Green smoothie adventures

I had to laugh at myself this afternoon.  I've made 3 homemade green smoothies over the past 2 days and....2 of them were awesome!  The most recent try was a super-fail, though.

Tasty:

1/2 cup orange juice
1 cup of Greek yogurt (vanilla or strawberry were on hand)
Large handful of washed kale and spinach from our garden
1-2 cups of frozen fruit (banana, mango, and apricot have been great!)




NOT so great--tasted like I was drinking a bitter veggie salad!  I think the main culprit was the added lettuce and the absence of orange juice.  It was awful:

1/2 cup water
Handful of oats
Handful of kale, spinach, and leaf lettuce from the garden
1-2 cups of frozen apricot and mango
Dash of milk from the fridge

Lesson learned:  If it ain't broke, don't fix it!  Time to stock up on OJ, frozen fruit, and Greek yogurt. :)

Singing in the rain

Living on the East coast for a couple years was a fantastic experience for our family.  It also opened my eyes and helped me realize some things I'd taken for granted here in the desert.

1--Desert rain is simply the best.  It comes so rarely.  Even flooding is bearable because you know, like snow, the puddles are going to disappear VERY quickly.  While we lived in Virginia, the first huge rainstorms were very welcome and exciting, but after that I was always on high alert for flooding in the basement...

The dogs and I got caught in the rain earlier today, but it wasn't a downpour yet so we just enjoyed it.  It also makes for a very relaxed, peaceful morning at home!

2--One upside to having so few trees here is that you have a GREAT view of the sky and the mountains.  The East coast was FULL of beautiful, tall trees and green everywhere, but you couldn't see the sky because of it!

October 1st Sunrise, Ridgecrest, CA

Other news:

--we enjoyed General Conference this weekend SO MUCH.  It was great to be all together, sustaining the new Apostles, Elder Rasband, Elder Stevenson, and Elder Renlund.  So many good things shared over the two days--it's hard to choose a favorite!

--Saturday was busy with other things, too.  We helped clean the church at 7:00 am, watched Conference, and then Rhiannon was gone from 2:00 pm to 11:00 pm on her first high school band trip to Taft.  She had a good time and said judges liked her performance on the mallets.  She was VERY happy that the school took 2 buses instead of 1 so they didn't have to fit 3 to a seat, haha!

--Wade visited with Bishop Washburn yesterday for his 12-year interview.  When he and Jason came home and walked through the door, he said, "I'm worthy to be a deacon!" Then a few minutes later he said the next thing he was going to prepare for was his mission.  This was pretty exciting for me to hear from our sweet boy Wade, who talks a LOT more about football, movies, and video games. :)

--This knock-off Olive Garden soup was a hit yesterday.  It popped up on my Facebook feed one day and I had to try it--VERY, VERY good.  I think it's the first time I've made a soup in the slow cooker that wasn't a chili-type one.  Had to share!

Zuppa Toscana (better than Olive Garden!)

1 lb. Italian sausages (use spicy to get that signature Olive Garden flavor) 

4-6 russet potatoes, chopped   [I used 4 large ones]

1 onion, chopped 

1/4 c. REAL bacon pieces (optional) [I was lazy and didn't add this]

2 Tbsp minced garlic (about 3-4 cloves) 

32 oz. chicken broth

1 c. kale or Swiss chard, chopped (or spinach)  [I used closer to 2 cups of kale]

1 c. heavy whipping cream

2 Tbsp flour 

DIRECTIONS:

1. Brown sausage links in a sauté pan. Cut links in half lengthwise, then cut slices. [I took the sausage out of the casings and browned it that way, like I was cooking ground beef]

2. Place sausage, chicken broth, garlic, potatoes and onion in slow cooker. Add just enough water to cover the vegetables and meat. 

3. Cook on high 3-4 hours (low 5-6 hours) until potatoes are soft. 30 minutes before serving: 

4. Mix flour into cream removing lumps. 

5. Add cream and kale to the crock pot, stir. 

6. Cook on high 30 minutes or until broth thickens slightly. 

7. Add salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste. 

Can't wait to have leftovers for lunch!

When life hands you bananas...

With Rhiannon's early, early weekly schedule, breakfast is tricky.  A 5:00 am breakfast before seminary makes her feel yucky, so what we've done this week are quick muffins or breakfast burritos on the drive from seminary to school.  I made them up the week before school started and threw them in the freezer. All they need is a quick minute or less in the microwave before I go pick her up.  It has been great!

