200 posts

Here is the proof for everyone who has ever told me I don't blog enough. I set up this blog in May of 2006 and I have just hit 200 posts.

I just ran the math (by Johnny, the math expert in the house, who confirmed) that means that I average about one post a week. Sad, some people could hit 200 posts in one year. Sorry to everyone, but I can't even keep up with reading blogs like that, to say nothing of posting. So, let's just all agree to be happy with two or three posts a week. Maybe we'll hit 300 posts next year, and really have something to celebrate.

But since it's not every day that I get to celebrate 200 of anything, here's a few pictures:
Ha, you thought they'd be of G, but I thought I'd also celebrate decent pictures of me (horray!) because, after all, it is my blog. Though G will make many appearances in the future.

So, thanks for reading!

Food for Thought

If you are a women, and you have a big purse, and you are in charge of pies at Thanksgiving, and you would like to make one with a graham cracker crust--why not start early and do a little service for future you by putting a large Ziplock baggie full of graham crackers in your purse now. (You might want to tape the edges, just to be safe.) In two months, you pull out the baggie, add some butter and voila! graham cracker crust with no effort on your part.

You're welcome, America.

June's Dress

As if I haven't had enough trouble working on this goal this year, June was another difficult month. That was because I left for a two week trip to Utah on the 4th, came home for two days, then left again for Dallas for my grandma's funeral. I wasn't really even home until the 27th, and then a) I was really tired after all that traveling, b) G was really tired from travelling and being off his schedule for a month, and thus was challenging, and c) I only had 3 days to put something together.

This is the first month I honestly thought I wouldn't make it. And I seriously considered not even trying. But as mentioned before, I have an awesome husband who convinced me that this was a worthy and important goal which deserved some sacrifice. So I sucked it up and got out the yellow eyelet.

I love this fabric because it's yellow, and it's eyelet, so what's not to love? And it being summer and ridiculously hot here, it screamed to be made into a summer sundress. Luckily I already had this pattern:

Sometimes I'm a little leary of modern pattern instructions, but these ones made this dress come together in a snap. Thanks to G taking really long naps catching up on some sleep, I didn't have to sacrifice any extra time to putting this dress together. This was the last dress I made in my basement, too since Johnny stayed home on Wednesday to give me a break and I used the time to organize my sewing room.

So, without further ado, I present the Diabetes Dress, cause if it were any sweeter . . . :

Things I Learned Making This Dress:

• Basting is the sewer's best friend when it comes to linings. I've never been much of a baster, but I'm converted after making this dress.
• Eyelet is a lot easier to sew than I thought.
• I actually look good in yellow. I haven't thought that for years.

New Things I Did With This Dress:

• Well, this was my first time working with eyelet. While it does require some careful pinning and sewing, it is well work any extra effort.
• Correctly sewing on shoulder straps. I don't think I've make anything with shoulder straps before and they worked first time. Although, note to self, in addition to basting, it's a good idea to sewed them on with a regular stitch a few times before sewing on the lining, since they ripped first day wearing it picking up G and shlepping things around.
• Did a rolled hem correctly on my serger for the first time. I had never adjusted the tension when doing rolled hems before. Not sure how I missed that in the instructions, but man, it makes a difference. They are currently my preferred hemming method, especially for summer dresses.

Week 9: Themeless

Recipes to Go: 507 423

Weeks to Go: 52 43

Recipes Made This Week

Coconut Crunch Cookies

Broccoli Chicken Supreme

Slice 'n' Back Lemon Gems

Fiesta Lasagna

Green Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

Grilled Corn Dip

Lemon Basil Cupcakes

Pesto Veggie Stacks

Three-Cheese Pesto Pizza

Peaches 'n' Cream Cups

While we were still with Johnny's family for Labor Day, we decided Sunday's dinner needed a yummy dessert. After consulting The Book, we decided the Coconut Crunch Cookies looked the best, which is saying something because it was fast Sunday and everything looked good at that point.

We made a double batch, which normally wouldn't have been a big deal, but the yield on these was surprisingly accurate, so we ended up with tons and tons of really yummy cookies. We ate all we could fit, and took a few home, but we left most of them there to be traded at lunch in Kindergarten.

The Broccoli Chicken casserole was decent enough, but nothing spectacular. And it definitely got not-as-good as the leftovers went on.

Though, maybe it wasn't the casserole's fault. It did have to compete with leftover lasagna, and few things are as good as leftover lasagna. This one took awhile to put together. So with all the prep, I doubt this one will become a go-to recipe.

These lemon cookies look really good, but they were also a pain.

Probably because I was quite grumpy at the casserole taking forever. In hindsight, these weren't as bad as stated in the recipe. Thanks to my awesome fridge, I only had to put them in there for half as long as stated. Next time, I will try to cut them with a more even thickness, and I will make more icing. I guess I need to figure icing out, because it seems to be all about timing. Things have to be cool enough to put the icing on, and the icing has to be almost set up, but not quite to make dripping at a minimum. But the cookies themselves weren't that sweet, which meant you could eat tons. Good thing I made them for Johnny to take to Young Men's because we didn't eat that many.

