Spectacular Breakfast Recipe

I feel bad I didn't take enough pictures of this, but it was delish.  It's a combination of about three different recipes, including my own for french toast.

I really didn't want to get up early and do this, so I made a couple of parts of this the night before which took about an hour.  This recipe is going to yield about 4-5 sandwiches.

First, I started with the syrup:

Ingredients: 
3 cups sliced strawberries
1 cup granulated sugar
few squirts of lemon juice

Directions: 
In a medium saucepan, combine all the ingredients.  Put on medium heat and stir.  Slowly bring to a boil. 

While it's heating, start on the filling:

Ingredients: 
1 c. diced strawberries
1 tsp. sugar
1 8 oz. package cream cheese (softened)
1/3 c. powdered sugar

Combine strawberries and sugar in a small bowl, set aside. In a large mixing bowl, whip cream cheese and powdered sugar until thoroughly combined. Fold in strawberry mixture, and continue to smash and make the strawberries smaller pieces.  Once it's the consistency of icing, it's ready.  If making the night before, put it in the fridge.

After the sauce has begun to boil, lower the heat and simmer until the strawberries are soft and the syrup is thickened and reduced by 1/3 to 1/2 in volume, 15 to 18 minutes.  Continue to stir throughout.

Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature before serving or put in the fridge for the morning.

The rest, I did the morning of the breakfast.

French toast mix:

Ingredients: 
5 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
cinnamon
milk
8-10 slices of bread

Heat your griddle to 375, put your syrup on the stove on low heat if you made it the night before.

Break the eggs, combine the vanilla extract and a glug of milk.  After you've combined them, sprinkle a healthy amount of cinnamon.  Mix well, then pour into a pie plate.

Take a slice of thick bread, and spread the filling.  I did it too thin, so don't be afraid to put it on thick, you'll have enough.

Take a second slice and place on top of it.  Try and "pinch" the edges to seal the sides.  Dip it into the egg mixture on both sides.  Place it on the griddle and flip once the bottom has turned golden brown.

Serve with powdered sugar on top, and liberally spread the strawberry syrup.

Enjoy like Kingsley did!

P.S.  It will keep Tucker's attention when you're making this.  Tangy is just on the carpet because of the slick floor.

One week and 1618 miles: miles 916 - 1618

We arrived back to Bethany's Friday evening (mile 1329) to find out that she had a flat tire and we needed to have her car in to the shop by 7a Saturday morning.

Got that accomplished, then it was time to take Connie's parents back to SW Ohio while Connie stayed with Bethany and James.

Got the car hooked up and about the time we should have had lunch, we were going to be at my Mom's house (mile 1435) so we arranged to pick her up.  We went out to Edison's Depot, which was kind of fascinating.  Apparently, during Edison's time, the village decided to rename itself after the inventor.  He wasn't born there, didn't live there and didn't die there, but the little village just took it upon themselves to honor him.

Connie's parents decided to head on to Wilmington by themselves, I spent a little more time with my Mom, then headed back to Cleveland.  Got back to Cleveland (mile 1541) around 4p and we spent the evening with Bethany, James and the kids.

Pretty neat the way our two girls and Bethany and James' dog Tucker get along, play, romp, wear each other out.

We had dinner out at a local tavern (Stamper's) close to the kids house in Fairview Park.  Food was decent.

Afterward, we watched our first two episodes of Duck Dynasty.  Not sure what the buzz is about, but at least we can say we've seen it.  Spent the night in the spare bedroom (different bed #5), had some pancakes in the morning and off we went for Ashtabula.

Arrived back to the rig almost 7 days and 1 hour after we left (mile 1618).  Drove about one way to Billings, MT.  Everything was good here, took about an hour to unpack and we were back to semi normal.

Treatment day and we entertain Tucker...

Wednesday (June 5th) was a treatment day for Connie.  A double header with both Herceptin and Zometa.  A little tired on Wednesday, she was really zonked Thursday & Friday, rallied a little on Saturday and felt pretty decent today (Sunday).  We've got some big tests on Tuesday.  Her first MRI and Cat scans since she was diagnosed at the end of February.  This should give us some assessment as to how the treatments are going.  I know she's both excited and nervous about them.