These have been favorite muffin winners so far:

Mel's Kitchen Cafe Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Oh my goodness, these are good!  They were the first ones to go.

Second place were these power muffins found on a website that featured kid-approved and diabetic friendly recipes.  I was just looking for a recipe that had greek yogurt in it, for added protein.  I like these muffins, but I like them even better heated up with some butter spread on them, haha!  Next time I'd skip paper liners and just grease the muffin tins really well, because these muffins tended to stick to the paper.  Still yummy, though!  And I had all the ingredients!

Power Muffins:  Blueberry + Yogurt + Oatmeal

So, with my muffin supply running low, it seemed fortuitous when a friend gave me a bag of bananas yesterday that were ripe and ready to go!  I made more muffins!  I enjoyed putting my food processor to work and used my can of dried eggs, too--I LOVE using dehydrated eggs in baking but haven't figured out how to make them work for scrambled eggs or "fresh" concoctions yet.  The one time I tried it wasn't...good.

  

These banana oat chocolate chip muffins turned out pretty good!  They don't have flour or oil in them!  And c'mon, anything with chocolate chips is good, right?

Banana Oat Greek Yogurt Muffins

As far as the breakfast burritos go, Jason, Rhiannon, and I have devoured them.  Wade isn't a scrambled eggs fan so they're not his favorite.  Leaves more for us!  These are fun and FAST to make!  I cooked a large pan of scrambled eggs, browned a tube of turkey sausage, and then assembled these little pockets by putting eggs, sausage, and some shredded cheddar cheese in the middle of a large burrito-size tortilla.  Then I folded the sides up and grilled them on my electric griddle until both sides were browned.  Tasty and EASY!!!

Thanks to Google and the Internet, I finally figured out how to freeze up all this goodness, too.  I learned that once you've cooked/baked to your heart's content, you:

1) let the food items cool completely to room temperature  (this doesn't take too long)

2) place food on a baking tray and put them in your freezer for 1-2 hours  (HURRAY for my big freezer!)

3) pop them in a freezer bag and call it good!

4) store in freezer for up to 3 months

Who knows how long we'll do this, but for now, breakfast burritos and muffins are saving our mornings!

A yummy flex Friday lunch

Jason and I had this for lunch today.  It was tasty, quick, and easy!  

I only made one Christmas goodie this year...

but I made it over and over and over and over again.  I ate a lot of it, too!  Thank you, thank you to Aunt Heather who told us about the recipe!

I sent Aunt Heather a "happy dance" text when I found the cookie spread at our local grocery store, haha!

Here's the original link to the recipe:  Cookie Butter Butterscotch Fudge

Dinner winner!

I've got a lot of catching up to do (Thanksgiving in Utah!  December fun!), but for now I'm posting the recipe that I used for dinner last night.  This family 'o mine does not like being experimented on, but they were all pleasantly surprised with this dish.  Hurray!

General Conference weekend

We

Love

General 

Conference

weekends.

The speakers, the messages, the company, the relaxation, and the food.  It was a fun weekend!  I'm looking forward to going back and reading the messages again.  We felt happy inside as we listened, and we also felt inspired to do better and be better!

Here are a few fun random pictures of the weekend.

Rhiannon took this with my phone.  It is classic Oscar. :)

A comedy of errors

Last Thursday was a comedy of multiple errors.  I spent over four hours making sugar cookies for Wade's Arrow of Light ceremony.  I've made sugar cookies countless times, but for some reason that day was one miss after another.  Here's how it went down:

Error #1:  I forgot the eggs in the first batch of dough and had to add them at the very end.

Error #2:  The second batch of dough was super sticky.  Thankfully I realized in time that I had used the half-cup measuring cup instead of the cup, so I knew how much flour had been left out.

Error #3:  Trying to glaze the cookies.  I had images in my head of the wonderful EASY glazed Christmas sugar cookies we made growing up, but instead of calling my mom for the glaze recipe, I found one online and went for it.  It was disgusting and slid right off the cookies.  40 cookies went straight to the trashcan.

Error #4:  Food coloring.  Luckily I had ONE can of vanilla frosting and had j.u.s.t. e.n.o.u.g.h to frost all 85 arrow cookies--this was a small miracle because I did NOT want to go to the store!  However, when I added my Wilton yellow food coloring gel, the color was attrocious and came out more a peachy color instead of yellow.  By that time I simply DID NOT CARE.

Final Fail:  I went to shake sprinkles on the cookies and didn't check one of the bottles.  Since it didn't have a shaker top, I ended up dumping half the bottle of sprinkles on one cookie.  Nice.  I was really happy I had that other bottle!

