Creme de Menthe Pie Retro Recipe Saturday

Yesterday I told you I was going to share my friend Kerry's, mother Bernadette Lego's, recipe for Creme de Menthe Pie.  I was a little intimidated to make this recipe for Kerry, since this is one of her favorite recipe's from her mom.  Anyway, I apparently did a good job, because Kerry had two pieces, and the next day my son Danny ate 1/3 of the pie.  He finished what was left from the night before, and just came in to ask me if I could make another pie, because he really liked it. 

So here is the recipe for Creme de Menthe Pie.

Bernadette Lego's Creme de Menthe Pie

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups Nabisco's Famous chocolate wafer cookie crushed (about 3/4 of a box )
2 TB melted butter.  You may need a little extra
2/3 cup half and half
24 large marshmellows ( not jumbo's just large )
1 oz. creme de menthe
1/2 oz creme de coco (white)
1 cup whipping cream (whipped)

Directions:

Mix chocolate cookie crumbs with melted butter, put in a pie pan and push against pan.  It is pretty crumbly, just do the best you can with getting it in the pan evenly on the bottom and sides. Place in freezer.  The recipe called for overnight.  I am never that organized, I just put it in while I was getting the rest of the ingredients together and it was frozen enough to put the filling in fine.

Combine the marshmellows and  half and half.  Heat until marshmellows are melted.  Set in refrigerator to cool, while you make whipped cream.

Once cooled, fold in liquor and whipped cream.

Poor into pie shell and freeze.  It is ready in a couple of hours.

Serve with whipped on top.

Serves 8

I hope that you enjoy this recipe.  I always love to hearing what you have to say.

Enjoy!!!
Debi 

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My Unorganized Entertaining, Blue Lagoon Margaritas, and Favorite Friday Blog Links

I love to entertain, but my unorganized entertaining is certainly good for a laugh.  I read lovely blog posts all of the time, and even though there are mishaps, most of you have beautiful tables, food, cocktails, and seem to organized.  I am giving links to these three blogs, because everything always so beautiful.  The first is Meet the Parents at Simply Vintagous by Suzan, next is Backyard BBQ from Celebrations at Home Blog, and last but not least Thrifty Breakfast and Update from Kathe With an E.  These bloggers seem so organized, they get pictures, and are ready when company gets there.  That would not be me!!!

Last Saturday we were having friends over for dinner.  I of course am still working on my couch, and was desperately trying to get it done before our friends get to our house.  I finally gave up on that idea about noon.  I was out running errands before that in the morning, because I needed a new table for my deck, because ones had broken.  It was older then my oldest son who is 26.  A leg finally rusted and the whole thing fell apart.  Now, I knew it was broken for several weeks, but of course waited until the last minute to replace it ( like the day we are having people over ).  Not like I didn't know that they were coming,  but remember I am trying to get my couch reupholstered before I have people over.  Not happening!!!  This is what it looked like when our friends got here.

I have my lists, because I was up until midnight of Friday making them.  I have a list of what needs to be done, and in what order, I have a list of what groceries I need to get, and last but not least I have my menu.  In the meantime, I keep trying to work on the couch for ten minutes here and there.  (Keep in mind I have not answered any questions on my blog or linked to any blog parties in 3 days, am I stressing you out yet, cause I was stressed!)  I head out on my mission to find a new patio table I head to Target.  No tables, but lots of cool pretty things for entertaining, on sale.  Yes, that would be me, I can't pass up a sale Not a Problem, I spend an hour in Target, buying these great wonderful thing that are on sale.  One hour gone from my day, but they were so pretty and such a great deal.  Take a look.

Aren't they great?  I thought they were.  I loved them, and so did our friends that night, but I still don't have a table.  Next, I go to Walmart.  Walmart has lots of tables.  So, do I get a small round plastic one or the long glass one?  I can put the small plastic one together myself, the long glass one, I need someone else to do because I do not have time to do that too.  I buy the one that needs to be put together, and they load it in my car, because it is heavy and big for me.  Thank God that I have my son at home who can help me get it out of the car, because I have no room in the car for food now.  I get home and my son helps me unload the table.  We put it in the back on top of the hot tub.  He can't put it together, because he is going golfing.  Okay, I will deal with that issue later.  It is now 12:00 PM, and I still have no food for tonight, and I have 6 people coming over at 6:30 PM.

