I tried another crock pot recipe. This one was for barbecued chicken. Frozen chicken breasts, Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, sounds good, right? I've cooked ribs in the crock pot with nothing but SBR and it was a success. This recipe called for some other stuff and I think this is where the mistake was made. Before putting the sauce on the chicken, the recipe called for adding vinegar, brown sugar, red pepper flakes, and garlic powder to the sauce.
Let's just say I wasn't a fan. Sweet Baby Ray's is so good why would I add other ingredients to the sauce? Next time I plan to just keep it real!
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Crock pot cooking
I really do like to use my crock pot. I love coming home to the house smelling wonderful and having dinner ready to go. My usual crock pot meal is pot roast. The meat is tender and moist and the potatoes and carrots are tasty. I just use an envelope of onion soup mix and about a half-cup of water and voila!
Since going back to work and having to nurse Isaac as soon as I get home I have been searching for other crock pot recipes. I do have a few criteria for which recipes I will try: it has to tolerate cooking for at least 8 hours, has to use ingredients that are readily available, and it can't need additional steps and extra cooking time. I mean, the point of the crock pot is quick and easy, right?
Thanks to Pinterest I am armed with new recipes to try. The most recent trial was pork chops. Only 3 ingredients: pork chops, cream of chicken soup, and ranch dressing mix, oh yeah, and water. It was cheap, easy to prepare, and the house smelled great. For a side dish I prepared one of those frozen-vegetables-with-sauce-that-you-microwave-in-the-bag. The meat was so tender it was falling off the bone. The only problem was that despite being very moist, it tasted DRY. And I couldn't really taste the ranch seasoning. Once we added Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, it was great! So will I try it again? Maybe, but I'll save the money on the ranch dressing and skip it and I'll defintely make sure I have BBQ sauce handy. In the meantime, I'm going to try other recipes.
Since going back to work and having to nurse Isaac as soon as I get home I have been searching for other crock pot recipes. I do have a few criteria for which recipes I will try: it has to tolerate cooking for at least 8 hours, has to use ingredients that are readily available, and it can't need additional steps and extra cooking time. I mean, the point of the crock pot is quick and easy, right?
Thanks to Pinterest I am armed with new recipes to try. The most recent trial was pork chops. Only 3 ingredients: pork chops, cream of chicken soup, and ranch dressing mix, oh yeah, and water. It was cheap, easy to prepare, and the house smelled great. For a side dish I prepared one of those frozen-vegetables-with-sauce-that-you-microwave-in-the-bag. The meat was so tender it was falling off the bone. The only problem was that despite being very moist, it tasted DRY. And I couldn't really taste the ranch seasoning. Once we added Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, it was great! So will I try it again? Maybe, but I'll save the money on the ranch dressing and skip it and I'll defintely make sure I have BBQ sauce handy. In the meantime, I'm going to try other recipes.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Strawberry Fudge
Whew! It's been a little hectic since I went back to work! I am still trying to try my Pinterest ideas, it's just been tough sitting down to blog about them.
The most recent experiment was with 2-ingredient "Strawberry Fudge." It was definitely tasty and not too difficult. All I had to do was melt a bag of white chips and mix it with a can of strawberry frosting. Then I spread it in a greased glass pan and chilled it in the fridge to set. After 30 minutes it was ready to cut.
Mine did not look as pretty as this:
The most recent experiment was with 2-ingredient "Strawberry Fudge." It was definitely tasty and not too difficult. All I had to do was melt a bag of white chips and mix it with a can of strawberry frosting. Then I spread it in a greased glass pan and chilled it in the fridge to set. After 30 minutes it was ready to cut.
Mine did not look as pretty as this:
I think there is an inate trait for spreading frosting that some people are born with. I am not one of those people. I had a hard time getting the mixture to spread evenly in my pan. I probably should've sprayed my spatula because as I was spreading the mixture, it would stick to the spatula and get picked up as I picked up the spatula. Also, when I went to cut it into squares, it crumbled in some places.
So, it tasted great (who doesn't love frosting?) and was moderately easy if you're not concerned with it looking perfect. I'm not sure if I'll make it again.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Paper crafts
I found a few cute craft ideas using paper. I used one of the ideas to make a birthday card for my dad using tracings of Natalie's hands. In case you can't see, the front hand says "I love you..." and then the accordioned paper in the middle says "this much!"
I am also going to use tracings of Natalie's hands and tape them to either side of a bottle of lotion. It will be a birthday gift for Natalie's preschool teacher. The inscription will read, "Ms. Katy you deserve a hand." This is also a pinterest idea you can find on my Craft Ideas board.