In the end, my little labor of love turned out fine.  I kept saying to myself, "I'm doing this for Wade.  I'm doing this for Wade.  I WILL make this happen for Wade."  The kids at the pack meeting loved them and they were all gone in 5 minutes.  Score!

Food processor heaven

Ever since I made that homemade laundry detergent, I've been dreaming about food processors (apparently it will grate/shred the Fels Naptha or Zote soap into powdery snow--would have been nice to have when I made it!).

Food processors are expensive.  They are bulky.  They gather dust in cupboards.  SO I was only going to get one used and for cheap, if I could find one locally.  Even if I only used it for the laundry detergent, I felt like it would be worth it.

So, yesterday I bought a used one for cheap.

And I've used it twice and cried tears of joy at the chopping/shredding/blending job it did!  (OK, I didn't cry, but I had a huge smile on my face!)

Using THIS IDEA online, I threw some frozen apricots and blueberries in the food processor and pulsed for a minute or two.  The concoction was the texture of Dippin' Dots and was YUMMY!

Then this morning, as soon as I got the groceries out of the van, I made a cilantro jalapeno dip, using the food processor to chop up the cilantro and jalapeno in a way that I didn't think was possible in this life, and then adding a cup each of sour cream and mayo and a packet of ranch mix.  Sliced up a baguette and dined like a queen.  Here's the recipe link for that one:  CILANTRO JALAPENO dip.

This is going to be fun!

A field trip to the Indian Wells Brewing Company

The week before school I took the kids on a little field trip, about 15-20 minutes out of town to the Indian Wells Brewing Company.  We've been here since 1999, and only recently had I heard that this place was pretty fun to see.  I thought they only brewed beer, which holds no interest for me, but apparently they make over 100 different kinds of soda, too.  We bought 12 and brought them home to try.  Note:  if it sounds nasty, it probably tastes nasty, too.  :)  We still had a good time, though!

Here were the flavors we got:

Cotton candy--weird

Ranch Dressing--GROSS

Martian Poop (marionberry)--pretty good

marshmallow--pretty good

plum--YUM!

cookie dough--not bad

Seal Ya Later--tasted a lot like Pepsi

Radioactive--mulberry, pretty good

Judge Wapner--another cola

Bacon--DISGUSTING with a meaty aftertaste. :)

buffalo wings--Jason hasn't tried it yet!  We'll have to see!

Another winning cinnamon roll recipe

I try to ignore most of the yummy recipes floating around the Internet, but when my friend Molly posted a picture of the cinnamon rolls that she and her friend were devouring at college, I could not resist.  I made 3 batches and they were NUMMY!  Thanks, Molly!

Shortcut Caramel Cinnamon Rolls

Makes 8 rolls

Adapted from BHG.com

Ingredients:
16oz frozen bread loaf
1/4 cup melted butter, cooled
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup caramel bits
1-1/2oz cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1 Tablespoon butter, softened to room temperature
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 teaspoons milk (or more or less)

Directions: 

1. Thaw bread dough using the refrigerator method indicated on the package (I let mine thaw in the fridge overnight.) Let dough come to room temperature for 10 minutes then lightly flour a clean, dry surface and roll dough into a 12×8″ rectangle. Combine sugars and cinnamon together in a small bowl, then spread melted butter over bread dough, and then sprinkle cinnamon-sugar mixture on top. Sprinkle on caramel bits (if using) then roll dough into a log, pinch seams to close, trim ends off, and then cut into 8 equal slices.
2. Spray a 9″ round baking pan very well with nonstick spray then arrange slices inside. Cover with a tea towel sprayed with nonstick spray then let rise until doubled in size, 30-45 minutes, in a warm place (I place the pan on top of a heating pad set to low.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees then place baking pan on a baking sheet and then bake for 20-30 minutes, or until golden brown.
3. Meanwhile, combine cream cheese and butter in a large bowl or in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat until smooth then slowly mix in powdered sugar. Add vanilla then beat to combine. Add milk 1/2 teaspoon at a time until frosting reaches spreadable consistency. May need up to 2 teaspoons milk. Spread frosting on warm caramel cinnamon rolls then serve immediately.

