Ghengis got a bad rap...

Isn't my sous chef the CUTEST??? This is the activity that John and I like to do together, John is fascinated by cooking!

Tonight I made Mongolian Beef. Its kinda part of our "hey can we make this at home?" restaurant tour. And really, I think this time it was better. The kids have NEVER have eaten a beef dish I made. Tonight they asked for seconds, seconds, it was like the heavens opened and the angels sung, all the planets aligned and my children ATE! So, I figured I would share. This recipe is a compilation of several different recipes. The recipes I researched called for flank steak, but flank steak has ever been my friend. Its so tough, I have never gotten it to turn out right in any recipe I have used it. So I used round steak and it turned out perfect.

MONGOLIAN BEEF

Prep/cook time: about 30 minutes

1 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp ginger minced (or you can use the dried)
2 TBL garlic chopped (again you can use the dried, just use a little less)
1 C Soy
1 C water
1 1/2 C Brown Sugar
1.75-2lb Round Steak
1/2 c cornstarch
1 sliced onion


Slice your round steak into bite sized pieces. It helps if you tilt the blad of your knife to a 45 degree angle. Put slices on a plate, and cover them in cornstarch. Let the beef sit for ten minutes soaking up the cornstarch.

Heat up the oil in your wok or skillet. Let it get hot, but not to smoking. Put in your cornstarchy beef in batches. Let it cook in the oil until it gets lightly brown around the edges. Don't worry at this point about the beef being cooked through... it will go back in to cook more. Put the beef on towels to drain.

Once you have all the beef cooked, throw in your onion and start it cooking. Once the onion is translucent add in your ginger, garlic, soy, water and brownsugar, stir. Add beef back into sauce and onion mixture. Let it simmer away until the beef cooks through. As it cools the sauce will thicken slightly. Serve over rice.

Silly, Willy, Nilly Day

We had a bad day, well...really I had the bad day, and more about that later.. so we went on a walk to look at the lights through the neighborhood. And just in case my neighbor's somehow stumble upon this, Seriously they are my kids favorite house to look at, I mean they every single decoration you can imagine. But then, I saw THIS. Pooh Bear lashed to the ground. At first I thought they had caught him in a new fangled bear trap, but now I think they might be holding him prisoner. You can't even see the two ropes in the back in addition to the two in the front. Now, the last time I saw anyone locked up this tight it was Hannible Lector, or maybe the vampire/werewolf guy in that movie Underworld. But maybe my neighbors know more about that seemingly sweet and innocent Pooh then we would have ever suspected, perhaps "rumbly in my tumbly" is way more ominous that we ever believed before. Maybe he thirsts for human flesh? I dunno, but clearly with the way they have him fastened down, he won't be coming to visit my house thank goodness. Its, ...... disturbing.

Oh and here is the craft I managed to churn out tonight. Its an advent calendar, I am taking a closepin and hanging them from a line run around the house. When I get it up tomorrow I will have to post pics. There are 25 stockings, and each stocking has a number from 1-25 and this way I don't have to keep answering that question.... "how many more days until christmas????"

Today was not a great day. It started out great. I got dinner in the crockpot, recovered some fence wood from a trashpile to make our snowmen tomorrow for our outdoor decoration project. Things were looking up.

Then we ended up off schedule and having to stop for lunch. I have slowly let caffeine back into my diet and today was just IT. We stopped at Whataburger, and I got a giant coke. Okay no biggie right, well yeah, unless you are sensitive to caffeine and the chemicals in Coke.... flash forward to two hours later and I am having a full blown raging panic attack in Kroger. First, how embarrassing... its bad enough when I have them at home. For those of you who blessedly haven't had one... I don't "panic", its more I get chest pain, dizzy, I can't think straight, and I can't breathe and then I start to panic. See, I wait till its appropriate. After, it leaves me with a splitting headache and ringing ears for a few hours. Fun right? TOTALLLLY worth the coke right? I could have just kicked myself.

This also explains why its midnight, and I am still up at this computer. Yeah, thats how much of a baby I am... I drink coke at noon, and at midnight I still can't sleep... UGH.

On the other hand, I churned out a pretty nifty craft in my insomniac delusions. Hm, well, still, I think I will stick with weak green tea tomorrow.

Gee your weenies smell terrific.....

Okay so no, thats not a come on line.... its what I thought to myself as I reentered the house today. I guess maybe its the homeschooling, or the husband having the totally unpredictable schedule, but the crockpot has been my lifesaver lately. The hours between 4 and 5pm are not my "primetime". Im a little grouchy, overdone and hey guess what? the kids and dogs need a walk... but who will cook dinner? The Crockpot!!!!

