Ugh. I hate living life without a camera. It's the worst feeling in the world!
I like to capture moments and remember them and share them with my friends/family and I feel like I am missing a limb when I don't have a way to do that. It SUCKS!
So I have no pictures from this weeks activities, however even though I can't prove it, we had a great time this week!

Monday we headed to Hawaiian Falls and spent the whole day in the sun, riding water slides, hanging out in the wave pool and just having a great time. The only bad thing is we all got BURNT like horribly. Well Charlotte didn't, but the rest of us did. And I learned an important lesson. Always put sunblock on Shiloh even if he is in the shade the entire day. The poor kid got TOTALLY burnt. I felt horrible. He wasn't showing any signs of pain, but the poor kid was red all over his face and chest/stomach. :-( Then after we were done, I took the girls to the Shady Grove Softball games where they experienced a community game, which they liked.

Then Tuesday we woke up and headed to Six Flags first thing in the morning. We spent the ENTIRE day at Six Flags in the Texas heat. I was most proud of Charlotte who was scared to ride roller coasters, but by the end of the day she rode them all, including the Titan! Way to go!

Wednesday we slept in, which was much needed. Then we headed to Going Bonkers and Uncle Bucks (the best snow cones on the planet!) then came home and cleaned the house for a showing and then headed to Pei Wei's. We then watched TV throughout the evening and then we went and got milkshakes at 10 at night. Good times!

Today we once again slept in and are trying to figure out what to do. I'm sure we'll figure something out, good times.
So no pictures. NO pictures. This sucks.

What?: The federal government has passed legislation that no longer allows the State of Texas to reimburse birthing centers. AKA those people on Medicaid/CHIP would have to always use a hospital.

Why Does That Matter to Me?: Well the reason this matters to you so much is access to birthing centers. Maybe you aren't on government aide and you don't see why this legislation matters so much to you. The bottom line is the passing of the bill will cause many birthing centers to close. Since the whole point of a birthing center is to be low cost and low hassle, the margin of profit is very low for many of these birthing centers. By having to turn away women who are on Medicaid/CHIP would be the end for many of the smaller birthing centers/midwives because many centers depend on Medicaid payments to continue to keep the doors open.
Now I'm not one of those "do it natural" women as I love my epidural, however, the word respect does not come close to expressing what I feel for the women who do choose to birth naturally. They are heroes and are amazing. Women should be able to choose where they want to give birth and as long as the birthing center meets certain criteria to assure they are qualified and safe, then I think women should be able to choose to birth there and not be forced to give birth in a hospital where, as we all know, many unnecessary interventions are done as a standard. Let's make sure this doesn't happen!

What can you do?:

We are asking for your support to get this situation reversed.Please click on http://www.birthcenters.org/legislative-alerts/index.php?id=25 and then “sign on line”. This is a petition for you to sign that includes a place for additional comments.

If you want to go to the next level, you can actually call your Senators and Congressmen. Here's how to do that:

Burgess' Health Legislative Aide is named Eric Wilson. Call him at the D.C. office number, which is 202-225-7772.

Senator John Cornyn's health L.A. is Martin Sobel and the phone number is 202-224-2934 (Cornyn is on the important Senate Finance Comm).

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson's Health L.A. is Cameron Krier and the phone number is 202-224-5922.

PLEASE everyone make these calls and ask your family members to call also. Urge the health aide to tell the Congressman to support H.R. 2358 and ask him to co-sponsor it. And ask the health aides for the 2 senators if the senator would be willing to introduce the bill in the Senate or, if not, co-sponsor it.

Birthcenter.org recently was able to get Rep. Diana DeGette (CO) - of the House Energy & Commerce Committee - as a sponsor to H.R. 2358 The Birth Center Medicaid Reimbursement Act. This sponsorship comes as a result of the persistent contact of the staff and consumers of Mountain Midwifery Center. You too can achieve the same results. We need TX Representatives to co-sponsor the bill. *Texas Birth Centers are at the Center of Medicaid payment denials and the rest of Congress expects to see the support from TX Representatives for this bill!* In particular, we are targeting TX Representatives Charles Gonzales, Ralph Hall, and Michael Burgess as they are also on the House Energy & Commerce Committee. We need their support to vote our bill out of Committee. Every phone call is important.

