Cooking Dinner at 7am

The kitchen is on hiatus for a bit while I wait to get paid again.  We're doing the renovation on a budget so it means we have to have the cash to keep going.  It looks phenomenal already - just needs a few more touches before I can post before and after pictures.  Keep checking back.

The daily routine is slowly coming back now that the kids have been in school for a couple of weeks.  The rush of picking up the kids and getting home and trying to figure out what to make for dinner makes me absolutely nutso.  I am trying to get back into the habit of defrosting something the day before so that I have a plan for the next day.  This morning the question was "what should I do with the stew beef I defrosted?"  I have to admit that chopping veggies at 7am sucks.  But when I got home to dinner made and the whole house smelling good, it was all worth it!  The recipe is pretty simple and the results are awesome - so I thought I'd share:

Crockpot Beef Stew

Ingredients:
1 tbsp oil
1 pound stew beef
1/2 cup flour
1 tbsp garlic powder
Sliced Mushrooms (canned or fresh)
1 cup baby carrots
1 turnip, cut into 1" pieces
2 potatoes, chopped into 1 " pieces
4 stalks celery, chopped into 1 " pieces
1 medium onion, cut into 1" pieces
1 can (14 oz) beef broth
1 can (14 oz) diced tomatoes
1 pkg onion soup mix
1 tbsp minced garlic
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp cornstarch

Heat oil in a large skillet over med-high heat. In a large ziploc bag, combine flour & garlic powder. Shake stew beef until coated and fry in oil until browned. (About 5 minutes). Remove to crockpot. Turn crockpot to high.

Add mushrooms, carrots, turnip, potatoes, celery, onion, beef broth, diced tomatoes, garlic and onion soup mix to crock pot. Stir. Cover and leave for three hours.

Mix 1/4 cup water and 1 tbsp cornstarch and add to crockpot. Stir, turn heat to low. Cook one more hour before serving.

Let the grouting begin . . .

I think my body has recovered from the tiling of the backsplash enough for me to take it to the next level - grouting.  The kitchen remodel on a budget is coming along well but I have to admit that I am growing tired of cupboard doors all over my house and no room to move anything.  The children and husband have been living on freezer meals and not grumbling too terribly much.  The goal is to have it done this weekend.  I have to say that the backsplash is awesome.  I grouted one little section last night to make sure the color was good.  I'm thrilled.  Here's a sneak peek.  Pictures of the completed kitchen to follow this weekend I HOPE.

Oh my aching body...

You know how it feels the day after you go bowling... when you haven't been bowling in, say, 10+ years?  Well that's how I am feeling today... and my little project is not quite done yet.  My hubby got the deglosser and the first coat of stain/paint on the cabinets and the cabinet doors.  I cleaned unimaginable horrors from beneath the oven and behind the fridge.  I managed to get about 2/3 of the backsplash done but then decided I wanted to do more so... well, there's more to do but it might have to wait until we get paid again.  Renovating on a budget can be tough.  It is starting to come together and it looks AMAZING so far.  My body, however, is sore.  You don't realize how much twisting you're doing when you are doing backsplash.  I'm going to take a few days off to recover before I finish and get started on the grouting. Pictures to follow...

The Rustoleum Experiment - Part 1

I hate my kitchen.  If I had 50K I would rip it all out and start from scratch.  But I don't.  And that sucks.

I am pretty adventurous when it comes to home improvement projects.  I am not afraid to try something new.  Not afraid to rip out a leaking reverse osmosis system under the sink or paint a color that others might shy away from.  I figure if I screw it up I'll fix it or I'll call someone else and pay them to fix it .  But I won't know if I can do it until I try.  And I drag my poor husband along on my quest for improvement.  Good thing he loves me and he's a good sport.  We also have a couple of very handy friends that help when needed.

We were in one of those home improvement stores, getting ideas for the kitchen.  Nothing major, just something to refresh the space a little.  I have some ideas of what we could do.  Some are really out there (I want to brick one of the walls) and some are easy (I want a backsplash).  One thing that I hate is the cabinets but other than painting them (which I'm not sure that I want to do because I love the woodgrain) there's very little that can be affordably done.  I've resigned myself to this.  So we were wandering around when this caught my eye:

First thought - Too good to be true.  No sanding?  Right.  That'll never work.  Second thought - I wish there was a smaller size so that we could try it out on something else first before we committed to doing the kitchen.  What if it's awful?  So I sought out Mr. Home Improvement Associate and started asking questions about it.  Look what he came up with.  It's a mini Rustoleum for people like me.  And the best part - it was $35.  I can afford that.  And he assured me no sanding necessary.  I still didn't believe that.

