THIS MORNING'S BEDHEAD BROUGHT TO YOU BY...

the most creep-tastic picture of henry EVER

and silly sally hallie

even hen can't get over her bedhead. (sorry 'bout the flash!)

TGIF!!!!!!!!!

RECIPES, RECIPES, RECIPES. YUM.

i hope you said that title like: duck, duck, duck, GOOSE. no?

i've made a few new recipes, thank you pinterest. i love to cook, it's just hard to fit it all in. i get home at five with hen, start supper, change my clothes (sometimes), hen gets fed at five-thirty, we eat sometime between five-thirty and six and then hen starts his bath/bottle/bed routine at six-thirty and in bed by seven. yowzers.

so my week-day meals have to be quick or have to be prepped the night/morning before.

i am pretty proud of us though. we haven't eaten out in a million years. except on valentine's day. kfc. blech.

****

so, last night (tuesday night), i made Bubble Up Enchiladas. these were so easy and dave and hallie loved them.

hallie cut up the biscuits for me while i browned the turkey and made up the sauce. it was seriously the easiest thing ever and ready in 30 minutes or less.

also -  it's a weight watchers recipe!

picture and recipe here!

Bubble Up Enchiladas

• 1 pound ground turkey
• 1 (10 ounce) can enchilada sauce
• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 can reduced fat refrigerator biscuits
• 1 ¼ cups shredded low fat Mexican Cheese

Preheat oven to 350 F

Brown Turkey and drain juices if needed

Pour and mix enchilada and tomato sauce over browned turkey.

Cut refrigerated biscuits into fourths and stir into meat mixture.

Dump into a greased 9X13 casserole pan and bake for 25 minutes.

Take out of oven and sprinkle cheese on top.  Bake for an additional 10 minutes.

Let stand for 5 minutes.

Enjoy!

****

let's see...i also made up some bbq beef quesadillas from this recipe. i ate the bbq over lettuce for my salad for a few days too. VERY YUMMY.

Barbecue Beef Sandwiches

from the Cooking For Your Family board at www.babycenter.com

Ingredients

·         3-4lb chuck roast

·         prepared yellow mustard - enough to spread all over the meat

·         1/4 cup paprika

·         1/4 cup white or brown sugar (I just grab whatever is closest)

·         3 tablespoons garlic powder

·         3 tablespoons salt

·         2 tablespoons onion powder

·         2 tablespoons ground black pepper

·         1 tablespoon dried parsley

·         1 tablespoon chipotle powder (optional)

·         1/2 cup ketchup

·         1/4 - 1/2 cup prepared barbecue sauce, depending on how saucy you like it

Instructions

1.      Preheat oven to 275 degrees.

2.      In a small bowl mix together all of the dry ingredients.

3.      Get out your roast and slather it in prepared yellow mustard. You just want enough to cover the outside of the meat in a thin layer, probably a 1/4 cup-ish. Rub the dry ingredients into the mustard coated roast and place in a roasting pan or, if you have one, a deep oven proof skillet.

4.      Bake covered for 3 to 4 hours depending on the size of your roast. The beef should be very tender and just fall apart. Remove from the oven and place on the stove. Shred the beef, add the ketchup and barbecue sauce and cook for just a few minutes to allow the sauce to soak into the beef and thicken a tiny bit.

5.      This can also be done in a crockpot. Start out the same with the mustard and dry rub, add to the crockpot and let it cook on low for 8 to 9 hours or until tender and falling apart. Remove to a skillet and finish it off the same as you would for the oven method.

6.      Serve on sandwich rolls.

****

oh! and last night i made up some health-ified Oatmeal Raisin Cookies for dave.

Beth's Spice Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

via allrecipes.com here

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup butter flavored shortening
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup raisins

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, butter flavored shortening, brown sugar, white sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt; stir into the sugar mixture. Stir in the oats and raisins. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until light and golden. Do not overbake. Let them cool for 2 minutes before removing from cookie sheets to cool completely. Store in airtight container. Make sure you get some, because they don't last long!

Keri's Changes (big ones):

i subbed land-o-lakes baking margarine for the butter and the lard (gross). i subbed brown-sugar splenda for the brown sugar, regular splenda for the white sugar and then cut the recipe in half because, well, what if they were gross?

and they were good! they weren't the BEST ever, because how on earth COULD they be without real butter, real sugar, etc.

the redeeming things about these cookies is that they are "spicy," so they have nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and something else. so that compensates for the lack of flavor elsewhere.

 the texture was good.

hallie rolled them into balls and we stuck them into the fridge so they wouldn't spread as much. and they stayed as perfect balls until i "smooshed" them in the last three minutes. and then they were perfect. crispy-ish on the ouside and soft on the inside.

i will make these again and again.

that's it!