Until this bill is passed, payment for Texas birth centers and access to care in your state are at risk, subject to the whim of Texas politicians and administration staff!

HOW YOU CAN HELP

1) CALL YOUR U.S. REPRESENTATIVES and ask them to co-sponsor and/or support H.R. 2358. Make a point to call all of the Representatives in your service area. If your Representatives are on the House Energy & Commerce Committee it is especially important for you to call them. Tell them it is urgent that we pass the Medicaid Birth Center Reimbursement Act so women will continue to have access to prenatal care and other care in birth centers. Focus on the needs of women and babies for access to high quality care as the goal of this legislation

2) CALL YOUR U.S. SENATORS*

Ask them to sponsor and introduce a Senate version of H.R. 2358. This bill is a permanent solution to the payment crisis. Remember, PHONE CALLS are more effective than emails.*

3) Continue to collect signatures for the **Physician Letter. We must show broad, nationwide support from physicians.

Please take 10 minutes to make these calls today! This bill not only impacts the health of mothers and babies but the future birth centers.

Call or email Karen Fennell 301-830-3910; karenfennell50@yahoo.com when you have made your calls.

Thanks for reading this and thanks to Joy K. for passing this on to me so I could let you all know about it.

We had a great 4th of July. It was just us and our two Belgian teenagers for the day, and I thought it would be boring, but we ended up having a fun time!

We all slept in and I started on a late lunch/early dinner. The girls were STARVING which was a good thing because I made WAY too much food!



My 4th of July menu was:

Hamburgers
Onion Strings
Bbq Ribs
Baked Beans
Firecracker Shrimp

It was all SO good if I do say so myself!

Me cooking the BBQ sauce


Char too full!


Stuffed and I haven't even had the ribs yet!


Then we went and saw Ice Age 3. It was a cute movie, but I still think the 1st one was the best, but this was WAY better than the 2nd one!
Lyric liked it:


Then we headed to Dallas Fair Park and saw fireworks in the Cotton Bowl:


Lyric saluting


Trying to get Jo to salute:


All in all it was a good night... except for getting stuck in traffic in downtown Dallas. That was a beating. Oh and when we were walking up to the cotton bowl, these black ladies started screaming obscenities at these other black ladies who were walking in front of us. SCARY! But it was kind of funny :)

We stopped for milkshakes on the way home and finally made it to the house after 11pm. I got the kids in bed and then made the cake for the bake contest today.
I woke up, got Lyric bathed, made the roast marinade and put it in the crockpot, and got everyone dressed (with Jon's help) and to church only 20 minutes late. Then left early to come home and ice the cake and decorate it. It turned out great, even though this picture was after the foil was on it and it messed up my "stars"

I ended up winning the "best cake" at the Church picnic! Go me! :)

So all in all it's been a good day. Ry and Tiff hung out and we caught up on So You Think You Can Dance and now I really need to get the kitchen cleaned up from the icing that's everywhere from the cake, but I'm tired! Sheesh!

Anyways, I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend!

So I made this cake for our church picnic and won 1st prize! It's great! Especially if you can get a bite with a rasberry or a blueberry... mmmm... pure goodness! The icing was delicious as well! The foil had messed up my "stars", but you get the general idea.







Here is the recipe:

Cake:
18 tablespoons (2 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups sugar
6 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Icing:
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 ½ pounds cream cheese, at room temperature
1 pound confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 half-pints blueberries
4 half-pints raspberries

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour (or spray with baking spray) an 18 x 12 x 1 ½ sheet cake pan.
2. Cream the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy. On medium speed, add eggs, 2 at a time, then add sour cream and vanilla. Scrape down the sides and stir until smooth.
3. Sift together the flour, cornstarch, salt, and baking soda in a bow. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until just combined.
   
4. Pour into the prepared pan. Smooth the top with a spatula. Bake in the center of the oven for 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
   
5. Cool to room temperature.
   

For the icing:

1. Combine the butter, cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix just until smooth.
   
2. Spread ½ of the icing on top of the cooled sheet cake.
   
3. Outline the star section of the flag with a toothpick.
   
4. Pipe two rows of icing (I just did one row of icing), then place 2 rows of raspberries, alternately, to form the stripes of the cake.
   
