I Miss My Mind the Most

beef-a-gross-eroni

I fed the kids a can of generic canned ravioli for lunch the other day.  They loved it and wanted more.  The side effect; the most horrific garlic breath I have ever smelled coming from a child.  It's been two days since they ate the stuff and this morning is the first time I couldn't smell garlic on their breaths.  So gross. 

mental note- NO generic Beef-a-roni stuff.

putting my heart into it

Okay, it's been awhile but I've decided it's worth my extra time to actually get back to making home cooked meals instead of opening a can a zoodles for the kids and making myself a can of soup.
some reason I get bored of cooking and just stop doing it. I guess I still make food but it's just not good. At Christmas time I tried really hard to make tasty things for my guests to eat, we had roast, with veggies, mashed potatos and gravy. Another night we had stuffed turkey breasts with the trimmings- it was all yummy! Since then I've been putting a little more thought into dinner times (we still do zoodles for lunch). I've made a really good Shepherds' pie, lazy man cabbage rolls, and tonight I made a slow cooker stew that turned into an oven stew before dinner time. The inspiration behind a couple of those dishes were these sauce packages. What a difference they make in the taste of my cooking! Now, I'm not saying that my cooking is usually bland and tasteless because it's not but my cooking always tastes the same- these sauce mixes help my food taste new and exciting again! I think I'm impressing myself the most, but that's okay too. Paige ate three servings of the shepherds pie, and that is unheard of!
So, on my next shopping trip I plan to raid the 'Club House' sauces and seasonings sections and I'll keep you all updated on my creations. It's been awhile since I did a picture by picture recipe walk through... I plan to do one soon. I'm just hoping my ass doesn't respond in a bad way to all my great tasting cooking... don't answer that!!

On a non food related note- I want to give a shout out to Suz (the neighbor we all know and love) for writing such a touching blog post about our friendship. Rest assured hers is coming... just not for a little while.

I should be off, I need to get some kids to bed and finish up a grocery list for tomorrow...
Hugs to all,
~jen

bye bye Bodum

This past Sunday I woke up with a hankering, no, a longing for a big fresh cup of my own home brewed coffee.  If you have read this blog for at least three years than you would remember the coffee pot I use (my actual old posts about it here and here).  So I fired it up with the usual pomp and ceremony only to realize 30 minutes later that it hadn't gurgled a cue that my pot was done.  I rushed over and inspected it, the pot was luke warm but not even close to boiling.  I pressed every button and checked to make sure it was fully plugged in... nothing happened more than luke warm water.  WAH!!

I still have it sitting on the counter so I can come to terms with losing it.  Soon, I'll take it out to the garage to sit next to the garbage.  I don't know what to do- I don't think I can ever go back to a drip coffee maker after using the Bodum vac pot for THREE YEARS!

Oh well, I will get over it soon enough.

Something I noticed...

At any sort of festival up here in Canada, you can not go 30 feet without bumping into a 'Mini donut' stand. While on our tour of theme parks in the South western state of California I noticed no mini donuts, only Churros. 

Every 30 feet it's a Churro stand, and they are all authentic Mexican. 

I'm sure.

A new McDonalds for Nanaimo

Okay, as much as I am against McDonalds and all it stands for (think 'Supersize Me') I confess that I am a tad bit excited to see the new resaurant they are unveiling here in town. 

They (the McDonalds people) had a large spread in the newspaper about the new design.  It's going to have a double sided fireplace, two flat screen tv's and also wifi access, how cool is that??  I found this article online about the new redesign.  Our McD's is the first one like this in western Canada.  They completely tore down the old one and started from scratch.  I haven't driven by that way in awhile but on Monday (and every day next week) they are featuring activities for the kids so I may have to go check it out.  I will admit that I'm a little sad that this McD's isn't going to feature a play place of any variety because our town is sorely lacking in that department.  But with Summer here (almost) it's not that big of a deal.  The photo above is from the business weekly site, since I haven't had a chance to do a drive by photo 'shooting' of our new one yet.

Anyway, enough of my sick and twisted McDonalds excitment...

~jen

Refried goodness and other things on the menu.

Can someone please explain my recent affinity for refried beans???  It's like I just woke up one day (Easter Sunday to be exact) and thought, "Refried beans smeared on something would be really tasty right now.". 

And yes, they are.  I've been making dips with them, burritos, plain with chips and right out of the can.  They are tasty and healthy not too many snacks I like that I can say that about.

I've also been loving me some chicken nuggets (home made variety) and a big plate of veggies (from Costco, thanks SUZ!) sprinkled with garlic salt.  Doesn't that look scrumptious? Well, maybe not to you but I've been enjoying it. 

