Fall Berries

 Every day we can the girls and I take a walk up the road where dogwood trees line the path beside an old cemetery.  In the springtime we enjoyed their blossoms and then in the summer their lush leaves where we would take a little break in the shade.  Now for the past couple weeks I've been enjoying their bright red berries and changing leaves as we move into fall. 

 After admiring the berries each time we would walk by, I just couldn't resist this week bringing home a branch or two.  (After confirming with my husband that the berries were not poisonous of course..)

 I love the colorful berries that nature produces this time of year. 

Someday I'd love to have some dogwoods in our yard to enjoy but for now I'll just keep appreciating their beauty as we walk in the crisp, cool air down an old road...

Have a wonderful weekend. 

Salad for Supper

I hope you had a nice weekend!  We had a wonderful weekend, but were out of town for the past five days so I'm trying to get back into the swing of things here.  

Today I thought I'd share a salad recipe that is my husband's favorite.  Actually, my entire family loves this so I make it frequently.  It's easy, quick, and delicious - perfect for supper on a busy weeknight.

Begin by frying some bacon.  We all love bacon in this house so I chop at least 6 pieces and fry them until crispy.

 While the bacon is frying, I chop all the vegetables, starting with the lettuce.  I love artisan lettuce, so I typically use it but I think just about any variety would work for this salad. For our family, I probably chop about four cups or so. 

Next, dice some tomatoes (I prefer grape or cherry for a salad).  Sadly, this was the very last bunch of  grape tomatoes from our garden!

Chop up an avocado and add it along with some gorgonzola cheese (I use about 1/4 cup).

 Lastly, add the cooked bacon.  You can see why my husband often refers to this as a BLT salad!

 While this salad would be delicious with any dressing, I always quickly make a batch of this vinaigrette to go with it as my cookbook suggested.  Likely you will have some left over and it makes a perfect marinade for chicken later on in the week. I'll include the recipe at the end of the post.

To complete the meal, I often use this recipe for a side of bread... the only difference being I use about a third of the butter her recipe calls for, but it's still delicious (and a little healthier... you know, to make up for all that fried bacon - smile).

This is what a simple supper looks like for us... even though we have a large dining room table, we almost always eat in our kitchen cramped together at our old farmhouse table.  It's cozy and cheerful with the late afternoon sunlight streaming in and one of my favorite times of the day.

Salad recipe adapted from My Father's Daughter cookbook

Vinaigrette Dressing Recipe

 From My Father's Daughter cookbook

Mix together:

2 tsp dijon mustard

2 tsp maple syrup

1/4 c red wine vinegar

2 Tbsp vegetable or canola oil

1/2 c extra virgin olive oil

coarse salt (I like Kosher)

freshly ground black pepper

 P.S.  The randomly selected winner of the Eco Natural Soap giveaway is #38 Angie.
Congratulations, Angie!
Thank you all for entering!

Fall Porch

This past Saturday I was cleaning house and Justus was putting up trim.  It was kind of a gloomy day out and so I declared an official break, which meant a trip to the coffee shop for a treat and a stop at the nursery.

 When we returned home I then spent a happy two hours planting mums in our front porch planters and putting out our pumpkins. 

I wish I had taken some pictures of the girls helping me.  We were all covered in dirt and it felt wonderful!

To be honest, I wasn't even sure if I was going to share pictures of our porch.  I didn't even clean the porch before taking these photos... can you believe that?  (smile)

Isn't it funny how we let our insecurities take hold of us every now and then... I kept waiting for our yard to look perfect before sharing any photos.  But then I put everything into perspective and realized just how silly that thought was. I even looked at a photo from several months ago when our front yard was bare of grass in several places from some of the changes we made.  Now it has almost completely filled in and I imagine next spring it will come in healthy and lush. 

That's actually one thing I love about having a blog.  Sometimes we forget how much we really have done... it's nice to look back and realize there is progress.  I can't even begin to tell you how much your encouraging comments have meant to both my husband and I as we work around our old house.  

It's just a simple fall porch, but its cheerful color is a bright spot in my day every time I look out the window. 

Hope you are having a good day!

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