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Trip Report-Part 2

After touring the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, we drove to Tucson to spend the night with my hubby’s sister.  Our GPS really saved us here as it was late and dark.  We would never have found her place without it.

She fed us a wonderful breakfast and we caught up with each other a bit.  We were soon on our way, however, as we had made reservations in Carlsbad, NM for that night.

Our route took us into El Paso, TX which unfortunately we hit at evening rush hour so it was a little hairy.  We had to pass through a Border Patrol check stop somewhere outside of the city. 

We appeared to be driving around a range of mountains.  First they were on our left then they were on our right.  I finally asked hubby to stop so I could take a picture.  When we stopped there were wild flowers growing  along the side of the road right where we stopped.  I couldn’t resist taking a picture of those, too.

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I learned that this was the Guadalupe Mountain Range and we drove through it to get to Carlsbad.

We ate dinner at Chili’s in Carlsbad and spent the night.  We had never eaten at a Chili’s restaurant before so that was a new experience.  We thought that the restaurant was very busy for a Tuesday night.  We asked the waitress if something special was going on, and she said it was like that every night.

On Wednesday morning we went to the caverns.  We did not go to the natural entrance as hubby has difficulty walking steep trails due to an accident some years ago.  We decided to tour The Big Room since that is accessible by elevator.  This is an 8-acre part of the caverns that has a paved 1 mile trail that winds through it.  Below are some pictures from The Big Room.

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The rope ladder in the right lower photo was used at one time to reach passages even lower in the cave than where we were.

I have been playing with PicMonkey’s collage feature so thought it would be fun to use it for these pictures.

From Carlsbad we drove to Snyder, TX to visit with hubby’s niece and her husband.  The next day we drove to Prescott, Arkansas.  Hubby lived there as a child and wanted to see if he could find the property where he lived.  I don’t really understand his compulsion to do this, but tried to be supportive abut it.  I am happy to say that he did find what he was looking for.

Our next stop was a day in Branson, Missouri and my visit with Danni.  That will come in Part 3.
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Crazy Cooking Challenge-Strawberry Rhubarb Banana Smoothie


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Before we went on our road trip, I was lucky enough to find very reasonably priced rhubarb at the produce stand where I buy my asparagus.  I bought all they had that day and cut most of it up for the freezer.  Although I love rhubarb, I don’t use it much since I can't get it for free anymore.  It is always expensive in the stores here.

I thought that I would look for some new recipes.  In doing so I came across a recipe for a Strawberry Rhubarb Smoothie over at A Veggie Venture.  I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am that I found this blog.  She has wonderful recipes for all kinds of fruits and veggies.  If you are looking to expand you fruit and veggie recipe arsenal, be sure to spend some time there.

She had two recipe for smoothies, one using raw rhubarb and one using cooked.  I choose to make the cooked recipe, but in true “Grandma Loy fashion” I had to change it up a bit.  I decided I wanted to add a banana so I reduced the amount of strawberry rhubarb sauce and also used 6 oz. of plain Greek yogurt instead of just milk.  I thought the result was absolutely delicious.

I am going to make up a double batch of the sauce, put 1/2 to 3/4 c. amounts in freezer bags and freeze it.  I keep frozen bananas in the freezer all the time, so by freezing the sauce, I can just make a smoothie whenever I want.  I can have spring in the middle of winter.

As an added bonus, Alanna says that the sauce makes a great topping for ice cream.  I bet it would be wonderful on cake or vanilla pudding also.

The original recipe used an egg white.  I left that out.

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Strawberry-Rhubarb-Banana Smoothie
Adapted from A Veggie Venture

1 1/2 c. chopped fresh or frozen raw rhubarb
1 1/2 c. chopped fresh or frozen non-sweetened strawberries
1/4 c. sugar

In a small saucepan, combine the rhubarb, strawberries and sugar.  Cook over medium heat until just soft.  Let cool and refrigerate until cold.

For Smoothie:
1/2 to 3/4 c. strawberry-rhubarb sauce
1 frozen banana, peeled and cut into chunks
1 (6 oz.) cup plain Greek yogurt
1/4 c. milk

Combine sauce, banana, yogurt and milk in a blender.  Blend until smooth and no chunks of banana remain.  Pour into a large glass.  Stir in a bit more milk if the smoothie is thicker than you like.  Makes 1 serving.

Crazy Cooking Challenge is hosted by Tina at Mom's Crazy Cooking.  If you would like to join in on all the fun, you will find all the details here.  

Linking to Crazy Cooking Challenge
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Sweet Shopping on Etsy

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Hungarian Beef

A warm welcome to all my new followers, and as always thanks to all who take the time out of their busy lives to read this blog.  I truly appreciate it and hope that you find the information here useful.

After my two week break, I am finally back to cooking.  I need to defrost the freezer so am trying to use what is in to get it cleaned out. 

This recipe is another one that uses round steak.  It was in an Gulden’s  Spicy  Brown Mustard ad, and I have been making it for years.  The meat will be easier to slice if it's slightly frozen.

I have adapted it to include carrots and sometimes celery to make it a little healthier.  They can be left out if desired.  Since we just got back Friday, and I have not been to town to grocery shop, I did not have celery to use in the dish in the photo.

