Duck And Garlic Stuffed Jalapenos

Here's a hors d'oevre (or as we like to say: horse diver) that is quick and easy to make. My husband has a hunting buddy who passed this on to him. He didn't write the recipe down so this is how he remembered it.

A day or two before you are going to make the peppers, marinate chunks of duck meat in your favorite teriyaki sauce. The meat should be cut to fit inside a jalapeno pepper.

Half and seed your jalapenos.
Saute garlic cloves in a little oil until they are lightly browned.
Drain on paper towels.
Everything is lined up and ready to start putting together.

Place the duck meat in one side of the jalapenos.

Place the garlic cloves in the other side.

Put the two halves together, wrap with a bacon strip and pin together with a toothpick.

Place the jalapenos on a baking rack.
Bake at 375〫for about 20 minutes or until the bacon is crisp.
Enjoy!

30th Today

Today, on this December 30th, is my husband's and my 30th wedding anniversary!

Who knew?

Interesting Issue

This was a story in today's paper I just had to share with you! Click on the article to enlarge and see if you can find the interesting "civic" thing this reader enjoys.

In case you didn't see it the first time, here it is underlined.
He sounds like a lot of men I know... ;-)

Hunting = Dinner

If you are an anti-hunter or a PETA idiot person just stop reading right now!

Saturday my husband went out to the Kern Refuge for some duck hunting and he managed to get five ducks.

It's been a while since the last time we ate duck so I was excited.

Roasted duck with cranberry sauce and a green salad with a neighbor's avacadoes on top.

The next day he went dove hunting and got a limit (10).
It doesn't get much better than that!

Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my sister, MT! I had fun riding with you this weekend and shopping today. ❤

Christmas Day

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Close Up Of My Christmas Tree

You can tell it's a slow news day around here when I have to resort to showing some of my Christmas tree ornaments. *Certain* person(s) have been bugging me to post more.

So here are just a few of my ornamentations.

As I mentioned previously I tend to like the monochromatic schemes, the clear, translucent, white, and or silver balls. The exception would probably be the glass birds. I do have some very beautiful (and expensive) purple balls, but I haven't pulled them out in over five years.

Here's a little bird with one of my favorite twirled clear glass bulbs.

Another bird and an acorn. I don't know why I got a few of the acorns, I actually prefer the pine cones. You can also see some of the glass icicles. Maybe I haven't shopped around a lot but it seems to me it's getting harder to find the disposable icicles. I used to use them all the time too. In order for those tin foil type to look good they need to be individually placed on the limbs of the tree and that takes a long time. Since I'm the only one doing the tree decorating I rarely do that anymore.

One of the pine cones. (Sorry about the blurriness.)

Another pine cone and a couple more of the glass icicles. I really like that teardrop one in the back.

I like shiny, sparkly things.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Pig Problem

We have some good news and bad news about our winter garden. First the good news.

As you can see our blood orange tree is getting riper. Another good thing about it is there are more oranges on it this year than last year. That makes me happy. ☺

Here's a closer view. In another week or so they will be even more red than they are now.

Now, the bad news.

A few weeks ago we planted our winter garden. We planted four six packs, one each of cauliflower, brussel sprouts, red cabbage, and green cabbage.

Something came along and ate everything! ☹
We didn't actually see it happening, but we have a pretty good suspect.

Not too long ago there was a large (ugly) pot-bellied pig wandering out back. The next door neighbors took it in until the owner could be found. They found out the pig belongs to someone that lives on the opposite end of the street.

We just planted some root vegetable seeds last weekend. It may be too late for them to really do anything. Well, so much for our winter garden this year!

A couple months ago I found a dove decoy out back. I have no idea who it belongs to so I put it in the little pine tree. I figured if whoever lost it wants it and they find it they can take it back.

And here are some shots of the sunset last night.
When I look at these it almost makes me feel like I live somewhere pretty!

Success! (Sort Of)

I gave the Cookie House another try. I still did not use gingerbread, and I didn't try the shortbread again, but I used rice krispie treats. The house is still not picture perfect, but at least I was able to get it together. I used M&M's, peppermint striped candy sticks, gumdrops, mini white chocolate chips, and white chocolate covered pretzels.

What's not readily apparent are the bazillion toothpicks and wooden skewers running through the house to help keep the walls from collapsing. In fact in the picture below you can probably see one near the roof line on the right side. I did put the krispie treats in the fridge overnight before putting everything together and that helped just a little to harden the "walls". I would have put more decorations on to hide the worst flaws but I ran out of icing and didn't feel like making more.

Something else I didn't realize until I looked at the pictures is how crooked looking the windows look. You'll have to take my word for it that it's really an optical illusion from the candy stick stripes.

I would definitely try this again. Next time I think I'll make the walls a little thicker. And I also have an idea of making krispie treat "bricks"...

Decorations

We haven't really done a lot of interior Christmas decorating for the past couple of years because Clyde was a little puppy and the next year my granddaughter was crawling all over everywhere. This year we figured we'd blow the dust off the lights and the village and at least put a few things out.

Here are the lights in the living room.

I've done the lights like this before and we always enjoy the ambiance. And I'm not too embarrassed to say one year we left the lights up like this until the following June!!!

This year I was going to do something a little different. I had some leftover ball ornaments that I strung onto the lights. They were little silver stars, some swirly clear glass balls, and some plain glass balls that look like bubbles. Then in between the bulbs I hung some twisted metal that was supposed to imitate Victorian tinsel. I can tell you it looked really special.

That is, until the light strands pulled the Command hooks off the wall. I guess they weren't strong enough to hold the lights and the extra weight of the ornaments. We only lost a few. Next year I'll put a nail in the wall!

In the past we've taken a folding table and put it in the living room and arranged the village there. This year we took some of the stuff out of the top tier of the entertainment center and put a few of the pieces up there.

Here is the center piece. Since I like horses of course I have to get any of the pieces that have horses. Look on the middle right side and you'll see a horse pulling a sleigh with some people and their freshly cut tree from the forest. On the left is a horse and buggy coming at us. Let's take a closer look at the buggy.

This hansome cab is carrying two special characters!
Why, it's Santa and Pikachu!

One of our little "traditions" is to move Santa and Pikachu around the village and then the others have to find them.

Here is a little detail of a boy on a sled.

He probably has that look because he's about to fly off the edge of the shelf!
Here's the left side with a hunting group. Notice the farrier behind and another carriage.

Here's the right side of the entertainment center with, of course, another horse and buggy!

This year the tree wasn't so tall that we couldn't put the cheap Long's Drug Store angel on top. I also notice that I didn't get the lights on evenly (more on bottom). Oh well. I favor the silver, white, and clear ornaments. I also have a few different shaped clear glass "icicles", pinecones, and the clip-on glass bird ornaments.

And there's Gus, posing nicely at the base.

We have a few more Christmas decorations but this'll have to do this year.