Happy Mother's Day, 2021

 

It is Mother's Day, 2021

So we made this card for her...sorry we look so serious, it was a sunny day! But we love her! Any and every day!

She has to be at her work today...all the moms and grannies there need her more than we do so we are not grumbling too much.

Here is a fun pic of petcretary when she was visiting the Netherlands as an infant...She's with her paternal Opa and Oma.

Here she is with her own Mom:

And here she  is with our unfurbros, from 2013:

 Well, last Tuesday, petcretary was first in line at Teddy's Tuesday teaser, along with many others. It was like a mini stampede! But she didn't have the right answer soon enough! LOL! At least she did *have* the correct place!

These were the other students who were early enough: Petcretary Sharon,Timmy, Jackie, Katty, Csilla

So these were the badges that were distributed:

 

WOW – we had a BIG CROWD of First Right Guessers on the Teaser post of May 4, 2021 and I was ONE OF THEM!!!!

Well, that all the fun stuff...

But we did make some cards for new Angel furs.

Archie from My Three Moggies

Newt  You can read about him here, at Dash Kitten's blog.

We are in the Sunday Selfies Blog Hop, hosted by The Kitties Blue

In Purr-suit Of Flavours ~ Cinco De Mayo

 

Well, its the first Wednesday of the month once again. Today is May 5th, which is also known as Cinco De Mayo.  So our recipes have Mexican flavor profiles...We are hosted by Skoko and Tyebe from The Canadian Cats, and DaPhenny and DaNelly the Weimie Twins from EasyWeimaraner.

                                                                            ~~~~~

Here is a yummy dip for veggies...or chips if you eat those:

Creamy Mexican Dip

 Ingredients:

• 1 cup Greek yogurt
• ½ cup prepared salsa
• ½ avocado
• 1/3 cup cilantro
• ½ tsp cumin
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Combine Greek yogurt and salsa until well incorporated.
2. Gently fold in remaining ingredients.
3. Refrigerate to allow flavors to meld together. (1 hour is sufficient).
4. Enjoy this tasty low calorie vegetable dip with your favorite cut up veggies.

                                                                        ~~~~~~~~~~

Mango Guacamole Dip

 Ingredients:

• 2 avocados
• 1 mango, peeled and sliced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced and seeded.
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 Tbsp cilantro
• 2 Tbsp lime juice, (fresh squeezed is the best.)
  
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Smash the avocado in a bowl.
2. Add onion, red pepper, and garlic.
3. Gently fold in mango, cilantro, and lime juice.
4. Refrigerate to allow flavors to meld together. (1 hour is sufficient).
5. Enjoy with cut up veggies.

                                                                            ~~~~~~~~~~

Cilantro-Chicken Chilaquiles with Crumbled Queso Fresco

Ingredients:

• 6 corn tortillas, cut into 6 wedges each
• 1 7 oz can salsa verde
• 1 4 oz can diced green chile peppers
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup shredded cooked chicken breast
• 4 oz queso fresco, crumbled (1 cup)
• 1/2 cup quartered grape tomatoes
• 1/2 cup snipped fresh cilantro
• 1/3 cup finely chopped red onion (1 small)
• 1 medium lime, cut into wedges
• 1/2 cup light sour cream (optional)
  

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 °F. Arrange tortilla wedges in a single layer on a large baking sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until beginning to lightly brown. Cool on the baking sheet on a wire rack for 10 minutes. (They will harden during cooling.)
• Place the cooled tortilla wedges in a medium nonstick skillet. In a medium bowl stir together salsa verde, chile peppers, the water, and olive oil. Pour salsa verde mixture evenly over tortilla wedges. Top with chicken. Bring to boiling over medium-high heat; reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, about 3 minutes or until tortilla wedges are slightly softened.
• Remove from heat. Sprinkle with cheese, tomatoes, cilantro, and red onion. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes to allow flavors to absorb and the cheese to melt slightly.
• Serve with lime wedges and, if desired, sour cream.

 

                                                                     ~~~~~~~~~~

20-Minute Taco Skillet

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small bell pepper, cored, diced
• 1/2 large onion, peeled, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 12 oz ground beef
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
• 1 zucchini, diced
• 1 cup black beans, drained, rinsed
• 1 cup canned diced tomato, drained
• 1/4 cup Mexican cheese blend

Directions:

• Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the peppers and onions and cook until slightly softened, about 5 minutes.
• Add garlic, ground beef, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper and cook, stirring frequently and breaking beef up with a wooden spoon, until cooked through, about 5-7 minutes.
• Add the zucchini and cook until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes.
• Stir in beans and tomatoes. Top with cheese and cover until melted, about 2-3 minutes. Serve with tortilla chips over chopped Romaine lettuce or roasted spaghetti squash and top with hot sauce if desired.

• Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the peppers and onions and cook until slightly softened, about 5 minutes.
• Add garlic, ground beef, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper and cook, stirring frequently and breaking beef up with a wooden spoon, until cooked through, about 5-7 minutes.
• Add the zucchini and cook until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes.
• Stir in beans and tomatoes. Top with cheese and cover until melted, about 2-3 minutes. Serve with tortilla chips over chopped Romaine lettuce or roasted spaghetti squash and top with hot sauce if desired.

                                 ~~~~~~~~

 

Chipotle & Orange Grilled Chicken

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp frozen orange-juice concentrate, thawed
• 1 tbsp finely chopped chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. (from a can)
  
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tsp unsulfured molasses
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Salt to taste

Directions:

• Preheat grill or broiler.
• Whisk together orange-juice concentrate, chipotle pepper, vinegar, molasses and mustard in a small bowl.
• Lightly oil the grill or broiler rack. Season chicken with salt and grill or broil for 2 minutes. Turn, brush with the glaze and cook for 4 minutes, brushing occasionally with glaze. Turn again, brush with the glaze, and cook until the center is no longer pink, 1 to 2 minutes longer.

                                                                          ~~~~~~~~~~

We hope you will enjoy these recipes, we love em! Well, the peeps do, They won't let us have any...BOL!

This is a blog hop, In Purr-suit of flavors, Click this caption to see all the others or to join with your own yummy flavors.   ***  You can click here for the other co-host, The Weimie Twins

Sunday!! Selfies! (Petcretary Is Frustrated...)

 Hello everyone!

Its Sunday again, so that means its time for our selfies and all the other important stuff we want to tell you about. Or woof about as the case may be.

A little while ago we showed you our Weeping Cherry tree...well by now all the blossoms are gone, and its all green with leaves. But: There is a smaller tree in front of it, called a dogwood. Our pawrents brought it here from Pawppy's home in Washington DC, many years ago...along with a purple lilac. The lilac is slow to thrive, and it only puts out a few blooms, and the dogwood, while it doesn't bark...(so then WHY is it called a dogwood??),  it does bloom now, it took many years for that to happen, so we love to see it, even if it isn't a 'prize specimen'!

Here you can see the cherry tree in leaf, the dogwood 'barking' with blossoms and under that is the top of our little lilac. Perhaps it needs more sunlight, its quite overtaken by the other two larger trees.

This is one of the very few, soon to blossom sprigs on our lilac...well, it tries, LOL!!

 

Now you might ask, why is petcretary so frustrated?? Well, as many of you already know, if you have a widget on your blog's sidebar: Follow by Email, well, that comes from 'feed burner', and its going to be disabled at the end of June, so that it will no longer work to send all of you faithful followers an email letting you know that we have posted. So please use our Bloglovin widget and sign up that way, we use it and its pretty good. Sometimes it says the blog page is not available; but then after another try or two or three, its there. Must be a glitch from too many peeps trying to read a particular blog...but the notices DO get out. We've used it for years. Check it out!

We will try to get on Mail Chimp or another email server, and that is where the annoying things start to happen, since *she* is not technically inclined...sheesh! She's about to pull out her hair, LOL! Pawppy didn't even know what to do about it...of course his tech knowledge is of a very different than this kind of thing...

Well, if anyone knows what/how to do, could they help her out?? We want to have you easily be able to read our blog posts and not have to hunt in the web for them...they might get lost that way, BOL!

Well, at any rate we have made some cuties to cheer her up:

Last Tuesday at Teddy's Tuesday Teaser, Petcretary provided the picture that was the Teaser!

Muskoka region, Ontario, Canada; Picture provided by Angela Nirta, a (Catster) friend, who lives in  London, Ontario. Petcretary lived there before she came to Michigan!

 And she was in the crowded doorway to be first, a total of five were jamming the door! LOL!

Nobody was able to guess that place...not even any Canadians who visited the Teaser.
So it was a doozy or a whopper of a teaser!! These were the proffered badges:

I was one of FIVE (yes I said FIVE) students who were FIRST COMMENTERS on the Teaser post of April 27, 2021. Amazing!