I now leave for Whole Foods.  I was doing a Taco Bar for tonight's dinner.  I figured that I could buy a lot of it pre made at Whole Foods.  That would make my life much easier.  I am making regular ground beef tacos, an old standby, garlic cilantro lime shrimp, and I bought Whole Foods chicken carne adovado (at least I didn't have to make a seasoning for the chicken, just cook it).  I bought a whole lot of tropical salsa, mango salsa, pico de gallo, tomatillo salsa, and guacamole.  Oh and by the way, I also bought two bags of  Whole Foods homemade flour tortilla chips.  (The leftovers chips are still calling my name.)  I was also making a cilantro lime rice, and refried beans.  I bought all of the food I need at Whole Foods, not something I normally do, because they are expensive, but I didn't have time to head to another grocery store, since I still had to go to the liquor store.  Oh, by the way, I am also making a Frozen Creme de Menthe Pie.  The recipe was provided from my friend Kerry Lego, it was her mother Bernadette Lego's recipe.  I will give you that recipe tomorrow on my Retro Recipe Saturdays Post.  The great thing was that our friends were supplying the appetizers and a dessert.  Several things off my list.

  

So I get home, it is now 1:30 PM, and start cooking.  I had to make the pie, since it had to go in the freezer.  Then I got all of the salsa on serving platters, made the meats except the shrimp, got salsa on platters, and made the drinks.  Kinda of set the tables outside, and now it is 5:50 PM.  In the meantime, I called my wonderful husband David, and asked if he would be home in time from work to put a table together, because I don't have time, or does he want me to return it and get the little one, that will only take 5 minutes to put the legs on.  He asked how long it would take, I of course guessed and said maybe 30 minutes.  I had not idea, it was in a box.  He kindly said he would put it together.  He got home, and put it together in less then 30 minutes, I was so grateful that I guess right.  Especially since he didn't get home until 5:15PM.

I still had to wash my hair, get dressed, and put on makeup, oh yeah, and maybe some clothes.  That would be a nice thing to do for our friends.  I literally got downstairs with at 6:25 PM and was trying to finish the final touches, like getting out glasses for the drinks, getting ice for the drinks, and I never got the fruit cut up to put in The Pineapple Sangria from Moments with Montanos or the glasses rimmed with sugar for The Blue Lagoon Margaritas from Taste of Home.  Though I did get them in my really cool new stack-able drink dispensers from Target.  Don't they look pretty.  Of course,  I always forget to take pictures, so we had already been drinking these so the dispensers are a little empty.

Our friends arrived, we got the appetizers out, got the drinks served, everything was great. Which was good, I even got to sit and relax.  I had all of that craziness before hand, but the rest of the evening went well.  The shrimp which I cooked at the last minute, so that it wouldn't be overcooked was delicious, and the two desserts were amazing.  Betty brought delicious shrimp seviche for an appetizer and flan for dessert, Kerry brought Queso and taquitos, also delicious, and the Creme de Menthe Pie was to die for.  Everyone ended up staying until about 10:15, which for us old people is the sign of a good evening. 

I don't have pictures of the table with all of the food on it, because again I forgot to take pictures, but I do have pictures of the rice and the shrimp.  You can see what the chicken looked like in Thursday's post Low Carb Mexican Chicken Crepes.  I also don't have a picture of the tables outside, because, again, I forgot.  I can't take one now, because my son is getting ready to paint the deck so all of the furniture is moved.  I'll post one in a couple of weeks.

The drinks were amazing.  I wanted to give you the recipes for them.  Today, I am going to post the recipe for The Blue Lagoon Margaritas from Taste of Home. They were so good and refreshing.  So here it is.  Then I will give you my Friday Favorite Blog Links for the week.

Blue Lagoon Margaritas

Ingredients:

4 lime slices

3 tablespoons course sugar on a flat plate to dip glasses in

1/2 cup lemon lime soda

1/2 cup tequila

2/3 cup limeade

1/2 cup blue curacao

Directions

Rub lime around rim of glasses and put glass rims in sugar.  It does look really pretty, but I did not do this.  I didn't have time.

Mix lemon lime soda, tequila, limeade, and blur curacao in a serving container.

Serve over ice.

The recipe calls for frozen concentrate limeade, but I just used regular fresh limeade and increased the amount, and it was fine.  The recipe also calls for this to be blended with ice, but I prefer my margaritas on the rocks.  I also quadrupled the recipe, since I just wanted to make 1 large batch.

Now for Favorite Friday Blog Links of the week.  Take a look at these great bloggers.  I hope you enjoy them.