Another product I must tell you all about is the new 'Salad Spritzers' by Hellman (or Wishbone in the US).  My favorite flavour is balsamic breeze but I also like the Zest italian flavour and the Rasperry Vinagrette is going to be my next purchase.  I've spritzed everything, my hamburgers, my rice, my Chicken and rice, some veggies- you name it- I've spritzed it.  The best part??  They are only 15 Calories for 10 Spritzels (ya, i just made up a new word, 'Spritzels' write it down.)!!  If you are a salad fan, and even if your not- try these on something, I know you'll find ONE flavour you like!  They are like gravy but tastier and less fattening.

Okay and besides Chocolate which is a staple favorite in my books- that's all I've got to share today.

What are you eating?

~jen 

Sandwiches with cheese

No matter what the recipe calls for, using processed cheese will do nothing to 'enhance' the flavour of your sandwich.

Yes, I used a recipe to make a sandwich.  I. am. that. desperate.

Plate o' banana cookies

  Plate o' banana cookies 
  Originally uploaded by island artist.

After talking to my sister the other day I was inspired (by her) to try my hand at changing an old faithful recipe.  The pumpkin cookie recipe to be exact.  Jes thought it would be tasty to try banana instead of the pumpkin, and I agreed!!
So last night I got busy after supper and gave it a whirl.  I pulled out some frozen overripe bananas and let them thaw earlier in the day so they were ready to rumble.  There was a lot of liquid in the bag so I drained that off and added a half of a fresh banana to make up the moisture.  I just squished it all toghether in the bag.  Easy.

Here is the rest of the Recipe, if you like Banana bread, you'll LOVE this.  These cookies taste like little mini banana breads.

Big Banana Bear paws (my sisters name)
Ingredients:
1C White sugar  (I used half C sugar half splenda)
1 Egg
3/4 C shortening
1 tsp. Vanilla extract
2C All purpose flour
1 tsp. Each- Baking powder AND Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt (which I skip if I use salted butter or Margarine)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 Cup over rip bananas (the more ripe the better!)
1/4 C chopped walnuts (optional but gooood)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease cookie sheets.
2. In a large bowl, cream together sugar, egg shortening and vanilla.  Sift together flour, baking soda baking poweder, salt and cinnamon; stir into the creamed mixture.  Stir in Banana, and nuts.  Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets.
3. Bake 10-15 minutes in preheated oven.
4. Try to leave some for the rest of the family.

Suzanne has the theme of kids snacks this week for the recipe exchange so this will be my entry... Enjoy.
Don't say I never gave ya nothin'.

~jen

Fair Trade Recipe: Casserole

I was a step ahead of the game this week when it came to posting a recipe for this weeks Fair trade recipe exchange.  Suz told me the them was casseroles just as I was putting together a casserole to freeze!

Here is the recipe... I'm including progress photos too!

Wowie Maui Chicken! Download maui_wowie_chicken.pdf  **I fixed the recipe!**

my cut up veggies (i cut up more than the recipe said, much more.) The Chicken breast i cut up. I actually bought chicken breasts with the bone in and pressure cooked them in chicken broth. Afterwards the meat fell off the bone and I cut it up. I'm frugal like that. I threw all the ingredients in the pot (like the recipe says) and let it simmer, I was paranoid the rice wasn't going to be cooked so I added a little extra broth... the rice turned out a little over cooked.  oops. Finally the finished Casserole. It was pretty tastey, every bit a delicious sweet and sour dish. I could have used a smidge more sugar, I only threw in 3 raw sugar cubes... some ginger would have also been tastey, I'll remember to add it for next time.  A few other things I did different, i used Dark soy sauce (my personal fave) and like I mentioned above I used much less sugar.  I also used less pineapple, but all the juice in the can- my can seemed a little larger than a regular sized can.Let me know if you like this one, it was taken from the 'looney spoons' cookbook.  My friend Laurie brought this casserole over, frozen, one day to thank me for helping her out.  I simply warmed it up in the microwave and in 10 minutes we were chowing down.  So, in an effort to make my life easier, I divided this batch up into servings and put it in the freezer.  It made 5- 2 cup servings! plus a little extra, due to my added veggies.  Now I won't have and excuse to grab for something bad for lunch... yahoo!

~jen

Fair Trade Recipe Exchange

Okay, I'm a tad late with my recipe, this weeks theme was 'Treats'.  I'm cheating a little since I've posted this recipe before but it's my trademark treat.  If only because I say so.

Here is a link to a PDF of the recipe  for you to print off at your leisure.

I regret that I didn't take a photo of the poppycock i made last Christmas.  It really didn't stick around long enough to snap one off.  If you look close enough at my butt you can see some of that poppy cock still hanging around, if you know what I'm sayin'.

Anyway, I nee to hit the sack it's been a long day...

~jen

Tomorrow... photos of the Christmas tree we brought home!