FREE LABOR. EXCELLENT.

hallie was miss helpful two nights ago. she played with henry, made him crack up laughing and then wanted to feed him too. my chest almost BURST with love, watching the two siblings. now, i'm not going to lie - a little part of me was doing the evil hand carassing thing. you know - bwahahaha, my evil plan is working. as in - now my five-year-old can do some of our work. bwahahaha.

what's next, dishes?

laundry?

weed-eating?

YES.

it didn't last very long.

but it was great while it lasted. and they were both covered in baby food.

BARB CLOSE YOUR EYES!

HONEST ABE.

hallie had yesterday off for president's day and dave had work to do at the abraham lincoln presidential museum. so hallie got to go...and she loved it.

she told me all about the funeral. and the little boy that died and his mom was so sad. and the log cabin. and, and, and. she loved it.

i can't wait to go back with her.

A VERY GOOD WEEKEND WITH A LOT OF PINTEREST.

we had a great weekend. it's so nice when dave is home and we can be...normal. we didn't do much, but had a lot of fun doing it.



took a walk to lucille's with hen in the moby. and me in my apron.





baby-sitting molly, who is apparently trying to shoot laser-beams at me.



last week i took supper over to lucille's house and cooked what was supposed to be our valentine's day supper, but wasn't.

we cooked balsalmic-garlic crusted pork tenderloin. it wasn't really crusted, but it was good. not exciting, but good. we didn't eat the leftovers, which means i won't make it again.

 link to recipe and picture here.

it took a lot longer than 20 minutes, so then my Parmesean-Crusted Asparagus was over-done. but it was good. would have been better if not over-done, but that was my bad. still good.

link to recipe and picture here.

for a treat, i made home-made oreos this weekend. recipe and picture here, but i got all fancy and rolled the edges in sprinkles. i should have taken a picture. they were cute. and delicious.

oh! and i made Taco Pasta and it rocked dave's socks off. he looooved it. which was good, since it made a buttload. we ate half over just two days i'm freezing the rest.

link to recipe and picture here.

what else, what else??? oh! Roasted Broccoli, which was so so so good. dave loved it too. we ate it like candy.

recipe and photo here.

and let's see....is that it?

that's it! happy monday!

THE REAL VALENTINE'S DAY.

remember when i said it was going to be the best valentine's day ever?

 yeah, well. not exactly.

things were going great in the morning and even part of the afternoon. then i took henry to get his ear checked from his ear infection and guess what...still infected. now we are on to our third antibiotic. bummer.

which meant i go to wait at cvs for approximately 1 million years.

so my marninating balsalmic-and-garlic-crusted pork tenderloin with parmesean-crusted asparagus (lots of crusts, i guess) had to wait a day and we had grilled kfc instead. grilled. probably not THAT much better than fried, but i'm all about marketing.

today mr. henry is finally feeling back up to his normal chipper self and things are improving.

ALSO!!!!

 have i mentioned his crazy gag reflex?

he can barely tolerate baby food. if it has any sort of texture it is gag, gag, gag, PUKE. so much fun. last saturday i made the mistake of giving him a puff. he gagged, of course, and barfed, of course.

but we're working on it.

last night i gave him baby yogurt (as recommended with his antibiotic) and he tolerated the thicker texture. so i put a puff or two on his tray AND HE ATE A FEW WITHOUT PUKING!!!!!

and that is awesome.

EXCITED ABOUT...NOTHING?

every night i lay henry down on a yellow foam mat on the bathroom floor while I run his bath water. i strip his clothes and diaper off and turn around to fill the tub. and every. single. time i turn around and he is stiff as a board, trembling with excitement, staring up at the ceiling and cracking up.

i don't get it.

i have no clue what is up there that is so darned exciting. i thought maybe the anticipation of the bathtub (oh boy!) was enough to get him all worked up, but nope. he did it again on his bedroom floor sunday and i managed to record it.

strange kid.

