that will be just perfect. I love the cupcakes, the pink, the polkies — just everything about this little wallet.

So, thank you, thank you to all of you….Karen, Sharon, and Lucy! You’re all wonderful real-imaginary friends and I HEART all of you! I would say your kindness has rendered me speechless, but clearly I’m still talking. It’s had that same effect though, on the heart, and I’m very grateful to all of you!

Now, I’ll leave you with a pic of sweet little EasterAnnie. I thought it was funny how that fickle EmptyNestChild left her (see his tail as he walks away?) She’s still happy though LOL!

Have a great weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

Oh, P.S. If you want to see some more cuteness, check out this little owl. Aaaccckkkk! And, if you’re in the US, don’t forget that this week is cupcake week on Martha. Here’s a link to a cupcake promo — I hope this means some of the recipes for the cupcakes shown will be on the show this week. ;-)

The Bluebird Table

40 Comments / March 25, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Holidays, Sewing

Well, that was a little unplanned blog break! A special thank you to all of you who took the time to send me an e-mail when you came here to leave a comment and found a bunch of gobbledygook. My webhost has been migrating to new servers for months now and I think it occasionally causes problems. Hopefully it’s over now, but I have my reservations — my site hasn’t been migrated to the new servers yet, so there may be rough patches ahead. Happily, I’m on travel this week, so that helped with the blog withdrawal LOL!

Anyhoo, when I made the aforementioned hot cross buns on Easter, I took the dough over to MeMums to rise and bake, as no one else in my family will eat them. While I was there, MeMum was setting the table for Easter dinner and she decided to use some new bluebird dishes that she got last year. Along with the tablecloth and napkins that I made her for Christmas. (I got the linen from Gray Line Linen in Manhattan — I love that place! It’s hard to find linen wide enough for a tablecloth, but they have several options.)

Oops! I never finished the binding on those napkins. (Oh, come on — tell me you’ve never given a partially finished present in the heat of battle!) So, while the hot cross bun dough was doing its thing, I worked on napkin bindings. I got them done just in the nick of time.

A few posts back I mentioned that if you only know one thing about MeMum, it’s that she’s a perfectionist. Well, another thing is that she LOVES dishes. Of all kinds. But especially if they’re blue. (Gurney! Avert your eyes! (Gurney doesn’t like birds — I think they creep her out — was it too many viewings of The Birds, Gurney?))

I thought I’d show you MeMum’s lovely table setting. Our dinner was divine and very traditional: Ham, cheesy potatoes, green beans almondine and salad. To be truly traditional for us, it should have been a jello salad, but MeMum opted for a tomato-vinagrette salad. I missed my spring jello, but the tomatoes were delicious. And fresh coconut (BigDaddy grates the coconut for MeMum) cake for dessert. Yum!

Have a good week!

XOXO,
Anna

Happy Easter!

14 Comments / March 23, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Holidays

Inspired by several UK bloggers, I decided to try some Hot Cross Buns. Wow, that was fun!

I used this recipe, which I think is more traditional (but I could be wrong?) I wanted to try the English version of Hot Cross Buns, rather than the American version, but I have to admit the American in me kind of wanted some icing (LUV icing!) on those buns(it looks like icing in the picture, but it’s just a lighter colored dough.) I substituted milk for the water and milk powder, and I used golden syrup for the glaze. They were yummy and I’d like to make them again. This batch didn’t rise quite as high as I would have liked — the dough stuck to the cloth that I had covering the buns while they were rising and when I removed the cloth, they fell back a little. They were still great, but next time I’ll be more careful.

I just love all of your blogs and all the inspiration I get from them. I hope you’re all having a wonderful Easter!

XOXO,
Anna