Limes

After Charlie's conference (which went fantastic, such a smarty pants), we went out for Mexican and margaritas.  Miss Margaret kept us entertained

Guacamole!!!

I've watched this 300 times

It's Grandma Kit Stuffing Day!

Well, these are all sorts of out of order, I'm catching up on all the pictures from my phone, the ipad....it's really not working taking pictures on 4 different things, makes blogging very hard

Matt was hunting so Charlie and I had a bake-a-thon.  Well, I baked my arse off, Charlie played tunnel with the boxes

We made Strawberry White Chocolate Cookies, Cashew Blondies, Cranberry Bliss Bars and Lemon Cornmeal Cookies.  The Strawberry ones were to die for

YUMM Stuffing - I bought a bulk thing of stock, none of which were low sodium and it was very salty this year- the low sodium is very important! The Infamous Grandma Kit Stuffing Recipe

Weekend Miscellaneous- UPDATED

Pulling weeds with dad trying to get the zoysia to grow (hence all the mulch in our yard)

We made a Roly Poly house!

Did you know that truck beds make amazing play pens for little boys who are ALL boy?

Wrastlin' with dad

We got a riding lawn mower!  Not only is our yard HUGE, with Matt's back going out, it was a necessity.  We bought it used, and it definitely has some quirks that we've had to deal with, but it's been very nice.  An hour and a half job has been cut to under 30.  And Charlie loves to watch dad go 'wound and wound' on the new mower.  He is half fascinated, half scared of it.

Here are some videos of Charlie killing it on his Strider

More Cooking with Mom

'Look mom, I help....'

Charlie helped get all the dry ingredients in the bowl, and helped stir.  Then spilled the sugar and stuck his finger in the milk/egg mixture.....We were stuck inside in a snow storm, so what do we do?  Bake!

If I was a food blogger, I would have sifted the powdered sugar on top and made them look all pretty, but I'm not, so I didn't...oh well.  These are Funnel Cake Cupcakes.  They were eh, okay, but not as good as the Honey Cornmeal Muffins

This kid eats better than we do....

Deer Steak, marinated mushrooms and sweet potatoes with looots o' butter....yummers

Such Manners...

We're walking that fine line where the 'he's just a baby' isn't really applying anymore; in many ways including eating.  Let's just say I'm super excited to teach this one manners.  Oh, but you've never had such entertainment as watching this little piggy eat.  It literally makes me laugh out loud most days, and then sigh in frustration as I have to hose down the kitchen and the kid.  And by the way, I saw this on Weelicious, but if you take a banana and wrap it in a flour tortilla with peanut butter, it is delicious.  I add honey and raisins.  Kid, adult, any age, it is spectacular....

I Love Summer!!!

The Anti-McMuffin

I have a terrible secret. I have a huge weakness for Egg McMuffins from McDonald's. I could eat them literally every day. At only 300 calories, they are one of the least caloric offenders on the McDonald's menu, but they are full of fillers, hydrogenated this and artificial that, it's just a bad deal.  Plus, how do you not get a hash brown with it? Even though I skip the ham on it (meat from fast food places freaks me out), it's bad news. I like eating eggs in the morning because they keep me the full and can get me through until lunch. 



I bought these at my local box store.  Man, these are handy to have around.   Bought them for my breakfast sandwiches and have used them every day on other things



My assembly line.  Yes, that is American cheese, which is kind of a weird cheese, but there is not a better cheese with eggs. 

I started making these with regular English muffins, whole eggs, butter and cheese, but once I realized that I could eat these every day, I knew I had to change them up. I couldn't lose the cheese, so I changed to whole wheat English muffins, egg whites, and no butter. They are still very good but whoever says there is no difference between whole eggs and egg whites is bonkers. Now I take these to work every day. I can't eat for about an hour after I wake up, so when I get into work, I pop them into the toaster oven for a half hour or so on 400 degrees. If I'm not ready to eat, I just turn the timer on for another 20 minutes. You can't really over cook or mess these up.



Flipping delicious.  I could give or take the ham slice, but it's a good, low calorie protien booster

Nutrition Info

McDonalds McMuffin: 300 calories, 12 grams fat, 18 grams protien

add a hasbrown: 450 calories, 21 grams fat for both

See here for the never-ending fillers and ingredients that are in McDonald's Egg McMuffin

Anti-McMuffin: 231 calories 8 grams of fat, 17 grams protien

Plus, peice of mind because you use your own ingredients. 

Homemade Vinegar

How To Make Vinegar. 

Great for wine left on the counter too long. I can't tell you how many times I've pulled out a stopper from my wine and asked Matt 'did this turn to vinegar?', or took a sip only to pour out bottle because I just gave my body a mini-vinegar cleanse.

I knew it was easy, but it's nice to find a resource to tell me that yes, when your wine turns to vinegar, there are no other steps than to just wait.

I've had wine on the counter turn to vinegar a lot quicker than two weeks but that's probably a good time to wait, just to make sure and get the best flavor.

