New Cookbook!

So, a little backstory. I love the show Masterchef. I watched every episode of the first season, and really rooted for Whitney Miller. She was southern, polite, and cute as a button! I was THRILLED when she was crowned the first "American Masterchef", and got really excited when I saw (while watching Season 2 of Masterchef actually) that she had her own cookbook. So, last week...I ordered one! I received it in the mail yesterday, and I've read through it 3 or 4 times already. It really makes me miss the south and the food that is easily accessible there (catfish, crawfish, okra, etc). But all of the recipes seem really simple, even if the names are daunting. Since it's my birthday next week, I've decided that I absolutely HAVE to do at least 2 of the recipes. For my birthday dinner I'm going to make the Shrimp bisque and grits. My birthday dessert is going to be the Toasted Coconut Cupcakes with Lemon glaze. I'm just a teensy bit excited, I'll be sure to let you know how it comes out! You really should check out this book, but you'll probably have to get your own copy. I might be too stingy to share ;)

No more Neverland

I must be growing up. I find that each dinner always has a vegetable, and often a fruit side dish (yes...it's taken 6 years for that to be a regular thing for us...don't judge me!), and I just vacuumed and dusted for the second time this week. I never vacuum twice in a week. Ok, not entirely true, if we company more than once a week I'll vacuum, but today it was just for the heck of it. I'm now looking forward to mopping my floors again, and if I have time I'll give our room a good deep clean.

The things I've been most terrified of (homeschooling for example), I approach with joy each morning. I can't wait to order Riley's "real" curriculum and do something more official. I am eager to teach her piano, her books will get here tomorrow. I love the 1 on 1 time I get with them while we work. If nothing else, we are guaranteed a good hour every day with nothing distracting me from them.

I made a decision a long time ago to make sure the girls saw me cleaning with a smile on my face. Lately, I've been telling them how it glorifies God. He gave us all of our things, and by taking care of them we are showing Him how much we love Him. Repeating that over and over, just drives it deeper into my own heart. The girls laugh as I dance while I clean, then they run to get rags to help me dust. Riley is an expert sweeper, and will often lock herself in her room only to emerge 1/2 an hour later to tell me she cleaned her room "because it's loving God!".

Yes, I love that I am growing up.

I am truimphant!!!

I have failed the past few days, I know...I have no excuses other than "Uhhhhhhhhhh". Anyways, I have to brag just a teensy tiny bit. I successfully cooked VENISON last night! That's right, one of the driest, gamiest meat ever (at least when I've cooked it in the past), and I succeeded. I based it on This recipe...but tweaked it a little. Mostly because I was out of Soy sauce, and I was too lazy to measure anything. So I kinda just threw the spices in as I wanted, and used garlic powder instead of garlic salt. I didn't take a picture, it looked kinda funny, but it tasted good. Even my kids ate it!!!! We served it along side my special mashed potatoes, and homemade "pull apart" rolls. Oh and plums. I was too lazy to put together a salad (I blame my ceiling fan...it wasn't turning the right way so it never really cooled off in here. It's been fixed), and I felt like we needed something on the more "healthy" side. So we had meat, carbs, carbs, and fruity carbs. It was grand.

Fathers Day 2011

How was your Father's Day? Good? I hope so. I feel like I kind of failed. The girls and I managed to not get a gift, and I didn't get donuts for breakfast. I didn't even cook breakfast. We aren't big breakfast people on Sundays, we like our sleep...and cereal :) I did however run to Safeway with my amazing man and we got some steaks. They weren't the fanciest ones...but we were happy. We also stocked up on BBQ sauce.

Since we had my Mother in law, and sister in law over for lunch (the rest of the crew was in Spokane) I made beef enchiladas for lunch. We had steaks marinating, but not enough to feed 6. We almost didn't even cook them last night, but we got bored and decided to anyway. So we cooked steaks, venison sausages, grilled corn, and I made some mashed potatoes. Oh, and let me tell you about a drink you might want to try. 2 liter of sprite, can of cranberry juice concentrate, stir it all up, pour some for the kids, then add Tequila to your glass! :)  While the Grill was heating up though, Tim and I got this huge craving for roasted marshmallows! So I ran out and got some before supper. I didn't get any pictures of the main courses yesterday (I know, fail right?), I did get a few of the marshmallow fun! The girls had so much fun roasting their marshmallows over the hot coals (with adult supervision of course!).