We had an interesting day, and I do plan to blog about that later..... but for now.....

So I tried this homeade Beans and Weenies recipe and it was awesome! and lets face it, the bean song never ever gets old... and since we just had the black bean soup the other day, the kids are THRILLED with the volume, and noise of the gas they are able to create lately. So just in case you wanna, here is the recipe.

3 cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed or you can use the equivilant of fresh like I did and soak them the night before.
1 medium onion chopped
1 big package hillshire farms little smokies,or you can use regular sausage
2 cups of chicken broth (if you use canned beans, you might have to use a little more)

Throw it all in the crockpot in the am and let it cook!

Dreaming of a white Christmas....

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   Even though today the temperature outside was almost in the seventies, we tried to make a little "white christmas". We read Snowflake Bentley and Gingerbread friends. Then we watched The Santa Claus. Brian had never seen it, and the girls found it very funny.
   
   Then we made coffee filter snowflakes. Because, lets face it, now that I am not allowed to have coffee, we have alot of filters to dispose of. It was really super easy, we just folded the coffee filter in half, folded it in half again, and then in half again. Then we cut designs into the folded paper, and whaaaa- la, a snowflake!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   The kids were really very impressed with this craft. I think they really enjoyed unfolding the snowflake to see what they had created more than anything else. What was surprising is that John joined us for this one. Up till now, I thought he was sorta craftphobic. Hm, maybe he was just excited to get at the scissors....
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

This is what we had for dinner. I found the recipe here at my new most favorite site. It was TOO easy, so I figured I would share. You just soak the beans the night before, throw them (and their water) in the crockpot with chicken broth and a jar of salsa and some frozen corn. Then wait 9 hours. Afterwards, you can stir in sourcream and/or cheese. We had some fresh dinner rolls with it. This was absolutely AWESOME. What surprised me the most was that the kids ate it, I would never ever have predicted that. Chloe wants me to make it again tomorrow.

The official recipe

--1 pound chicken (I used frozen breast tenderloins)
--1 cup dried black beans (or 2 cans, drained and rinsed)
--4 cups chicken broth
--1 cup sliced mushrooms
--1 cup frozen corn
--1 jar prepared salsa (16 oz)
--1 1/2 tsp cumin
--1/2 cup sour cream (to stir in at the end)
--shredded cheddar cheese, avocado slices, cilantro (all optional)

The Directions.

I used a 6.5 quart crockpot. You will need a 4 quart or larger.

If you know you are going to make this the night before (yay for meal planning!) soak the black beans in enough water to cover and another 2 inches overnight. In the morning, drain the water and rinse the beans.

If you don't have super hard water or live in a super high altitude, you can quick soak the beans by pouring boiling water over them and let them sit for an hour or two. I did an hour, but 2 would really be better if you have the time.

Drain and rinse the beans. Add to the crockpot. Put in the chicken, and add the broth and salsa. Pour in the corn and mushrooms, and add the cumin. Stir, but don't disturb the beans---let them stay at the bottom of the pot, closest to the heating element.

Cover and cook on high for 9 hours. Yup. High. For 9 hours. It took a crazy long time for the beans to soften, but they did.

If you are using beans you soaked overnight, canned beans, or pre-cooked beans, you can cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 4-5--similar to normal soup-cooking time.

If you'd like to thicken the broth (I did this), you can use your immersible blender (I love that thing) to blend a bit of the beans and chicken. If you don't have one, scoop out 2 cups of the soup and carefully blend in your traditonal blender. Stir the mixture back into the crockpot.

Stir in the 1/2 cup of sour cream before serving, and garnish with shredded cheese and avocado slices.

Singapore Rice Noodles

Okay Brian and I really like this, they have much more of a "thai" flavor to them. I like that they have so much tumeric in them (that spice Dr. Oz is always raving about). So I figured I would share for anyone that ever wanted to try them (stop LAUGHING Rob and Heather!!!!)



Ingredients

1 package rice sticks or vermicelli
2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I used tenders)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small onion cut into thin strips
2 tbsp peanut oil
6 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp red pepper flakes (really to taste, that could be super spicy)
2 tbsp yellow curry powder
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk (I use one can)
2 tsp sugar
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup chunky peanut butter
1 can bean sprouts
3 tbsp lemon juice


Okay so these are the ingredients below. What's that you say? Why is there a can of Healthy Choice soup on the counter? Okay so I had no chicken broth since it was right after Thanksgiving, and I imporvised, I strained the broth from that can of soup. There also isn't Canada Dry ginger ale in it... my drink just got in the shot.


