It's All Good

It's pretty quiet here at the Stone House.  We spent three nights in Seattle last week.  Hubby went with me to the Seattle Gift Show to buy for the museum gift shop.  Honestly, there isn't much new in the retail world.  Some years everything seems fresh and new and some years it feels a little flat.  

I think the mounted sheep is disturbing but it's the only photo I took so there you go.  The wool felted wreath was pretty in real life.  I did pick up a few new lines.

We had dinner at Dahlia's, a Tom Douglas restaurant, that has been on my list for a long time.  The crab cakes were delish and the homemade donuts for dessert are pretty tasty.  We had an extra night in the city following my work at the show so we had some fun exploring the city.

It's always great to be in Seattle when the Seahawks are in the playoffs.  There is a lot of blue and green and many, many fans.  We had planned to watch the game close to the Clink but after walking for miles on Saturday, in the pouring rain, we changed our minds. We found a good spot, at UVill for the game of a lifetime.

Hubby and I watched the game again on Tuesday evening and I was so nervous.  AGAIN.  

Calm down, this turns out fine.  Mighty fine, indeed!

This week it's work, a church meeting, laundry, and closets to clean.

Yeah, not much here, not much to write about on the blog.

But all's well.

It's one of my favorite weeks of the year.  Christmas decor is put away, house is fairly tidy and I haven't felt pressure to start working on taxes.  It's a good week to read a book, clean a closet, and relax.

And Hubby and I have the same weekend.  Which officially begins tonight at 5:00 p.m.

Cheers!

Honey Sesame Tenderloin for Mom's Birthday

Yesterday was my Mom's birthday.  Hubby and I had the family over for dinner to celebrate Mom.  Almost everyone local could attend so we had a full house.  We decided to make a recipe that I love for the dinner.  I got this recipe from my friend, Gloria, many years ago.  Gloria is under hospice care now but she was a lovely and gracious hostess when she was well.  She also gave me the Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake recipe.  It's one of my favorite recipes.

You will have to read closely as I am going to share the original recipe, which serves 4.  Then I adapt and overcome to serve 20. 

Honey Sesame Tenderloin

1 pound whole pork tenderloin

1/2 c. soy sauce *I used GF

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 T. grated fresh ginger

1 T. sesame oil

1/4 c. honey

2 T. brown sugar

4 T. sesame seeds

Combine the soy sauce, garlic, ginger and sesame oil.  Place the tenderloin in a heavy plastic bag, pour the mixture over the tenderloin to coat. Let marinade overnight in the fridge,  Remove the pork from the marinade and pat dry.  Mix the honey and brown sugar in a shallow pan.  Place the sesame seeds in a separate shallow pan. Roll pork in the honey mixture, coating well. Then roll in the sesame seeds.  Roast in a shallow pan at 375 degrees for 20-30 minutes.  Slice thinly and serve.

Dinner for 20

I purchase the huge pork loin at Costco.  Hubby cuts the fat off so the marinade gets to the meat.   Marinade in a 2 gallon zip bag.  I used four times the marinade ingredients as the original recipe.  I cut the pork in half.  I use my large roaster with a rack.  I let it drip dry instead of patting it dry.

At this point I make some hot sudsy water in my small side kitchen sink.  That way I can easily wash my hands in between the layers

 I drizzle the honey heavily and then pat with brown sugar and sprinkle the sesame seeds on the pork.

Pat the mixture to the pork loin.

Turn it over and repeat on the other side.  

 I pat the ingredients around to the sides as well.  Preheat your oven to 450 degrees and cook for 10 minutes to give it a nice browning.  Turn it down to 325 degrees.  It takes about 2 hours. I use a meat thermometer with a wire to the pork and a read out gadget on the counter.  I think we let it get to 155 degrees.  Hubby and I thought it was cooking too fast so we turned it down and then frantically turned it up at the end.  Thankfully, it's a pretty forgiving piece of meat.

 The reason I haven't shared this recipe before is that I forget to take pictures when it comes out of the oven.  I was determined to remember yesterday but again I forgot.  It gets a little frantic at the end when we have dinner for 20.  The pork came out to rest and the butternut squash needed to be roasted, the guests had arrived and the rest is history.

There is no beautiful, delicious looking picture of the Honey Sesame Pork Tenderloin so you'll need to make it yourself to see the end result.

This is a recipe I get requests for over and over so I have wanted to share it on the blog.  I just kept trying for the end result photo.  Again, no deal.

 We set up dinner buffet style.  Everyone sat where ever they wanted.  I have large clear glass plates I use for buffets.  They are bigger than most plates and so they work well if you have guests with their plate on their lap.  I served the Heidi's Chicken Rice (I just looked for the link and realized I haven't shared Heidi's Chicken Recipe on the blog. Now that's something to look forward to in 2015, I'll share it soon.) with the pork along with roasted squash, corn, a green salad and fresh fruit and dinner rolls.  We had ice cream cake for dessert.  My siblings brought the salad, fruit and cake. 

It was a fun evening celebrating Mom with family. 

