Easy Kitchen Crafting

My salt and pepper got a make-over today. I use a refillable grinder for each. Both of them have a big "S" on the front. This annoys me. I know, I know. There are much bigger things in life. The "S" is for the brand name but to me it looks like I have two containers of salt. I forgot to take a picture before I began. I realized after I'd completed the salt that I might want to blog about it. So here's a shot of the pepper with the big "S" on the front. (Instead of a "P" like my mind says it should!)

I cut out coordinating scrapbooking paper with a laminated finish on it. I ran both pieces through my Xyron to make it adhesive. Then I stuck it around the exterior covering the store labels. Finally, to remedy the double "S" annoyance that I have, I put a "P" sticker on the lid of the pepper and an "S" sticker on the lid for the Salt.

My kitchen is painted grey but the accents are red, yellow, green, and blue, so the colors of the scrapbooking paper match perfectly. I also love how they look on my new garage sale find. I found this lovely cake plate this weekend at the one garage sale I stopped at. If you flip it over, it's a chip and dip bowl. I love it!

It will spend most of it's life in the center of my table as a catch-all for the salt, pepper, napkins, and the bottle of conversation starters.

Sweet Endings

Children sleeping in their beds, iced mocha in our hands, and our minds wrapped around a new game.

A sweet ending to a perfectly lo-o-ong weekend.

My Personal Chef

I'm a little jealous of the rich and famous who have a personal chef that cooks whatever their heart desires. Wouldn't that be nice?!?!?

Well, I don't have a personal chef but I do have a hubby who's darn good in the kitchen! His birthday was last month and I gave him a 4 in 1 grill. We had his parents over to celebrate his Dad's birthday this weekend. My fabulous husband cooked everything.

He made Paninis loaded with chicken Breast, Mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and pesto (frozen from last summer's garden).

On the side was a pasta dish that could have been a meal all by itself. It was delicious with a creamy white cheese sauce over chicken, tomatoes, and broccoli.

Thanks, honey! It's like I have my own personal chef... only with benefits!

Green Tomatoes

There was frost in the forecast for last night, so we picked all the veggies still in the garden. We have a total of 86 tomatoes and have to do something with them all. I found this link and this recipe and another recipe so I could find a way to use all of these green tomatoes. Tonight I made fried green tomatoes. This is amazing since I HATE tomatoes!!! It was super easy to do...slice the tomato, dip in cornmeal, then fry in veggie oil until brown. Before I tell you the verdict, I must tell you about the tastes in our family. We are a family where the males enjoy the taste of tomatoes while us females detest the taste especially the texture. Well, I was the only one that liked them! I shocked myself! I was surprised to find out that green tomatoes are very tart. My hubby even asked me numerous times if I put lemon juice on them. Both kiddos made sourpuss faces after their first (and final) bite. I actually enjoyed the tart taste. I think that this would be a good side dish in the middle of the hot summer. The tartness would be very refreshing. Who'd a thunk?!?!? I like fried green tomatoes!

Tuscani Pasta

Today we celebrated Pastor Appreciation Sunday by sharing lunch together. The meal was from Pizza Hut. They have new Tuscani Pastas and they are delicious. They have three kinds...Bacon Mac ‘N Cheese, Meaty Marinara or Creamy Chicken Alfredo. I tried all three and they were all really good. I was impressed that pasta from Pizza Hut could taste so good. I would definitely order this again.

Cicerone

I learned today that a man that I serve on a committee with is receiving schooling to be a Cicerone. I had never heard of that term before so I was completely ignorant when he started talking about it. It turns out that a Cicerone is to beer what a Sommelier is to wine. I had no idea that such a position existed. An old friend of my husband's is a Sommelier, so I was aware of what that was but I had never heard of a Cicerone. Here is a link to more info on what a Cicerone is.

