The Pampered Chef Winner!

Congratulations to apple blossom... She won The Pampered Chef giveaway! I am so excited to have this chocolate-themed prize pack to share!

The good news for everyone else is that my party is still open... If you were just dying for the Chocolate Cookbook, or something else Pampered Chef that you just have to have, you can still order through Donna's site until Sunday 10/30, and please list me as your host! (Just search for Marybeth in the "first name" box, and you'll find me!)



Thanks for playing along... I hope you were inspired by The Pampered Chef line as much as I was... I'm looking forward to some great fall cooking with my new tools! (Oh yes, there will be pictures.)

{While my Pampered Chef consultant, Donna Harpe, has donated the items for this giveaway, the comments and opinions expressed here are my own.}

I have a problem…

It has to do with dry lips.

Not chapped lips. Just dry.

I always have a ChapStick (or some other brand) in my pocket, and there’s always one in my purse.

Not that weird yet? I also keep a stash in my desk. (I think there’s seven there.)

Chocolate Lava Cake

To-die-for, melt-in-your-mouth, ooey-gooey chocolate cake from The Pampered Chef Chocolate cookbook.

In the microwave.

In ten minutes.

I’m sorry, Weight Watchers who??

Okay, six easy steps. Ready?

1. Mix up a chocolate cake batter. Just like the box says. Then put it in your Deep Covered Baker. (Don’t have one? You need one. It’s just like a slow-cooker, only fast. There’s even a recipe book to get you started. Oh, and it also comes in taupe, if you’re not crazy about cranberry.)

Food Day 2011

Isn’t every day Food Day? Shouldn’t it be?

October 24 has recently been declared Food Day, and boy am I planning to celebrate!

I love food…  Love to cook it… Love to eat it… Love to share it… (Did you know that calories shared with girlfriends don’t count?!) Although I don’t much love cleaning up after I cook it… But I suppose that comes with the territory. Ah well. The dishwasher comes in handy to help with that part.

So many memories are built around food! Think of all the celebration dinners, family meals, parties, carry-ins, all the gatherings that happen around food. So much of our lives is centered around food, but we rarely think about the farmers who make all this food possible for us or the veterinarians who work so hard to maintain farm animal health and welfare. They are the unsung heroes of the food chain.

The Pampered Chef giveaway!

Have I teased you enough? The giveaway is finally here! I am so excited to have this fantastic candy-themed prize pack to give away!

The prize pack includes...

The Pampered Chef cooking show

We had a blast at my Pampered Chef party last week!

I didn’t take as many pictures as I had planned… Well, because it was a party. And there was chocolate. And wine. So not many pictures.

We crowded ten women (plus me and my consultant, Donna Harpe) into my teeny tiny kitchen, dining room, and living room. Sorry to Andrea who had to sit on the floor…


We had a great demo of how to make this chocolate lava cake. (Recipe coming next week, and it’s so easy, you’ll die!)

Cozy warm fall in my Carhartt coat!

FINALLY, the weather has started to cool down! It seems like summer has been hanging on for all it is worth!

I will admit that this is my first venture into Carhartt. And I was not disappointed! Hubby Doc has been wearing Carhartt for years. His favorite pair of coveralls is a Carhartt. They have been through lots... snow, mud, cow manure, and most recently fire (don't ask), but he still keeps on wearing them!

Ever since I received my Carhartt Sherpa sweat jacket from their women's line, I have been dying for it to get cool enough so I could wear it! (The jacket is just a little to warm to wear on those 80 degree days we have been having!)

And boy has it come in handy... (I gave Hubby Doc a little crash course in photography so he could take some pictures with my "fancy camera" to show you.)

That invisible fence sure is invisible!

We have two outside dogs. They usually live inside an invisible fence. They have plenty of room outside, two cozy dog houses, and a great shade tree. I don't know why they wouldn't want to hang out there all the time.

But they don't.

The invisible fence stopped working. So now they go wherever they want. Lucky for us, they don't leave the property, but they sure are enjoying having the run of the place.

They hang out in the holly bushes in front of the house.

Pampered Chef is coming! Pampered Chef is coming!

I am having a Pampered Chef party this week! I am so excited!