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

Organizing My Life

While Hubby and I were Christmas shopping in Seattle, I picked up a little something for myself.  When I'm Christmas shopping I seem to find a lot of things I want for myself.  I don't know if you have that problem, but I do.  And sometimes I give in and buy a few gifts for myself.  

We were at Pike Street Market visiting Watson Kennedy when I spotted a gem.  It is a 100 page tablet with lovely quotes on the bottom of each page.  They are perforated so they can be torn off and shared.  I love lists and and lined paper and words of wisdom. The only thing I love more than making a list is checking things off the list and this pad has a spot for the check mark.

 I love this note pad!  I think the note pad  will actually make me more efficient and organized in 2015 because I'll want to use it.  It's a little thick yet but eventually I will use it as my mouse pad.  

Like I said, efficient! 

 In addition to my calendar on my iPhone I use a purse size calendar.  I need to keep track of my docent shifts at the museum and this works great for it.  I need something I can reference while on the phone.  I keep a few addresses in it too.  Flight information, hotel reservations, rental car reservations also, because what if my phone battery is low or I can't pull up the information at the airport?  Eek, I'm a careful traveler and want all my bases covered.

This calendar is from the dollar bins at Micheals but it's more than a dollar, it's two dollars.  

Efficient and inexpensive.

 And a little humor this morning.  I may have spit my coffee out when I saw it on FB this morning.

GO HAWKS!

T'was a Blur

T'was a blur and my pictures are too.

Oh my, did we ever party this Christmas!  It was one after another and they were all fun, all involved good food, fun games and a lot of laughing and talking.  We started with the Dykstra party.  It's fun because there are little kids.  Don't get me wrong, the adult kids are fun too but oh my, the littles! I love them.

 Big Max and little Max played hard in the gym, so it's a sweaty shot.

 Cody and I planned the next party while we were at the Dykstra party.  We took a selfie and texted it as our invitation to the next party.

It was a Cody, Max, Braden reunion with their parents at Kulshan Brewery.

Kassie and Angela came too.  And Reagan, of course.

 It's dark there so the pictures are bad.  It was a fun night with pizza from Coconut Kenny's and Christmas cookies.

 Next up was game night on Christmas Eve eve.  We played a fun game with cards and hats for the winners and the losers.  Enough said.

 On Christmas Eve Sam and Max were with their girls.  We went to candlelight service at our church with Max.  Hubby and I enjoyed a turkey dinner.  It was just Hubby and I and since we make the rules, we decided to each open one of our gifts and then watch A Christmas Story, Elf and Christmas Vacation simultaneously. Perfect!

One expects a bug bite at a summer holiday picnic.  One does not expect a bite on Christmas Eve while relaxing on the sofa watching movies.  But if it could happen to anyone, it could happen to me.

You may want to skip this next bit, it's ugly.

 It got very sore, red, hot, itching, huge, blistery.  I got very uncomfortable.

Hubby worked on Christmas, and then we had dinner at Jeff and Kathi's at five.  It was delicious, except I didn't feel very good.

 The day after Christmas, Danny flew in to Seattle, Max went to pick him up, I went to the doctor and the pharmacy and to an ice pack. The professionals aren't sure if it was a wasp, hornet or a spider bite.  I took drugs and went to bed early.

On the 27th I felt better and that was a good thing as we were having Christmas with our family.  We had breakfast and then opened gifts just as though it were December 25th.

 

 Laura arrived from Seattle.  Settlers of Catan, Anomia and air soft battles commenced.  Laura brought appetizers for the afternoon. 

 We enjoyed a standing rib roast for dinner with ranch potatoes, a green salad and snow salad.

 On Sunday we  watched the Seahawks game, had more air soft battles  and games. In the evening we went to my parents for Christmas.

 It's not an ugly sweater party, Hubby got a kitten mitten sweatshirt from Max and Kassie.  It's from his favorite brewery.

 We are so blessed to have Christmas with my folks.

 It seems like yesterday that all of the grandkids got toys and pajamas from Papa and Nana.

Derek was missing this year, he lives in Arizona.

 We had a fun game of Left Center Right.

 Kassie won this year.  There are a lot of people so it's a lot of moolah!

Then Max bought a pickup on Monday and went back to the farm.  Sam went back to JBLM. We did not get our family Mt. Baker day this year.  Danny's friend, Aaron drove up from Portland and they went skiing.

Aaron is a great guy and we all had fun with him.

 Then it was New Year's Eve.  Hubby's Mom, Esther came for a visit, Sam came back and we all went for dinner at Kulshan.

Sam and Danny put their fingers up or on their noses to ruin my pictures, showing a lack of maturity and kindness to their Mum.  Oh well, it's all I've got so here they are picking their noses.  Stinkin' guys!

And now everyone has gone back to their homes, I still have Christmas up, I still have a big mess, and it's the New Year.  My intentions are good so I'll keep you posted.  You know the drill, diet, exercise, organization, budgeting, blah, blah, blah.

Happy New Year!