Placemat Apron

Last month, I picked up a couple of placemats out of the clearance shelves at Target. I thought that they would make really great placemats for messy art projects. They are made of a material that would be easy to wipe up. I figured I could roll them up and stow them away with the art supplies and get them out for messy projects. Later that week, I ran across this post over at Flip Flops and Applesauce. Imagine my surprise when I realized that she had used the very same placemats that I had just bought! She had used them to make aprons for her girls. What a great idea!

Well, today I tried my hand at the project. I didn't follow her project exactly, I only used hers for inspiration. I had left over bias tape from my recent curtain project. I used my sewing machine to attach the bias tape to the folded area and left enough at the top to tie the apron around the neck. Then, I took more bias tape and attached it to the hip to tie the apron around the back. I liked that in the original idea she had used buttons so I decided to add a few funky ones that I had on hand. This was by far the hardest part of the craft. It was so-o-o hard to push the needle through two layers of the thick material plus the bias tape. I wanted to put two more buttons at the top but my fingers hurt to much so I stopped. Maybe later.

Anyways, I am very happy with how it turned out. I'm glad I bought two of the placemats because now I want to make another so both kiddos have one.

My hubby looked at it on our littlest and said, "Now we've got his Halloween costume...Can you make a chef's hat?" Not a bad idea. Now, I've just got to find a pattern for making one of those.

Crock-Pot Chicken

I am trying to make good use of the chest freezer that we got this year. I'd love to make more double meals and freeze half. I am working on this but we still have tons of room. I try to stock up on meat when it is on sale. One thing that I have been doing is freezing cooked chicken breasts cut into strips. We can unthaw as many or as little as we want. I can put them frozen in my husband's lunchbox and by the time he eats his lunch, they're thawed. They're perfect for tossing into a salad, putting into a tortilla with some veggies, or making a quick meal for the kiddos. It's definitely healthier that giving them frozen chicken nuggets!

Anyways, as successful as this has been, the chicken has been very dry. I've done the chicken on the grill and after it's thawed out, it needs some sort of sauce to balance the dryness of the meat. I thought that using my crock-pot might help alleviate this problem. I looked online and was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of recipes. I just wanted a simple way to cook the chicken not a full blown chicken dinner. So, I called my friend, Deanna, who has been using her crock-pot a lot, for some advice. I have never done chicken in the crock-pot but she has. Per her suggestions, I placed 3 pounds of chicken breasts and two chicken bullion cubes in about 4 inches of water. The results were fantastic. The chicken was moist right out of the crock-pot (of course!). Now that it has frozen, I tried a piece and it seems to be better. My hubby says that he misses the grilled taste but that the moisture content is closer to normal.

Scalloped Potatoes

This morning my dad stopped by with some food for our family. That's one of the blessing of having family so close! He and my mom had made a ham and had more left-overs than they would be able to eat. He also had a bag of potatoes that had more than what they could eat before they would go bad. So, we benefited from this. He arrived bearing the left-over ham and a half dozen potatoes. He said that he was going to make scalloped potatoes for dinner for him and my mom this evening. I thought that was a great idea but I had no idea how to make it. I found this recipe for Scalloped Potatoes online. I actually had every ingredient on hand (unusual for me).
It was a perfect recipe to do with my 4-year-old. I chopped the potatoes, ham, onion, and green peppers and she took the chopped pieces and put them in the measuring cups. She loved taste testing the ingredients and we found out that she likes to eat raw onions! Then, she stirred the liquid ingredients together. But her favorite part was layering the ingredients into the baking dish.
The results...we loved it!!! Well, everyone but the 4-year-old. I think she ate too much ham and onions during the prep time because she hardly touched it at dinner. The 1-year-old loved it! This may well be his favorite meal. He kept asking for more!
This is definitely a recipe we will make again. It's a great way to use up left-over ham.

Brown Baggin' It

Several years ago, my mom bought me a cookie press for a gift. I thought it was pretty neat...a little piece of art atop a useful kitchen tool. I even made cookies for family members the following Christmas using my new cookie press. My cookie press inspired me to learn how to make shortbread...my mom's favorite. My mother was so impressed by my new found cookie making talent that when the next gift giving holiday rolled around, she gave me another cookie press. My brother caught on as well and he and my mom have continued to add to my growing collection.