I am a Pampered Chef junkie.

Seriously. We registered with them for our wedding two years ago, and I haven't bought any Pampered Chef anything since then. I'm ready for my fix!

Here are a few of the things we love and use all the time around the house...

These bamboo spoons are a must-have. I use the flat one in the middle for browning ground beef all the time. Although, I do have my eye on the Mix N'Chop. I hear it is phenomenal for ground beef!

Steak on the (improved) grill

It just wouldn't be a post about my improved grill if I didn't follow up with cooking something on it!

Steak and potatoes are one of the favorite meals around here, and certainly one of the easiest things to throw on the grill. I start with a couple of scrubbed potatoes, and cut them into pieces. John likes thin slices and I like big chunks. So we compromise with thin chunks. I add a little EVOO, kosher salt, pepper, and Pampered Chef Rosemary Herb Seasoning Mix.

(Have I mentioned? There's going to be some serious Pampered Chef fun happening here over the next 3 weeks...)

Then I wrap the potatoes up into little aluminum foil packets and throw them on the grill on high heat. (I am very scientific about how long these cook - they go on first, and they stay on until everything else is done. Usually that works just fine.)

Then I season up the meat. These are two ribeye steaks from our freezer. Again, nothing fancy, just some EVOO, kosher salt, black pepper, and this time McCormick Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning.

 

I set the meat aside for a second while I got the veggies ready. I speared green bell pepper chunks and garden tomato chunks on flat skewers, sprayed on a little EVOO and sprinkled with kosher salt and black pepper. The steaks and the veggies went on the grill at the same time - the meat on the lower rack and the veggies on the upper rack.

 

Again - super-scientific - the veggies stayed on until the steaks were done, and then just a hair longer. I like the flat skewers much better than round skewers. The flat skewers help keep the food from spinning around on the skewer as you flip them over.

Super quick, super easy, super pretty!

(Next time, I would put the peppers and tomatoes on separate skewers. The tomatoes were done, but the peppers were still a bit crunchy. The peppers could have stayed on the grill longer than they did.)

But this is my all time favorite thing about grilling. After we loaded up the dishwasher, this was all the dishes I had to wash.

 
It doesn't get any easier than that.

My new grill

Okay, it is not new. But it is definitely improved.

I've mentioned before about the troubled days my grill has seen - broken handle, busted igniter, a rusted-out heat shield...

The biggest issue was definitely the heat shield. It had rusted through, in a few spots.


This was a really big problem. All my steaks, burgers, and hot dogs were burning! That is not good eats. I love love love to grill, and things were really not going well.

Taste of Indiana Farms

One of the fun things I got to do at the Indiana State Fair in August was to run the Farm Bureau Taste of Indiana Farms booth for the southwest part of Indiana.

Each part of the state (“districts,” in Farm Bureau talk) had a commodity to feature. We had pork. Yum!

I worked with Dewig’s Meats so we had some great barbecued pulled pork to give away to everyone who came through the three-day event. We had some great volunteers from our district, including my husband. Hubby Doc had a blast talking to almost 5000 people over three days!!

There was free popcorn in the front of the building, and lots more free food in the back of the building.Everybody had a blast, even the kids!This is not just a Farm Bureau event! The Indiana Watermelon queen was there, giving out watermelon slices. And the Indiana Honey Queen was there, passing out honey samples.

(We tried to get them to have a Queen showdown, to see who was the “Top Queen,” but they wouldn’t go for it. Such well-behaved young ladies!)

Did I mention that Indiana Pork gave us temporary pig tattoos to give out? Everybody wanted a pig tattoo, even me! (I may have put on more than one…)

Yes, you could say I got into the spirit of things and collected some flair over the couple of days…Mark your calendars – we’ve already got the dates scheduled for next year! Come visit us in the Farm Bureau building at the Indiana State Fair on August 14-16, 2012. I’ll be organizing fruit for next year, so come on by and learn what kind of fruit Indiana grows. I bet you’ll be surprised! There will be free popcorn, free food, and more flair than you can shake a stick at! What else is there?

Oh, and the whole rest of the fair. You’ll probably want to see that also.