Posts have been sparse these last few days and will continue to be so as my hands have been FULL of Emma Elizabeth. She has been going through a separation anxiety phase that is kicking my butt. She doesn’t even like for me to leave the car without her.
On the otherside she has been doing very well with sleeping thru the night and going to bed on her own. Joy!
Ireland is going through some sort of phase as well. Monday she took a nap, a first in forever! and Tuesday she hit a lil boy! Just because she could. So no TV for 2 weeks and No DS for a month. It seems like this month might suck because no Tv for her means no TV for me till her bedtime but whatever. I think we’re both going to grow by leaps and bounds after this.
Either way someone pray neither child gets duck-taped to the wall! Whee!!
Between waking up to snow and not having the baby wake up till 115am, my whole day was just not what I planned.
Yesterday I made plans to do some more Freezer Cooking and I got some done, but not what I planned. And that wasn’t even done till later in the afternoon.
But we did finally get our DVDs put away. We bought these DVD racks from IKEA (My home away from home) and finally got them up on the wall and I put away the DVDs by color. Looks nice. We’re so excited! We went with an open design after deciding that tossing the covers and putting them in an album wasn’t for us.
I did also come up with a recipe for a Chicken, Broccoli, and Rice casserole not involving a cream of anything soup. Which let me tell you is kinda hard to find. It was like EVERYTHING used cream of mushroom and yeah I use it too, except I was out! So bring on the improvs! Which was nothing special but worked. Here’s what I came up with:
Chicken, Broccoli, and Rice Casserole
- 2 cups of cooked chicken (I used canned because I have a surplus due to someone on freecycle not liking it. Sucks for them-yummy for us!)
- 3 Cups of uncooked rice, cooked.
- 2 cups of broccoli (cooked) or 1 of those frozen bags 16 oz?
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- dash of pepper
- 1 sleeve of Ritz cracker type item (opt.)
- I made this Hot Cheddar Cheese Sauce from Myrecipes.com courtesy of Cookinglight.com
- 4 cups of lowfat milk (Except I didn’t want to use our milk, so I used Evaporated milk because I had some cans on hand. I will probably use normal milk the rest of the time. Okay who am I kidding, I’ll probably be using powder because that’s how I roll.)
- 1/2 cup of flour
- 2 1/2 cups of cheddar cheese or whatever you want to use.
- Also get you a sauce/gravy stirrer. I love mine! Gets all the clumps out of my sauces, better then my whisk. LOVE IT!
Whenever I have rice, I use my rice cooker. I can cook A LOT of things. I don’t even need a recipe. But I CAN.NOT cook rice. It’s my Achille’s heel. Anyways I cook my rice and steam my broccoli (which I buy frozen in a ginormous bag) in the steamer part on top. They cook together and my life is easier. Towards the last 10 mins of that make the sauce. Throw in those seasonings. Add more if you want. Add less. Add something different. We have a lot of bacon salt around here. I almost added that. I think I got sidetracked and that’s why I didn’t.
When everything was done, I used a 9×13 dish and put the rice in, broccoli, then chicken, poured the cheese sauce over everything and then crumbled up crackers on top. I happen to have a lot of them as I got them on a GOOD sale for basically free. Mine were low salt so not to over power the dish.
Put the thing in the oven for 30 mins at 350. When done, dish out and eat up! YUM!
Arty LOVED this and I only did a half of the cheese sauce, which is why I’m telling you to double it! Ha! It was okay, but more cheese sauce =BETTER! This was so much! GREAT for a potluck, or to make 2 good-sized meals which is how I cook. We all eat leftovers so most of my meals are double sized. Art had 2 good-sized helpings. I may have had some extra too. EE LOVED it and Ireland is with her father but I know she’ll be a fan.
I’m just happy I didn’t have to use a cream of soup and that the sauce was easy.
So after dinner, I put on more rice and now mixed veggies for friend rice tomorrow. And I’m gonna throw on some MORE rice and veggies for a pot-pie to put in the freezer and then I’m done with rice!
So that’s what I got done today. Not too much. Oh we also got EE to go to bed on her own again, 3rd night in a row only 5 mins of crying. I finally had to put my foot down and just say enough. Or really Arty helped me put my foot down. I’m weak. Also breaking out in weird rashes and things. Right now my lips are peeling and itch like crazy. I need some me time. LOL.
Well just got an email that church is canceled for tom. So gonna hop back on the freezer cooking, especially since I found a bag of sugar in the pantry and make up for lost time. I also have bible study homework to do and photography work to finish up and bible books to read and laundry to fold. So basically I won’t be at all bored tom. Laters!