Erin from House of Turquoise

Aimee from It's Overflowing

Rachel from Lovely Crafty Home

 Carne Asada Fries from Dishing With Leslie this recipe looks amazing

I hope that you have enjoyed today's post.  I couldn't resist showing how crazy it gets in my house.  It is just easier sometimes to go out to dinner with people.  Send me your comments, I always love hearing from you.

Enjoy!!!

Debi

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Low Carb Mexican Chicken Crepes

I got the idea to make these Low Carb Mexican Chicken Crepes from Debi Cavagnaro's Low Carb .Diet Pin on Pinterest.  She repinned it from 10 Primal Meals in 15 minutes or Less from Mark's Daily Apple.  I was looking for low carb recipes on Pinterest, and there was a recipe for chicken enchiladas on Mark's Daily Apple.  I had chicken left over from last weekend and wanted to make something with it.  What struck me in the recipe was that he didn't use tortillas, instead he used egg whites and cream.  I of course didn't notice the cream part of the recipe, but I thought that eggs, would be easy enough to do.  So I came up with this recipe.  It was really easy and delicious.  Check it out and see what you think.

Debi's Low Carb Mexican Chicken Crepes

Ingredients:

2 egg whites
pinch of salt
chicken reheated ( I used left over chicken carne adovado from whole foods)
colby jack cheese (pre grated) 
guacamole
salsa

Directions:

Put your 2 egg whites in a bowl and gently whisk them together with a little salt.  Not too much, because you don't want too much froth.

Spray a non stick pan with Pam and start heating pan.  Add half of the egg mixture to the pan, and spread it out across the bottom of the pan.  I just tilted the pan to make sure that the bottom of the pan was covered with the egg whites.

The egg whites will start cooking.  They are so thin you will not need to turn them, but once they look white all around, use a spatula and start lifting the edges very carefully.

Once the egg whites are done, add your chicken and cheese in the center of the crepe, and turn the heat back on low and cover the pan with a lid to help the cheese melt a little.  This is really just a minute, because you don't want to overcook the egg white crepe.  The cheese will not be totally melted, the heat from the crepe over the top will help it melt more.

Next,  gently lift the sides of the crepe over the top of the chicken and cheese, and gently slide it onto a plate.  Then start making your second crepe, and repeat the process.

Add the guacamole and salsa to your plate, and you are ready to go.

Don't these look great?  They were so delicious.  It made me so happy.  I love my food.

I hope that you enjoyed this low carb, healthy alternative to regular crepes.  They are so easy and healthy and feel like you are eating something loaded with carbs, when you are actually eating low carb.  I would love to hear your comments.

Enjoy!!!
Debi

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Apple Cinnamon Roll Pull Aparts and Wednesdays Adorned From Above Link Party 12

Welcome to my Wednesdays Adorned from Above Link Party 12. I hope that all of you have fun, and I can't wait to see all of your beautiful work from the last week.  My blog was up and down last week.  I was having some technical issues with the code, so there were not as many links, because people were not able to link some of the time.  Sorry, everyone.  Hopefully this week will be better.

The first thing I am going to ask any of you to do is to become a GFC Follower if you are not already following me.  I would really appreciate it.

This week I am featuring the three top blog that had the most visits. Clicking on the like button will also help to pick which posts you like the most.  Right now I am picking the links with the most page views.
 
I am thrilled to feature the following posts this week.  So without further ado, I would like to present these beautiful and informative bloggers.  To those of you that I featured I would love for you to feature this link to the blog showing that you are featured blogger at the Wednesday Adorned from Above Blog Hop. Just copy and paste the link below somewhere on your page.

I am a featured blogger at Wednesday Adorned From Above Link Party

A Stitch Insanity from Courtney at Musebootsi

DIY Baking Soda Air Freshener Review - Does It Work? by Victoria at Green Idea Reviews

Creamy Cheesecake With Chocolate Chips from Something Sweet Winnie's Blog

I want to thank everyone who linked with my Wednesdays Adorned From Above Link Party.  All of your projects are wonderful and I would post all of them if I could, but I think that the blog would probably be a little too long.  I hope that all of you link more posts this week.  Let's Party!!!  This week is a little different links go from newest to oldest so that everyone gets a chance to be at the top.