5. Fill the upper left corner with blueberries. Pipe stars on top of the blueberries.
   

Serve at your Fourth of July celebration and send everyone home with a piece!

I made my own pastry bag by just putting the icing in a large zip-lock baggy and then cutting a small corner off. But it would have been a lot prettier if I would have had an actual pastry bag with a star tip.

These are the perfect addition to any barbecue or grill-out meal. I made them for the first time after seeing a recipe on Pioneer Woman and they were great. But they do have a big kick. Not really while you are eating them, but after you've already swallowed them. But they are delicious!




Here is the recipe:

1 pound large (16 to 20 count) shrimp, peeled and deveined.
2 tablespoons hot chili sauce (Sriracha is the best!)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
4 to 5 cloves garlic, pressed

Combine all ingredients in a large Ziploc bag, then add shrimp and marinate for 20 minutes to 2 hours. Skewer shrimp and grill until opaque and brown, with black bits. Perfect to serve as a starter at your next barbecue, just have lots of cold drinks handy. :)

Okay, I got this recipe off of Pioneer Woman's cooking section and my oh my, are they amazing! Like seriously amazing, oh so yummy, eat them till you puke kind of good! They are amazing ON a burger or with a burger, or wtih ribs, or with steaks, or with basically just about anything. You get the point, they are delicious!



Here is the recipe:

1 large onion
2 cups buttermilk
2 cups flour
1 scant tablespoon salt
Lots of black pepper
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
Canola Oil

1. Slice onion very thin, like you need to be able to see your knife as you slice it, that thin. Place in a baking dish and cover with buttermilk for at least one hour.
2. Combine dry ingredients and set aside. Now here is the thing, I like my food to have a bit of kick, so I probably put about a Tablespoon of cayenne pepper, not a 1/2 teaspoon, I know, drastic, but they were great!
3. Heat oil to 375 degrees. Now I have a fry daddy, so all I have to do is turn it on and it is a simple process. I've never done it in the pan, but I'm sure it would be simple. I just have it a little easier than most since my husband is Belgian and loves French fries and has to have them crispy.
4. Grab a handful of onions (I use salad tongs), throw into the flour mixture, tab to shake off excess, and PLUNGE into hot oil. Fry for a few minutes and remove as soon as golden brown.
   

These are delicious, so enjoy!

For a picture-by-picture account, go to PW's Website

So I basically just made up the seasoning to this hamburger, but it turned out SO amazing!

I don't have exact measurements because I kind of just guestimated, but here's what I used to make 4 hamburger patties.

1 1/2 pounds of 90/10 ground beef
1 egg
Italian seasoned bread crumbs
Worcestershire sauce
liquid smoke
hamburger seasoning
salt

Now 90/10 beef will tend to fall a part if you don't add any extra bonding ingredient, so you'll need to use egg yolk and/or bread crumbs. If you would prefer to use 80/20 or 85/15 you can do that, but remember that because of the extra fat, they shrink up.

Anyways, put the ground beef in a mixing bowl. Smoosh it around with your hands to break it all up. Then put one egg in and knead it well into the meat. Next I added Italian Seasoned bread crumbs to help the bonding and also to give it a little more flavor than just regular bread crumbs. Then I put around 2-3 Tablespoons of worshester sauce and liquid smoke and about 1 tablespoon of the hamburger seasoning and some sprinkling of salt. Knead this all together really good and you'll need to make a personal call on whether you should add more of anything after the initial mix in. I think I re-added everything another time. I went a little more generous with the liquid smoke because I like that taste. This is your hamburger patty, so go with what looks good!

Then form the meat into four patties and grill.

Now here is the key. Do NOT buy the hamburger buns in the package. YUCK! That will ruin your burger. Nope, you need to find yourself some Kaiser rolls or another type of bread that you get in your grocery store bakery (I used Bolilo bread because they were out of Kaiser rolls. It worked, but the bread is a little narrow for the patty, but still 100x better than normal buns). Then you add some swiss cheese (or a cheese you like) green lettuce, a tomato and onions (if you like that sort of thing) and of course some mustard because every good hamburger needs mustard -- okay fine, you can put mayo on it or ketchup, yuck.