Whenever any guest in our home sees my cookie presses, they ask about them. I've been resistant to say that I collect cookie presses for two reasons... 1.) I never set out to collect them, I just kind of fell into it and 2.) it just seems so-o-o domestic, like a collection that Martha Stewart would have and I am definitely NOT Martha Stewart.

Well, today I received a gift of two more cookie presses, two cookie molds, and a companion book(from Mom, of course). I now have to admit it... I am a cookie press collector.

This made me realize that I ought to do a little research on this and see what I am really getting myself into. Most of my presses and the 2 molds that I receive today are Brown Bag Designs. It turns out that these are highly collectible and most of them are actually retired. The company now only releases one design a year and that design is used, according to their website, to "make a difference in the world." The design is inspired by a charity and a portion of the proceed go to that organization. Pretty darn cool! Last year's design honored Habitat for Humanity and this year's design is for Heifer International. I had never heard of Heifer International before but after looking through their website, I am inspired. Rather that just throwing money at the problem of world hunger, they share livestock and then the recipient passes on the offspring of their gift to another needy family. The gift literally keeps going with each generation of livestock born. Wow. Who would have thought that my little cookie press collection would lead me to learn about an organization trying to end world hunger?!?!?

My daughter wanted to help with the photo. The presses kept rolling so she came up with her own solution and got some ribbon to hold them in place...Love that kiddo!!!

I also learned through a book that my mom included with my gift today that cookie molds can be used for so much more that just cookies. The book is called The Brown Bag Cookie Art New Idea Book. In it, it gives directions for using cookie molds to make molded chocolates, fondant, butter, marzipan, paper casting, gift tags, greeting cards, beeswax ornaments, cinnamon pomanders, salt dough ornament, and of course, lots of cookie ideas. Who'd have thought my little collection could do so much?!?!?

So, I am indeed, officially a cookie press collector. How did that happen?!?!?

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce!!!

A few weeks ago, I used tomatoes from our garden to make spaghetti sauce. However, I cheated a little. I used Mrs. Wages Spaghetti Sauce Tomato Mix instead of making it from scratch. I am so happy that I did it that way. This is my first year canning and I found the thought of it daunting. However, we had an overabundance of tomatoes in our garden this year and I had to do something with them. The packet made the whole process so much easier for my brain to handle.

Well, the tomato plants haven't stopped producing and I am trying my darndest to keep up with them. So, today I made spaghetti sauce for dinner and I made it from SCRATCH!!! I did not have a Mrs. Wages packet on hand and I figured since I had gotten my feet wet already I might-as-well jump right in.

I loosely - very loosely - followed two recipes in my Better Homes and Garden's cookbook. Why 2 recipes? I first thought that the Tomato and Basil sauce sounded yummy but after I started cooking, I thought the marinara recipe sounded even better. So, I took a little of this from one recipe and a little of that from the other recipe and came up with my own variation. Then, I threw in some ground Turkey for good measure.

I love that so much of this meal came from our garden...tomatoes, basil, onion. I should have thrown in some green bell or banana peppers. I didn't think of that when I was cooking. Ah well, next time!

We had it over Whole Wheat Rotini. The 4-year-old loves the spiral shape and the 1-year-old can get a better grip on the spirals compared to other pasta shapes.

Here's the best part... EVERYONE like it!!! Both kiddos had more that one helping...shock! My hubby ate several helpings - but that's normal for him with any meal. The man likes his food! I definitely liked it the least but I don't like tomatoes or onions that much so the fact that I even ate it is good progress for me.

The only problem with the meal...baths were a necessity afterwards. Our youngest had spaghetti sauce everywhere that was not covered by the bib. His hair was especially disgusting. What a mess!!!

Mmmm, Peaches!

