Dinner time!

I love cooking and baking, which I know hasn't really shined through all that much on this blog. In fact, the hubby and I cook dinner together almost every night during the week, and use new recipes pretty often. Tonight I'm excited to say we'll be having Spinach stuffed shells!! We've been wanting to make them for awhile, but for some reason were having a hard time finding jumbo shells! Is that weird?? We'll be adapting from Macaroni and Cheesecake's recipe: http://macaroniandcheesecake.blogspot.com/2009/04/spinach-stuffed-shells.html

I'm thinking I'll saute up some chicken sausage and stir it in. Honestly, no recipe ever remains intact when I use it - I'm such a rebel!! But for some reason I have a serious addiction to refusing to follow a recipe TO THE LETTER. It's turned into a great habit, because for the most part I've found it improves whatever I'm making!! Becky, this excludes your recipe, of course. I'm hoping to follow dinner up - if I have the energy - with some of these; I've been wanting to make them for FOREVER!!

They're also taken from Mac and Cheese's website: http://macaroniandcheesecake.blogspot.com/2008/10/cinnamon-sugar-donut-muffins.html. I think they'd be perfect to welcome my sister, her husband, and my adorable niece (see below) when they get in to stay for a WEEK tomorrow!! Say hello to the cutest baby ever!!!

What are you making for dinner tonight and what are your plans for this weekend?

Into the Wilderness...

My brother in law and his wife were in town for this past week, so we - hubby's parents, BIL, SIL, hubby, and I - decided to go camping over Memorial Day weekend at the St Joe River, aka the "Shadowy" St Joe. It runs through an Idaho canyon (hence the "shadowy" portion of the name - I have no idea who Saint Joe was and whether he was really a saint) and empties out into Lake Coeur D'Alene. We were there Saturday and Sunday and came back Monday afternoon. Since my camera died THREE PICTURES into our mini vacay (I know, how rude!), SIL was nice enough to share her pictures (by the way, she was FASCINATED with all the water and trees, what with being from Phoenix, AZ and all).

This is SIL (below); That point MIL and I are standing on is actually pretty high and I forced her to stand that far out with me. She was FREAKED out!



















See the lime green trees?? (above) It was the coolest thing to drive past miles and miles of them.

This was our little blue friend that joined us while we were reading on the bridge; I think he's beeyooteeful.

We're both bookworms, yet neither of our husbands likes to read. Weird, huh?

We just baaarely fit.... :)

Waterfalls in the woods.

We had a LOT of fun getting out and about and away from camp!

Canyon Shot

All in all, it was a great time (other than the lack of air in the air mattress). And it wasn't as wild as it could've been, since we had a camper and pretty much everything under the sun, so even though we were surrounded by wilderness we had all the luxuries of home.

When will you go camping, and where will you go?

The 30 Day shred is the longest 30 days ever!!

This is Jillian Michaels:

This is the 30 Day Shred Workout:

This is Jillian Michaels on crack:

Wait! you say; that's still the 30 Day Shred! Yes, which means JILLIAN IS ON CRACK IN THE 30 DAY SHRED. Seriously, I wake up every morning dreading the 25-30 minutes I will be spending with her. It's when you hated the popular girl in school. You wanted to be her so bad that you would have punched her in the face if ever given the opportunity. That's how I feel when Jillian says things like "this is replacing hours of phoning it in at the gym!" or "that is fear leaving the body" or "if she (my supermodel workout queen helper) can do it, you can too!"

So, if I'm not "shredded" in 30 days, I'm going to hunt her down, and....wipe that smirk off her muscular face. All while I stare enviously at her beautifully toned abs.

I'm on day 10. Pray for me.

My mom's thoughts on Mother's Day

Mother's day in our house was never a big hurrah. Yeah, we'd make mom breakfast in bed (I'm sure she loved the soggy pancakes, burnt toast, and overcooked eggs - LOVED them!) and a homemade card with lots of hearts and glitter, but really, there were no big presents or feelings that we had to remain focused on Mom the ENTIRE DAY. This was because my mom refused to be the center of attention for that long.