And here's the link, with pictures:  Shortcut Caramel Cinnamon Rolls

Foodie temptation

Today's a quiet day for me until 2:00 pm, so I decided to take a closer look at Grandma Lola's recipes and see how hard it would be to make it into a spiral-bound cookbook.  Jason's cousin Brittany put in a LOT of time typing out all the recipes, so all I'm doing is copying and pasting.  I had to grin at Grandma Lola's huge stash of desserts, outnumbering all of the appetizers, breads, sauces, vegetables, sides, salads, and main dishes combined.  Here's a picture to give you an idea and make your mouth start watering:

Yum!

Let's call it what it really is

Tonight is book club at our house--we're discussing R J Palacio's book Wonder, which I L-O-V-E.  I think every parent and every 4th grader on up should read it.

In preparation for the book club, I was making a grocery list this morning and telling Jason and Rhiannon what I planned on making for tonight:

Kathy's Cinnamon Bundt Cake
Chocolate Raspberry brownies
Seasoned popcorn
Crackers and cheese ball
Veggies and dip
Fruit

Jason's eyebrows arched up and he said, "I think you should call this what it really is--Treat Club."  :)

I'm looking forward to it!

Update:

Success!  6 friends showed up, along with Rhiannon and Wade, and we had a good time.  I woke up smiling about something Wade had said and posted it on Facebook this morning:

Funny Wade time:

Last night at the book club I invited both Rhiannon and Wade because they enjoyed the book.

We were teasing Wade about his dad saying he'd take away Wade's man card for joining us, and Wade goes, "It's okay, I've got 3 of those."

He calls these Chuck E Cheese credit-card looking things his "man cards." No one else knew what he was talking about, but inside I was laughing SO HARD!!!!!!

WINNER: Grilled Honey Pork and Vegetable Kabobs

Boy, did we have a tasty, easy dinner tonight.  It's one I've made once before, a recipe from the website Melskitchencafe.com that the Deals To Meals blog adapted.  Had to share!

Grilled Honey Pork and Vegetable Kabobs

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup honey
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced (I just used 2 teaspoons of jarred minced garlic cloves)
1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
2.5 pounds boneless pork chops (or chicken), cubed  (I used one whole boneless pork loin)
2 red bell peppers, cored, seeded, and cut into large pieces
1 large red onion, cut into large pieces
8 oz. mushrooms, stemmed
2-3 cups fresh pineapple chunks (canned pineapple that's been drained is fine, too--that's what I used)
(I threw in 2 small Italian squash, cut into disks, too)

In a large bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, honey, pepper, garlic, and oil.  Measure out 1/4 cup of this marinade mixture and place in covered container in the refrigerator to use later for grilling.

Place the cubed pork in a large ziploc bag and the cut-up vegetables in another bag.  Pour half of the marinade over the pork and the other half over the vegetables.  Seal the bags and refrigerate for at least 2 hours (up to 24 hours is okay).

If using wooden skewers, soak them for 30 minutes in water prior to cooking.  Then thread the pork pieces onto skewers and alternate the veggies/fruit on separate skewers.  (So we had skewers with all pork, and skewers with all veggies).

Preheat a grill to medium heat and grill the skewers, flipping every couple of minutes, until the pork is cooked through (about 6-10 minutes total, depending on the heat of your grill and size of the pork pieces).  The vegetables only need a few minutes per side.

Brush the reserved marinade over the pork and veggies during the final minutes of cooking.  Serve immediately.


We had this meal with Doritos and sliced strawberries on the side--SOOOOOO good!

Here's the link to the original Mel's Kitchen Cafe recipe, in case you're interested:  Grilled Honey Chicken and Veggie Kebabs

Cooking with Rhiannon

Inspired by Mel's Kitchen Café online (again!), Rhiannon and I made these today.  They're cooking right now.

Happiness.

Especially since I haven't made cinnamon rolls in over a decade.

Here's the recipe:

Vanilla Pudding Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting

Note: to use instant yeast instead of active dry yeast, decrease the yeast amount to 1 1/2 tablespoons instant yeast. Still mix it with the water and sugar but you don’t need to wait for it to proof – just continue with the recipe, adding in the yeast/water mixture where indicated. Also, as with all yeast doughs, I never use the flour amount called for in the recipe as a hard fast rule (unless a weight measure is given and then I pull out my kitchen scale). Because humidity, temperature, altitude and a multitude of other factors can impact how much flour you need in your yeast doughs, I always judge when to quit adding flour by the texture and look and feel of the dough rather than how much flour I’ve added compared to the recipe. This tutorial on yeast may help identify how a perfectly floured dough should be.