Have you ever tried White Nectarines? We picked some up today at Walmart (of all places) and they are delicious! Both kiddos LOVE them. They are so sweet and the taste is fantastic. The texture is perfect... not too soft but not too hard with a little crunch! Yummy!

Theater and Tea

Today, three generations of ladies went to the theater and out for lunch and tea. I had the pleasure of going on an a truly spectacular date with my mother and my daughter. We went to a children's theater production of The Princess and The Pea.

Seeing my mother holding my daughter's hand is a very touching site for me knowing that I am the link that connects the two of them.

My mother was able to get spectacular seats for us. Below is a picture she took from our seats before the show started. We had a completely unobstructed view because we sat in the front row!!! The actors were so close we could have walked right up on stage with them. One of the actors actually laid down for part of the play on the stage right in front of us. My daughter's eyes were as big as saucers. I think she may have thought that he was going to plop right down in her lap.

The performance was very well done. Very funny and it kept the little one's attention from start to finish. Afterwards, we got too look at a few of the props. The girl was amazed to touch the bed and find out that it was as hard as a rock. This probably really confused the story in her mind. I can picture her thoughts now... "That girl wasn't a real princess. No one could sleep on this tower of brick mattress with or without a pea under them!"

Then, we went to a Tea Shop that I had wanted to go to for some time. The Tea Shop lunch was actually my mom's Mother's Day present. We've had a tough time scheduling a time to go!

The girl LOVED the presentation of her lunch and was thrilled to get to drink her apple juice out of a real teacup and saucer.

My mom and I ordered the same wrap and it was delicious!!! We had a Smoked Turkey Mango Wrap. It was made with fruit mayonnaise, avocado, sprouts, mango, and lettuce. It was so tasty! I had Chicken Noodle soup and she had Mushroom Brie soup. Both were equally delicious.

Mmmm, I can't wait to go back again. What a memorable day!

Grocery List Helper

Today, I found a very useful tool online. I typically do the majority of my grocery shopping at Aldi. You have to rent a cart, buy or bring your own grocery bags, and bag your own groceries. Some would consider that a hindrance. I consider it a small price to pay for the significant saving that I receive on groceries there. I went to their website and found that they have a really helpful tool called the Aldi Meal Planner. You can create shopping lists, meal calendars and your own online cookbook of your favorite recipes. The coolest thing is their shopping list generator. It works like this... They have a big list of recipes that use mainly ingredients that can be bought at Aldi. When you find a recipe that you like, you move it into your meal calendar and it automatically adds the ingredients to your grocery list. So cool! I can't wait to try it!

Aggression Cookies and Other Kitchen Fun

I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but I am not very creative in the kitchen. I know that there are many people who just love cooking. I am not one of them. My husband is and I am content to leave it that way.

Well, today was a rainy day and I decided to pull out The Preschooler's Busy Book by Trish Kuffner. She has a section titled "Rainy Day Play." I thought I would peruse the section and get some ideas for our rainy day. I never made it to that section. I opened the book to the "Kids in the Kitchen" section. I found a recipe that caught my attention: "Aggression Cookies." No Kidding. That's the name of the recipe! Kuffner boasts on the page, "This is truly one recipe your child can make all by himself." Hmmm, I doubt that, I thought, but we'll give it a try. I had all the ingredients already on hand. The best part of this recipe is that all of the ingredient can be eaten without cooking. There are no eggs and thus, no salmonella fears.

After you measure all the ingredients, the directions say, "Dump all the ingredients into a large bowl and let your child really go at it! Pound, punch, and knead the batter- the longer and harder the dough is mixed, the better the cookies will taste!" Boy, did my daughter have fun! At first she was hesitant, but after some encouraging, she did exactly what the directions said.

After much dough punching, squishing, and eating. We rolled the dough into balls and waited while our cookies baked.

The end result was quite impressive. I had my initial doubts but they are really yummy, oatmeal cookies. My hubby said that he could quite easily eat every last cookie in the cookie jar. They are quite addictive.