Your posts can include:

• anything DIY
• Recipes
• Arts and Crafts
• Sewing
• Knitting and Crochet Ideas and Patterns
• DIY Cleaning Solutions
• Natural Beauty Product Recipes
• Decorating Ideas
• Thrifting
• Book Reviews, Movie Reviews, Christian Music
• Inspirational Articles, Poetry, Life Stories, or Short Stories
• Bible Studies 

The only rules are to follow me, have a link somewhere on your post to Adorned From Above ( you can copy and past the link below, and visit some other posts - after all it is a party.

• Wednesdays Adorned From Above Link Party Link

This has been quite a week.  I am still working on my couch.  It is almost done.  I just need to staple the fabric on the back, make a new cushion cover, and  cover the front of the arms.  So, I am almost there.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, life happens.  So this week I am going to post a really easy recipe, that we make for breakfast sometimes.

Apple Cinnamon Pull Aparts

Ingredients:

1 large can Pillsbury Grands Cinnamon rolls
1 can Apple Pie Filling

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray non stick spray in a 9 x 9 inch pan.

Cut each cinnamon roll into quarters and put in a mixing bowl.  

Pour pie filling into mixing bowl with cut up cinnamon rolls and mix together.

Pour into your greased pan.

Bake for 30 minutes

Turn the pan upside down on a serving platter so the the rolls are on the platter.  Then spread the frosting from the cinnamon rolls on top of the Apple Cinnamon Pull Aparts.

 
 Makes 9 pieces. 

I hope that you have enjoyed this weeks Featured Bloggers.  The Apple Cinnamon Pull Aparts  are so easy and good.  I hope that you give them a try and then let me know what you think.  I always enjoy hearing from all of you.  Now Let's Party.

Enjoy!!!
Debi

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How To Clean A Drain

So I thought everyone should know how to clean out the Bathroom Sink Drain.  It is such a pain when they start draining slowly, or as mine was recently doing, draining really really slowly.  Modern plumbing makes this really easy to fix.  I can't do this at my house in Mexico, because it has really old copper pipes (I am afraid of braking pipes), but at my home in Denver we have PVC pipes. PVC pipes are easy to screw and unscrew at joints to take apart (you can even do it with chrome pipes, though you may need a wrench).  Oh, by the way everyone,  this is really disgusting, but it is much cheaper then calling the plumber, and you can do it with any sink drain in your house.  So it will save you lots of money, because you wont have to call a plumber, and you also wont have to buy Liquid Plumber or something like that.

So on to our tutorial about how to Clean A Sink Drain. 

The parts of your drain:

slip joint nuts

 p trap (the u part)

1.  The first thing that you need to do is put a large bowl under your pipes to catch the water and gunk from your drain.  Then, you will need to unscrew the slip joint nuts from the u part of the p trap.  I normally start at the longer end.

2. I next unscrew the short end.

3.  I then start removing the pipe, make sure that you do not lose the washer.  I next unscrew the  stopper from the back of the long pipe coming from the sink.  That also traps a lot of hair and gunk.

4.  Okay, this is the really disgusting part.  That is the hair and gunk that was stopping up the drain.  I need to stop doing the facials in my bathroom that I post about!!!  They really make a mess of my drain.

 

5.  Even though I removed the gunk that was hanging down, there is still more that is attached to the stopper in the drain.  That is why we unscrewed the stopper joint at the back of the pipe.

6.  Next, you will pull the stopper out of the drain and clean it off.  At this time I also wash out the u part of the pipe.  I figure if I am going to the trouble of getting the hair and gunk out of the pipe, I will take the time to wash the pipe out also.  It normally comes clean rinsing it out with warm water.  You may need to get a paper towel to really get it clean, there is normally quite a bit of buildup in the pipe.  I do this in my kitchen sink, so that I can run the garbage disposal.  I don't need to stop up any other sinks.  I also clean the outside of the pipe.

7.  You will then need to put the stopper back in the drain.  There is a whole at the bottom of the stopper that is offset.  So the part with the whole is at one side.  You will make sure that the side with the whole is closest to the back of the drain.  Next, you will screw the stopper joint back into the pipe, making sure that you get the long part through the whole in the stopper itself.  This is what will help open and close your stopper.

8.  I next reattach the u part of the pipe.  I also make sure that the washers are in place along with the slip joint nuts, and start screwing them back to the pipes.

9.  I make sure that all of my slip joint nuts are screwed on tight.

10.  You are done.  You have just learned How To Clean Your Sink Drain.

Thank you so much for joining me today.  I hope that this tutorial is helpful.  Let me know what you think.  I always love hearing from you.

