Aloha friends,

We've been going meatless every Monday for a while now. I thought some of you may be interested in what we've been eatting...

Last night I served Ratatouille. Ratatouille is a flavorful vegetable dish that you can customize to your family's taste and what you have on hand. Here's the basic recipe:

1 Eggplant sliced
1 Zucchini sliced
1 Yellow Squash sliced
1 Grey Squash sliced
1 Bell Pepper sliced
1 White or Yellow Onion sliced
Several Tomatoes sliced
Mushrooms sliced
Minced Garlic
Chopped Basil
Olive Oil
8 oz Tomato Sauce
salt and pepper to taste
Parmesean Cheese

Butter a large baking dish. Spread half of the tomato sauce onto the bottom of the dish.
Layer alternating slices of veggies. Sprinkle with garlic and basil. Pour remaining tomato sauce over veggies. Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Cover with aluminum foil  Bake in 375F oven for 35 minutes or until roasted and tender. Serve with your favorite pasta, quonia or rice. Sprinkle with parmesean.

We've tried other vegetables like marinated artichoke hearts, super thin cut potatoes, asparagus, olives. Also, you don't need to be fancy with the layering of veggies....it tastes just as good if you just mix them all before baking.

Thanks for reading my diary!

Merry Christmas friends!

I hope this season finds you making happy memories with your loved ones. Sharing laughs and good times!

Here's our Christmas tree. It's one of my favorite things about the holiday. I love vintage ornaments and cute stuff the littles have made over the years. Our tree has less ornaments than usual...I like a cluttered tree LOL! Tinsel is always fun too.

Our family makes gingerbread houses at Christmas. Often they're hawaiian style with lots of aloha.This year we decided to change it up and make a gingerbread candyland. My husband and the 4 kiddos created the houses, I did the landscaping. It's great to be creative together...kids come up with awesome ideas!

Thanks for reading my diary!
Aloha!

Aloha Friends!

Here's a quick pic of the plumeria I've been talking about. It just doesn't want to give up on summer! It's blurry, but in the background is our neighbor's Christmas decorations!

Aloha and mele Kalikimaka!

Aloha Friends!

We're having a heat wave in December! But, I'm not complaining! I had intentions of working on my gingerbread house today but, the weather was just too beautiful to be inside. So, instead I put on my swimsuit, slathered on some sunscreen and soaked up the sunshine.

The plumeria I wrote about a couple weeks ago is still blooming! It must've known this warm weather was coming. I'll snap a photo of it and share it with you soon.

Here's a photo of my crazy bird of paradise.....

It bloomed upside down! Seems like my plumeria isn't the only one confussed.

Thanks for reading my diary!

It's December 1st and one of my plumeria has refused to accept winter and is still flowering! Everybody else has stopped blooming and some have started dropping their leaves.. They're all heading into dormancy. Which is more typical behavior for December. Not this flower!

.This plant is in a protected spot on my front porch and gets a lot of the low winter sun. It's starting to get chilly here in San Diego. I"m sure these are the last of it's buds for the season. It held onto summer as long as it could!

I can relate to this plumeria :)

Thanks for reading my diary, I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving!
Aloha!