BONUS POST: HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY.

this has been my favorite valentine's day so far.

we started the morning with fresh-from-the-oven cinnamon rolls (HUGE cinnamon rolls - and hallie ate an entire one by herself) and heart-shaped snausage. yum.

hallie was thrilled with her valentine's goodies - including some fake glasses. she is obsessed with my glasses and would love to have her own. so i found some. and she looks adorable.

we finished her valentine's last night and they turned out super cute.

and this guy is adorable.

and then we rented a cotton candy machine for our students at work. because i am stupid. and it's messy and loud and praise the lord we have a student worker to do it. yes.

and dave comes home today - huzzah! and we have a special valentine's dinner planned (garlic-balsalmic crusted pork tenderloin, parmesean asparagus and home-made oreos - yum).

and yes, i let hallie wear the glasses to school.

WEEKEND RECAP. IN PICTURES.

one day late.



See those chompers coming in up top? Yowzers.





I turned this into....




This. Thank you, Pinterest!



I REALLY DON'T CARE IF YOU ARE SICK OF RECIPES BECAUSE I AM NOT AND THIS IS MY BLOG.

so there you go.

i'm working on the goals for february...hahahahah, no i'm not. i'm just cooking. a lot. and trying to be healthier too! i found a fan-freaking-tastic blog (click on the link) from pinterest (of course), where the girl basically makes a million desserts that are low-calorie and have only healthy fats and natural foods in them. and they are soooooo good. i mean soooooo good. so so so so so good.

like this one. i made it on a whim wednesday evening right before bed. it was all i could do not to lick the food-processing bowl. so maybe i did a little.

 

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Cookies

link to the recipe and photo here.

 (gluten-free and sugar-free too!)

• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 cup plus 3T raisins
• salt to taste (I didn't use any because i used 'party peanuts' that seemed salty)
• 2 T roasted, unsalted peanuts (If you can only find salted, reduce or omit added salt)
• 1/8 tsp pure vanilla extract

put eveything in a food processor and do whatever you want. i rolled mine into balls and put in the freezer for my sweet cravings. they taste like no-bake cookies. they are freaking amazing. love, love, love, LOVE.

the only drawback of most of her recipes is that you need a food processor. i use my 'baby bullet' and it started smoking a little bit last night. but i think it survived. i have a huge food processor that i got for christmas 18 million years ago that i'm going to break out for the rest of the recipes.

and there you go. a lot of words.

the next thing i did was make a tuna salad for my lunch at work. except i made it healthier by using greek yogurt. so basically i just made it like normal but instead of the mayo i used green yogurt. and it was delicious.

my random tuna recipe:

1 can tuna (use white, albacore tuna in water)

2 TBSP greek yogurt

1 TBS yellow mustard or whatever kind of mustard you have

pickle relish to taste (i didn't have any, so i just used a little splash of pickle juice)

pepper to taste (do you use pepper?)

i think that's it.

mix. enjoy. i love me some good tuna salad. i am eating mine over some green-leaf lettuce for lunch. with an orange. and a pb cookie dough ball from above.

SIX YEARS OLD, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

well, it appears i forgot to post about my darling niece's birthday party. last month. happy belated birthday on my blog, kenz!

anyway.

it was fun. there was skating and minimal falling/crying, so there you go. the cake was deliciously neon and the girls had a blast.

now here are some crappy iphone pictures! yay!

FEB GOALS. OH DEAR.

i'm stealing this from my girl, kelly. (click the link for her blog, or check it out on my side bar).

so.

she has been setting goals each month (and DOING THEM) and i sort of maybe want to do that too. i'm just going to set a few (three?) and go from there. and yes, i know it's already the second week of feb. score!

1. work out at least three times a week.

2. try at least one new recipe a week (ha - this just feeds my pinterest addiction).

3. paint the stupid mirror in the the basement. i have the spray paint. just...do it.

BONUS GOAL:

paint the bathroom vanity in the basement.

oh the pressure. i feel it.

random picture: evil hallie

HENRY'S FAVORITE TEETHERS.

1. people. watch out now, he's got teeth. he almost broke the skin on my FACE after taking a bite out of my jaw. yikes.

2. spoons. specifically the spoon i am trying to feed him with.

stinkin' darn kid.

also, here's a video where i tried to get him splashing. he usually splashes the entire bath time. he doesn't crack a smile. no, splashing is very serious business apparently. but as soon as i turned on the camera he stopped splashing and wouldn't turn away. and played with himself the entire time. lovely.

*nevermind. didn't work.