Week 11: Two for One

Recipes to Go: 507 406

Weeks to Go: 52 41

Recipes Made This Week

Fruited Feta Spread

Turkey Muffuletta

Apple Peach Cobbler

Sesame Chicken Wings

Chow Mein Chicken Salad

Ham and Broccoli Bake

Peanut Butter Cookies

Very Berry-licious Smoothies

The reason this is two-for-one week is that I have launched another blog. But don't worry, you don't have to add another feed if you don't want to. It is just to document this goal and so will be nothing but repeat posts of the food weeks I post here. But if you want to remember something and don't want to have to scroll through all my archives, (sorry I don't use tags) then you can pop over to the other blog to find it faster. Plus, since this blog isn't public it'll be easier for people I'm not related to who are interested to find the new one. The address is tarastasteofhome.blogspot.com and the link is on the left. Now, onto the food . . .

I had a few things that were going bad this week, so I used the opportunity to make some really yummy food. Starting with the lunch meat from last week. I had my eye on the turkey muffuletta recipe for awhile, but it never quite worked out until now.

I had some questions about the ingredients, but everything tasted amazing together. It had a very Spanish taste, and definitely filled us up, with leftovers for lunch.

To use up some of the leftover ice cream that didn't get fried last week, I made Apple Peach Cobbler. It also helped that I had two peaches on the brink of death and an apple left from the Farmer's Market. Johnny loved this dessert.

I did too because it came together really fast and was really delicious. It was perfect with the ice cream, too. We got to eat it right out of the pipping hot pan thanks to that frozen dessert.

For lunch that day (so I guess this should have come first, oops) I made the Fruited Feta Spread to use the leftover Feta cheese, grapes and pimentos that had been in the fridge almost too long.

This spread was extremely addictive. The Captain remembered it after he woke up from his nap and wouldn't stop crying until I gave it to him.

That's the first time that has happened. Also, I think this is the first time I've ever enjoyed pimentos. There was an awesome savory/sweet duality to this dish. And it lasted for quite a few days. Yeah for easy lunches.

Riding the high from my last few successes, I decided to try my hand at chicken wings. I had purchased chicken wings awhile back, but I have little enough experience eating them, that I hadn't tried making any yet. But I had purchased sesame seeds last week for the bread, so I had nothing to buy for this recipe. It wasn't nearly as much work as I thought it would be. And other than my really crappy tongs destroying the breading, they were delicious. How the smell do you get perfectly coated anything? I have never been successful at this, ever. Luckily the wings were still good.

I thought why not pair sesame with sesame and chicken with chicken, so I made the Chow Mein Chicken Salad to go with the wings. This is the best salad I've made yet. I'm sure that's partially because I pan-grilled the chicken in butter to cook it. The dressing was so good. The Captain was actually eating lettuce because of it. He normally picks around that. There were no leftovers from this dinner because I couldn't bear to stop eating this salad. I will be making this again.

Because I had to cut out the center of the loaf for the muffuletta on Monday (which is brilliant, by the way, everything fit so nicely) I had this leftover bread that was too yummy to throw away. Luckily, I planned for that so I made the Ham and Broccoli Bake with the leftovers. Unfortunately, I didn't plan on not having any frozen broccoli (I swear there was some in the freezer when I went shopping). But it was ham, and peas go well with ham, and I had plenty of frozen peas, so that was a quick substitution that for all I know is much better than the original. I like broccoli well enough, but peas are my favorite. They aren't Johnny's first choice, but he agreed that this was a well above average meal.

I had pretty much made all my recipes for the week on Wednesday, and because they were so good, we didn't have many leftovers. This meant that I had to make burritos and plain pasta and macaroni and cheese this week. It was strange to fall back on old habits for a few days. It made me even more grateful for this goal since it has certainly livened up the kitchen.

Anyway, for Game Night I made Peanut Butter cookies. They were a good twist on the classic. The cloves and nutmeg and ginger added to them made them taste more spicy and autumn-esque since we get those flavors in most winter desserts.