My mom is a very unique personality, but everyone adores her for so many reasons. Here are a few:
- She will always, always feed whoever walks into her house at whatever time of day. You're stranded on the highway? Here, use the phone while I whip up some spaghetti and garlic bread. You're just stopping in around dinner time? Sit down, there's plenty for everyone; I'll just grab a few more plates.
- She's mom to the entire community. Never fail, you would walk into a basketball, wrestling, volleyball tournament there will be crockpots and ice chests with kids lined up to grab a homemade burrito. Or into a nursing home where she brings kids caroling, all decked out in Nativity themed costumes (read: her children suffered from public ridicule in order to bring Christmas cheer to old people).
- She's amazingly fun to be around. Any given moment my mom will have 18 plans and ideas about what everyone can do together that day; hiking, clam digging, pick up game of soccer, a bbq, etc. etc. And she makes it happen while she brings along the requisite crockpots, food boxes, and ice chests.
- She's an endless ball of energy. When I was growing up my mom was the first to get up and the last to go to bed. I remember not being able to sleep and waking up to go find my mom downstairs in her robe at four in the morning whipping up cinnamon rolls for thirty people to take to the beach for fishing that day.

There are so many others, but really, they all come down to one thing: my mom is a selfless servant. The real reason my mom is the best mom is because on Mother's Day, instead of expecting anything from us, she wrote an email to one of my brothers and I. Here's an excerpt:

"Happy Mother's Day to you both. I just wanted to tell you guys that Mother's Day to me is not the gifts but the fact that I get to reflect on having happy children that keep swinging the pick into the ice, inching upward, and never feeling quite at the top -- Except once in a while--a paycheck, a diploma, passing the bar, taking the gold, a clean house, etc....Have a beautiful day! Sleep, eat, enjoy the sun, clean up a little bit. Do something nice for someone!

Love, Mom"

So, take her advice. Enjoy your lives, enjoy the days, and go out and do something nice for others. You won't regret taking advice from her; I never have.

Quick tidbits

First, all of my posts are way too long. I need to start keeping them short and succint (sweet? efficient? Am I even using the word "succint" right?).

Second, we moved into the house. We're still not unpacked completely, but it's been interesting trying to figure out where everything goes ("Let's see, if we put all our dishes in the built in china cabinet, put all our pantry items in the kitchen cupboards, and hang our pans, we should be able to avoid putting anything ugly on the open pantry shelves...."). Really, I'm just so excited about the nearby lake and downtown that I'm about to burst with excitement for summer to come. So every morning I wake up, look out the window, and scream silently in my head: WHERE IS THE SUN AND WHY IS IT NOT HERE YET!!! Nobody knows that I do this - I mean, knew - because I try to avoid screaming craziness, but it's still there. And every morning I step outside, all bundled up, and look longingly at the whitecapped waves. Eventually it will be warm and I will live in my bikini. But until then I will be pale and cold and continue to blast my heater under my desk at work. *sigh* I carry around some very heavy burdens. :)

Third, I'm currently obsessed with baked goods, and the not-quite-unpacked state of my kitchen is KILLING me. I mean, I want to make my favorite pumpkin bread http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Downeast-Maine-Pumpkin-Bread/Detail.aspx which everyone loves but no one else seems able to master; or I want to make more of that chocolate cake/cupcakes I found not long ago and posted about below; Macaroni and Cheesecake posted about these fabulous-looking Donut Muffins; PW has been talking about pretzels and cinnamon rolls and marmalade rolls; and I've just had cobbler on the brain. Frankly, I have the same reaction after long abstentions from baking as dieters who have tried to cut out too many luxuries: I binge. So for everyone closest me - especially those who happen to be on a diet - my soon-to-occur overindulgence will be a very bad (but yummy) thing.

Finally, work is picking up so I've been stressed and frustrated to the point that I'm drinking copious amounts of wine. It's to the point where I wonder during my weekly grocery shopping whether the six pack of wine will be enough to get me through the week....

So, the next time someone finds me, I will likely be surrounded by half-baked goods with a half bottle of wine and half-unpacked boxes of kitchen items. I'm a halfway type of girl. It's a curse, and I'm happy to live with it, so don't complain when you have to split a brownie with me. :)

And apparently the only place this halfway stuff doesn't kick in is in my blogging habits....I promise the next one will be only half as long.

We're moving!!