Now, generally, I can only manage one recipe a day in the kitchen. However, the success of the cookies gave me confidence. I took the recipe from the other night for Savory Parmesan Bites and modified it a bit. I made half of the batch like the recipe but the kids didn't really like the red peppers and we're on a real Pesto kick around here lately. So, I got creative with the recipe and made my own. We'll call them Savory Cream Cheese Pesto Bites. Both kids loved them and my hubby said he liked the new recipe as much as the original.

I tried one last recipe today. I found this recipe looking for ways to use our crop of Basil. My husband loves summer salads. I don't like vinegar or mayonnaise so I'm not a huge fan since most salads contain one of these two ingredients. I saw this recipe today and knew it would be a hit with my hubby. I omitted the Balsamic Vinegar until the end so that I could take out some for the kids and I to eat plain. My hubby really liked it. My son and I liked it without the vinegar. And, my daughter hated it both ways. She had it in her mind before she even tasted it that it would be yucky. We have a reunion to go to next weekend and I think that this will be the dish that I bring to pass. Easy to make, summery taste, and nothing to spoil during the heat of the picnic.

As we sat down to eat dinner, my husband asked me if I realized that I was serving a completely vegan meal. Believe it or not, I hadn't realized that fact.

After dinner, I asked my meat-loving hubby if he enjoyed his vegan meal. His reply was that his belly was full and that everything was delicious. That, my dear, is the right answer!

Garden Visitor

Today, I was out in the garden weeding, inspecting, and such. I noticed that something was eating our tomatoes. Two of them had been eaten over halfway through!

I reached in and turned and twisted the branch that the tomatoes were on to see if I could find the culprit who was eating them. Then, to my horror, I realized that I wasn't holding on to the branch. Look closely at that picture above. I was holding the culprit!!!

May I introduce you to our garden visitor? This, tomato loving creature, is a Tomato Hornworm. Yikes, he's huge!!! If we stretched him out he would be just over 4 inches long!!!

I looked online and called our Extension office to talk to a Master Gardener. I learned that these green guys will eat all of my tomatoes if I don't destroy them. Destroy them?!?!? How the heck do you destroy a 4 inch long green guy? The master gardener say that I should just step on him. Step on him! I can't do that. Gardening is supposed to be this nice wholesome activity to do with my kiddos not a vicious activity involving the destruction of huge caterpillars. I can't even begin to tell you how my imagination has played up this destruction of caterpillars. I can envision 4 inches of Tomato hornworm innards exploding under my foot. I just can't do it.

My hubby says he could try to take the green guys fishing.

My daughter says we can just keep him. She knows that caterpillars turn into butterflies and she is fascinated by the thought of how big a butterfly he would be.

I say thankfully we only have one. I am hoping and praying that there won't be more. I really don't want to spend my days plucking big green guys off of my tomatoes. Heck, I don't even like tomatoes. I've been wondering what we are going to do with all of our tomatoes since we don't like them fresh from the garden. I was hoping that we could bless others with our bounty. I was hoping that I could convince my kiddos that they were yummy. I was hoping that I could learn to can and have canned tomatoes for chili and stew this winter. I was hoping that I could learn to make tomato sauce. I was hoping. I was hoping. Now I am just hoping that it will all disappear...the hornworms, the tomatoes, all of it. We only have one but the Master Gardener assured me that if I have one, I most assuredly have more. MORE! I have to pluck them out daily by hand. BY HAND! I have to destroy them by squishing them. SQUISHING THEM! I really don't want to deal with this. Yuck!

One last picture to leave you with...

Caterpillar Crap!!! Did you ever wonder what recycled tomatoes look like? Well, there you go! After just a few hours, this big guy deposited quite a load of poo! Yuck, I can't believe I have to deal with this!!!