I halved the recipe and still ended up with 3 1/3 dozen cookies and only 2 people at Game Night. Plus because of the peanut butter, I couldn't give them to G, so they have been tempting me all weekend. Which is bad since Fast Sunday was today.

For Saturday morning breakfast, I was very glad I had planned on a fast and easy shake since we had to go into the city early in the morning. This shake was awesome and fruit filled and with no extra sugar, not overly sweet and very filling.

Oh, and it was easy to put together because I have an awesome blender so I didn't have to slice anything, just take the tops of the strawberries and blend.

Week 10: Excessive Desserts

Recipes to Go: 507 414

Weeks to Go: 52 42

Recipes Made This Week

Egg Scramble

Noodle Pudding

Five-Topping Bread

Country-Style Vanilla Ice Cream

Chicken Mushroom Melts

Pot o' Gold Cookies

Nutmeg Blueberry Muffins

Fried Ice Cream

Butter Pecan Sauce

Most of the recipes I made this week were dessert recipes. This was partially by accident.

One of my friends in our ward had her baby on Sunday. This was a little unexpected as she wasn't due until the 20th. I'm her visiting teacher, and I had planned on making something to take over to her, but I hadn't planned it with this week's menu. So when I got the news Sunday, I looked through the plan for the week and all I saw were desserts and appetizers. So I decided to make the Noodle Pudding for her to freeze, and take over half of our dinner that night, which was the Egg Scramble. I felt a little pressure to do this because a) neither one of their families are local, though they aren't far away, so I didn't know if anyone would be there to help her, and b) I didn't know if anyone else in the ward knew, so I didn't think anyone else would be there to help, either.

So poor Johnny came home to me in full panic mode on Monday evening. I wanted enough time to be able to help her get stuff done that night and give them dinner at a reasonable hour. So, of course, the elements combined against me and everything started going wrong. The noodles turned to mush in the two minutes I had my back turned, so I had to have Johnny stop by Walmart on his way home to pick up more. And when I called him the first 3 times he didn't answer. Meanwhile, the Captain is vying for attention and being generally underfoot. Needless to say, I wasn't very pleasant for awhile. Luckily, Johnny is awesome, took the Captain downstairs and refused to be offended by my meanness.

Finally, I got the food ready, put Johnny in charge of getting our half ready, loaded everything in the car and promised not to be too late. When I got to their house I saw cars there, which was reassuring. So I just stopped by, dropped everything off, and went home to this:

and it was yummy. Nice and fluffy, and G liked it. He even liked the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Since I had already done the hard work for dinner on Tuesday and simply had to put the Noodle Pudding in the oven, I took some time to make some bread. This loaf turned out so well, I think, because I used fast-active yeast instead of the regular stuff. This wasn't on purpose, I didn't have any of the regular stuff left, but it was lucky because it took the alloted time to double, and if I had used the regular yeast it might not have. I will keep this in mind in the future, especially in the winter when I don't have too many warm places to let dough rest.

Johnny said this bread tasted like bagels, and I agree. It was really delicious and didn't even need bread pans to cook in. I am a bit curious as to how it would taste without the five toppings. Luckily for me, the store bread here leaves everything to be desired (oh, how I miss Grandma Sycamore!), which means I could end up making bread often. And I've said it before, but I'll say it again, nothing smells better than baking bread.

I also made the Country-style vanilla ice cream on Tuesday. This is because I needed to have it to fry later in the week. I found it oddly satisfying to use 3 recipes for just one dessert.

I felt really bad when I cooked the Noodle Pudding that night because it turns out it's not a main dish, but rather a dessert. It was really rich and really sweet.

In fact we still have leftovers in the fridge I'm struggling to get through. So I felt really guilty that I had given this away as a dinner. Which just means that I will have to make another dinner to take over.

So, after being disappointed by the Noodle Pudding and the lack of actual food during the week, it was a wonderful surprise to have the Chicken Mushroom Melts. They were very filling, and so simple. I remember thinking, this is what I love about the Taste of Home recipes I made at the beginning of the experiment--they are simple, use a few ingredients that are usually in my pantry, but they taste delicious. That's exactly this recipe. Of course, Johnny didn't like it as much as me because he doesn't have a love affair with mushrooms like I do, but he still thought it was decent.