INGREDIENTS

Rolls:
• ½ cup warm water
• 2 tablespoons active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 ½ ounce package instant vanilla pudding
• ½ cup butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 6+ cups flour
Filling:
• 1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 4 teaspoons cinnamon
Frosting:
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• ½ cup butter, softened to room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons milk

DIRECTIONS

1. In a small bowl combine water, yeast and sugar. Stir until dissolved. Set aside. In large bowl, take pudding mix and prepare according to package directions. Add butter, eggs and salt. Mix well. Then add yeast mixture. Blend. Gradually add flour; knead until smooth. Do not overflour the dough! It should be very soft but not sticky. Place in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled. Then roll out on floured board to 34 X 21 inches in size. Take 1 cup soft butter and spread over surface. In bowl, mix 2 cups brown sugar and 4 teaspoons cinnamon. Sprinkle over the top. Roll up very tightly. With knife put a notch every 1 1/2 inches. Cut with thread or serrated knife. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet 1 inch apart. Cover and let rise until double again.
2. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Remove when they start to turn golden (don’t overbake). Frost warm rolls with cream cheese frosting (combine butter and cream cheese and mix well, then add vanilla and sugar and mix again, then add milk for desired consistency). Makes about 24 very large rolls.

NOTES

Freezable Recipe: After shaping the rolls and placing them on the baking sheet, cover with lightly greased saran wrap and a layer of tin foil. Store in the freezer. The night before you want to serve them take out the rolls and put them in the refrigerator. Let them thaw in the refrigerator. Take them out about 8-9 hours after being in the refrigerator and let them rise until doubled. Bake according to the recipe. (If you have less time, you can take the rolls out of the freezer and let them come to room temperature on the counter – about 4 hours, then let rise until doubled).

Where have you been all my life?

Last week Wade and I broke out the ice cream maker that Howard and Sandi had given us.  We tried the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream recipe and discovered that

a)  the recipe made a LOT of ice cream
b)  it called for 6 CUPS of heavy whipping cream...so, yeah, we'll be careful how often we make/eat it!)
c)  it. was. so. good!

Today I made a little batch of this with the ice cream maker:

Strawberry Sorbet from Our Best Bites blog

I'm going to use it as part of our 4th of July "special dessert" tomorrow--YUMMY!  The idea is to put a scoop each of the sorbet and vanilla ice cream over broken sugar cookie pieces, then top with blueberries.  I'm a little excited about it--can you tell?

Here's the link to the recipe on the Our Best Bites blog:

Strawberry Sorbet Goodness

Happy 4th of July!

Celebrating #15 in style

Jason and I had a wonderful 15th anniversary date this week.  On Friday night we drove up in the mountains for an hour and a half and arrived at Johnny McNally's for dinner.  It's this totally random, isolated restaurant right off the Kern River, and it's famous for its steaks!



This place was worth the drive to get there!

Here's a link to their menu, so you get an idea of all the good food we ate:  MENU

Jason ordered the Porterhouse, and I had the McNally's Dinner Steak.  To splurge at the end, we got their cherry cobbler and could NOT finish it, we were so full!  After dinner we walked out to this bridge and stood right over the river for some pics:

15 years!

South view of Kern River

North view of Kern River

Any other day I would have been so car-sick on the drive home, but I was so full I couldn't think about anything else!

I contributed to our 15th by blowing a tire on the van and getting two new tires--I figured that was it and I'd be lucky if we got Taco Bell for our anniversary.  But, as usual, Jason was full of surprises and had the fantastic idea to get away from it all and go on a little adventure! 

We had so much fun!  Love you, babe!

A First

I don't make pies.  I do

a)  enjoy other people's pies,

b)  stock up on Sara Lee frozen Dutch Apple pies,

c) or, if I'm feeling really domestic, I make a pudding pie by mixing pudding and milk together and throwing it in a store-bought graham cracker pie crust. 

But today I'm trying something new:  my mom's strawberry pie recipe....from scratch, pie crust and all!

Strawberry Pie

(makes one large pie)

Crust:
            1 ½ c. flour
            1 t. salt
            2 T. milk
            1 ½ t. sugar
            ½ c. vegetable oil

Combine oil and milk and then whip with a fork.  Put dry ingredients in and mix.  Pat mixture into a 9” pie pan.  Prick the crust with a fork, then bake at 450 degrees for 8-10 minutes.  Let cool while you make the filling.