The Fiesta Lasagna was worth the hour it took to bake in the oven. I have made Mexican-style lasagna before in this book, but this recipe was the perfect blend of Mexican and Italian flavors.

It hit just the right note and we highly enjoyed the leftovers for the rest of the week. In fact, Johnny got sad that I wouldn't let him eat it for lunch and dinner the next day. In my defense, we had other leftovers to get through, and we need a little variety.

We served the lasagna with a salad with homemade raspberry vinaigrette. This salad had everything in it to be tasty, except that we had to use leftover mustard green and they were just too bitter.

Some day, we'll make it again, because what the heck else am I going to do with a bottle of raspberry vinegar?

Game Night this week was served Grilled Corn Dip which should have a warning label: Highly Addictive. Johnny had to put it in the other room so we could actually play games.

It was spicy and sweet and creamy and I always seemed to have too many chips or too much dip on my plate at the end, which meant I had to keep eating more. Anyone with extra corn from their gardens should get this recipe. It's a great way to use some surplus.

Saturday morning I spent WAY too long on these cupcakes.

Why? Well, we were short on a few ingredients, so I had to fudge a few, which meant the batter took a little long. Then, they are stuffed, so we had to work that situation out. Then, the frosting is made up of a syrup that you first have to make and cool. Then, we didn't have enough powdered sugar, so I had to process some of my own. I don't recommend this, and I have since re-organized my pantry to make it easier to tell when I need refills on the smaller packages of things, like powdered sugar, brown sugar, and coconut. But G enjoyed helping with the frosting.

Anyway, after all that work, I figured I might as well sugar-ize the basil leaves too. So after about 2 1/2 hours, we had something really pretty to show for all my work, but they weren't as good as the lemon crumb cupcakes, so I don't think it was worth it. I gave a few away--some to our neighbors, some as a Mormon Payment for some plumbing help. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that water started coming through the ceiling on Saturday morning. Not good.

We could have had leftovers for lunch and dinner, but I needed a few more recipes, so I picked our big zucchini, made some pesto and used it for two recipes. I handmade the pizza dough from the Giant Calzone recipe I made before, but it wasn't quite as awesome this time, so the dough was tough and too dense.

Other than that, the pizza was good. Very Greek tasting. It won't make it on the fast Sunday pizza menu any time soon, but it was good to experiment and try something new.

The Pesto Veggie Stacks would have been better if I had sliced the zucchini a little thinner. And if the oil had stayed at the right temperature.

I think this would be a great way to get rid of some excessive zucchini, but they didn't warn me that they would be so filling. I could barely eat one.

I bought some fresh peaches from the Farmer's market before we left, and I finally got around to using them in the Peaches 'n' Cream Cups.

They were tasty, but the topping was too gingery for me. Next time I'll use cinnamon instead. And like the book points out, this recipe is so easy and so versatile that you could use any fruit and corresponding yogurt.

Labor Day

We all had lots of fun visiting Johnny's sister for the long weekend. Here is proof of that in picture form:

We went to a State Park near their home. Oh, if only all state parks could be this well maintained.

It was a very large place for such a little boy to get lost in . . .

Johnny is using the force (and awesome yoga poses) to call G to him.

Did you know people prefer cute babies a bagillion to one?

Did you know I'm riding this Daddy backwards?

My cool husband.

Thank you, nice lady, for letting me pet your super sweet dog.

Everyone playing soccer in the backyard. (G is the one holding the ball and going the wrong way.)

G got to torment his cousins. One guess as to how this picture ends.

Even his love of computers became a means of torture.

But in the end, everyone had a good time.

Even G, cause he stole the camera on the way back and took this picture.

Week 8: Do Over

Recipes to Go: 507 433

Weeks to Go: 52 44

Recipes Made This Week:

Coconut Rhubarb Spice Cake

Tomato-Cucumber Mozzarella Salad

Gingered Chicken Dinner

Creamy Corn Salad

Spicy Sausage Wonton Stars

Pork 'n' Shrimp Spring Rolls

Mango Pork Stir-Fry

Peanut Butter Surprise Muffins

Motoring Munchies

Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

Artichoke Ham Puffs

Broiled Grapefruit

I had a conversation with someone in my ward a few weeks ago at a baby shower where I brought up my goal, as I am want to do, and she asked if I had had any dismal failures. I thought and said honestly, no because every recipe calls for normal ingredients and they are very easy to follow. Thus far, no problems.

But this week I've had to eat my words, and it hasn't always been tasty. The aftertaste is a little bitter.