And there you have it! An absolutely DELICIOUS burger. I promise. It's SO good!

Now let me tell you, these ribs are yum!
However, I bought beef ribs, because I just don't cook with a lot of pork, and I think I decided that pork ribs would have indeed been better. That said, the beef ribs were still delicious!
Here is the recipe I used:

• 3 pounds pork or beef back ribs, cut into serving size pieces
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke flavoring

1. Place the ribs into a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil over high heat; reduce heat to medium and simmer until tender, about 1 hour. Meanwhile, stir the ketchup, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, salt, and liquid smoke in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat; reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered, stirring frequently, until thickened, about 30 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven's broiler and set the oven rack about 6 inches from the heat source. Line a baking sheet with foil.
3. Drain the ribs and place meaty-side-up onto the prepared baking sheet. Brush the ribs with half of the barbeque sauce. Broil in the preheated oven until the sauce has turned sticky and lightly browned, took about 5 minutes in my oven. Turn the ribs over and brush with the remaining sauce. Continue to broil until the sauce has turned sticky, I did this for about 3 minutes.

I'm telling you, the sauce is to die for! LOVED the sauce!
Pair with some corn on the cob, baked beans and some onion strings and you have yourself a winner of a meal!

I can't find my camera ANYWHERE! I have no idea what I did with it.
I keep trying to re-trace my steps in the last few days. I know I had it when Jon and I went on a date on Saturday night. I'm pretty sure I grabbed it out of my purse and possibly put it back in the diaper bag or grabbed it to take a picture and then placed it somewhere unknown on Sunday.
I have a memory of Lyric or one of the girls coming to me in my room with the camera in hand wanting to take a picture and me saying no and putting it up... I have all these fleeting memories, but still no camera!

This is horrible! How can I blog without a camera? I can't even take pictures of my meals! This is just terrible!! I've been having to use stock photos I found on the web.

Anyways, that's what I'm most sad about right now.

But other things in life are great! My niece Jodie and her friend Charlotte came in from Belgium on Wednesday night and we have been having a great time with them. I enjoy the time I get to spend with Jo as she always makes me laugh with her positive outlook on life... HAHAHAHA :)
But really, I love her a lot and Charlotte is so sweet and great with kids. They will be here till the 14th and I have a feeling the time will pass quickly.
It's been less than 24 hours and we've already taken advantage of our live-in babysitters. Ry and Tiff came over for dinner tonight and then we left them to take care of Lyric, Shiloh and Sake (Tiff's dog) while us four went to see Public Enemy with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. Um, can we say sexy :) I find both those actors scrumptious, so for no other reason but the eye candy, go see the movie :) I did however think it was a great movie, just really long. I bet it will get nominated during awards season.
Today we all went to the mall and let the girls shop and I also got a few cute summer dresses. I am wearing one of them on Sunday that I think is really cute. I have been TOTALLY out on dresses and skirts the last few years I guess because I've been pregnant most of that time and then last summer I was still pasty white because I was working, so now that I'm actually beginning to get a tan I'm not as self-conscious. So bring on the dresses!

We'll be doing a lot of running around in the next week and a half, which should be fun. Six Flags and Hawaiian Falls are definitely on the list. I'm sure we'll also go to Boomerangs with the little kids, but I bet Jo and Charlotte will like that place too. I mean hey, I like that place! Plus of course the pool and more shopping. A lot more shopping. Jo has birthday money and she plans on spending it!

Well okay. Jon and Shiloh are both asleep (Shiloh is sleeping in our room in the packnplay as the girls are sleeping in his room on the air mattress). So I better stop typing. I know Jon is going to roll over any minute and say, "Are you done yet?"

So YES Jon, I'm done. ;-)

PS. I still haven't found the time to finish tweaking my blog. I have a lot more work to do, but need to do it with Photoshop and I don't have PS on my computer, it's on the desktop and I never am on the desktop, so I just need to sit down and do it. So until then, excuse the unfinished look of my blog!