Filling:
            1 ½ c. sugar
            3 T. cornstarch
            1 ½ c. water
            4 ½ T. strawberry jello mix
            (food coloring optional and I don’t use it)
            1 pint to 2 pounds strawberries (washed, hulled,and halved or quartered depending on size)

Mix the sugar and cornstarch together, and then add the water.  Boil in saucepan until it becomes thick (I usually get it to boiling hard and then 1 or 2 minutes longer.  And watch out that when it’s boiling it doesn’t spit at you and burn you.  It’s hot!)  Take off of heat and add the strawberry jello, mixing well.  Add food coloring if desired.  Cool.

Add strawberries to fill the pie shell – then pour thefilling over the pie and refrigerate until set (about 4-6 hours).

Here's to you, Mom--pray for me! :)

Update:  I made the pie crust!  It looked okay!  I added the strawberries and made the filling and had a *minor* hiccup when the filling started overflowing from the pie shell (probably too many strawberries).  But it's a thing of beauty and I can't wait to try it tonight!

ps.  Jason is secretly surprising the family tonight for FHE--we're going to go see a little superhero movie that, in Wade's words, "has a 93% 'FRESH' rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has made 373.2 MILLION dollars since it opened on May 4th."

Yeah, it's gonna be a good day!

Rewind--2011 Thanksgiving at Derrick and Traci's CA pad

Yes, I know it's April, almost May.  But I would be remiss if I didn't give a better shout-out to Derrick and Traci for the fabulous 2011 Thanksgiving Day that they hosted!  It was during our week at Disneyland, and I think the very next week we got a certain new family member who honestly took over my life temporarily!  (The fact that I only blogged 5 times during the 2 busiest, happiest, best months of our year tells me that I was a little preoccupied with becoming a dog owner!)

Now life is slowly getting back to "normal", and I can get caught up a little bit.


Thanksgiving with Derrick, Traci, Max, and Maggie was so much fun because:

a)  Traci is truly an AMAZING cook.  The brined turkey was fantastic!

b)  Derrick and Traci know how to turn things up a notch with Thanksgiving decorations and hats!!!

c)  These guys know how to reach out--the missionaries serving in their ward came over for Turkey Day, too!

d)  Disc golf--HELLO!

e)  I got to try out Traci's new vacuum! :) 

f)  In the evening, Derrick took Max, Rhiannon, and Wade to the Muppets movie, and then he treated Traci and I to a girls' night and watched the kids while we went to see Breaking Dawn.  It was nice to sit down after a busy day in the kitchen.

g) Thanks for being understanding when Jason went back to the hotel to watch the A&M game, ha-ha!

h)  Playtime with super cute Max and Maggie!


We loved every minute of it--thanks so much, guys!

2 for 2

We took the Abs Diet Cookbook for a spin yesterday--Jason and I loved both the Three Amigos Chili and the Philling Cheesesteak. They were quick, tasty, healthy, had simple ingredients, and were LOADED with protein. Had to share!

Three Amigos Chili

1 T. extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 lb ground turkey (I try to get the 93/7 type)
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes with jalapenos
1 (10.5 oz) can chickpeas/garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 (10.5 oz) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 (10.5 oz) can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 (14 oz) can low-sodium chicken broth (I didn't have this, so I substituted with a cup of water and 1 chicken bouillion cube)
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. ground cumin
1/8 t. ground cinnamon
Hot sauce

Heat oil in large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add onion and cook until soft, about 3-5 minutes. Add turkey and cook, breaking up with a wooden spoon, until browned, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, beans, broth, and spices. Stir and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Serve with hot sauce.

Makes 6 servings.

Per serving: 293 calories, 31 g protein, 32 g carbs, 5 g fat, 788 mg sodium, 11 g fiber

(I thought I'd add that our kids really don't care for chili, but Rhiannon said this version was better than all the other ones I'd made. Yes, we still made them eat it. :))


Philling Cheesesteak, Take 2

1 onion, sliced
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 green bell pepper, sliced
2/3 c. hot salsa
4 whole grain hoagie rolls
3/4 lb thinly sliced roast beef
1/2 c. shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese (I just used the Monterrey Jack that we had in the fridge)
(I added 2-3 fresh mushrooms, sliced, to the mix, too)

Cook onion, bell peppers (and mushrooms) in a nonstick skillet until tender. Add salsa and heat until warm. Construct sandwiches with the roast beef, veggies, and cheese. Warm in microwave for 1-2 minutes or until cheese starts to melt.

Makes 4.

Per serving: 330 calories, 28 g protein, 41 g carbs, 7 g fat, 1,050 mg sodium, 7 g fiber

I made these for lunch, and we didn't miss the Cheez Whiz--that's saying something! :)