Pesto Cheese Ball from Paula Deen

Pesto Cheese Ball

 

 

1 (8-ounce) package sliced provolone cheese
2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
20 pistachios, shelled
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
                                                                                                      3 ounces oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes

Line a medium bowl with plastic wrap, leaving enough overhang to cover the top. Reserving 3 slices of the provolone, line the bottom and sides of the bowl with the remaining provolone, overlapping the slices. For the cream cheese layer, process the cream cheese, pistachios, and 1 of the garlic cloves in a food processor until blended; scrape the mixture into a bowl and set aside. For the pesto layer, process the basil, parsley, pine nuts, and the remaining garlic clove in the food processor until blended. Dissolve the salt and pepper in the olive oil and mix well.

With the machine running, add the oil in a fine stream. Scrape this mixture into a second bowl and set aside. For the tomato layer, drain the tomatoes, reserving the oil. Puree the tomatoes with a small amount of the reserved oil in a food processor. Spread some of the cream cheese mixture over the cheese slices lining the bowl. Layer the pesto mixture, half of the remaining cream cheese mixture, the sun-dried tomato mixture, and then remaining cream cheese mixture in the bowl. Cover with the remaining provolone. Bring the edges of the plastic wrap together over the top and secure with a twist tie. Freeze until firm. Remove the plastic wrap and invert the mold onto a serving platter. Serve with party crackers. This will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 months.

 

I took the advice of others who rated this recipe and did not add extra oil to the sun-dried tomatoes.   If you don’t have a food processor or are pressed for time, buy a good pre-made pesto.

 

 

 

Twitter

I ran across twitter.com on a foodie site and decided I’d give it a try….. look for me there at palegreeneyes

Come Play with Me….. 6 Word Memoirs

I love this…. first encountered it on NPR……..  telling your life story in 6 words, no more, no less… Smith magazine has published a book of these.

Ernest Hemingway’s……. “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/ 

Mine - “Seeking: Time, Love, Sleep,Art, Wine” 

What’s your 6 word memoir?

Collage Art Supplies

First, I want to say that I hate Wal-Mart.  Hate them.

Second, I want to say that they have driven out every mom and pop in my town and are only option in this small town, so I am forced to shop them……..or another large chain.

Today, I got ready to settle down and make a collage and decided I needed yet more “stuff”.

I went to Lowe’s in search of a plastic notched trowel, had to settle for a metal one.  I wanted a package of the hard, flat sponges that puff up when you wet them, they did not have them…… I needed yet another type of glue to fix the drawer glide that holds my art supplies in my kitchen……and some formica samples to make a few necklaces….and luggage tags…sorry Lowe’s, I’d buy them in a package if you sold them.

At Wal-Mart I purchased waterbased markers, fine point sharpie markers in a variety of colors…. sand, paint brushes,  crayons for wax resist….. gel pens….tulips paints in matte….. a pad of paper made for acrylics (new to me)……   I bought drop clothes because I am messy…… and elmer’s glue………paper plates…… plastic cups……some misc things to add texture…..  I am so ready to get in my yoga pants and play with paints……………..  and hopefully lose some weight in the process……… I’ve shot my food budget on supplies so the only foods I bought this week are - a head of broccoli, a case of Diet Coke, a dozen eggs and a large plastic jar of pretzel sticks……ought to be an interesting week.

May your muse find you……….. 

A Study in Blue

 

Blizzard winds howl

Snow and freezing rain

obscure my windows

darkness surrounds me

the first robin of spring

just returned

nowhere to be found

I wonder where she is

and if the homeless

have shelter

on this wicked night

as I mix fifty shades of

blue

some light and transparent

most dark

layered

and as intense

as people I attract

adding black to deepen

the shade

or suppress my thoughts

I recall the men in my life

most, no – all

wanted or needed something

from me

all but one

his only need was distance

the very thing that drove

us apart

I add more black

more green and yellow

and slather this

thick opaque shade

of midnight blue

over my heart

on a dismal winter night

I knew she’d return………

My muse has been in hiding for months….. I had almost given up on her when I felt the first inkling of her resurfacing in my life……in Wal-Mart of all places!  I was in a hurry, just ran in to pick up mascara and Diet Coke and on my way from one spot to the other I heard her whisper my name from scrapbooking aisle…..I ignored her and walked faster…..as I was picking up the Diet Coke I heard her beckon me again. I went to the scrapbooking aisle and picked up a set of scroll stamps ( I love anything with scrolls and whirlyques) ….. also picked up a piece of colored paper……..brought them home and immediately took them into my art room that resembled a storage locker……… I immediately set to work reorganizing it, dusting things off, adding a CD player, an old oriental rug…….some artsy stuff I had put on a shelf…..a box of ribbons……..she is now out of control! 