This is a family favorite for sure!
Jon requests this quite often and it's easy to make, but definitely hits the spot!






Here is the recipe:

• 1 box of the rigatoni noodles
• Italian seasoning
  
• 1 tub of ricotta cheese (just the regular size)
  
• 1 regular size bag of grated mozerella cheese
  
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 large jar spaghetti sauce (Like the big plastic ragu kind- or 1 1/2 regular jars)
  
• 1 regular size bag of grated Parmesan cheese

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add ziti and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain and rinse.
2. In a medium bowl, mix ziti, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, egg and about 3 quarters of the large jar of sauce. Now go heavy on the italian seasoning spices.
   
3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
4. Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish and spoon in sauce mixture lightly on the bottom. Put half of the noodles and then more sauce mixture, then the rest of the noodles and the rest of the sauce mixture on top of that. Then take the remaining quarter jar of spaghetti sauce and put on top, spreading around kind of like icing on a cake. Then put a thick layer of Parmesan cheese on top of that.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until cheese is melted and sauce is lightly bubbling; let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

Result:
Pure goodness! :) Even though I messed up and was doing the recipe by heart and thought the oven was supposed to be at 350 instead of 375 and only for 20 minutes instead of 25, so the noodles were still a little al dente, but still was delicious!

Tiffani brought over some absolutely delicious homemade garlic cheese bread to go with it.
I'm pretty sure she did it like this:

1 loaf of ciabatta bread (you can get it in the bakery at Whole Foods)
Butter
Salt
Garlic Powder
Mozerella Cheese

Cut the bread in half and butter
Sprinkle salt on both halves
Layer with mozerella cheese
Sprinkle with garlic powder
Place in the oven on broil for 5 minutes or until cheese is nice and melted.
The bread is delicious!

Top that off with a nice salad and yummy glass of red wine and you got yourself a delicious meal in under an hour. Can't beat that.

I've been asked so much recently how on earth I have time to get all that I get done, done and still have time to play and occasionally shower.
Well after 2 years of being a mom, I've finally figured it out. Call me Kate Gosslin, but it really is all about ORGANIZATION!

I think with a little bit of strategy, every SAHM can get everything they need to get done with minimal stress. Now let me preface this by saying, I'm talking about full-time SAHM's. When I worked outside the home, throwing a frozen lasagna in the oven equated me to being a gourmet chef! And also if you are pregnant, you get a pass :)

A huge part of me being organized is what I do every Monday. That is when I make my weekly to do list and also the weekly meal plan.

Here is how I do it:

On the fridge is a monthly calendar. On that calendar I keep all our events. We are pretty good at keeping up with it. Jon writes down everything he has to do, and I write down all the big events of the month. That way we know what's going on from a week to week basis with no surprises.
Why is this important? Well because the first step in making a meal plan is to know how many meals you will be eating at home. Sounds simple right? Nope. It's not.
What I do is I look at my calendar and if we don't have anything going on in the evenings, I will know to plan for 5 meals.
That would be Monday Night, Tuesday Night, Wednesday Night, Thursday Night and Sunday Night.
Friday night is Shabbat (normally wing that one on Friday as we never know in advance what we'll be doing for dinner) and Saturday is normally our restaurant night.
In my opinion and experience, if you are planning on cooking dinner every night of the week, only buy stuff for 6 dinners. Why? Well because chances are one of those nights you are either going to be in a bad mood, ridiculously tired or you may just plain not want to cook. Whether or not you go out to a restaurant or togo food is up to you, but it may be one of those nights you make sandwiches and call it a day.
So basically what I'm saying is add up the number of meals you need to cook that week and minus one.

Then look at your trusty monthly calendar again and see how many "quick" dinners you need to make. For example, Jonathan plays at The Well 2 nights a month. On those nights, dinner has to be ready by 6pm, so since I don't get my butt up to start cooking normally till close to 6, that dinner that night needs to be able to be cooked quickly.

