Sammich Sundays, I

My dear husband loves sandwiches.  Seriously.  There is seldom a meal that I prepare around here that he isn't slapping between two pieces of bread at one point or another.  So, I started a pinterest board of sandwiches of course, but then the board grew, I moved on and have not looked back until a few weeks ago, upon trying to figure out what to do with Thanksgiving leftovers, it dawned on me....let's try a new sandwich every week.  Sammich Sundays were born.  We've only done two, but have two more planned and so far so good.

Our first contender is a Thanksgiving leftover sandwich, but not just any Thanksgiving leftover sandwich..... does this look familiar to anyone......???

I love Friends. Louis loves friends. Perhaps this episode of Friends is also familiar at your house?  Ross is going through a tough time and all he's looking forward to is eating a Thanksgiving leftover sandwich that his sister, Monica, makes for him.  As you can see from the picture above, what makes this particular sandwich so good is the 'moist maker'.  We searched high and low on the internet and found no shortage of variations on  this sandwich.  For our first 'Sammich Sunday' I present to you my thanksgiving leftover sammich with the moist maker!

Now if you google this sandwich, you are going to find a plethora of various recipes- see the episode doesn't give an exact recipe, short of specifying the MOIST MAKER, which is the crucial part of this sandwich, it is basically your own preference of all good things Thanksgiving. :)  For Louis, that looked liked this:  wheat brea, miracle whip, lettuce, turkey, mashed potatoes, the moist maker, stuffing, cranberry sauce and then topped with another piece of wheat bread- this one without miracle whip. 

He finished that bad boy off in like 1 minute flat.  I did not have one. I'm not crazy about sandwiches like that, so I had a traditional open faced sandwich.  Not nearly as exciting. :)

Thanksgiving 2017

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! We hope you all had a wonderful day full of laughter, family, friends, hope, love, joy and of course more food than you knew what to do with!!  That is EXACTLY how the Provost-Martin family spent their Thanksgiving. We just did ours the Saturday prior so that Bella and Zo could go to Tahoe with their dad. Anyways, we hosted it this year and I prepared every last bit of it- from scratch, by myself, with ONE exception, my mama made the cranberry fluff salad.

Not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty organized and was able to manage time and such just fine so that it wasn't a big deal.  I've also hosted a full Thanksgiving meal by myself more than once, so it wasn't my first rodeo.  That's not to say it still wasn't a ton of work and I vow to only do it once a year, we will NOT be having a repeat at Christmas, I will be doing a prime rib, which is just as nice, but far less work honestly. I do enjoy doing it, and it is worth every last minute spent cooling just to have good times spent together around the table. 

And ,just because I'm truly a creature of habit- these pictures are out of order.  I get them off my phone and Louis' phone and then just upload them how they appear..sorry guys! :)

Gathering the goods: groceries, I got some new Thanksgiving linens: a fall apron, wishbone Thanksgiving hand towels, a new table cloth and 8 cloth napkins. Plus, who doesn't need a cornucopia of mini pumpkins at their Thanksgiving feast?!?!

Making the turkey brine.  This year I decided to do things a bit differently, and it resulted in a pretty darn good turkey if I do say so myself.  I concocted my own brine recipe using bits and pieces of three I found online.  Then I combined that with cooking methods/from another three websites and voila- it was a delicious bird!

some of the warm dishes: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing or dressing

some of the cold dishes: homemade cranberry sauce, cranberry fluff salad, ambrosia, creamsicle salad, double layer knox blox and deviled eggs

more warm dishes: sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole and of course homemade potato rolls.

let the feast begin!

I did decide on scaling back this year on my pies.  I normally make 6 different pies, but this year I only made 3, well 4 technically, since each of those pumpkin pies are different recipes.  We had a pumpkin pie showdown this year.  And of course- the mud.  Mississippi Mud that is.  A family tradition for my entire life, this 4 layered ice box type dessert with chocolate pudding, a walnut shortbread crust, creamy sweet cream cheese filling- is a hit to EVERYONE who tries it.  Bella doesn't like pie (whaaat?!?!?) so it is now more than ever a necessity on our holiday table, so she can have dessert along with everyone else. Anyways, there are two pumpkin pies, pecan pie, coconut cream pie up there. Homemade pie crust and homemade whipped cream.

Im sorry I look like some weird robotic half bent freak in this picture.  I dont know what I was doing. We were trying to get Zoe to notice the stuff that "rikki" brought and she was down there for like 20 minutes without noticing it and it was only when Louis finally took this picture, theres a mirror behind him and she noticed it all in the mirror

Georgia Date Night

Georgia is the 20th (or so)stop on our travels.  Travel with us to this old land in the Middle East- learn with us and eat with us as we explore Georgia!