The weather has been miserable.  Today was the first day we've broken 70 and actually seen the sun.  We ran the furnace every morning this week.  Yuck.  Not helping Connie feel better, thats for sure.

Thursday, our daughter Bethany came over to Ashtabula and stayed the night.  I have to talk about a great pork chop recipe I made for the three of us, and our friend Lenny who came over.

Started with a layer of peeled (I hate peeling apples, thank goodness Bethany was up for it) apples.  Cover them with brown sugar and some garlic.

Next, layer the apples with thinly sliced onions.


Then, take 3-4 slices of bacon and wrap 1" thick pork chops.  Place them on top of the apples/onion layers.

Cooked those at 375 for 20 minutes in our convection oven, then flipped them for another 20 minutes.  Delish doesn't start to describe them!

As I mentioned, our daughter Bethany came over Thursday and stayed till Friday morning (we had donuts for the first time in forever!!!) and left her baby with us as they were headed south for a wedding and 1st baby birthday of some of their friends.

Tucker has been mentioned before in this blog.  He's a Puggle, and he's all boy.  Our girls, especially Carmen, love having the big lug around.  He's got a ton of energy, and when he finally expends some, he's a terrific dog.  Huge bark, though.  Huge.

He's also used to getting up with his daddy at 5:30a.  We didn't break him of that, we adjusted.  Dark that early.  As I said, when he expends his energy, he's really good.

Took him to the Ashtabula Dog Park with Carmen and they REALLY had a great time.  Tucker was faster in the straight aways, but Carmen had some jukes that made him barrel roll.  45 minutes of pure doggie enjoyment, just the two of them in a big open field.  Shot some video, but it was really too quick to be enjoyable.

Spent a little time over at Lenny's on Saturday, too.  His big girl, 'Dessa (an 11 year old German Sherpherd), wasn't too fond of Tucker.  A little too much energy, and then, there's the bark.  She's already made her thoughts known to Carmen and Sloopy.

Carmen and Tucker are really BFF's.  They play, they wrestle, they snuggle.  Sloopy can take him or leave him, but then again, its a pretty well established fact that she's a diva.

We took Tucker back home today to the West Side of Cleveland, and stopped over to see our friends Don and April (who have 3 cockers) who live on the southeast side.  I think Carmen was OD'd on dogs that were not her sister.  We had a great time, spent a couple of hours with the sun was finally out and we could sit on their back porch and just talk.  Very relaxing.

The Right Breed for Us

 Sloopy is our Boston Terrier.  Almost five years ago, we lost our "JoBu" and decided time had come to start thinking about our fulltime future.  Narrowed down our breeds to a Boston Terrier and a Boxer with the Beastie winning because of their size.  Didn't want shedding, barking, and wanted a dog that would be a good "apartment dog".

 With the wedding, we offered to keep Tucker, our daughter and son in law's Puggle.  He's 8 months old, all boy, and a lovable little guy.  But we realized early we would need to really ramp up his exercise in order for him to be balanced.  We've enjoyed having "the boy", but he's been a handful.  Finally starting to get him into a regimine, but it's been a challenge.

So, if you're thinking about full timing, think about your pet.  Not fair to the dog to get a breed that won't easily adapt to the lifestyle.  But "our house" wouldn't be "a home" without a dog.

Wedding Week is Over!

 Hard to believe how much has gone in this past 10 days.  Being fulltime RV'ers, giving away our "used to be little" girl in a wedding on the other side of the state, entertaining everyone, coordinating everything.

All went off without too much of a hitch, we've now gained a son-in-law and we can get back to a somewhat normal life, albeit with one addition -- we're dog sitting the wedding couple's puppy, Tucker, a puggle.


He's a lovable little guy, but we made the right choice when we decided to fulltime to go with a Boston Terrier.  More on that tomorrow!