So now you know how many dinners you need to plan, now it's time to look for inspiration! :)

My favorite places to go is www.thepioneerwoman.com/cooking
and also www.allrecipes.com

I peruse Pioneer Woman's recipes and normally snag one or two, then I go to All Recipes and type in something random like chicken pasta or shrimp or something and then that will pull up all these different recipes people have submitted. The cool thing about All Recipes is that once you register, you can easily put a recipe in your "recipe box" for easy recall.

So that can be somewhat time consuming. Especially if you just recently ate a big breakfast and you aren't hungry. Being hungry always makes making a meal plan go faster because you are more quick on your feet to think of things that sounds good. Try to think outside of the box and trust yourself that you can cook something, even if it sounds complicated. Chances are, it's not.

I try to always mix it up. Not more than 2 pasta dishes and not more than 2 chicken dinners in a week.

For example, here is my meal plan this week:

Monday- Chicken and Rice (eaten at the Watkins house b/c we had a meeting)
Tuesday- Poppyseed chicken cassarole (normally I wouldn't make two chicken cassarole dishes in sequence, but it just worked out that way since the Freds are coming over and Tiff requested Baked Ziti- which I orginally had planned for Tuesday)
Wednesday- Baked Ziti, cheesy garlic bread (a la Tiff)
Thursday- roast and potatoes
Friday- Shabbat- Mexican themed- making chicken/beef quessadilas
Saturday- Off night (but we may eat Sunday's dinner and then go out Sunday)
Sunday- Ribs, mac-n-cheese, mashed potatoes and homemade onion rings

* One thing that I JUST started doing is coupon clipping. How you incorporate this into your meal plan is you go through the circulars (we get ours on Wednesday) and the Sunday paper coupons and you note what is on sale at the surrounding grocerys stores. If ribeye steaks are $2.99 a pound, make steak that week. If Brisket is .99 cents a pound (which it is right now at Albertsons in GP), make brisket instead of roast. Look at what is on sale and build your meal plan that way. Like if you like berries and aren't super partial, grab rasberries instead of strawberries if they are cheaper. Also, you may see that Tom Thumb is having a better sale that week than Albertsons, so it is worth the extra 5 minute drive to do your shopping there. More on coupon cutting when I get better at it :) *
Okay, now that you've gotten your recipes together, now it's time to make a grocery list.

Go through each recipe and note what you are going to need to buy. I only make my grocery list 1 week at a time because I prefer to not freeze my meats. BUT sometimes I get good deals on buying chicken breasts in bulk, so then I freeze.
Then literally get up and look in your fridge and note the "staple" items that you need to get. For me it's usually apple juice, water, diet cokes, yogurt, fresh fruit, cheese, sandwich meat, etc.
Then look in the pantry for your staple items such as bread, chips, fruit snacks, crackers, etc. Did I mention I'm a sucker for fresh french bread? I've recently gotten obsessed with Walmart's fresh french bread that is pre-sliced. Oh it's delicious goodness! mmm....

Also, it's helpful to get one of those grocery list pads that have the magnet on the back and just keep it on the fridge because during the week when you run out of something that's not "normal" such as ketchup or you are about to run out of toilet paper or dish washer detergent. Mark it down as you are thinking about it so you won't forget.

Also, in the circulars that come in the mail on Wednesday (at least for those of you who live in GP), at the bottom of the Albertsons one is always at least 3 coupons. Last week there was a coupon for $5 off purchase of $50 or more and this week it is $10 off $100 or more. Also there is one for buy 1 pre-seasoned steak and get 2 free. Hello! Free money! Get that!

Okay, so that's how I stay organized as far as the cooking aspect goes. I'll write more on how I've finally learned (as I have been forced to learn b/c of selling the house) how to keep my house basically clean and also how to stay caught up with laundry.

But until then, I hope the meal plan tutorial helped :)

I have such fond memories of this recipe. My mom used to make it for us when we were younger and it was definitely a favorite! Definitely NOT low fat, and I guess you could make it low fat, but I swear it's just not as good! Trust me!
I remember being young and when my birthday dinner would roll around, my mom would ask me what I wanted for my birthday dinner and I would more often than not I would enthusiastically say, 'Poppyseed Chicken!"
Well that's what's on the menu tonight.