The next idea I got from pinterest is this:
Pretty cool huh? Those are hearts folded in half with one side taped down to make flowers. I'm sure the type of paper you use makes a huge difference. In spite of that, I decided to use construction paper because I have a ton of it and don't mind wasting it.
This is what my creation looked like:
The website with the original idea suggested you could do this to dress up a wrapped gift. It's cute, but too labor intensive for me. Still, I liked learning that I could use folded hearts to make flowers!
This week was my first week back to work since maternity leave so I haven't had the energy to try much else. Let me know if you have cool paper crafts you have created!
I am also going to use tracings of Natalie's hands and tape them to either side of a bottle of lotion. It will be a birthday gift for Natalie's preschool teacher. The inscription will read, "Ms. Katy you deserve a hand." This is also a pinterest idea you can find on my Craft Ideas board.
The next idea I got from pinterest is this:
This is what my creation looked like:
The website with the original idea suggested you could do this to dress up a wrapped gift. It's cute, but too labor intensive for me. Still, I liked learning that I could use folded hearts to make flowers!
This week was my first week back to work since maternity leave so I haven't had the energy to try much else. Let me know if you have cool paper crafts you have created!
Friday, January 27, 2012
Inspired to blog again
It's been almost 5 years since I last blogged. Paul and I were documenting and sharing our experiences of living in Chicagoland. A lot has changed since then but I've not felt the desire to blog about that stuff. I've enjoyed reading everyone else's adventures of starting families and raising kids and other such stuff.
I was first introduced to Pinterest last summer and thought it was neat but I wasn't really using it much. When I did use it, I would pin ideas that I thought were neat and planned to try "someday." I recently had another baby and have found myself up at all hours of the night needing something to help keep me awake. With iPhone in hand, I have been multitasking nursing Isaac and scoping Pinterest. It actually has resulted in my being too awake at times. I will look at the clock and realize, I could've gone back to bed a half-hour ago!
So with inspiration from many ideas from Pinterest that I need to try, and inspiration from blogs by several of my friends, I decided to start this blog. It's kind of a way to keep myself accountable to actually trying out these new recipes and crafts. Not all of my ideas will come from Pinterest. I also subscribe to craft and recipe emails from Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies Home Journal, and Pillsbury.
My most recent recipe trial came from a Pillsbury email. Zesty Italian Crescent Casserole. You can get the recipe here: http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/zesty-italian-crescent-casserole/4856ffe5-9c66-4149-ab58-24d66d9929f5/
It was a hit with my family! Of course, anything involving crescent rolls is usually a good bet with my crew. The only "difficult" part of the recipe was the very last detail. After you have have assembled the filling and covered with the crescent rolls (mine did not look picture-perfect, by the way) you are supposed to "spread" a mixture of melted butter and Parmesan cheese over the dough. I used the correct measurements but the mixture was too stiff to be spreadable, especially on fragile uncooked crescent roll dough. So I ended up crumbling the mixture and just dropped it on top. It worked okay for the most part but some bites definitely had a strong Parmesan flavor. At any rate, Paul liked it and said I should make it one of our regulars.
I was first introduced to Pinterest last summer and thought it was neat but I wasn't really using it much. When I did use it, I would pin ideas that I thought were neat and planned to try "someday." I recently had another baby and have found myself up at all hours of the night needing something to help keep me awake. With iPhone in hand, I have been multitasking nursing Isaac and scoping Pinterest. It actually has resulted in my being too awake at times. I will look at the clock and realize, I could've gone back to bed a half-hour ago!
So with inspiration from many ideas from Pinterest that I need to try, and inspiration from blogs by several of my friends, I decided to start this blog. It's kind of a way to keep myself accountable to actually trying out these new recipes and crafts. Not all of my ideas will come from Pinterest. I also subscribe to craft and recipe emails from Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies Home Journal, and Pillsbury.
My most recent recipe trial came from a Pillsbury email. Zesty Italian Crescent Casserole. You can get the recipe here: http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/zesty-italian-crescent-casserole/4856ffe5-9c66-4149-ab58-24d66d9929f5/
It was a hit with my family! Of course, anything involving crescent rolls is usually a good bet with my crew. The only "difficult" part of the recipe was the very last detail. After you have have assembled the filling and covered with the crescent rolls (mine did not look picture-perfect, by the way) you are supposed to "spread" a mixture of melted butter and Parmesan cheese over the dough. I used the correct measurements but the mixture was too stiff to be spreadable, especially on fragile uncooked crescent roll dough. So I ended up crumbling the mixture and just dropped it on top. It worked okay for the most part but some bites definitely had a strong Parmesan flavor. At any rate, Paul liked it and said I should make it one of our regulars.
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