 

My Teaser photo was used on the TEASER of April 27, 2021 AND it FOOLED EVERYONE!
YAY FOR ME!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We had to say goodby over the past week, to some blogging furry ones. So sad...sheesh, will those doors to the RB ever stay closed?

Anyways in no particular order...here are the newest Angels that we knew about:

Pierre, from Sometimes Cats Herd You

Pip, from Catscue

Sophie, from Life At Golden Pines

We are hopping along with all the other Sunday Selfies at The Kitties Blue. Won't you join us, too? They faithfully put out this hop each week, and we thanks them for all their hard work. We love you all, Kitties Blue!

Sunday Selfies, Rerun Style!

 Petcretary gave us a break today, so we are going to have some 'reruns', aka flashbacks. 

She has been running around like a chicken without a head, as she puts it...and she didn't even take any pics at all! Our cherry tree survived the heavy frosts we had and the snow, but now almost all the blossoms are gone, and we have the leaves coming out. Soon our little dogwood should be blooming, but its not nearly as spectacular as the weeping cherry tree. Our bleeding hearts have quite a bit of frost damage, but maybe if it stays warm enough they might send out more shoots.

We had several nights  of temps around 25F,  and we even had snow one night! Sheesh...the weather is strange!

Us pups have plenty to bark at lately, too. Our neighbor man who was gone for just over a year, doing National Guard duty, (Thank You!), has returned from active duty and now he's outside a lot, chopping wood and messing around with his new truck...petcretary hopes we get used to seeing him there,and also his buddies that come to help. Cause we bark too much! But hey, there is a cat that follows him around, and also a doggy...and two mini humans.

These 'selfies' are some flashbacks to 'show off' for some of the challenges that Marjorie Dawson has in her blog/website.

Softly focused Pipo, in a sunpuddle on the forbidden table! Wonder what he was thinking?!?

A pic with bad lighting and harsh shadows, edited to keep the great catch of his YAWN...or was he singing the song of his people??!!

A very badly lit image, but the pic itself was fun, so it became an edited keeper!

Brifght sun sure always made PIpo's eyes such a bright blue, and lovely contrasting shadows.

Minko: Hi Freckles, what'cha doing??

Here's a Valentine's Kiss for YOU!

Pipo, guarding a parcel that was sent to him and Minko...

Pipo, at Christmas, which was the day before his Birthday...looking like, why all this fuss, Hisses!!

Pipo & Minko...this is the pic used un our 'gravatar'.

Groucho with his new kitten sisfur Suki, the second kitten he 'mentored'.

Minko in the sun, contemplating life...

Minko just loved sun puddles!

Pipo in lamplight...not such a great pic, LOL!

This looks MUCH better with a vignette and in black and white.

Minko enjoying a sun puddle.

Pipo & Minko on one of their Gotcha Days, which happened to be also Valentine's Day! Sheesh, they look bored, MOL!

Suki as a kitten, what a diva she was!

MrJackFreckles would have been celebrating his birthday later this week...he was a good and patient pup, LOL! But treats helped, BOL!

It was a fun day, this past Tuesday when petcretary 'played' the Tuesday Teaser Day at One Spoiled Cat, with professor Teddy and his Mom Pam...

We were one of the first commenters, Hooray!

Then after what seemed to be a totally impossible picture to figure out its location, petcretary hunkered down after her dinner (ie: brain sustenance), and finally was able to put in her (corrected) guess...late but still valid!! Hooray!

So she was first on both counts yet again...three weeks in a row! Triple crown at Teddy's!! Yippee! LOL!

At 8:40PM last night (after school was closed and the Professors were snoring) Miss Ingrid guessed the Teaser correctly!  This is a very interesting Teaser photo,  and it is of the Midland Glider Club at Long Mynd, Church Stretton,  Shropshire, UK 

Well, I guessed RIGHT on the Teaser of April 20, 2021 after all! The Professors thought nobody got it but I DID! YAY FOR ME!

We all in the land of Blogville, had to say our goodbyes to yet another kitty friend; Charles, from Cat Scouts. We didn't know him that well, but we know that many others did and loved him so much, esp, Lisbeth from The Kitties Blue. Our sympathy to all who knew him, he will be sorely missed. We made a card in his honor...we don't think he had a blog, but he was here on Facebook.

Charles

We are hopping along in the Sunday Selfies Blog Hop, along with so many others, we thank Miss Janet and her kitties for hosting this great Blog Hop each week!