Year in Review 2013

Seems I've been a little slow in updating our family blog here. Let's see if I can catch you up.

In 2013...
Dylan went skiing and broke his first bone. Not that it stopped him from skiing.

I went to Ireland with Danny to do some research for my novel-in-progress. (First draft is done.)

We rented out our cottage for another summer.

We decided to move, which meant packing up house and moving across town in less than 2 months. It was a great move, we can walk or bike into town and it's normal now that one of our vehicles can be parked in the garage for weeks at a time.

At the start of the new school year, we had a new house, two new kindergarteners, a third-grader, a new school district, and a lot of renovation projects ahead of us. That last part still holds true.

We did the usual family visits over the holidays and aside from the big shift last fall, it was a fairly normal year.

Fast Forward to now...

Our kids are finishing up their first year in the new school and seem to be doing really well. We've now got hosting dinners and birthday parties at our new place under our belts. And I'm dreaming about how to garden here. This extended Wint-ring has pushed back the start of the growing season and I'm itching to get my fingers in some dirt.

But in the middle of all that hectic stuff, I realized a great milestone was passing by and it needed me to stop and acknowledge it, to cherish it, and mark it somehow. So I got in touch with a photographer whose work I'd been admiring for a long time. She photographed my kids at this monumental point in our lives and the bonus is, the photo shoot was so close to our house that I can look out my window every day and see that spot. It all felt very special and I can't thank Jen enough for capturing not just the photos, their likenesses, or their real smiles (which she did brilliantly), but she captured the essence of that moment for me.

She's the one who took the header photo & the one up there on the side. Below is another one of my favorites (yes, I had lots of favorites). If you're in the Goshen, IN area- I'd highly recommend Jen for your family's portraits.Her web addy is here: http://www.jenshenkphotography.com/

I'll try to do better about keeping things up-to-date. Ha ha ha!

Only half-way, eh?

I did remember to take pictures of what we ate for the week after the last post. I kept thinking I'd have time to post them. Then my husband was gone skiing/conferencing for a week, had a booking travel snafu (nightmare), and I had a stomach virus. So I'm just now resuming normal pace. Oh, add in a Family Movie Night for the school that I helped coordinate. So.. once again, real life took over. But.. I will catch you up on our eatings, because at least that part was fun.

That'll come later today, maybe tomorrow. Right now I have a couple thousand words to write in my novel (playing catch-up for the time I was down).

Sorry for any suspense or disappointment you might have felt. :)

Chicken Enchiladas

Sounds good, right? Chicken Enchiladas...yum. Though, after getting it ready and putting it in the oven (not in good time, waited too late to start it)... I'm not sure about this one. Not nearly enough gooey stuff. But we'll see. Sometimes recipes can surprise you. But there seems to be a lack of two things I think are important for a good enchilada- lots of cheese & lots of sauce. The chicken has cream cheese in it. Which seems strange but I can understand palate-wise why it might work.

The recipe is a Cooking Light one - Chicken Enchiladas (found at that link).

Photo by Cooking Light/My Recipes



Augmentations:

These started in the grocery store. Our kids don't like spicy and my husband and I both have aging tummies that don't respond well to spicy. So, I opted for the traditional red enchilada sauce instead of the salsa verde the recipe called for. And I used regular reduced fat cheddar instead of the white cheddar with jalapeños (couldn't find those anyway).

 

To make the shredded chicken- I used a little less than a pound of boneless/skinless chicken thighs and let them sit in about 2" of chicken broth in the crockpot for a few hours on low. When I could barely touch it and it was falling apart- that's when I attacked. I have issues with carpal tunnel so shredding meat isn't my favorite thing to do. But this time I was smart. I left the meat in the broth and pulled the forks across the meat over & over, fairly gently until it was a big heap of shredded chicken in broth. Then I drained the broth from the chicken with a strainer- used the chicken in the recipe and saved the broth for the other part of the recipe. It worked really well.

 

The tip on heating up the broth and dipping the tortillas was a good one. I tried to dip one in cold broth (why do I need to heat it?) and my tortilla fell apart right away. I tried it the way the recipe said- and what do you know? It worked.