Preparation
Place rice noodles in a pan of hot water, covered, for 10 minutes. Drain when softened.
coat chicken with tamari or soy sauce. Sauté onions and chicken in peanut oil and garlic. Add red pepper flakes. Cook until chicken is no longer pink, and onions and peppers are soft.
In a small saucepan, combine curry powder, coconut milk, sugar, chicken stock, peanut butter, and lemon juice. Heat for a few minutes on low-medium. Remove from heat, and add peanuts, bean sprouts, and basil.
Add curry/coconut sauce mixture to the drained rice noodles. Add chicken and vegetables and mix well.

The kids refuse to eat this. It smells way to "exotic" for them. So they had fishsticks and french fries.... LOL.

Holiday Highlight Reel

Because of Brian's schedule, we celebrated Thanksgiving on Wednesday. It went really well, I was nervous just because I was having to make almost everything from scratch. The big hits were the brined turkey from alton brown and the cranberry dipping sauce from alton . I will never ever cook a turkey any other way. I made the mashed potatoes with heavy whipping cream, and they were awesome. Everything else turned out wonderful, except for the gravy, it was disturbingly mauve. Its very hard to get past mauve gravy. The recipe I was using called for red wine, but seriously, it went all mauve. My mom told me later that kitchen bouquet would be my friend if it ever happened again. Live and learn!

The next day (every one else's official thanksgiving) we went to see Bolt in the afternoon. It was so awesome, the hamster totally stole the show, I really enjoyed this movie, I even teared up a little at the end. For dinner that night we had the soup I made from the turkey, homeade rolls, fruit salad and pie! Emma wanted to have wassail and she helped to cut the little orange slices that are garnishing the cups. While we ate, we read and talked about the thankful leaves the girls and Brian had created while I was cooking. These kids are just the sweetest, and their daddy is a big cutie too.

Love is a sweet tyranny

We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.
~Author Unknown

The 25th was our anniversary, and I still feel like the luckiest girl ever. We hadn't really prepared in advance, hadn't gotten the babysitter nailed down and it kind of snuck up on us. I know it seems horribly unromantic to put it that way, but we are old folks who have been married for enough time that its not the world hinging event it once was. Plus it is right before Thanksgiving, so most people are in the mad dash for that. Wanna make Thanksgiving dinner fun? Go and elope two days before and wait until Thanksgiving to announce it. Gee our families both loved that. So, anyways, we ended up taking the kids with us. I know, are we crazy or what?! But actually it went really well, and the girls felt very special to be included. We made it into a special day with painted nails and hairdos that would have made fancy Nancy drool, oooo la la.

Brian took us all to the restaurant we had enjoyed before called Chabuca, its a brazilian style steakhouse. (P.S. in case you are ever headed there, its apparently not romantic to do the Chewbaca yowl every time the name is mentioned). The basic idea is that they bring around all kinds of different meats, some exotic, that have been on a rotisserie. The surprise hit of the night was the alligator, the kids loved it and the frog legs.

The servers didn't always speak the clearest English, but we could usually tell what the meats were, pork, beef, or chicken. But then they brought out these round balls, and the waiter says, "you want bbmmmhmmmrrmm balls?"
And I look at Brian, who shakes his head that he didn't understand either.
"Um, what was that again?" I asked.
The waiter says "bbmmrrhhhmm balls? very good".
"Ah, okay I am really going to have to know CLEARLY what these are before I eat them". I was not going to end up eating sheep testicles. Finally we deciphered out that they were Boudin balls, so we were on safe territory.

I think Brian was slipping the waitress some money on the sly to make my mojitos stronger than normal. If that nice piano player had gotten bored, I could have done an awesome fire eating act, my breath was flammable! I almost never have the opportunity to drink, maybe I'm just a total lightweight these days but wowzer!

It was an awesome time, and especially this year I realized how fortunate I am to have such a wonderful man for a husband. Not only is he a great guy, but he seems to think I am the cat's meow. He has always supported me, even when I just changed my mind from the polar opposite opinion. I had the opportunity just the week before to give a character reference for Brian. The lady interviewing me asked me if I thought he was of good moral character, and honest. Unequivocally, Brian is the best, most honest and moral man I know, possibly that I have ever met (besides the ones I am related to). My favorite part about him is that he isn't just honest when people are looking, or when anyone would know the difference. Even when it would benefit him to sneak by, even when no one would ever know, he will always do the right thing, the honest thing. Even though when he is called away for work I miss him, when he is home, he is 100% mine and the kids. He is very selfless in that way. I can't think of anyone else I would rather spend the rest of my life with.