Enjoy!!!
Debi

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Air Supply Concert at Hudson Gardens - Great Concert

I am definitely going to age myself today, but last night my husband and I went to see Air Supply at Hudson Gardens in Littleton, Colorado, and they were great.  For those of you who are not really familiar with them, they are a band that originally formed in the late 70's in Australia.  They became really popular in the late 70's and were pretty popular through that late 80's.  The two lead men in the band Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock are still together and performing today.  I must say, they did not disappoint.

Last nights concert was at Hudson was amazing.  The weather was beautiful, which is great, considering it has been so hot in Colorado over the last two months.  They came on stage ready to go, which was a feat in itself, since Graham Russel recently had a knee replacement.  They sang all of their old hits, but they also added some of their new work, which was beautiful.  One new song which they recorded on DVD two months ago in Jerusalem.  I can't wait to see the footage of that.  It could only be amazing with Jerusalem as a backdrop. They were really interacting with the audience, which was something you do not see very often at concerts.  They will try to interact from the stage, but Russell Hitchcock actually came out into the audience.  I got several pictures (with my husband's iphone) and he is only about 8 to 10 people away from me.

It got pretty crazy the longer he was in the audience.  People started swarming him as you can see in the last picture.  I think his guards were getting a little nervous.  They were definitely trying to get him back to the stage quickly.  How often do you see someone come into the audience?  Not any concert I have ever been to.

They sang so many wonderful songs.  To list a few;

All Out of Love
Even Nights Are Better
Making Love out of Nothing At All
Without You
Every Women in the World.

There was so many songs, and I can't believe I knew them all.

It was such a wonderful and romantic evening with my husband.  It was so great spending a beautiful evening with a very special man, whom I adore.  You don't get much better then that.

If Air Supply comes to your neighborhood, I would really recommend seeing them.  They put on a great show.

Enjoy!!!
Debi

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Our Mexico House - Photo Series

We try to spend time at our house in Mexico.  It is very small, but cozy and right on the beach.  (I'm not kidding about the small part.)  It is two buildings, one building is like a studio apartment with a bedroom area, a sitting area with a window seat, and a bathroom.  The other building is a kitchen and a 1/2 bath.

It is located north of Puerto Vallarta, near the town of Punta de Mita, actually in between Punta de Mita and Sayulita.  The beach that we live on is called Playa Careyeros.  It reminds me of the beach at my aunt's house in Malibu.  It is very quiet and peaceful, except the water is a lot warmer.  It is our little piece of paradise.  Join me on a tour of our little home.

This is what you see looking from the beach.  The kitchen is the building on the left, the building on the right is the bedroom and bathroom.

This is the view looking down from the driveway.

These are all pictures of the inside of the bedroom and sitting area.  When there is just two of us there, there is a table and chairs in front of the window seat.  When we have extra people we have blow up beds and we move the table and chairs outside.  In the picture of the house from the beach, you can see them at the top of the stairs.

I made the pillow covers and the cover for the window seat.  I also crocheted the turquoise and white blanket on the bed.  I was able to get a white matelisse quilt at Tuesday morning.  I don't buy very much down there for bedding and linens.  If it is decent quality it is really expensive.  So it is a lot easier to find what I want in Denver and then put it in a suitcase and take it with me.

The first picture is the wall above the sink.  I know it looks really classy, but the reason we tape plastic bags to the window frames, is because we only have screens, and in the summer when it is hot, this helps keep the cool air from the air conditioner inside.  We take town the plastic once November hits.

You have also seen some of these pictures on my blog.  Some are from the Denver Aquarium and some are from the small towns near our home.  I love all of the aqua and turquoise colors.  I felt very lucky to find the shower curtain at Target a couple of years ago.  It went great with the colors of the house.  I got the towels from Target at the same time.  The rugs are from a store in Puerto Vallarta.

The first picture is a picture of a terrace and garden behind the kitchen.  The second, is the view from the front patio of the house.  I love this view.  I can watch the ocean for hours.  This is also the view that I wake up to in the mornings when we can have the shutters open, normally from November to mid June.

This is also the last view that I see at night, when I go to sleep.  I love this place.  As the Mexican's say, "muy tranquila", very tranquil.

Thank you for joining me on a tour of our little home.  I hope that you enjoyed it.  I had fun taking the pictures, especially around suitcases and blow up beds.  I forgot to get some pictures of the bathroom counter and the closet area, but I think this works.  I don't have any pictures of the kitchen in case you are wondering.  Maybe next time I go.

I would love to hear any comments that you have.  I always love hearing from you.

Enjoy!!!

Debi
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