 

I had more filler than tortillas and more tortillas & filler than would fit in my 9x13 so I did a loaf pan w/ a few extra enchiladas in it.

 

The report:
I think maybe the creator of the recipe isn't too familiar with enchiladas. These tasted a lot like tamales (which is a-okay with me) but they hardly tasted like enchiladas at all. They were spicy though and I can't figure out why. The cumin maybe? Two of our kids only ate the salad if that tells you anything. And... because there's so much of- I still have a 9x13 full of them (transferred the loaf pan ones to the main pan). I think I'll freeze them in 2's and that way I know I have them for lunches or meals. I know my husband won't be a big fan of them. He'd eat them but they're just eh.

As for looks, they looked pretty- I think. I got lazy with the salad & didn't cut up any cilantro.

 

 

 

 

 

January 8... easy way out

By the time the supper hour drew near, I didn't have it in me to create the enchiladas, chicken divan, or baked turkey penne casserole. So.. I popped in a frozen pizza for the kids and ate most of an Amy's organic pesto tortellini bowl. It was so-so, but I was zonkered. (Side-effect of this hardly-any-caffeine thing. Long story short- I'm only having my morning cuppa and cutting out all other forms, except for dark chocolate :) .)

It's sad, boring, and not creative, but that's what we had. Tomorrow we have  soup supper at the church so... I'll catch you up on Thursday for those enchiladas. (I'll get an earlier start on Thursday.)

Later 'taters. :)  <-- food reference because it's all about food this month? no? ah, party poopers.

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

Sometimes, you just want something easy. Comfort food. But... you also don't want to kill any progress you've made with the ol' scale. What's a girl to do?

Homemade Chicken Nuggets. In my version, there are boneless/skinless chicken breasts (I used 3 tonight w/ at least 1 1/2 servings left over), parmesan cheese, panko bread crumbs, salt, pepper, garlic powder, & parsley. (1 cup of Panko, 1/4 cup of Parm.- rest to preference). Baked at 425 for about 40 minutes (maybe not quite that long, but close).

And.. .in our freezer we usually have sweet potato fries and steamer veggies on hand.

And that was supper tonight. Easy, but not so bad for us.

 

 

By the way-- we use the 10" salad plates for most of our meals- in case you're trying to figure out how much we're putting on a plate.

No meal tonight, but a new blog

Tonight we had leftovers and I got to thinking about something else I've been wanting to do... and it being a new year and traditionally a time for clearing out the old and reorganizing. And since I stick with things better when others are *watching*, I thought I'd blog about it. So.. in addition to seeing what we're eating, you can see what new clutter magnet I'm trying to fix. This month- it's my closet.

If you're interested, or curious, here's the link: Confessions of a Slacker Homemaker.

Creamy, Light Macaroni and Cheese

This recipe for Creamy, Light Macaroni and Cheese comes from MyRecipes.com. It has butternut squash in it to replace some of the butter and cheese that might normally be in baked macaroni and cheese. We tried it out last summer and it was a huge hit. And right now, when it's cold outside (my kids have been out ice-skating all afternoon) it will feel oh-so-inviting and wonderful. We'll pair it with a leafy green salad-- yes, the same salad we've had twice this week- but really, we like it and it's an easy way to add in the things we need to our diet. (Diet meaning a way of eating, not caloric restriction.)

If your gang likes a good mac & cheese, it's worth a try.


Photo by MyRecipes.com  Creamy, Light Macaroni & Cheese (follow link to recipe)

Augmentations:
Instead of using a lot of separate cheeses- I used the parm/asiago/romano blend we have all the time in our fridge & only bought the gruyere to shred. Sadly, most of the gruyere (what we didn't shred) has been consumed while making the mac & cheese. Leaving a little less room for the meal. Ah well, 'tis life.

I also didn't bother to brown the panko bread crumbs in oil first- seemed like a nearly pointless step. If it were for a fancy schmancy crowd, maybe- but not for our lot.

I like this recipe because the squash lends such a sweet flavor to the mac & cheese. Just an extra oomph to it and it's a nice one because it's cutting out some of the fat.

The results? Just as good as we remembered and as far as we can figure- about 200 calories per serving (we used a 9x13 and cut it into about 15 pieces- not all were the same size).