T

Tim's 3 biggest fans!!!

The past 24 hours.

A lot of cooking (well, for me) has been done the past day. It started when I decided I needed something slightly chocolaty yesterday. Chocolate+ripe bananas= Chocolate chip banana bread! My favorite part is that it is lactose free, so Nicole can eat it without lactaids (those are so expensive!)

See how happy she is?

Next was dinner. Now, I am particularly proud of this! I made burgers, all by myself! I dubbed them "Kat's corona surprise burgers". I used ground beef (obviously), egg, garlic and onion powder, Tony's seasoning, and a bit of corona. Now here's the surprise part. I made 1 thin(ish) patty, then placed some grated cheddar cheese and bacon on top, then topped it with another thin(ish) patty! Now I'll admit, I had Tim do the actual grilling. Oh, I also had him put some pineapple rings on the grill, and I cut up a bit of mango to serve on the side.

 Then when I woke up this morning I had to make the snack for Moms n Tots. I decided on Cinnamon Oat mini muffins!! I made 48, one broke coming out of the pan so naturally we had to eat it. The other 47 went to Moms n Tots, and we came home with none! That's a success in my book!

I'm also watching my 3 year old Nephew today. The kids have had a blast! So who knows what supper will be tonight :)

And Riley took this picture!

I was pretty impressed with her aim!

Tuesday/Wednesday Meals

So I know I'm not really a fancy meal person. I'll change that one day. Like when the girls are possibly a little older, and I'm not having to leave whatever is on the stove every 5 minutes because somebody needs to be rescued from outside, or at least until we get a door that my kids can open easily. Or like when I feel like we can splurge a bit more on the grocery bill. I know that I always have plenty of food that my family can eat when they are hungry, and that for the most part it is really healthy. But fancy meats and ingredients are not on the list. I'm just very thankful that what I do end up making they all love.Ok, I'm done with that. Let's go to the past few evenings.

Tuesdays meal was Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, coleslaw, and biscuits. I, however, did not make any of it. We had a KFC coupon we'd been holding onto for a while, and decided to use it. It was nice because I was having a rough day and not having to cook was just a wonderful break for me. It was bad because, well, I seemed to have forgotten how nasty KFC chicken was. Or maybe they've just gone down in quality. So while I thoroughly enjoyed everything else on the menu, the chicken didn't quite settle well with me. The rest of the crew was excited though...and only washing 4 plates, 4 forks, and 4 cups made it all worth it.

Last night was a different story. We love bacon here, and since I still had quite a few tomatoes and a bunch of lettuce from last weeks bountiful basket, I decided BLT's were a grand idea. I also sliced up a few cremini mushrooms and stuck them on as well. We had some zucchini left too, so I cooked it in a bit of olive oil with salt and pepper. To top the meal off we had some oranges as well. Those oranges we've been getting are a little small, but oh my goodness....they are SSSSOOOOO juicy!! I have to peel them over the sink or garbage can. Maybe I just have really bad peeling skills, but juice always ends up going everywhere! I love it.

Tonight meal is gonna be fun...but I'm not gonna tell you what it is. You're just gonna have to wait until tomorrow :)

Monday's Meal

We have, yet again, not the fanciest meal. But everybody was pretty well pleased with it, so you get to hear about it!

First off, we have grilled cheese on homemade wheat bread. With some baked zucchini fries (zucchini came from last weeks bountiful basket). My kids even ate them, and when they got full...I ate what was left. But I felt much less guilty eating a ton of those than normal fries.

Next, and what is embarrassing, is the Alphabet soup... that came from a can. The plus side was my kids had a BLAST picking out the different letters and thinking of things that started with them, so that's kind of a win right?

Last, but not least, Mango (also courtesy of last weeks basket)!!!! It was ripe, and delicious, and no matter how hard I try and follow directions online I stink at cutting them. We still manage to get all the good parts, it just doesn't look very pretty :)