OK, now some of you long time readers will remember that Senta use to make a weekly post titled “Take a bite off my plate…” in which she would post a recipe of something our family enjoyed eating. A while back I decided to try and centralize these posts, to make it simpler to find the recipes, because Senta doesn’t only post them for you to use, but for her to quickly look up later. I have finally gotten it to work the way I wanted, and It is now available for her and you, to use. She has no Idea i have been working on this, so…Senta this is for you.

Please Visit recipes.hillreport.com

Great Grandma and Grandpa Hill have a huge backyard. They were farmers for many years so they own acres and acres.  I am not sure how many but for a city girl like I am, anything above 1 acre is HUGE- LOL!!!

One morning we decided we were going to explore the backyard. They have sheds, farms, cats running around, a creek that separates their backyard from the farming. I guess it’s not a creek but more of a canal.  The city takes the water out every fall and by the end of May put it back in for irrigating their lands.  I am not sure why they take it out but they do.  When we were there the hadn’t filled up the canals with water so my kids were able to go down and explore which they did- and LOVED!!  We ended up spending most of our morning out exploring and taking pictures. The kids loved it!!

It moves fast, but there are 50 Photos. If you want to see a picture better just hover your pointer (the arrow thingy) over the picture.

Every year the day before Easter we decorate eggs and eat our Easter bunny cake that I have freshly prepared.  My brothers and sisters will definitely remember this cake. Our wonderful, lovable, chocolate covered mother used to make it when we were kids long long ago.

Saturday was the magic day for this spectacular event! For each child to color 4 eggs I needed to make at least 20!  My family did this every year as a child. I wonder how many eggs my mother boiled each year??  I decided to make 23 just in case some broke while boiling them. None broke, thank goodness.  But on the down sound,  every time someone opens the refrigerator you smell FART! And of course when they smell it, someone else always says “Gross, who puted?” I laugh of course.

Our roof is done!  I am so happy with the new look.  It really makes our house look so different. We ran into a few issues. We told the guy that he would run into issues because he was dealing with us and we are “worst case scenario”. He just laughed.  Little did he know, he was going to have a HUGE project on his hands.

Monday-  the crew arrive at 7:15am and would hard at work by 7:30am. It was loud!   That morning I needed to take Drew to the DR so Daniel stayed home until I got back (we were a 1 car family, I know surprise, surprise ).  When I arrived home Daniel met me outside. As we were talking the roofer asked Daniel to come up on the roof. It was then we found out that the roof had some mold on the wood and so it would need to be replaced. That wasn’t the BIG ISSUE though!  Apparently when the roof was originally put on in the 70′s the under-layment, aka black sticky stuff, was never put on.  It was like this on our house — beams to make the roof, wood sheets, shingles, and another set of shingles. The underlayment is SUPPOSE to be  put on between wood and shingles,  that way water couldn’t get through.  Since our house did not have it the water seeped through for years..  Daniel came down from the ladder and told me.  All I could see was $$$ as he was talking.

Tuesday-  The crew arrived at 7:30 and immediatly started working. They were hard away pounding and pounding (and pounding…). My quiet morning with my baby was not!  They spent most of their Tuesday ripping off shingles and replacing 8 x12 sheets of wood all over the top of our roof. Did you know that 1 piece of 8×12 sheet cost $25.00!!?  I didn’t, but I do now!!

Oh yeah, on this day we also talked about re placing our gutters becasue they need to be. That was going to be about $1800-$2100. I let the roofer know I would talk to Daniel and give him an answer the next day.

Wednesday- The weather said it was suppose to rain all afternoon so the roofers did not come. The weather was beautiful. Sometimes I wonder about the weather people?

* I let the roofer know we could no longer do the gutters. I was sad. But with all the extra costs we could not afford it.  At this point we had yet to talk about the soffit, costs, and time. Keep reading I will talk about soffits in a second. My brain is not there yet. *

Thursday- It was cold!  It was winter like  cold weather.  I felt bad for the guys that had to work that day. They arrived by 7:30am and were hard at work almost immediately. Today they just needed to finish up above the garage and over our front porch.  The front porch was a big job. He basically had to rebuild it for us with new wood and beams and re-angle it.  I watched him work. Every time a 2×4 (beam) or a 8×12 piece of wood went up the ladder, my heart hurt and all I could see was $ signs..  As Daniel said to me often during the week- It needed to be done right?

Friday-  I woke up with a new roof. And the entire morning it was quiet- even better….

Before the the roofer left he talked to us about our soffit, it needs to be done in a bad way.  Some may be saying right now as they read- “A Soffit, whats that?” That’s the wood trim around the entire house.  In our case it’s a total of 275 ft of soffit!!  That’s a lot of soffit and a ton of money!! We got a quote and to fix it with aluminum it would cost us over $3000.00!!  I laughed hard, real hard! We can’t do that right now BUT we need to do something about it. The paint is out of control pealing. The city gave us 1 year to get it fixed and that about 1 year ago. We need to scrap and paint before May 22nd!!! Who knows how we are going to pull this one off.I still am still trying to get my hands on a money tree for the backyard. I swear some people have them.   I’ll let you know if and when I ever find one. Here are some pictures before and after.  We got a new garage door and we decided to take the shutters off the house. I think it looks better without the shutters. That was Daniel’s idea to take them off.  Oh yeah, I also made a new address for less than $15.00!!  I was proud of this little project I did!

One more thing-  How Much does a new roof cost?  A TON OF MONEY!!  More than we thought. But it was a need not a want so I can sleep at night..

Before

This recipe was from the Food Network website:

Ingredients
For the Dough:

* 1 1/3 cups Dutch-process cocoa powder
* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
* 2 cups granulated sugar
* 2 large eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Filling:

* 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
* 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
* 3 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Prepare the dough: Sift together the cocoa powder, flour and salt in a large bowl.

Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla, incorporating each ingredient before adding the next. Add the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula.

Divide the dough into 2 pieces; place one piece between 2 lightly floured sheets of parchment paper and roll into a 1/4-inch-thick rectangle. Repeat with the other piece of dough. Refrigerate both rectangles, covered with the parchment sheets, until firm, at least 1 hour or up to several days.

Using a 2-inch round cutter, cut the dough into 64 circles. (You can reroll the scraps once.) Place the cookies about 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets and chill for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Bake the cookies until they are set and slightly darker around the edges, about 20 minutes. Cool completely on wire racks.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling: Using a mixer, cream the butter and shortening until fluffy. Beat in the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla.

Flip half of the cookies upside down and top each with 1 level tablespoon of filling. Press the remaining cookies on top to make sandwiches.

Los Hermanos Salsa

Ingredients:

1 (14 1/2 ounce) can tomatoes and green chilies (drained)
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can whole canned tomatoes (drained)
2-3 tsps. jalapeno (canned, diced, not pickled)
1/2 medium yellow onion (quartered)
3/4 teaspoon garlic salt (don’t use garlic powder)
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon sugar
Juice from 1/2 lime
1/4 bunch cilantro (more or less to taste)

Directions:

Combine everything in blender and blend until desired consistency. Place in covered container and chill. Chill for at least 6 hours to blend and enrich the flavors. Serve with your favorite thin corn tortilla chips. Makes about 3 cups.

If you leave out the cilantro it tastes more like Chili’s salsa.

Guacamole

Mash 2 ripe avocados. Mix in 1/2 cup of salsa (more or less to taste), 1/8 – 1/4 cup homemade ranch dressing, and 1 Tbsp. lime juice. Salt to taste.

Anyway, if you have about 4 minutes give it a try. It really only takes that long.