Friday Foodie

I have two new recipes to share today.  The first one started on the Fourth of July.  Les grilled Filet Mignon and I made corn on the cob and mashed potatoes.  (Side note:  I make my corn on the cob in the air fryer and it is amazing!  400 degrees for about 10 minutes, flip once or twice.)  Anyway, while we were eating, Les asked if my Mom ever made potato pancakes out of leftover mashed potatoes.  I clearly remember her making them and having them for breakfast.  As a kid I thought that was so weird, so I never tried them.  That changed last week...

 

Mashed Potato Pancakes

 

Ingredients:

2 cups mashed potatoes

1 egg

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

 

Preheat griddle to high heat.  My griddle is old, so you may need to turn yours down.  These can also be made in a skillet, but you'll only be able to do about half the recipe at a time.

Mix ingredients well.

Spray griddle with cooking spray.

Spoon onto hot griddle and cook 5-6 minutes.  Flip and continue cooking until done, approximately 12-15 minutes.  As I said, my griddle is old, so it cooks slowly.  You really want these to cook a while or the middle will be cold, so if the outside is browning quickly, just turn the heat down.

 

"pre-flip"

These were so good!  Just a little crunch and very flavorful.  Les put butter on his last week.  I made them again this week with roast and we both put gravy on them.  And now I totally understand why my Mom ate them for breakfast - they would go great with an old fashion country breakfast of bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy.  A great substitute for hash browns or hash brown casserole.

Now on to recipe number two:

 

Last week I received an email from Chick-Fil-A advertising their peach milkshake.  It sounded so amazing and I was very tempted.  Fortunately, I had also bought some fresh peaches so I decided to make my own.

 

Peach Shake

Ingredients:

3 cups Breyers Carb Smart Vanilla frozen dairy dessert (this only has 6 grams of sugar per cup)

4 peaches, peeled and chopped up

Blend ingredients until smooth.

Pour in glasses and freeze until thickened.

Enjoy!

Makes 2 servings.  11 WW green points per serving.  In comparison, Chick-Fil-A's version is 31 points!  It was less than half the calories with approximately 20 grams of sugar versus 100 in the CFA version, with all the wonderful peach flavor you need.

A Few More Pictures

I didn't post any pictures that got the entire front of our house yesterday.  I didn't have any on my phone that didn't also have piles of flagstone or rocks in the driveway.  It's hard to get any good shots in the morning because of the angle of the sun.  This morning, our sky looked like this when I headed out for my run:

I was lightly sprinkled on a couple of times and even saw a rainbow.

It was still mostly cloudy when I got home, so I was able to get some really good shots:

Welcome to Our Home!

The day has finally arrived ~ our landscaping project is complete!  Finished!  Done!  Much labor went in to this project and it actually feels a little strange (in a good way) to not have it hanging over our heads anymore.   We ordered all of our plants from Plants Express and we are extremely happy with what we got.  After we placed our order it was sent to a local nursery.  The plants came to us in great condition and they are starting to flourish.

 

So without further ado, please join me in a walk around our yard. Let's start in the front.  This is on the side of our driveway.  Three banana trees and a Japanese maple tree:

 

Between the sidewalk and the street, we have agave with stone.  We used leftover flagstone the fill it out.  We wanted simple, drought tolerant for these spaces:

 

Across the driveway is another Japanese maple tree:

 

In our planters (you remember the planters that started this whole project?) we have succulents, agave and geraniums:

Along the side wall are two types of Canna lilies, Tropicannas and Chocolate Infernos:

 

Across from the cannas is a bougainvillea:

 

And our third Japanese maple tree is between the cannas and the bougainvillea:

 

 

Under the kitchen window are geraniums:

Directly across from them are three more Tropicannas:

 

On the other side of that wall are three rose bushes:

A view from the front door:

Looking left of the front door, we have calla lilies and more roses:

I thought this guy was perfect for the back corner:

On the other side of the wall from the roses is a cordyline:

I tried my hand at some panoramic shots:

Now let's head into the back!  This is from the gate shown in the above picture.  Just outside my kitchen window is another variety of canna lilies - the Intrigue:

I can see this one from the window at my kitchen sink.  It has been growing like crazy!  It was about 24 inches when I planted it on May 29th.  I measured it on July 1st and it was 34 inches.  Today it is 59 inches!  That is two feet in eleven days!!

Next to the Intrigues are four palm trees:

 

 Another panoramic view:

Along the back wall, starting in the corner is a bougainvillea.  It needs a little attention so it won't lean so much:

Along the back wall are more rose bushes, geraniums, and a palm tree cluster:

Continuing along the back wall, behind the pool are a variety of succulents and another cordyline:

 

Turning the corner, we start with another cordyline:

 

We have more geraniums, Wyoming canna lilies, another Tropicanna, and one more cordyline:

These are the only mature geraniums we bought.  We originally bought 4 flats of 16 plants in four inch pots for 64 total.  We planted all of them and needed just a few more.  We could only find larger ones locally.

This is one of the few plants that was not removed for this project.  We call it the "jungle plant" which seems to fit:

From the jungle plant to the gate are more geraniums, Intrigue cannas, and two more bougainvilleas:

 

Now we'll turn around and walk along the house.  A few more geraniums:

 

 

 

cast-iron:

 

and variegated shell ginger:

 

Along the back patio we start with a couple more calla lilies:

Around the corner is a geranium and two rose bushes.  Some of our geraniums have really struggled and all of our roses went into shock when we planted them.  These two are the last ones we planted, so they're the last to recover:

Our final Tropicannas:

Even when the flowers fade and are pruned off, the leaves are spectacular:

Our final geranium and rose bush:

And a couple more panoramas of the back:

And there it is!  Thanks for visiting!