I follow @crystalpaine and @fishmama on Twitter as well as read their blogs. And a couple of times before they have held days where they cooked massive amounts of things to put in the freezer to use at later times . It’s always appealed to me but it was never a good time for me to join in.
Until this weekend! I was ready for the Cooking Daze and signed up on FB to say I would be in on the fun. I knew I would be home all day Friday due to the van needing an inspection and well this week I learned we’re expecting several inches of snow and so it was just a perfect time!
I was only going to do one day but while getting things ready today, I decided to do the whole weekend.
Today I started with baked goods. Here’s the list of goodies I made:
I made 2 of the Choc. Chip loaves, 3 Banana breads and 4 breakfast servings of the rolls. And I made a yummy dinner of chicken nachos!
Tomorrow I’m going to cook up some pork loin we caught ona good sale and make some brocolli and cheese casseroles. Also stock back up on sweet tea and divide up the tomato sauce and diced tomatoes I bought for sauce.
I love doing that. It’s like 2.50 for a large can of tomato sauce at Costco. Same goes for a large can of Diced tomatoes. I normally Spilt them up 1 to 1. And when it’s time for Spaghetti night or I’m making lasagna, I add in onion and my herbs then. Always SO good and I can make a good 6 meals out it!
And then Sunday I think I’ll just make some basic breads, rolls and things of that nature. This is perfect timing as I’ll be using up all my baking goods and I’ll be doing the majority of Feb.’s shopping on Tuesday.
If you have any spare time, this is the way to go. Nothing like getting all that work out of the way!
Knock-Off Wood is it!
I do believe I’ll have Hubs make me this very soon.
And I’m going to tackle this myself next weekend.
Last night I had the most unexpected wonderful time!
My mom and I had a date again to attend a Ladies’ Event at our church. They were planning a Dinner and a Movie thing that costs 10 bucks. I believe once a month The Ladies plan something and this was the 1st thing I was attending. My schedule is just all over the place and I just haven’t been able to attend before. But my mom signed me up and even paid for me so I was going this time.
Friday was not the best day. It was my worst but it still sucked. i woke up to the fan still on (HATE the fan, LOVE my husband who needs it), A pile of unfolded laundry right beside me (Nightmare right in my face! ) and when I came downstairs I realized our small stand alone freezer had been partially unplugged. Blah! I ended up in sweats all day and just was all around blah.
Around 5 my mom showed up and I started changing. I changed clothes, did my hair and make up and even put some earrings, which is no small feat as my jewelry box is sitting on the floor and not hanging like it needs to be. I know I was going to have a good time as I really love the ladies at church. I thought we’d have something simple and chat and there would be some movie playing. I wasn’t thinking anything big.
To my surprise when my mom and I pulled up to our church campus…Valet Parking! Oh I love it when I don’t have to park. We got escorted inside on the arms of nice gentlemen. Our coats were taken and checked for us by more lovely gentlemen. We were escorted into one of the kid areas turned into a lovely dining room complete with tablecloths and decor. We were given mock-mojitos and on our table was a plate of chips and dips that were set up to represent the Mexican flag. Oh it was so nice.
We watched this fantastic touching film called, Bella, that was about how 1 thing can change your forever. Good film! And while that played we were served a yummy dinner of a paella inspired dish of yellow rice, chicken, sauage and shrimp lightly seasoned, complete with jicama salad. Oh it was so good and light and refreshing! Here is a bad but okay pic of our menu. It was taken with my camera phone quickly.
And then dessert. Oh my! We had Pastel Tres Leches or 3 Milk Cake. Home made with a homemade caramel sauce on top. Um it was AWESOME! I need to make that like now.
And the thing that made it all even better was that the men served us! They were all dressed in black pants and white shirts, some with bow ties. They served us dinner and walked around refreshing our waters. It was so nice. After the movie and dessert, one of the ladies talked about what she got from the movie. Guilt. Redemption. Grace. And we were then presented with an unawarded, unmerited gift of earrings. So nice.
The night ended with a call to the women to help out where we could as we’re about to undergo a big change and move back to a building instead of renting a local school for our services. I believe everyone is most excited about what’s to come and what God has in store for us.
Leaving the men, got our coats, helped them on and pulled our vehicles to the front and we were once again escorted on the arms of nice gentlemen.
Talk about touching. I knew I would have a good time, but honestly being treated like that made it a GREAT time. The ladies in charge did a FABULOUS thing. Everything was so nice and touching. And the men were such good sports. LOL.
I highly recommend that something like that gets planned in your church. It was the literally the perfect ending to a not so perfect week. Thanks again Ladies!