He suggested that we try it out on similar cabinets in the house.  I instantly thought of the kid's bathroom.  It's been redone (thanks honey) and the cabinets in there are the same blah as in the kitchen.  I chose the color cabernet - which is what I would like in the kitchen.  If the experiment failed, I'd just paint them white, which would go with the colors in there.  They tint the base coat at the store and then you're committed.  So it was game on.  

This is the color of blah.  I suppose it's not that bad in the grand scheme of things but it's kind of outdated in my opinion.  I want a change.  So my hubby took on the project full force.  I wasn't sure if it would stink so the work table was positioned by the front door, just in case we needed extra ventilation.  (It doesn't stink).

The first step is to wash the cabinets and let them dry.  Then you use a deglosser instead of sanding.  This is the part that I doubted would work.  But if we do the kitchen in the future I really don't want to have to sand them so I was praying it would work.  The next step is to do the first of the two base coats.  NERVOUS.  The response when the first coat was done was that it was really red looking.  We were both worried.  But we had begun this mission - and we would see it through.

After the second coat, we got to the optional decorative glaze.  My hubby had been online watching the tutorials on rustoleumtransformations.com and he assured me that the glaze was going to make them even better.  I was really excited about the glaze.  After the glaze dried it was just the protective top coat and we were done.  And I still have woodgrain.  SO EXCITING.

Can you believe that?  IT WORKED.  I could not be happier.  Or more surprised.  And no sanding.  So today we'll put the cabinets back together and we'll head back to the home improvement store for more ideas and all the stuff we need to do the kitchen cabinets.  And the next adventure will begin...  stay posted.

Farewell to a Friend

Tomorrow is my friend Anthony's last day at work.  He is moving out of state and we're all pretty sad about it because he's a really great part of our team.  Because of the fact that we like him, and because we also love any excuse to bring food to work, we're having a potluck.  When I asked Anthony what he wanted me to make, without hesitation he announced that he wanted me to bring Buffalo Chicken Dip.  This is one of those recipes that our family is known for.  Every party we're invited to, we're asked to bring it.  Truth be told it was my husband that made it the first time so he really deserves the credit for our success with it.  Over time, we've tweaked the recipe a little bit from the original Sandra Lee recipe.  We serve it with tortilla chips but you could also use thin crackers (like Wheat Thins) if that floats your boat.

As I made it tonight I was thinking about how so many events seem to include food.  Food has a great ability to both comfort us when we are sad and help us celebrate a happy occasion.  Tomorrow we will say goodbye to our friend and wish him all the best in the future with the help of this yummy little appetizer.  We're really going to miss you Anthony - this one's for you.

Hot Buffalo Chicken Dip

Adapted from a recipe by Sandra Lee

Ingredients:

Cooking spray

8 oz cream cheese, softened

½ cup hot wing sauce

½ cup sour cream

1 tbsp powdered ranch dressing mix

3 cups chicken salad from deli 

2 cups shredded cheddar jack or cheddar cheese

Tortilla chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Spray a 1 qt casserole dish with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl combine cream cheese, wing sauce, sour cream and ranch dressing mix, stirring until smooth.  Fold in chicken salad and cheese.

Transfer to prepared casserole dish.  Bake in preheated oven 45 minutes until heated through and bubbling.  Serve warm.

What's for Dinner?!?

So the kids went back to school today and I got off work early so I surprised them by picking them up before they could get on the bus to after school care. Now we're home and I've just realized that I didn't take anything out for dinner. And I'm STARVING.  So while checking email I came across a recipe for these Buttered Rosemary Rolls on The Pioneer Woman.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/10/buttered-rosemary-rolls/

And maybe it's just because I'm starving or maybe it's because I have some of those frozen buns that she uses on hand but I absolutely, positively must make them.  Tonight.  Yummy!

Update:  I made these and they were AWESOME!  Will make again!

And while I'm being all experimental, I was thinking about making these grilled salt & vinegar potatoes too.

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/grilled-salt-vinegar-potatoes-recipe.html

Update:  I made these last night but the whole family found them too "vinegary".  I think if I made them again I would boil them in just 1 cup of vinegar and fill the rest of the saucepan with water (instead of straight vinegar).  They were tasty but it was just a little too much.