Here is the recipe:

3-4 chicken breasts, skinless and boneless
1 16 oz container sour cream
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of cream of celery soup
2 stick snack crackers, crushed
2 tsp poppy seed
1/2 cup butter, melted

Precook chicken breasts in boiling water until thoroughly cooked. Remove breasts from water and let cool (save the broth for other things!) --- okay, here is a tweak. I've done it both ways and it's good either way. Today I cut the chicken breasts (I only had 3) into four pieces each, then I put it in a pan, then poured a can of cream of chicken soup over it and then put it in the oven covered to bake for 60 minutes. Takes a little longer, but I think the chicken is jucier that way.

Tear cooled breasts into bite sized pieces, and set aside.

Mix together sour cream, cream of chicken soup (or if you did the baking chicken method, just use the sauce from the pan) and cream of cream of celery soup and mix well and add shredded chicken.

Take two sleeves of Ritz crackers and mash them up into tiny crumbs. Put about half of the bag on the bottom then pour the mixture on top. Then cover with the rest of the crushed snack crackers. Sprinkle poppy seed on top. Drizzle melted butter on top.

Place in preheated 350°F oven until warmed through, about 20-25 minutes.

Result: YUM!!!! Seriously one of my favorite recipes. Serve with a veggie, some bread, a white wine and some people like it with rice, but I think it's fine by itself. Enjoy!

Chicken and rice. Can it get anymore simpler?
Probably. Simple for me is grill some beef sausage links on the grill, boil some water for velveeta shells and cheese and then heat up some green beans. That is a SUPER simple meal, but this isn't too far from it.

This is the first time I've made it, so here is the recipe I used:






Ingredients
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into slivers size pieces
2 cups milk
2 1/2 cups uncooked white rice
1 can of condensed cream of chicken soup
1 can of condensed cream of mushroom soup
2 teaspoons of sea salt
2 teaspoon of chicken seasoning
1/2 teaspoon of thyme
1/2 teaspoon of dill
pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a medium bowl combine the milk, rice, soup and seasoned salt if desired. Mix well. Pour mixture into a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking dish. Add the chicken slivers. Make sure the chicken is completely emersed in the sauce (it helps keep the chicken juicy) and that the rice is spread around at the bottom.

Cover dish tightly with aluminum foil and bake in the preheated oven for approximately 60 minutes or until rice is done, stirring every 30 minutes. Uncover the dish and bake for another 15 minutes to allow the rice to brown.

Result:
It's OKAY. I wouldn't rave about it.
A few things I learned was to make sure and grease the pan. I forgot to do that and some of the rice stuck to the bottom of the pan. Also, I think I would add 2 cans of cream of chicken and 1 can of cream of mushroom. I would have liked it to be a bit creamier. And also go heavier on the spices. It was a bit bland. And also bake it longer. Like for 90 minutes instead of 60. Not all of the rice was cooked all the way through. But the positive was it was good and the chicken was moist.
I'll probably try this recipe again with the above tweaks and hopefully it will turn out better!

So my son woke up at midnight and then cried.

And when I say cried, I mean CRIED.

I have no idea what was wrong with him. I tried just about everything and then gave up. Then Jonathan tried just about everything and then gave up. I then decided that he might just very well be teething (you can see the little white buds) so I thought, 'Maybe it's hurting?' so I gave him Tylenol. Then he was gassy because of crying so much and sucking in all that air, so I gave him some Mylicon. Then I nursed him again for what felt to be the 17th time in 3 hours and he finally fell asleep. This was about 3am. AKA past the point of no return for Destiny. If I stay up till 3am, it's bad. I can't sleep. I get this irritating surge of energy.

So what did I do with all of that energy?
Why I decided I needed to redo my blog, what else?

I won't be sticking with this template exactly as I'm going to get Jonathan to hook a sista' up with his mad webmaster skills. I'll tweek it and make it oh so Belgexan :)
Also, I've decided to start blogging more in depth about my cooking escapades and blog the recipes I use and even the ones I'll never use again.
Also, I'm going to sort of incorporate the Yes It's Normal idea into the "Learned It" section of this blog and just link to all you who sent in articles.

All of this will take place over the next week or so, so give me a little grace on the ever changing design. Things will be a bit mad.

Until the official unveiling :)