Something I will definitely miss--My Pantry!

Okay, I do have a pantry in the new house, & I know between The Man & I, it will be everything I need it to be.  It's just that what I have in our current house was designed to fit my needs & preferences.  As I ponder how I will be making the new pantry work with efficiency, I will be sharing an earlier post & happily linking up to ORGANIZING MISSION MONDAY.  It's a party all about organizing your kitchen, but Sandy at ORGANIZE WITH SANDY has a wealth of information about organizing just about anything.  Now that might not be fun to some of you or even most of you, but I do know there are plenty of us "over-the-top, crazy about organizing " bloggers out here in blogland, so go on over and check it out!  I'm also linking up to Carrie's AMAZE ME MONDAY, because Carrie is such a sweetheart & I just wanted to.  Okay?

Meet the "work-horse" of my kitchen.

This is where the refrigerator used to be before we remodeled the kitchen.  There was NO pantry & very few adequate cabinets for food storage.  I resorted to using the top half of the linen closet (in the hallway) for this purpose.  It was very inconvenient, plus the shelves were deep & I would lose things in there.  With the kitchen remodel, The Man made sure I got a great pantry.  This was the most expensive cabinet in the entire kitchen.  To see the rest of the pictures & how I organize this space, please go HERE.

Thanks for stopping by & please come again soon.  I may have another post today.  I did start my packing process this morning, & I promised I would share some of that with ya'll.  Bet you just can't wait, huh?

CAS

What's for dinner?

 Happy Saturday everyone!  I have recently realized that I don't share too many food-related posts, even though cooking is something I truly enjoy.  Well, most of the time anyway!  So I thought I'd remedy that.  The following is actually what we had for dinner last night, but didn't have time to post it yesterday.  I actually remembered to take pictures all along, 'cause I know how ya'll love pictures.  First let me share about Friday night meals around here.  I like to keep it really simple, casual & a bit fun.

One of our favorite Friday night meals is homemade pizza.  Pizza, I know, isn't necessarily one of the healthiest meals to serve, but I try to make it less unhealthy wherever I can.  I use turkey pepperoni, & it's really quite good.  I also cut back on the amount of cheese & try to use mostly white cheeses, & we've discovered we really like ricotta on pizza.  I have some great recipes for making pizza dough & they are very easy, but I usually call in the "Dough Boy" to make things even simpler!

The only problem with this short-cut is that it's rolled to be a retangular pizza, but........

.....with a bit of persuasion, I make it fit my round pizza stone.  This is the Pampered Chef stone, & I love all their stoneware.  No, I don't sell it or know anyone who does!  At this point I add the pizza sauce, to which I've already added pizza seasoning & a little red pepper -- I'm not talking enough to make it HOT, just give it a bit of zip.

Then I sprinkle on the mozzarella or pizza blend cheeses, add small dollops of ricotta & lots of the turkey pepperoni.   Into the oven it goes at 400* for about 10-15 min.  After just a couple of minutes, it 

started smelling so good, The Man and I were both hovering at the oven door!

I forgot to take a picture when it came out of the oven, so you will just have to see what was left

after we attacked it.  Hmmm, maybe dinner tonight!

Earlier in the day, I decided I wanted to make a fruit crisp for dessert.  Actually, I had seen a recipe here in blogland that I was dying to try.  You can find the recipe HERE.  I found these little, very inexpensive ramekins, at Walmart a few years ago.

I tweaked this recipe a bit.  I only used half the butter called for & slightly less brown sugar.

I also did not have whole wheat pastry flour, so I just used regular whole wheat flour.

These are the berries I had in the freezer.  This is a great combo.

I didn't thaw these & it worked fine.  I sprinkled on a scant tablespoon of sugar & some of the whole wheat flour & tossed to coat.

I divided the coated fruit between the 4 ramekins.

Divide the oatmeal/butter mixture among the 4 bowls & pop in the oven.  Within just a few minutes, my house was smelling so good.

I had to resist these little beauties all day!  Poor me!

So after our fabulously delicious pizza, we satisfied our sweet tooths with 

Berry Crisps topped with Lite Cool Whip.  Yummy, yummy, yummy, I had 

Berry Crisp in my tummy!  Guess what we're having for dessert tonight?

Hope you enjoyed my low-key Friday night meal.  Wish you could have joined us.

CAS

I'm happily linking to:

Home and Family Friday

Foodie Friday

.............And So it Begins!

Hey everyone!   Hope you're having a great Friday & that you aren't the brunt of too many "April Fool's" jokes today!  I don't usually play that game, but I used to when our kiddoes were, well, little kiddoes.  They thought that was really fun.  The Man may or may not even remember what day it is, but I'm always a little bit ready for any jokes he might have up his sleeve.  We'll see how the day goes.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared a photo of the new house we are buying & that I would be taking (or dragging) ya'll on this journey with me.  I thought today would be a good day to start some of that.  We should be closing on the new house at the end of April, so I am getting really excited & a bit anxious about all that has to be done.  Over the last few weeks, I've been getting estimates on moving & that's been a real shocker.  I'll share some of that in a bit.

First, let me show you where we are right now & where we are moving.  Yuma is point A on the map & Gilbert (our new home) is point B.  Gilbert is a suburb of Phoenix.  Between Pt. A & B is about 200 miles or approximately 3 hours driving time.  Yes, if you are wondering, Yuma is super-close to both the Mexico & California borders.  Super-close!

I have gotten four estimates on moving.  I had them figure for two ways -- we pack or they pack.  I won't even tell ya' what it would be if they pack!  The estimated poundage for our "less than 1700 sq. ft. home" has varied from 10,000lbs. to 16,000lbs.  Seems like a BIG difference to me.  Charges have ranged from, get ready, $1000 to almost $6000!  Can you believe that?  The real kicker is that the lowest estimate is from a Gilbert mover who will drive to Yuma, pick up & drive back!  Now, if you are thinking that maybe this Gilbert Co. is so much less because they aren't reputable, I questioned that myself.  I checked them out with the BBB & they had an "A" rating with no complaints.  They've also been in business for over 20 years, & they are family-owned.  I intend to check out references, but they are looking pretty good to me. 

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=809

So today, after The Man gets home from work, we are off to pick up a few of these.......

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=659

.....and some of this.  Well, actually, I'm getting a few rolls of unprinted newsprint from our local newspaper.  I've been told this is the best paper to use, because then I won't have to wash everything when I unpack it.  Yay for me!

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1674

This is where I plan to start the packing process.  This is my sunroom decor closet, so lots of glass & small items.  I plan to use boxes that, once packed, The Man can slide them back on the shelves.  I have this aversion to having moving boxes stacked here and there in a home that's for sale.  That being said, I am willing to have some stacked in the garage, however.

I'm really anxious to get this process started, but will probably wait until next week to actually begin since we have another Open House scheduled for Sunday.  Last week's Open House was cancelled due to our realtor having a family emergency.  So, once again, I'm off to do some "spiffin 'n polishin" but The Man is helping with some of that tomorrow.

In all this "hubub & chaos" that IS my life right now, I realized I reached 200 followers last night!  Actually, my 200th follower shared that with me in an email.  

She is Martina at Northern Nesting, & you should definitely check out her nice blog.

All I can do right now is say "THANK YOU" to all of you who follow my blog.  It still amazes me that so many of you are interested in what I have to share.  I am truly flattered & hope I can do something nice, in the way of a give-away, in the future.  I count so many of you as really good friends, & if even a few of you feel that way about me, then I am very lucky!

I am happy to link up to these wonderful parties:

Inspiration Friday

Fridays Unfolded

It's A HodgePodge Life

Feature Yourself Friday