Georgia, a country at the intersection of Europe and Asia, is a former Soviet republic that’s home to Caucasus Mountain villages and Black Sea beaches. It’s famous for Vardzia, a sprawling cave monastery dating to the 12th century, and the ancient wine-growing region Kakheti. The capital, Tbilisi, is known for the diverse architecture and mazelike, cobblestone streets of its old town.

Capital: Tbilisi

Currency: Georgian lari

Cool Facts about Georgia:

• Georgia is a country located at the intersection of Eastern Europe and West Asia, and generally considered to be part of Europe.
• Bounded to the west by the Black Sea, Georgia is bordered to the north and northeast by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan.
• Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia.
• Forests cover around 40% of Georgia’s territory.
• Forest regions are characterized by wild boars, deer, bears, lynx, wolves, foxes, jackals, hares, and squirrels.
•  The Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park is located in central Georgia and is part of the Caucasian upland region (Smaller Caucasus). The park is one of the largest in Europe – it covers more than 76,000 hectares of native forest and sub-alpine and alpine meadows, home to rare species of flora and fauna.
• With a staggering depth of 2,197 meters (7,208 feet), Krubera Cave (also known as Voronya or Voronja Cave) is the deepest known cave in the world. Located in the Arabika Massif, of the Western Caucasus in Abkhazia, Georgia, it extends for 13.432 kilometers (8,346 miles.)
• The Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi commonly known as Sameba is the main cathedral of the Georgian Orthodox Church located in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Constructed between 1995 and 2004, it is the third-tallest Eastern Orthodox cathedral in the world and one of the largest religious buildings in the world by total area.
• Archaeologists found the oldest traces of wine production (6,000 BC) in Georgia
• There are just 14 independent alphabets in the world and Georgian is one of them.

 For dinner we had a delicious soup called kharcho- it is a beef and rice soup in a tomato based broth with tons of dill and other fresh herbs., Georgian baton bread, and a Georgian sponge bread called sunger tatlisi.

The recipe I found called for you to make a bunch of these little dollops of cake, bake them, but them all in another dish, cover with syrup and let that soak in.  The recipe I used was translated from Georgian by google, so it was a little difficult to understand, but I think I did ok. We didn't know any better so there ya go.

This is after all the little cakes had been put into the other dish with the syrup poured on top.  It still had to bake for a bit to get all that syrup to soak into those little cakes.

our appetizer: walnuts, various cheeses and grapes.  The crackers aren't Georgian, just plain ole Ritz, bu who doesn't like a cheese and cracker?

the fruit leather- super popular in Georiga, this particular kind was made in Mexico, but it was all I could find.

the cake once it was done

Model Home Pics

These photos are for those of you who aren't close enough to see it live. I was at the model house talking to our realtor the other day about where to put something and snapped as many photos of the interior as I could.  There are a few upgrades in this home we didn't purchase, so I'll point those out. :) They are out of order kinda so- bear with me

I did get an upgraded model of stove and fridge. These are just the standard stainless appliances.

Same color cabinets- Chiffon, but these are the ralston maple cabinets and I upgraded to one step up- the portrait maple cabinet. Same oil rubbed bronze handles.

The pantry- we have plans to change those doors ASAP- thinking possible sliding barn door, possible chalk board barn sliding door, screen doors, clear glass doors- we've thrown several ideas around.

These counter tops are quarts. I chose slab granite instead.

entry area. den off to the side

girls bathroom. They did upgrade to quartz in the bathrooms as well, which we did not.  We felt the price point they were asking was not reasonable for the small amount of counter space both bathrooms would be.  We will have both bathroom counters re-done at a future date.

laundry room off kitchen.

the island is one of my favorite parts of the whole kitchen.

master bath.  I love this dual vanity with the built in make up area!!

those are the same tiles we chose for our maste shower as well

master bedroom. We also added the patio door

view from the master bedroom door

living room/ dining room/ kitchen.  They have put the engineered wood flooring throughout here, which looks nice and I would have done it, but like I already said, I didn't take into account the lot premium, so there ya go.  Anyways, we plan on replacing it all with tile floors that look like wood in a few years any how.  I decided to go with tile over anything else because of how hardy it is- waterproof, etc.  So our living room will be carpeted.

I'm trying to figure out how to decorate this plant shelf.....

same fireplace surround.

we did not add the three windows either. too much light

view from back by the patio door in the living room. Our room is to the left, den is to theft by the front door, girls rooms and bathroom is to the right