This picture is horrible, I realize now, but they are gone, so I can't reshoot.

For Game Night I made Pot o' Gold cookies because I didn't think I'd get to make all the St. Patrick's Day recipes on St. Patrick's Day. But instead of using green frosting, I made it orangy-red like the leaves that have started to change. I love the fall, and I'm really excited for all the leaves to turn colors. Those of you in higher altitudes are probably almost done with leaf changing, while I have to another month to go. I took this picture with the token brown cookie so it would like there is more diversity in my baking.

Actually, I've been lucky that I haven't burned a batch of cookies in this oven, yet. Knock on wood. These cookies tasted like Pecan Sandies, which are okay, but not my favorite. Unfortunately, no one came to Game Night, so I was forced to give these away to my Visiting Teachers. The last thing I needed in the house this week was more sweet things.

The nutmeg blueberry muffins were super yummy. Nothing beats fresh blueberries. And even though I put the sugar and nutmeg on the top after they were done instead of before they baked, it was still really good.

I'm not sure I would have ever paired nutmeg with blueberries, but it was delicious. And they were breakfast for me the whole week, and they were still good on Friday.

We finally got to make Fried Ice Cream on Saturday.

It was good, but super rich and we had to eat noodle pudding for dinner, so it was just too much. Too much sugar. I think I finished and ate lunch meat, which I then realized was almost going bad, which meant we had to use it the next week . . .

Weekend Recovery

Whenever we have a hard weekend like this last one, it takes setting apart Monday as a G day to make recovery from that not take the rest of the week. So today, I didn't get to do laundry, or chores, or stuff I wanted to, really. I just had to cater to G a little bit, but mostly just spend lots of time with him.

So, naturally we were outside most of the day since G has always loved it out there, and he has recently become an avid amateur bird watcher. So while we were out there this morning, a helicopter flew by.

This is not a picture of the actual helicopter, and sorry, I don't know what type it was for those crazy pilots in the family. Now we don't get a lot of helicopters in our area. Jets, sure since they like to use the mountains near us for pilot training in the summertime, but helicopters I haven't seen in months. This one flew by at tree height, and I didn't see news or medical insignia on it. Then it circled back so we got to see it again. It was really cool. G was ecstatic. We went out in front to see if we could find it again, but there were too many blasted trees in the way.

Then, as if that wasn't cool enough, the birds went crazy flying everywhere before and after it flew by, and then there was a group of about 20 hawks in the sky a few minutes after it left. It must have increased the natural updraft near our house. We see hawks and eagles just about every day,

but I have never in my life seen this many together at once. It was quite a sight. And no, I didn't take this picture either. The Kodak moments in my life usually pass by without a camera in hand. But at least I can blog about them, and steal other people's pictures.

July's Dress

As a birthday present to me, I decided to make July's dress in time for my birthday, as opposed to the last 3 days of the month.

Because I loved June's dress so much, I decided to make the same pattern, but the other incarnation for this dress at Johnny's request. Luckily, I had some pretty seersucker that was also screaming for a sundress.

I had to add some length to the midriff band since it was too snug in the Diabetes Dress. This time it was perfect. Still had the same problem with the straps, though. And Johnny made sure that I had the stripes going in the right direction on the bodice and the midriff band. I think he's picking up some sewing knowledge as well.

Things I Learned Making This Dress:

• While I did appreciate the instructions for this pattern the first time through, for this version they left out an important step, which luckily I have enough experience to catch. So while I love the back of this dress,it would have had some raw edges, or some hastily sewn under seams rather than being nicely tucked into the lining.
• I need some more practice understitching. Like basting, it's a step I usually skip that I decided to do this time. I think it does help, but I'm really bad at it, which means the point of the V in the bodice is not as awesome as it was originally.

First Time I:

• Made such small straps, and if I ever have to do that again, I want one of those tools that will basically do it for you, cause I broke a seam ripper doing it by hand.