Directions: Pour the wine into a jar. Keep it partially covered with a lid or stopper, or cover it with cheesecloth and a rubber band to keep it in place. Leave the jar out in a warm place and let it sit there undisturbed for a couple of months. Check back now and then to see how it's going -- you'll be able to smell it when it's done. And, if you leave a little bit in the jar and top it off with more wine, you'll have vinegar again in about one week.

...or just leave it on your counter forever

Source

I've never done so much cooking in my life

We have been spending too much money on food lately. We rarely go out to eat.  Actually, we never go out to eat. We've gotten take-out probably twice since the new year, but we never go to restaurants (not a real sacrifice in my book, for $40, I'd rather cook well at home and have some drinks) So, compared with others, we probably spend a lot less than most, but we could do better.  I can be extremely frugal if I need to, a quality I'm actually very proud of.  It's the farm girl in my genes I believe.  Yes, in my genes, I never lived on a farm but was raised around a lot of people who were.

I went and dropped a boat load of money at the grocery store and the local box-store I belong to and we'll see how this turns out. If I do this right, besides the fill-ins like milk and bread, I shouldn't have to buy food for like 3 months. Most of the stuff I made can be eaten for dinner and then eaten as leftovers either for lunch the next day or for the next night. We only have Matt's kids Tuesdays and Thursdays and every other weekend. Bridgette is around less and less with work and school, they don't eat as much food as they used to. Most of the time it's just Matt and me. I still make different food for Charlie because he eats so much earlier than us, but hopefully, he'll be able to eat some of this stuff too. As soon as he stays up a bit later, we can start eating together. I look forward to that time. But until he stops going to bed at 7, that's how it works. I just can't bring myself to eat at 5:15 and Matt usually isn't home anyway.

We keep trying to keep him up a little later, we thought of moving bedtime to 7:30, but if the kid is tired, the kid is tired. Who can argue with a kid that wants to go to sleep?  Just tonight, come 6:30, he was DONE and I put him down and he was happy to go, even after a 3 hour nap this afternoon.  I've said it before and I'll say it agian, God bless those McAuley sleeping genes.

I'm going to list the items I made, plus the items I still need to make and the tricks I've learned from Pinterest. Most that actually work believe it or not!! This is more for my records in case this works and I want to do this again. It'll be a while though.  As much as I love to cook, the last three days have been hell. A hell with lots and lots of dirty dishes. I ran the dishwasher three times today alone.






This is pretty cool.  I'm scared of cream of ____ soups.  All gel-ly and scary.  I can handle the mushroom because it's veggie, but cream of chicken?  ewwwwww  Found this here.  You mix dried milk, corn starch, bullion and some spices and stir it with some water and it makes 'cream of something' soup.  Good for when it's called for in a recipe.  I don't know about eating it outright, but who eats cream of chicken by itself?  Very handy and very cheap



I made 10 lbs of pulled pork in two batches in the crock pot.  Vacuum packed it in 1.5 lb bags

I poured the juices of the pulled pork into ice cube trays for when I reheat them.  (Home made baby food gear just keeps coming in handy) Easier than putting them in 8 little Tupperware

This is something I've been doing for a while.  When we butchered Matt's deer, we ground bacon in with it to add some fat because deer is so lean.  I had some leftover ground bacon that I bagged up and ever since, this is how I cook bacon.  I bought a 30 lb of bacon and ground it all up and separated it into little bags.  Cooks up as easy as sausage and is much less of a pain and less messy than cooking regular bacon.  Basically cooks into bacon bits.  It's a little temperamental, you have to cook it very even and if the heat gets too high, it pops like popcorn.  But other than that, I've loved this new technique of cooking bacon

My pureed cauliflower.  There is pureed cauliflower & carrots in almost every single dish I made.  This is another baby food crossover that I use often.  Especially since Matt's kids don't like their veggies very well. 
'Mollie, what is this orange stuff in here?"
"Uh, that's just cheese that didn't stir in well"
"oh, okay"
"he he he he he he"

I just taped the name of the dish and the cooking instructions on the top of each item.  Some have some extra steps to do before you put it in the oven, I write that on there too

We will see if this works- I read that if you clip green onions above the white, if you keep them in the sun and in clean water, they will regrow.  We shall see.....

These are great.  I make basically 'mini quiches' for Matt to bring to work for breakfast everyday.  I couldn't have him eating a granola bar for breakfast every day.  He's hungry 20 minutes later.  This gives him a good breakfast in his stomach the will last him through the morning.   In a frying pan I cook up any mix of bacon, sausage, mushrooms, onion, spinach, really anything you want.  Spoon a little in each muffin cup, add cheese. In a bowl, mix 12 eggs WELL (I use my immersion blender, hand mixing just doesn't do) add salt, pepper, thyme, whatever you want.  Cook on 350 for about 25 minutes.  Check them often, they turn quick if they are overcooked.  Throw the whole thing in the freezer and pop them out into a ziploc bag.  Matt takes 2 each day. 