Garden Dinner

Oh, the satisfaction! Tonight we had dinner strongly influenced by our garden. We had Pesto Steak on the Grill with a side of Whole Grain Spiral Pasta tossed with pesto and tomatoes. The basil for the pesto and the tomatoes were picked from our garden by the Daddy/Daughter gardening team.

Mmmm, it was so yummy! Our whole house smells of basil. Fresh from the garden, it's scent was amazingly strong. The kids both gobbled up dinner. They especially loved the pesto and tomato pasta.

We didn't follow a recipe, so I learned a little about collaborating with my hubby and being creative without a recipe as a guide. I don't cook steak. I don't much care for it except when I am pregnant (which I am not). So, my dear hubby was patient and taught me how to grill a steak to perfection - well, nearly perfection.

New Recipe

I tried another recipe from my old issue of Kraft Food & Family. I'm really enjoying the recipes in this magazine that has been sitting on the shelf with my cookbooks since 2004. The recipe I tried today is for Savory Parmesan Bites.

They were really easy to make (only 5 ingredients) and oh-so-yummy. I only made a half recipe and we have left-overs. I also got confused by the folding directions. I was trying to listen to my four year old while figuring it out...not an easy task. So, they look a little wonky and they are much larger than what the recipe called for. So, they're not nearly as pretty as the picture in the magazine but thy sure were yummy. Definitely a good recipe..fattening, but good!

My Fair Lady

I LOVE the fair. I've been going my whole life. I've tried my hand at different skills by entering all sorts of categories. From Collectibles to the Demolition Derby, I've tried out so many of the competitions. For about a decade, I have worked as a Superintendent at the fair overseeing the Agricultural Education activities. I love that my job allows me to be a part of a tradition that I enjoyed as a child and that my parents and grandparents participated in as well. Every year, I look forward to seeing all of the animals, watching the competitions, and eating the fair food. The latter may have been my downfall yesterday and definitely was my lesson to learn for today.

Well, let's just say that I'm not feeling so fair today. Last night I got some sort of stomach sickness on the way home from the fair. I hadn't been feeling so well all day but then I went ahead and got myself a big helping of cheese fries. I just love those fries smothered in cheese! Then, because tradition dictates it, my mom and I finished off the night watching the beauty pageant and ending with an elephant ear split between the two of us. It's kinda funny that that's our tradition. We watch girls strut across the stage without an ounce of fat on their body while we indulge in a deep fried dessert covered in cinnamon and sugar. Ironic, huh?

I learned on the way home from the fair... and when I arrived home... and all through the night... and all day today... that if you're stomach isn't feeling so good then don't put fried fair food in it. Particularly food smothered in either artificial cheese or buckets of sugar!

I'll be back at the fair tomorrow. I'll be surrounded by all the scents from all the food vendors. I wonder if I have truly learned my lesson!

Pizza Pasta

My hubby and I came up with the easiest pasta recipe ever! I had to bring a salad to a pool playdate with some of my old co-workers and their children today. I generally don't like salads that are anything beyond fruit salads or lettuce salads. Someone else had already volunteered to make those. I just don't like the taste of mayo or vinegar and most salads have one or the other of those 2 ingredients. As I was lamenting about what I was going to make, my hubby suggested we just make our own. This is hard for me. I'm a follow-the-recipe kind of girl. But then, he started talking about what we could add and in the end we came up with a pretty good recipe and I even liked it. We're calling it "Pasta Salad...Pizza Style" or "Pizza Pasta." It is made up of the ingredients that would generally be put on a pizza. You could vary the recipe with whatever you like to top your pizza with. Here's the recipe with no amounts for the ingredients because we just kept adding until it looked right!



Mix together...Bow tie pasta (cooked), sliced pepperoni, black olives, cherry tomato halves, shredded cheese, and Italian dressing.



That's it. I know that the Italian dressing has vinegar but I didn't add too much. It was tolerable for me. Everyone seemed to like it and my hubby really likes it. We may even make it again for 4th of July at my In-laws house. Yummy, I know I will make this recipe again.