This dish is a bit spicy.  Reduce the mustard and the paprika to make it a milder.

The original recipe says to serve it over rice.  Since hubby is not a fan of plain rice, I serve it over noodles, potatoes or Homemade Beef Rice A Roni.  I will post that recipe in a few days.


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Hungarian Beef
1 lb. round steak, about 1-inch thick
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 1/2 c. water, divided
2/3 c. catsup
2 T. brown sugar
1/4 c. Worcestershire sauce
2 T. Gulden's Spicy Brown Mustard
2 t. paprika
2 T. cornstarch
3-4 small carrots, peeled and cut into match sticks  (opt.)
3/4 c. chopped celery (opt.)

Slice steak into 1/4x2-inch strips.  Spray a skillet with nonstick spray.  Sauté steak strips, a few pieces at a time, until all are browned.  Add onion and garlic; sauté 3-5 minutes.  Add vegetables if using.  Combine catsup, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, paprika and 1 c. water.  Add to meat mixture.  Cover and simmer 20-30 minutes until meat is tender, stirring a few times.  Combine cornstarch with remaining 1/2 c. water.  Stir into the meat mixture.  Heat and stir until shiny and thickened.  Serve over hot rice, noodles, or potatoes.  Makes 4 servings.

Linking to:  Hunk of Meat Monday
Melt in Your Mouth Monday
Busy Monday
Mop It Up Monday
Making Monday's Marvelous
Recipe Sharing Monday
Must Try Monday
Mangia Mondays
Weekend Potluck
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Trip Report-Part 1

I thought that I would get a few posts up while on the road.  However, after spending 7 or 8 hours riding in the pickup, I was just not up to trying to edit photos at the end of the day  We are home, tired, but pretty happy with the trip.  We would have liked to have spent more time with hubby’s sister, niece, and my internet friend Danni from Silo Hill Farms.  We did get to see all the sights that we planned to see.  My hubby found the location of his childhood home in Arkansas, which was a big point of the trip for him.

The air conditioning went out in the pickup on the first day so we had to pretend that it was back when we got married so we would not have had air conditioning.  It was in the high 90’s and low l00’s through all of the south, so the first week was a bit uncomfortable.  After we turned north there were temps as low as 37 degrees so we were much more comfortable.

Here is a picture of our route drawn out on a map of the US.

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The route is outlined in green.  It was roughly a big circle and covered approximately 5,000 miles.  There was a bit of a change at the bottom when we decided to go to Carlsbad Caverns.

We belong to AAA so had them help us lay out the route.  They provided a book with step-by-step directions called a Trip Tik.

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The maps indicate rest stops and advise of construction and possible traffic congestion.  Although we used our GPS (whom we call Rachel), the Trip Tik was very helpful to have with us.   AAA also provided tour books, booklets on the national parks, and maps.  If you belong to AAA and are planning a trip, remember to take advantage of all these.  They are a no-charge part of the membership.

On Saturday, May 19, we drove to Salt Lake City and spent the night.  On Sunday we drove to Zion National Park, went through Zion Canyon and drove through the park to the south entrance.

I don’t want to be like someone’s boring uncle who brings all his  vacation photos and makes you look at them so I am going to share just a few.

The first two are of Zion.

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The next two are at the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  One is to show the width there and the second one is to show the depth. 

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This second one was taken looking down from the trail along the canyon rim.  If you look at the foreground, that is the top of the near wall of the canyon.  I will readily admit that I felt very unprotected there and my husband had to take many of the pictures.

Here are two views of the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  These were all taken from the shuttle bus that takes you to 9 different view points of the canyon.

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Note in the middle of the bottom photo the path that animals who live in the canyon have made across the bottom of the canyon.

I will have a couple more reports of the trip, but will be back to posting recipes tomorrow.
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Cinderella's Castle

We HAD to have Cinderella's castle when planning her table.  It is almost a requirement.  I had originally planned to try and make one, but I just ran out of time and the thought of building a castle that wasn't exactly like the icon just didn't seem right.

So instead, I went shopping at Amazon, because Goodwill just didn't have it this time. (DRAT.)
I found THIS 3D Cinderella castle puzzle.  I used my Gift Cards from Swagbucks to make it almost free (which is pretty good price wise if you ask me!)

I'd never built a 3D puzzle before and it was a little tricky trying to line up everything, so I put the puzzle together and Drama Queen figured out how to put it together.

And it looked awesome beside our pumpkin and Cinderella's magic slipper!

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Sleeping Beauty Maleficent Dragon

My good fairies needed Maleficent to fight for our Sleeping Beauty table to be complete, so I found THIS plastic canvas pattern from Annie's Attic.

The pattern itself wasn't hard to cut or sew.  I even changed all the colors to look like the black and purple from Sleeping Beauty's dragon without too much trouble.  But putting it together was some serious work.  I'm not sure I got everything exactly as it was supposed to be.  The pattern was not very clear in the directions and I think they seriously need to work on that.

But overall, it took me only a week to work on and it looked pretty cool on the Sleeping Beauty party table.
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