I just invented a new recipe! OK – maybe I didn’t actually invent it, but I didn’t follow a recipe, and in my dictionary – that’s an invention!!

Cajun Chicken Pasta

Ingredients:

1 lb. chicken – or 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 box (13.25 oz) whole wheat penne pasta

1 (8 oz) block of fat-free cream cheese, room temperature

1 (10.75 oz) can of Campbell’s Cream of Chicken Soup – 98% fat free

2 Tablespoons cajun seasoning

Preheat the oven to 350.

Boil the chicken. I cooked mine the day before and kept it in the frig. Cook the penne pasta, al dente. While the pasta is cooking, chop the chicken into bite size pieces and add to a large mixing bowl. To the bowl, add the cream cheese, soup, and seasoning. Combine with the chicken until well mixed. When the pasta is al dente, drain, and combine with the chicken mixture. Pour into a sprayed glass baking dish, and cook until heated through – about 15-20 minutes.

Holy. Moly.

So good! You need no salt and pepper. You need nothing. Except maybe a glass of red wine. This is a nice and spicy dish, and the cajun seasoning can be reduced if necessary.

Serves: 6 (ok – maybe 4)

Based on 6 servings, this is 8 points per serving on Weight Watchers, and worth every bite of it. Add a 4  point glass of red wine, and it’s a splurge…but well worth it!

This week, we begin working through the colors of the rainbow over at

Jenny’s Alphabe-Thursday!

Call it Summer School if you like…

Since this is week one of Summer School – Colors of the Rainbow,

we shall start with the outside color

This week, I will share my favorite RED Etsy finds!

(click on the picture to visit this item on Etsy)

If I had a little girl dog, she would definitely need this RED Dahlia dog collar!

Since I am a cycling girl, I love this RED “ride on” poster!

I could totally see this RED candleholder showing off on my mantle!

Wouldn’t this RED hat keep my head all nice and cozy in the wintertime?!

…and lastly, one of my most favorites….

….a RED strawberry jam jar

Last week while I was visiting a friend, she mentioned that she had recently purchased

way too many peaches & nectarines.

Did I want some? Sure, why not?!

Having grown up in the South, I’ve been drinking sweet (iced) tea so long that I bet my mom put it in my baby bottle! Since I’ve moved out of my parent’s home, I haven’t drank it quite as much, but that really doesn’t mean much – I still drink it ALOT!

One thing that I have never acquired a taste for is hot tea. Maybe I’ve been drinking it wrong – buying the wrong brands of tea? Using honey instead of sugar cubes? Not using milk? Etc. I don’t know.

However, that all changed this past Saturday – my mom’s birthday! Her friend took us to a tea room on Saturday to celebrate her birthday, and we had a great time!

I think I could be addicted to this idea of having tea!

The tea room we visited was called Duncan Hill Inn Tea Room. My mom’s friend found this tea room by searching on Tea Map for a tea room in our area. This is a great resource for anyone who would like to visit a tea room!

Our table looked similar to this one ~ we dined on squash soup, fresh fruits, and in the middle was a display like the one above ~ filled with wonderful blueberry scones (with Devonshire cream, lemon curd, and jams), apple breads, tea sandwiches (egg salad, chicken salad in phyllo, cucumber, and ham poppyseed), and the top ~ oh the top ~ cordial glasses with some kind of delicate strawberry roll dessert, special fudges, strawberries and raspberries filled with cream cheese, pound cakes, and I don’t even remember what else! It was pretty amazing, and let’s not forget the name of the room ~ a tea room ~ we had all sorts of special teas to pick from and by the time we left we had four different pots of tea on the table!

It was a wonderful afternoon listening to my mom and her friend reminisce and chat, and every once in a while I’d toss in a few words, mostly along the lines of, “this is so good”, “wait, this is better”, etc etc.

From what I gathered in my afternoon at the tea room, having tea is an orderly affair. There are do’s and dont’s, methods, etc for having tea. Because I would like to get more information on this custom, I purchased a book from A Tea For All Reasons along with a couple of Marsha’s (the proprietor) special blended teas. Marsha and I have communicated, and she told me that her cookbook will give me all sorts of “beginner” information!

Utlimate Goal: to host a tea

Do any of my readers enjoy tea? Do you go to tea rooms? What brands of tea do you buy in the store?

I am including this post in Jenny’s Alphabe-Thursday – Alaphabet Soup Day! Next week, the color RED.

I’m not sure how I found Yvonne’s Stone Gable, but boy am I glad I did!

I have done a couple of posts lately about recipes I have found on this blog, including Strawberry Jam and Pesto. Both have been excellent recipes! I also love looking at all of Yvonne’s tablescapes ~ just beautiful!

From what I gather, Yvonne is located in the heart of Amish country ~ an area that I absolutely fell in love with the first time I visited ~ which was only a few years ago. My in-laws live outside of Philly, and the first time they took me and their son, my then boyfriend, Mick, out to Amish country, I had the best time! We rode around in the convertible which I think added my scenery intake. Everything about the area is just remarkable. OK – Amish Country – another post. This post is about Stone Gable’s Giveaway!

