Slices of Life

Hey all, I hope your November is going well. Ours is whizzing by. We are busy with houseguests again this week. My parents came up with a moving van and a friend, to empty our their storage units so they can furnish their new house! I think they plan on leaving Thursday and then I'll turn my attention to Thanksgiving. I'm not worried about it though as it should be a very low key affair this year with just the immediate family and my mother in law. How are your holiday plans shaping up? We had another record breaking turnout last week with over 125 entries linked up! I love seeing the wide variety of posts each week and it's fun to visit them all. Because I do visit and pin every single one even if I can't manage to comment on them all. Thank YOU all for helping this party grow week after week!  The link with the most views from last week's party: Talking About It Tuesdays-- Birthday Day in the Life by Memphis Bridges A few that caught my eye: Crockpot Meatballs wi

 After the Caprese chicken casserole (recipe here) was such a huge hit, I decided to try the same thing but with subbing salmon out for the chicken. I can't say my boys enjoyed it; since they don't like fish. But I sure thought it was tasty!  Ingredients: 3 Large pieces of salmon  1 small jar pesto (we only used 1/2 the jar) 1-2 tomatoes sliced 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese I covered a glass baking dish with tinfoil, laid out the salmon pieces skin side down and spread a bit of pest over each one trying to cover it all evenly. I topped them with tomato slices. Finished it all off with a sprinkle of cheese and popped it in the oven at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes; checking with a meat thermometer to make sure the fish reaches 145. It was delicious!  My husband isn't a HUGE fan of pesto or even salmon for that matter but he thought this tasted great.  Linking up with:

 Look at me participating in an actual Friday Favorites! It's been ages since I've summed up our week this way but we had a pretty good and slightly unusual week that I wanted to document.  Rewinding to last Friday I headed out to brunch with my mom and step-father. We not only had a very delicious meal at Bill's Bread and Breakfast but we had a great time catching up and laughing. While this move and their intro into retirement have been pretty stressful for them they have certainly kept their sense of humor. (Sorry, no photos; we were too busy eating and visiting!) That afternoon Evan asked me if I wanted to go for a hike so we headed to Pulaski. It was a beautiful afternoon and we had a great walk but man, it was definitely NOT a favorite to see just how low the water was in the pond-- even the beaver lodge was completely dry! Typically this entire cove would be under water.  water is usually flowing right under this bridge and over the dam on the other side.  Saturday

 Joanne Tracey over at Brookford Kitchen Diaries has started up a monthly cookbook club and the rules such as they are are loose enough that it's easy to follow along and participate.  This month we were asked to try to find Basque by Jose Pizzaro (or another Spain/Spanish influenced cookbook) and try out a recipe to share. I was not at all surprised when the book nor anything by the author was available at our library or even through our inter- library loan program. We are a small town and it's often hard to find specific books. But I searched for Spanish cookbooks and found two to request through interlibrary loan that I thought might work for today's theme. Unfortunately by the time the two books arrived I only had a week to look through them, pick a recipe or two and get cooking! We ended up making 3 for a complete Spanish meal-- with a protein, a starchy side dish, and some delicious vegetables.  Since I am sharing recipes from cookbooks I won't be giving full rec