Ten Two-Word Toddlers Loves

In honor of G's 18 month birthday (oh, such an important one, hello Nursery!) I thought I would document some of the things I have come to enjoy with toddlerhood. One of the blessings I have definitely enjoyed from teaching Seminary has been more love for G and being a mom. So here they are, the ten things I love: (why ten? because it's alliterative, of course)

1- Burgeoning Independence

Finally, G doesn't need me around every second! He quite enjoys playing by himself. I call this picture Where's G?

Especially after he spends a lot of time around groups of people. He's quite a quiet child and very okay with being alone.

2- Helper Man

I think every mom looks forward to the phase where all you need to turn a no into a yes is a request for help. G loves to help me anyway he can. So he's learned how to put diapers in the pail, throw away garbage, and follow simple directions . . . well most of the time.

3- Attention Span

As most toddlers do, G will want to do something until I let him, then promptly change his mind, but that aside, he really does have quite a long attention span. Give him a bucket and some rocks and I have enough time to do the dishes and start dinner.

4- Spontaneous Affection

G is a genuinely happy boy and loves to give me hugs around my legs, from the back, or in my arms. He doesn't always like to snuggle, but he still loves to climb in my lap and sit next to me and he does let me rub his head occasionally. I know this phase isn't going to last too much longer, but I'm sure loving it.

5- Little Explorer

G really likes to run around and find new toys, new sections of the yard, and new things to do.

I'm so grateful we have a fenced in backyard that I can just set him loose in. Now if only I could convince him not to pick the green tomatoes . . .

6- Finding Sources

G loves noises, but he will stop whatever he is doing to find out where a noise is coming from. I think it's great that he is so interested in how things work. He figured out how to fill up these buckets with water from the misting hose we have even though he had to get soaked to do it.

Then he tried to drink the water . . .

7- Emerging Creativity

G has finally started creative play, and he likes to figure out fun uses for things. For example, he discovered that his sippy cup will release a drop of water when turned upside down. He used this knowledge to become a little Rembrant on his high chair tray.

8- Constant Repetition

Although reading the same book the same way 50 times a day like G wants me to would make me want to shoot off my foot with a paintball gun, I do love that G loves to repeat things. I admit, I have selfish reasons for this, 1) if I do something that he thinks is funny, I can just do it again and he'll still laugh. Voila, I am suddenly one of the world's funniest people. And I like that. And b) I love hearing him laugh. It might be my favorite sound. So it's nice that I don't have to work too hard to get him to do it. I just do the same thing over and over, and he tries to do it too. He's an excellent mimicker, like all toddlers. He loves to try to make whatever facial expression I'm making, which leads to . . .

9-New Tricks

G has always been interactive with strangers, that's one of the reasons people love him. (He's become somewhat of a ward celebrity.) But now he's got all sorts of new tricks that on a good day, he likes to show off. These include: marching, turning around, walking backwards, saying mama, no, and dada, high fives, fist bumps, and these expressions:

10-Fuzzy Obession

Right now, G loves to hug and snuggle with stuffed animals. And by snuggle, I mean lay on. I don't really remember much about my own stuffed animal phase, although it's something I never quite grew out of, but I just think it's so cute to see him be sweet to things. It gives me hope for the (as yet unplanned) day in the future when he has siblings. I think he'll be a sweet older brother, which is good because it's too late for him to be a younger brother.

200 posts

Here is the proof for everyone who has ever told me I don't blog enough. I set up this blog in May of 2006 and I have just hit 200 posts.

I just ran the math (by Johnny, the math expert in the house, who confirmed) that means that I average about one post a week. Sad, some people could hit 200 posts in one year. Sorry to everyone, but I can't even keep up with reading blogs like that, to say nothing of posting. So, let's just all agree to be happy with two or three posts a week. Maybe we'll hit 300 posts next year, and really have something to celebrate.

But since it's not every day that I get to celebrate 200 of anything, here's a few pictures:
Ha, you thought they'd be of G, but I thought I'd also celebrate decent pictures of me (horray!) because, after all, it is my blog. Though G will make many appearances in the future.