If you know me, you know that I am terrified of our barbeques (both of them, gas and charcoal) and since the hubby is at work I am going to oven roast them instead.  I hope it works!  But it's easy and it looks good and it's encompasses three loves of my life - salt, vinegar, and potatoes so it's worth a shot.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

I just found a package of small portabella mushrooms in the fridge that I need to use up or get ready to throw out.  Guess I'll go for one more experimental recipe tonight.  

http://www.goodlifeeats.com/2011/10/Balsamic-and-thyme-roasted-portabella-mushrooms.html

Update:  These were pure awesomeness.  Soooooo Good!

I figure that since I'll be roasting the potatoes anyway I might as well do these at the same time.  Now I'll go look for something in the meat family to complete the meal!

Good news!  I found some thin fast-fry pork chops in the freezer.  They're defrosting as I write this.  On the counter.  I know some of you are gasping that I would do such a thing but I haven't killed anyone yet.  They probably will still need to go into the microwave to defrost some more before I can cook them so calm down.  I'm going to fry the hell out of them with a little olive oil, garlic powder, salt & pepper.  My kids call them pork pucks.  They're delicious when they're all fried up.  My dad used to make them like that and we got to eat them with our fingers (they were too much of a pain to cut up, I'm sure). My kids love them and I love anything that gets eaten that fast, so it's all good.  

So there you have it folks, that's what's for dinner!  We experiment a lot with food and luckily, the kids are pretty good sports about it.  I'll let you know tomorrow how dinner went tonight.  I've pulled out salmon for tomorrow night and it's happily defrosting in the fridge...

Back to School

I remember when life used to be easy.  *Sigh*.  Now school starts tomorrow.  How the hell did that happen?  Not just where did the summer go.  We live in Arizona.  It's always summer here, basically, and with a forecast of 114 degrees the summer can go screw itself anyway.  I'm hot.  I don't care about summer. What I DO care about is the fact that somehow, I have a second grader and a fourth grader as of tomorrow. Considering the fact that I was never getting married and I was never having kids there are still days where I find myself surprised by the fact that my house is filled with all of these people that I never expected to have around.

Now don't get me wrong - I am lucky enough to be married to the love of my life and honest to God he is truly my best friend in the world so it's a GOOD thing that he's here with me, helping me navigate the world.  (AKA Keeping me SANE) The kids are pretty good, too.  Well behaved for the most part, as far as kids go.  They generally don't drive me too crazy and they really do come out with the most hilarious things on occasion.  So they're cute but jesus, they're expensive.  We just shelled out over a thousand dollars for school lunches for the year, after school care, gymnastics, and school supplies.  Take that, Dave Ramsey.

But I DO have kids.  And every year they're getting older.  And bigger.  And more intelligent.  And more opinionated.  Especially the girl child.  Jesus - she is my mother's revenge on the crap I pulled when I was a kid.  The girl child is probably 100x better behaved than I ever was but she is just like me and therein lies the problem.  She is just as stubborn, opinionated and as RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING as I am.  But she's louder.  And she whines.  There is nothing like a whiny girl child to make you rethink everything.

Tonight she knocked out her tooth on her brother's head.  (Poor guy didn't even complain!)  First she was screaming because her tooth was bleeding.  I reminded her that it was a baby tooth and was going to fall out anyway eventually.  That didn't work so I reminded her that if it indeed fell out, the tooth fairy would come.  That shut her up and she went back outside.  All was quiet until she came running (screaming again) because she had lost her tooth in the garage.  Not that it fell out in the garage but that it had fallen out at some point and now was lost in the garage.  Do you know what it's like to be looking in a garage for a baby tooth in Arizona in 112 degree heat?!?  It sucks.  But I found it.  I deserve a supermommy award but since my hubby's at work and my kids are in bed, this cold beer will have to do.

Back to my original thought.  My kids are growing up.  They're in second and fourth grade as of tomorrow. Another school year will wrap itself around our lives and we'll again live for weekends where we can do family things and appreciate them until they drive us nuts.  It's a never ending cycle around here where time doesn't slow down.  School will start, Halloween will come, then Christmas.  It's scary, really.  When my mother in law tells me that I will blink and they'll be in college I get just a little afraid that she's telling the truth.