Into a....a....a...house! Just a rental, but still. I do NOT do well in apartments. For example, the other night our upstairs neighbors were loping around as usual in a manner that always makes me wonder if they do jumping jacks and various physical activities day and night JUST TO PISS ME OFF. Well, I finally snapped; I was in bed when they started dragging something - dead bodies, most likely - around on the floor. I threw back my sleeping mask, pulled the hair wildly from my eyes, jumped straight up and almost knocked the hubby out of bed, and slammed the palm of my hand as hard as I could into the ceiling - their floor - over and over and....well, you get the picture. It took everything Ryan could do and say to stop me. Dammit, it worked! At least for that night. But by then I was so fuming mad I just lay there and stared at the ceiling just daring them to defy me!! Needless to say, I had to move to the spare room or else I would have stared that ceiling down all night long.

So, for my sanity, we're moving. Actually, the house rental was already in the works, but the story tells better this way. And really, I don't think I could have lasted much longer in that smoke friendly, pet friendly apartment.

We found the house on Craigslist on Monday, viewed it on Wednesday, and sign the lease tonight! I will be taking pictures and hosting a contest for decor ideas....contest winner will have the satisfaction of knowing that his/her ideas rescued me from making some really bad decisions.

Chocolate cake, Wii Bowling, and Wine = a good weekend

Ry and I hadn't been over to his parents' for awhile, so we made the commitment to spend some time with them Sunday. I got all of our meal planning and shopping out of the way before we went over, Ry packed up his new Wii and games, and we made the 45 minute trek to their house.

Since they already had dinner planned, I decided to make a chocolate cake while I drank a generous glass of wine (or two). I'm always keeping an eye out for ways to lighten up desserts without losing the flavor, so when I ran across this ridiculously simple recipe on greenlitebites.com, I had to try it. Here's my modified version:

Pumpkin-Banana Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Chips
-1 Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix - always go for the ones that proclaim themselves "moist" - or if you want to skip that, just throw in some pudding mix with the cake mix.
- 1 15 oz can of pumpkin
- 1 banana, mashed
- 2/3 cup of water
- Chocolate chips - I used Ghiradelli's 60 percent cacoa or something or other

Preheat the oven to 325. In a medium/large bowl, combine the banana and pumpkin; beat until blended. Blend in the chocolate cake mix. Pour in the water and beat on low/medium speed for 2-3 minutes (I think I did three). It's very thick, more like a whipped cream texture than a cake batter. Grease a 13-9 pan; pour the batter in and smooth it around the pan to even it out. Take your preferred chips (I'd like to try peanut butter ones next time) and sprinkle them around on top of the cake as much as you'd like - I probably used 1/2 cup. Take a spatula or spoon and press them into the batter so they're even with the top of the cake (or leave on top - whatever you want. I like mine more embedded).

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until done. Since it's more of a fudgy cake, a toothpick won't be clean, but will have cake crumbles instead of cake batter. Top with lightly sugared strawberries and ice cream (preferably light). It's sort of a strawberry shortcake on chocolate thing....mmmm!

I got really excited about this cake, so excited that I almost forgot to eat dinner, which I'm glad I didn't because it was AMAZING! I know, I know, I shouldn't be so shocked, but Ry's dad isn't exactly a spice fiend, so a lot of the meals he prepares (and Ry's mom prepares because he won't eat anything too adventurous) can be pretty bland. I mean, bland to me. But only because I'M a spice fiend. An addict, you might say. My spice cupboard is overflowing into my cereal/popcorn/stuffing/cider (I know, cider? Why is that in the cereal cupboard? Because I need to organize, that's why) cupboard and I DON'T CARE. That cereal can just get on the refrigerator or jump in the vase shelf; spices come first.

ANYWAY, blandness was not a problem Sunday night. We prepared grilled pork chops - which I rub with a oregano/parsley/sage/rosemary/thyme mixture (like the song + oregano), plated with a delicious raspberry sauce, and sides of wild rice perfectly done and carrots braised in a honey sauce my mother in law keeps around. Needless to say, no leftovers. And my father in law didn't mind dealing with my spice addiction for a night.

Of course we were stuffed. And there was no room for dessert. Until my mother in law, P, snagged a bite while we were in the midst of a vicious Wii bowling competition. Then it looked so good we all HAD to temporarily set aside our hot rivalry to sample the fudgy goodness piled with ice cream and strawberries. I almost fainted. And then I had another piece. It tasted like a banana split on cake (the pumpkin flavor doesn't come through; it's only there to cut out the oil and eggs of the usual recipe). I'm sure it was the cake that made Ry and I lose by a countless number of points to his parents in the three game series. I was all weighed down and saturated in its deliciousness.......and in the other two glasses of wine I had with dinner. :)

Please try it. If you regret it I'll pay for the wasted cake mix....