So, thanks for reading!

Food for Thought

If you are a women, and you have a big purse, and you are in charge of pies at Thanksgiving, and you would like to make one with a graham cracker crust--why not start early and do a little service for future you by putting a large Ziplock baggie full of graham crackers in your purse now. (You might want to tape the edges, just to be safe.) In two months, you pull out the baggie, add some butter and voila! graham cracker crust with no effort on your part.

You're welcome, America.

June's Dress

As if I haven't had enough trouble working on this goal this year, June was another difficult month. That was because I left for a two week trip to Utah on the 4th, came home for two days, then left again for Dallas for my grandma's funeral. I wasn't really even home until the 27th, and then a) I was really tired after all that traveling, b) G was really tired from travelling and being off his schedule for a month, and thus was challenging, and c) I only had 3 days to put something together.

This is the first month I honestly thought I wouldn't make it. And I seriously considered not even trying. But as mentioned before, I have an awesome husband who convinced me that this was a worthy and important goal which deserved some sacrifice. So I sucked it up and got out the yellow eyelet.

I love this fabric because it's yellow, and it's eyelet, so what's not to love? And it being summer and ridiculously hot here, it screamed to be made into a summer sundress. Luckily I already had this pattern:

Sometimes I'm a little leary of modern pattern instructions, but these ones made this dress come together in a snap. Thanks to G taking really long naps catching up on some sleep, I didn't have to sacrifice any extra time to putting this dress together. This was the last dress I made in my basement, too since Johnny stayed home on Wednesday to give me a break and I used the time to organize my sewing room.

So, without further ado, I present the Diabetes Dress, cause if it were any sweeter . . . :

Things I Learned Making This Dress:

• Basting is the sewer's best friend when it comes to linings. I've never been much of a baster, but I'm converted after making this dress.
• Eyelet is a lot easier to sew than I thought.
• I actually look good in yellow. I haven't thought that for years.

New Things I Did With This Dress:

• Well, this was my first time working with eyelet. While it does require some careful pinning and sewing, it is well work any extra effort.
• Correctly sewing on shoulder straps. I don't think I've make anything with shoulder straps before and they worked first time. Although, note to self, in addition to basting, it's a good idea to sewed them on with a regular stitch a few times before sewing on the lining, since they ripped first day wearing it picking up G and shlepping things around.
• Did a rolled hem correctly on my serger for the first time. I had never adjusted the tension when doing rolled hems before. Not sure how I missed that in the instructions, but man, it makes a difference. They are currently my preferred hemming method, especially for summer dresses.

Week 9: Themeless

Recipes to Go: 507 423

Weeks to Go: 52 43

Recipes Made This Week

Coconut Crunch Cookies

Broccoli Chicken Supreme

Slice 'n' Back Lemon Gems

Fiesta Lasagna

Green Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

Grilled Corn Dip

Lemon Basil Cupcakes

Pesto Veggie Stacks

Three-Cheese Pesto Pizza

Peaches 'n' Cream Cups

While we were still with Johnny's family for Labor Day, we decided Sunday's dinner needed a yummy dessert. After consulting The Book, we decided the Coconut Crunch Cookies looked the best, which is saying something because it was fast Sunday and everything looked good at that point.

We made a double batch, which normally wouldn't have been a big deal, but the yield on these was surprisingly accurate, so we ended up with tons and tons of really yummy cookies. We ate all we could fit, and took a few home, but we left most of them there to be traded at lunch in Kindergarten.

The Broccoli Chicken casserole was decent enough, but nothing spectacular. And it definitely got not-as-good as the leftovers went on.

Though, maybe it wasn't the casserole's fault. It did have to compete with leftover lasagna, and few things are as good as leftover lasagna. This one took awhile to put together. So with all the prep, I doubt this one will become a go-to recipe.

These lemon cookies look really good, but they were also a pain.