Just this morning she spent HOURS browsing Amazon adding all sorts of books to her cart but had the good sense to go shower and realize as long as she had enough to get a free shipping order she had enough to nourish her soul through the next month or two.

I’ve missed her……. I had forgotten what good company was she and how much bliss she brought into my life.

 As I drank my second cup of coffee this morning with my wet hair still wrapped in a towel I smiled at her and said, “Welcome home……..I hope you never leave.”

Black Cloud, Silver Lining

It’s been one of those days……….. my clear coat on my car is blistering for some strange reason, looks horrible.  The body shop can not get it in for  a few weeks.  $$$

This evening I broke a tooth…………. eating cheese!  I take my stress out by clenching and grinding my teeth and the last few weeks have been very stressful. I have a night guard but I take that out in my sleep……….probably because it interfers with my ability to clench and/or grind. $$$

My dentist and his staff are on a week long retreat.   

Good news…….. had a wonderful painting donated for my upcoming gala by a woman with Parkinson’s disease. It reminds me of Monet’s waterlillies, I think I like this one even better, perhaps because I know and admire her.  She is in her 70’s and still paints or draws daily.  For her to set up her canvas and easel is a major chore yet one she refuses to let others help her do……..everything has to be just so.  When I went to pick it up she dropped the frame…….chipped a huge section off a very expensive frame.  I took it to our local and fabulous frame gallery, he knows her, and he was only too happy to put it in a new  very expensive frame at his expense.  I will use it for a live auction item. She will be there and she will be thrilled.  In her prime she did a lot of art shows, now that her every movement is challenged, she just paints for her own therapy.  

One of my highlights today happened at Wal-Mart. They hire people who have disabilities.  At our local store they have a young lady who is a greeter.  She has cerebral palsy.  She can’t speak but tries and she tries hard.  She loves to check your receipt against the merchandise in your cart as you leave, She loves and needs the interaction with people,when you talk to her she beams. I always make a point of speaking to her and having her check my cart.

Today, when I walked in she was waving her arms and smiling, so excited.  I walked up to her and asked her why she was so happy.  Her body, true to form, was jerking all over the place but she managed to type  a code in a lap top type computer on her stand and it spoke to me!!!!  She was thrilled to death to be able to communicate with me and she joked with me too……..and she laughed. I laughed.  I hugged her and she typed in, “I love to be hugged”.  It got me………….kicked me in the gut……….I can only imagine she’s been waiting a lifetime to tell someone that.

I told her I did too as I blinked  back tears.

As I was leaving the store I saw a woman about my age standing outside the entrance, crying.  I asked her if she was Ok…….she nodded yes, as tears streamed down her face.  She said she is the mother of that young lady and was so touched by her excitement about her new “voice”…….  and the fact that a stranger would take the time to talk to her as if she were  a normal girl.  I hugged her mother and told her that I never thought of her daughter as a normal girl, she is nothing less of exceptional……….. and a great inspiration to me!

This is Where the Road Ends

Nearly three years ago I met and fell madly in love with a man unlike any other I’d met.  Recently, things were not adding up…… when I questioned him and asked if he was married he always maintained he was divorced, that we had been over this, he was not married.

This past week my doubts were confirmed, even knowing I had the hard evidence in my hand he still lied, insisted he was divorced.  My heart aches…..for myself but even more so for his family.  I hold his wife’s heart in my hands, wanting her to find a man who loves her the way she deserves to be loved, I want that for myself too.  I wish he’d thought about his family or mine when he started this…… I am wallowing in pain and self-pity right now……a broken record. 

My only crime was loving and trusting a man who is a liar and cheat……an over-educated liar and cheat. I’m sure his blackberry stores his lies so they are only a button away.

  (word has this poem goofed up, guess I will bite the bullet and download blogdesk.)