Stone Gable’s Yvonne is giving away away a Cuisinart Ice Cream, Frozen Yorgurt, & Sorbet Maker in celebration of her 200th post!! Click HERE or on the picture below to enter!

Hope you have a great weekend!

~angela

For Alphabe-Thursday this week, the letter Y came pretty quickly and easily to me.

I am a cycling fan.

All of you cycling fans out there know where I’m going with this!

July is cycling.

Yellow is the best color in the Tour de France.

Why?

The leader is the only person who gets to wear yellow.

The yellow jersery

Why do you think Lance Armstrong’s Foundation – Livestrong – is all yellow?

The Livestrong manofesto (from their website):

We believe in life.
Your life.
We believe in living every minute of it with every ounce of your being.
And that you must not let cancer take control of it.
We believe in energy: channeled and fierce.
We believe in focus: getting smart and living strong.
Unity is strength. Knowledge is power. Attitude is everything.
This is LIVESTRONG.

I’ll be honest here, I don’t shop Goodwill. Our home is lovely, and we don’t have excess space, so we aren’t in need of random decorating things. If you are, then sometimes thrift shopping fits the bill if you want to repurpose something. As part of this crazy nesting phase I am in, not only am I making our home more homey, I am also purging. The other week, on a rainy afternoon, I decided to take a collected pile of stuff over to Goodwill. Why I bothered going in is anyone’s guess. But in this case, I’m glad I did. I found a lovely lamp base. I’ve always loved this type of lamp. Could be the curves, I don’t know. I do know that I got my mom’s big yellow lamp with the same base in our kitchen with a big black lampshade on it, and we love it!

Goodwill lamp + HomeGoods lampshade + The Tassel House tassel

I would also like to point out those valances; you can see the bottom of one of them in the picture above. I picked up a pair of taffeta valances that are energy effecient to cover two transum windows in our living room. Those little windows do a BIG job of making our house so much warmer in the summertime – the brutal afternoon sun, the heat, ughie. These valances have done a wonderful job of keeping our whole house coolor! LOVE THEM! At night, we keep the house 2 degrees warmer than we used to, and it feels the same! Yes, they are energy effecient! Yes, the wrinkles haven’t all fallen out of them so I am going to iron them…

Man alive, I have been “nesting” lately. Couldn’t tell you why. It’s just where I am right now. I’ve been fixing up our house…which really didn’t need to be fixed up, but I am making it prettier every day. My flowers are rockin it! I’ve made the strawberry jam and on my way to making blackberry jam. And this week…pesto!

I have never really eaten pesto. I have never made pesto. Couldn’t tell you the ingredients to save my life except for pine nuts…which is a bit comical because I did not use pine nuts in my pesto!

 Stone Gable’s Pesto Recipe

My basil plant

I cut off a good hunk of basil, and took it in and washed it.

My other ingredients

Here’s the deal with the nuts: I was in the grocery store, and the pine nuts I found were so expensive. My pantry is overflowing with almonds, pecans, and good ‘ole peanuts. I knew something  had to work as a replacement. In the comments I read on the Stone’s Gable blog, it seemed a couple of people used almonds. But then I thought…almonds are mighty expensive, too, and I enjoy those as a little snack in the car when I get hungry. And peanuts…they are cheap! Peanuts I used. Almonds I did not.

My pesto!

(and my sweet cutie putootie  – Rudi; he hunting for his froggy girlfriends)

I stored it in the refrigerator overnight. When it was time for dinner, I warmed it for 25 seconds in the microwave and served it over angel hair. No leftovers to freeze in olive oiled ice cube trays.

Check out how much basil I still have, and it’s still producing! I am making more this weekend! Mick loved it! Next, I will serve it with penne and grilled blackened chicken. Mmmmm

We’ve all watched disease and/or cancer take the life of someone we know. Could be someone near and dear to our hearts – a spouse, a parent, sibling, friend. It could be that we are watching someone  we care about, although not quite like an immediate family member, wither away who, no matter their faults and errors in life, doesn’t deserve to have their body tormented in such a cruel way.

My family is currently watching a member of our own going through this painful process. These last days are a struggle for each member of the family, in their own personal way. No one likes death. No likes watching a loved one lose their life in a such a harsh way as cancer.

So today, instead of fun and happy post, it’s a bit sad. I ask that you a take a minute to keep my Uncle in your prayers. His last days on this earth are near, and I pray for comfort and peace not only for his body but also for his soul as this time approaches.

~angela

Sometimes I got it.

Sometimes I don’t.

Not much happening in the noodle this week.

I think “X” is such a lonely letter ~

I hope you have an eXcellent July of 4th weekend!!

eXcellent company

eXcellent food

eXcellent fireworks

eXcellent rest and relaxation

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I don’t have much planned for the Holiday weekend.

My husband and I got away last week for a long weekend in the mountains.

It was cooler (until late afternoon) and very relaxing.

We rode our bicycles ALOT, we shopped, we rented a motorcycle to ride along the

Blue Ridge Parkway.

Some of the most beautiful scenery from the bike was around the Viaduct.

Now why didn’t I think of the Viaduct a couple of weeks ago for V week?!?!?!?!

A very eXtraordinary and eXcellent structure!

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Be sure to check out what’s on everyone’s noodle this week over at Jenny Matlock’s X week!