Probably because I was quite grumpy at the casserole taking forever. In hindsight, these weren't as bad as stated in the recipe. Thanks to my awesome fridge, I only had to put them in there for half as long as stated. Next time, I will try to cut them with a more even thickness, and I will make more icing. I guess I need to figure icing out, because it seems to be all about timing. Things have to be cool enough to put the icing on, and the icing has to be almost set up, but not quite to make dripping at a minimum. But the cookies themselves weren't that sweet, which meant you could eat tons. Good thing I made them for Johnny to take to Young Men's because we didn't eat that many.

The Fiesta Lasagna was worth the hour it took to bake in the oven. I have made Mexican-style lasagna before in this book, but this recipe was the perfect blend of Mexican and Italian flavors.

It hit just the right note and we highly enjoyed the leftovers for the rest of the week. In fact, Johnny got sad that I wouldn't let him eat it for lunch and dinner the next day. In my defense, we had other leftovers to get through, and we need a little variety.

We served the lasagna with a salad with homemade raspberry vinaigrette. This salad had everything in it to be tasty, except that we had to use leftover mustard green and they were just too bitter.

Some day, we'll make it again, because what the heck else am I going to do with a bottle of raspberry vinegar?

Game Night this week was served Grilled Corn Dip which should have a warning label: Highly Addictive. Johnny had to put it in the other room so we could actually play games.

It was spicy and sweet and creamy and I always seemed to have too many chips or too much dip on my plate at the end, which meant I had to keep eating more. Anyone with extra corn from their gardens should get this recipe. It's a great way to use some surplus.

Saturday morning I spent WAY too long on these cupcakes.

Why? Well, we were short on a few ingredients, so I had to fudge a few, which meant the batter took a little long. Then, they are stuffed, so we had to work that situation out. Then, the frosting is made up of a syrup that you first have to make and cool. Then, we didn't have enough powdered sugar, so I had to process some of my own. I don't recommend this, and I have since re-organized my pantry to make it easier to tell when I need refills on the smaller packages of things, like powdered sugar, brown sugar, and coconut. But G enjoyed helping with the frosting.

Anyway, after all that work, I figured I might as well sugar-ize the basil leaves too. So after about 2 1/2 hours, we had something really pretty to show for all my work, but they weren't as good as the lemon crumb cupcakes, so I don't think it was worth it. I gave a few away--some to our neighbors, some as a Mormon Payment for some plumbing help. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that water started coming through the ceiling on Saturday morning. Not good.

We could have had leftovers for lunch and dinner, but I needed a few more recipes, so I picked our big zucchini, made some pesto and used it for two recipes. I handmade the pizza dough from the Giant Calzone recipe I made before, but it wasn't quite as awesome this time, so the dough was tough and too dense.

Other than that, the pizza was good. Very Greek tasting. It won't make it on the fast Sunday pizza menu any time soon, but it was good to experiment and try something new.

The Pesto Veggie Stacks would have been better if I had sliced the zucchini a little thinner. And if the oil had stayed at the right temperature.

I think this would be a great way to get rid of some excessive zucchini, but they didn't warn me that they would be so filling. I could barely eat one.

I bought some fresh peaches from the Farmer's market before we left, and I finally got around to using them in the Peaches 'n' Cream Cups.

They were tasty, but the topping was too gingery for me. Next time I'll use cinnamon instead. And like the book points out, this recipe is so easy and so versatile that you could use any fruit and corresponding yogurt.

Labor Day

We all had lots of fun visiting Johnny's sister for the long weekend. Here is proof of that in picture form:

We went to a State Park near their home. Oh, if only all state parks could be this well maintained.

It was a very large place for such a little boy to get lost in . . .

Johnny is using the force (and awesome yoga poses) to call G to him.

Did you know people prefer cute babies a bagillion to one?

Did you know I'm riding this Daddy backwards?

My cool husband.

Thank you, nice lady, for letting me pet your super sweet dog.

Everyone playing soccer in the backyard. (G is the one holding the ball and going the wrong way.)

G got to torment his cousins. One guess as to how this picture ends.

Even his love of computers became a means of torture.

But in the end, everyone had a good time.

Even G, cause he stole the camera on the way back and took this picture.