This is Where the Road Ends        

Sleep hides behind lies

My heart too shattered to rest

My soul is tired, weary

I want to dream in a place far away

where he will never find me

I turn on the light

numb fingers tapping on keys

rapidly to vent my pain

wondering why he did not bother

to find another married person

 to mind fuck

to consume

I am so disappointed in him

in the man I thought I knew

in the father who hugs his daughter

knowing she will find men like him

the world is full of them

I laugh to myself as tears

roll into the corners of my mouth

wondering why I thought I was so special

that they would pass me by

I sob wondering why he could not tell the truth

when I handed it to him

over and over on a silver platter

what was he hoping to save?

Obviously, only his own pride

Not his wife’s, not mine

I hear his voice his lies

 it hurts to the boneand beyond 

This is not a detour

it’s the end of the road

I never thought we would end

especially just as the world was turning

crimson and gold

just as the fields of beans work their magic

the road ahead uncertain for both of us

I know I will find the road back to

somewhere between where I’ve been

and a place I’ll never go again

but right now I am lost,

 just like him

in the pain he made

the pain he chose for each of us

somewhere between lies and healing

as the world prepares for autumn

 I look out over the field

his shadow absent behind me

as the scent of pungent damp earth fills the night air

there are no happy endings here

only sad songs that seem to come from every direction

the universe is comforting me

a thin slice of the waning moon

my unreliable witness

to the sharp edge pebbles

that like love, have cut too deep

this wound ,a twisted lie

refuses to heal

With a glass of wine I examine

his words over and over

dissecting them into small pieces

looking for even the smallest

trace of truth among them

I wonder if he’ll ever miss me

my touch or how I felt wrapped around him

If he will stare into a glass of red wine

and hear it whisper my name

see the words he penned on the cork

of each bottle we shared

I throw handfuls of them in the trash

then silently retrieve them for safe keeping

someday I will revisit them

not now

I am too fragile

this is where the road ends 

The neighbor’s cat coils around my ankle

I gently caress him

like a long lost love

with a sympathetic ear

and a warm heart

his purring, unconditional love

I, like the cat, am helpless

searching for a soft landing

life is fragile

fragile and unpredictable

I wonder who he prays to

who he talks to in the middle of the night

I have a history with him

but no future

the way the king of lies and deception

intended it to be right from the start

 Suddenly I understand

 “who has the power”

and a wiser, kinder person

tosses it into the prevailing wind 

In Search of the Skin Horse

This afternoon I went to a birthday party for a gentleman turning 90 - he told me he reached this age in good health because he knew the magic formula.  I asked him what that was, hoping he’d enlighten me.He looked at me and said, “Love. I fell in love with a good woman who loved me with her entire heart on my good days and bad days and I did the same for her.”I want a younger version of that man. Good days and bad days, oh yes, I have loved that way………. I am missing the man who can return that kind of love. 

He said he isn’t too much to look at now days.  What he doesn’t realize is, it is not how someone looks that is import,  what sags and wrinkles only makes them that much more lovable.  It all starts and ends with what’s inside.  I choose to live with an open hand, open heart in hopes of finding real love someday……..and holding it.

I don’t want the guy with the 6-pack or the one who dresses to the nines, I don’t care about sports cars or how much money he makes, what he does for a living,  I want the guy who’s hair has turned the color mother nature intended it to be at this age, the guy with the lines on his face………the lines life delivered……….I will climb over the pretty boys to get to the skin horse…….anyday of the week.

And now, one of my all time favorite passages from “The Velveteen Rabbit” - about the skn horse

“The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

 I do have the capacity to love again…………in time……..in time. Right now, I have fresh wounds that need attention……..deep and raw, but in time I will be ready again.

Where Did the Time Go?

In my youth, I never paid attention to time or the passing years. It was a commodity that I took for granted. I knew where to find it and how to stretch it. Now it owns me and runs through my fingers,.

I want a man who values time.

Who does what he says he will do.

Who delivers in spades. If  I could, I’d turn the back the hands of time.

I’d have made better choices about the men in my life and moved on when it was clear it was not working.

I would have realized that I can’t fix anyone, only point them in the right direction.

I would have realized when you love someone, really love them, a part of them resides in you always, even if they’ve hurt and deceived you.

I would have raised my children differently, given them more survival skills, realizing that someday I would not be here to fix things or kiss away a broken heart. I think I failed them by not pushing them harder, not letting them fail enough under my watch to have the confidence to turn things around while I was still in a position to help them. Sigh.

Wisdom is a wonderful gift, unfortunately, it usually is linked to the passage of time.

Make no mistake, I will use it wisely.

Life is precious, I make each day count.