Pinterest Tips:

Light a candle while you cut onions.  I thought that all 'do this and you won't cry when you cut onions' were wives tales, I've never found one that worked.  But, I tried it and it worked.  A lot of the recipes called for onion, so I had to cut up a bunch at once.  It seems to work.  It may have been a fluke, but as of today....it worked.

Use your paddle attachment on your kitchen-aid mixer for perfectly shredded chicken.  This was AWESEOME.  So many of the recipes called for chicken so I boiled ten chicken breasts in heavily salted water.  I put them in my kitchen aid bowl and mixed them on speed 3 with the paddle attachment and viola- shredded chicken.  Do you know how long it takes to shred chicken with two forks?  I was thrilled.  As they were shredding, I added some more salt and pepper to the chicken.  So uber handy.

What is in the freezer right now:

6 bags of ready to go spaghetti sauce with meat, mushrooms and all the spices (and hidden cauliflower, carrots and zucchini).  This was economical because I was able to use the big can of tomato sauce, plus paste, diced tomatoes and season it myself.  Much cheaper than store bought sauce

3 smaller pans of homemade macaroni and cheese using this recipe

2 pans meatloaf

3 big ziplocs of Black Bean & Chicken Chili

Chicken Bacon Vegetable Casserole

Chicken Broccoli Supreme Casserole

Broccoli & Chicken Casserole

All of the three above are different recipes, we'll see which is best.  I've never been a big casserole person, but I scoured the web for edible ones for this project, let's hope these are good

I still have quite a few more I can do, I'm taking a break because I can't cook anymore for right now.  Tomorrow, there is bunch of baking I'm going try to tackle.  Healthy muffins I can take to work and/or give to Charlie.  More on that later....

In addition to all the meat I used, there is also a surplus of just meat I was able to package up for grilling, general cooking etc.

We'll see how this all goes, I'll update more later.



My little helper

Update:  I don't think this is worth it.  All the meals were only so-so.  I can make a whole meal in less than 30 minutes that tastes much better.  I think I'm done with freezer meals

Hot Vinegar with Chili's from the Garden

This stuff is delicious.  We dried the chili's from our garden, we got about 6,786 of them.  You have to freeze them for two weeks (to kill everything that may be on them - ew) put them in an old soy sauce bottle and fill with plain white vinegar.  This is good on everything from eggs to salmon to popcorn.  Matt & I use this stuff on everything.

This Little Piggy

He is always a messy eater, but this was an especially bad night, so I thought I'd share

Right into the tub...

Grandma Kit's Stuffing

With Thanksgiving coming up, there are all sorts of stuffing recipes out there.  I had one blog I follow go on and on about how good their mother's stuffing was.  Ha!  I want to throw my head back and laugh.  There is only one stuffing that beats them all.  I've brought this stuffing to family's, friend's, acquaintance's, boyfriend's parent's- now in-law's houses for Thanksgiving and I've never met anyone who likes stuffing that doesn't say it's the greatest.  This recipe comes from Lucy's grandmother Kit.

Grandma Kit's Stuffing:

1 stalk celery
3-5 medium white onions
4-5 tubes Jimmy Dean Sausage - preferably sage flavored, but you can mix
4 bags seasoned bread cubes
3 sticks butter
3 boxes assorted stock (or 8-9 cans)

Simmer one stalk of celery in 2 cups water.  In another pan saute 4-5 white onions in 1 cup of water.  Simmer until glassy.  Combine and add 3 sticks of butter. 

Brown 4-5 Jimmy Dean Sage sausage packs-drain  (they were out of sage this year, grrrr....I bought 4 packs of reduced fat and added a sage seasoning.)

Take half the veggies (with liquids) and half the sausage and combine with 2 bags seasoned bread crumbs (I like pepperidge farms)

Stir in mixture of broths - I use 1 1/2 of the large boxes of broth.  I use a combo of no-salt added chicken and organic vegetable broth.  You can use mixture of chicken, beef or veggie.  My only tip would to make sure it's at least low-sodium.  This stuffing is plenty salty.  Stir until desired wetness - you can add more as needed, but I wouldn't use much less that that.  Now, do the same  with the other half. 

Spray pam in your casserole dishes and fill with stuffing.  This recipe fills all of my casserole dishes.  I make this stuffing for thanksgiving and then freeze some for Christmas.  I also usually make a little 2 person portion for a special surprise treat for Matt some time. 

To freeze: cover with plastic wrap, cover with foil and put casserole lid on. 

File under Freezes beautifully (catch the reference?  Anyone?) 

Bake at 350 uncovered for about an hour- make sure to at least partially thaw it before baking.  Stir occasionally.  Basically bake it until it's as yummy and crispy on the top as you like it. 

Good, now I can stop panicking because I can't find the recipe- it's officially on the blog

I think he liked his lunch.....