I've had a lot of firsts this week. On Sunday, our Home Teachers came by for the first time. So I made dessert like I always do for Home Teachers, to encourage them to come by every month. I decided to make the Rhubarb Spice Cake. I was going to make it last week, but couldn't find any rhubarb. Well, I bought an abundance, chopped it, froze it, but left two stalks in the fridge for this week. So my inaugural rhubarb recipe might be the best cake ever. And I don't even like cake. I don't normally like coconut either, but it was sooo good on the top. Now I want to make this in cupcake form and take it to my Seminary class. I bet it would work for that . . .

Monday was the first day of Seminary, and I will blame that fact on the first food disaster of the week, the ginger chicken.

I didn't read the recipe in advance, like I should do the night before I cook, so I didn't read that I needed to marinate the chicken overnight. Well, that didn't affect the dish too much since half of the marinate is used to cook the rice in, but the problem was that we didn't have instant rice, and I didn't have time to cook rice first. Result - hard, chewy rice. Yuck. I definitely call a do-over with that next time I have cooked rice in the fridge.

Luckily the tomato cucumber mozzarella salad was really good.

Could have been the home-grown tomatoes, me thinks. It would have been better with fresh mozzarella, of course, but we make do.

Tuesday was the first time I've ever made food for a funeral. There was a big one in our ward and they asked everyone who could to make something. They asked on Sunday during our combined lesson on service-I couldn't say no. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to make one of the potluck recipes in the cookbook at full serving size. Sadly, I had to do some shopping to do this, so G was stuck in the car all morning, then we rushed home for nap time. I cooked during that and afterwards, back in the car to the church. Poor kid was stuck in the car for too long. And that's why I don't have a picture of the salad. Nor did I taste it, but it looked really good.

We fed the Missionaries on Tuesday as well. Which meant that poor G got home and didn't get any attention as I went straight back to work. I decided to have Asian night as a treat. It was my first time making Asian food besides curry, my first time working with Wonton Wrappers, and supposed to be my first time working with Bok Choy, but does any store in this entire county carry Bok Choy? No, they do not. And I had neither the time, nor G the patience to drive all the way to Blacksburg to pick up Bok Choy. Especially since I knew I was driving to Blacksburg on Wednesday to take my friend to her doctor's appointment.

So we made do. And can I just say, an hour should be plenty of time to put together 3 Asian recipes, but alas it is not. Shrimp and pork are deceptively difficult to prepare. If I had chopped veggies at my disposal and everything pre-measured in little cups, then maybe. But 2 people in the kitchen and the missionaries arriving an hour before we ate led to chaos. Due to that chaos, and having to keep so many instructions straight in my head simultaneously, I accidentally put in 1/4 cup red pepper flakes into the stir-fry instead of 1/4 teaspoon. Luckily no one minded a little heat. And luckily pepper flakes can only take the heat up so high. It was hot, but not unbearably so. The bad thing was just that the pepper flavor overwhelmed everything else. Which means the mango and the delicious pork were all but in vein. So, do-over number two.

Thursday I actually did make the Gingered Chicken Dinner again, and while the rice was better cooked, as you would imagine, marinating the chicken for 24 hours made it oddly juice and slightly rubbery, so the texture was all off and it seemed raw even though it wasn't. So I guess third time will be the charm for this one.

And Thursday morning, I took the peanut butter muffins to Seminary for a treat. The surprise? Well, I 4x-ed the recipe and it turned out really dry. So the surprise was that they weren't as tasty as I was expecting. Okay, so the real surprise is the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup baked into the muffin, which I will probably do differently next time, as well.

One of the few recipes that went well this week was the Motoring Munchies. Since we were driving to Kentucky to visit our family 6 hours away, I thought I'd take the time to make some travel mix.

This was made with good individual ingredients that combined really well together. Surprisingly so. It was a big hit, which was good because it made a ridiculously large amount. We used our biggest bowl and practically begged Johnny's sister to take some off our hands. Luckily it is good, so she was happy to oblige.

Apparently, all I was lacking this week was a sou chef because the breakfast-for-dinner we made on Saturday was back to the ridiculously delicious standards I've come to expect. The Lemon Ricotta Pancakes were a lot like crapes and rhubarb makes an excellent syrup.

Don't worry, my plate was never this empty again.

The Artichoke Ham Puffs might be the greatest gravy ever invented.

Sorry the picture is so far away. I was really hungry, so I didn't spend much time photographing.

And the Broiled Grapefruit is the only way to eat grapefruit. Plus it just looks so nice.

Three recipes was not nearly the disaster from earlier in the week with someone helping who was a) competent, which G is not, and b) able to devote their full attention to cooking, rather than watching children, which Johnny is not. So extra thanks go out to the men that night for keeping all those hungry kids out of the kitchen temporarily.

And apparently I was also terrible at taking pictures this week, could have sworn I got a few of those . . . oh well. I'm sorry.

Switch Master

I swear, his arms get longer every day.

This is his new favorite activity.

Climb to the second stair

Switch on the light

Check to make sure it's on

Success!

Yeah, I'm cool.