Unispired Asian Stir Fry Dinner

Did you ever wonder if you and the rest of your family were born on the same planet? Last night I was so uninspired to cook something. We got home late after school as Lucy had gymnastics and Cambridge stays extended day on Wednesday after preschool and his manners class! We got home just before 5:00. I had spent the morning at the dentist and then cleaning up the house so never had a chance to peruse the fridge.

When my husband got home I looked through the fridge and had homemade pesto (from my basil in the garden) and also had some sauteed onions and peppers. I had some nice Italian sausage in the freezer and I figured I could do something with the sausage on either the peppers or the pesto. I also told him I had a stir fry bag in the freezer. (typically I buy these when they are on sale as they are an easy meal for me to make on a night that I am going to one of my book clubs. Truth be told I personally have never had one). Well the man opts for the bag of stir fry (huh?). He then reminds me that I have some rice in the refrigerator and can mix that in. Now you should all note that I am an American of Italian descent and was raised in New England. My husband is southern true and true. I never had rice growing up! Never had it until I went to college. Maybe once or twice we had Rice-a-Roni. We had pasta and all things Italian. Nope never had a meat and 3! Didn't know what it was until I met my husband. Being southern he likes rice and gravy (gravy? heck I never had turkey on Thanksgiving until I was in college and we didn't go to Boston to visit all of our family as the turkey was always second class to homemade lasagna, brocciale, stuffed peppers, sausage with peppers and onions - ok that is a post for another day!). To me gravy is red sauce. Tomato sauce. Spaghetti sauce. Get the picture?

So I make this frozen stirfry (wishing the kids hadn't eaten the leftover steak on Monday night as it would have been a nice addition). Well who would know that my family loved this. I chopped up some onion and added it to the stir fry bag (which consisted of steak, broccoli, water chestnuts, sugar snap peas, carrots, red pepper). When it was nearly cooked I added in the rice with the sauce mix that came with the bag and had a surprisingly good low calorie/low fat meal that was oh so easy to make.

I am such a "cook from scratch gal" that this did surprise me. My husband kept telling me how good it was! And to that I say yes it was good but I didn't really make it! Oh well I guess the main thing is that they enjoyed it and it was relatively healthy!

Tonight I am going to one of my book clubs. I will see if I can get a picture of my meal without my friends thinking I am crazy. My family will be at home celebrating my sons cast coming off this afternoon. It has been 5 long weeks in the thing and it is falling apart. My son does not want to go out to dinner (again was he born on the same planet as me? I keep saying "Dad offered to take you and Lucy to dinner" which he responds "I like eating at home" I think that might be a compliment). So they will have pizza (not homemade as I am taking the night off) and he wants a cake that is half Wall-E and half Tony Stewart (NASCAR driver). Lucy told him she was sure I could make one!!! Any suggestions??? I don't want to end up cakewrecks!

Tomorrow will bring crazy pictures is all I can say. Give me your ideas on the cake or what I can make that might work and have a great day. Life is Good!

Souper Dinner

Growing up in Connecticut I miss the cool crisp days of early fall that seemed to show up each year on Labor Day. This was back to school time and a good time to eat a nice bowl of soup and piece of bread for dinner. Since I am counting points and you can take the girl out of Yankee town but you can't take the Yankee out of the girl... I made soup last night. I had the chicken stock I made last week and needed to use it. This soup was so good. I did a nice loaf of crusty french bread and the kids even liked it!

I threw everything in the crock pot yesterday morning and came home to a wonderful smelling house. I was in the mood for Italian Wedding Soup but did not have the correct kind of pasta to make it so I did my best to improvise. And for those of you that ever try to make anything I post a recipe for, I never use actual recipes. Cooking for me is more just go with what I like and might taste good. And I am sure that is the reason I don't like to bake. Since baking is a science and cooking is cathartic.

Linda's Crazy Soup

chicken stock

1 medium onion chopped

4 medium carrots sliced

3 celery stalks chopped

1 box frozen spinach

I put the veggies in the chicken stock in the crockpot and then looked in the freezer and said hmmmmmm!

1 lb ground pork

old bread for breadcrumbs

tomato paste (or ketchup if you don't have it)

2 eggs

italian seasonings

make tiny meatballs with the pork. Season how you like. Mine were rather bland as I wanted the kids to eat them.

Put the meatballs in ever so carefully one at a time so they don't get crushed on the way down.

cook on low all day. About an hour before serving I put in a can of cannelini beans and I cooked egg noodles on the stove (my crock pot was full and I couldn't fit them in!)

place some noodles on the bottom of the bowl

add some soup

sprinkle good Italian cheese (Asiago or Grada Paddano) over top

Get a good piece of crusty bread to dip in the broth. It was yummo.

Sorry that is a stock picture but basically what mine looked like! Have a great day and life is good.

Hurricane Hype

For the past few days me and my family have been anxiously watching the tropics. Living in the Southeastern United States on the coast it is impossible not to do this. I watched with amazement Gustav go into the coast and have had eyes on Hanna and particularly Ike. We started the week making plans on what to do depending on the track or severity. Since Hanna was predicted to come right into Charleston at one point we went and got a generator and a window air conditioner.

The generators were in full stock on Monday night at the Lowes down the street from us. But my husband did not buy one. On Tuesday morning he purchased the generator on lowes.com for in-store pickup. A woman from the store called him and said if he did not pick it up immediately it would be sold and he would get the first one to come into the store in the next shipment. So I happened to be driving the kids home from school and going right past the store when he frantically called me. I went into Lowes with he 2 kids in tow and talked to customer service. I was informed that I would need to be escorted out with my generator to make sure no one beat me up! This made me feel real good. Then another man came with the items on a roll cart and said "do not take your eyes off of these. A man had one on his cart this morning and turned away and it was taken." (Not sure how this man didn't hear this but ok) Now I am walking to the parking lot with the Lowes man and people are looking at us asking where I got it and he has to keep telling them I bought it online and it is the last one! Geesh.

So I have also been cleaning out my freezer. I cooked a full organic chicken on Wednesday night as the chicken took up way too much space and ended up melting my baster! Very sad. But boy was it good. I stuffed the inside with a bunch of rosemary sprigs! It was divine.

My poor baster! Notice the bend?

Bottom shelf of freezer!

Top shelf of freezer!

Now that we will not take a direct hit and my daughters school has a half day and my sons school is closed (his school followed the public school system rather than the private school that owns them that my daughter goes to! Go figure). I will have my son, and another 4 year old girl and 3 year old girl until it is time to pick up the bigger kids up at 11:30 (3 first graders). They should be here about 8:00 am. I will drop off one of the first graders and the 4 year old girl at their dads office and take the other 2 back with me until about 1 o'clock! It should be loud but fun. I miss having little girls around. Their play is so much different than boys. These are our car pool families. Two of the most incredible families you will ever meet. The moms both work full time and I don't drive many days so this is where I come in really handy! Really works out well.

So in a nut shell we played this thing right. We took caution and watched and got all our supplies and will not get a direct hit. It also looks like Ike will hit South Florida so we might not have to worry about that one either and Josephine looks like it is weakening. All in all a good week for us. I am making chicken stock and my house smells yummo!

My yummy chicken stock that is simmering

Have a great day and stay safe.

Things that make you go hmmmmmm?

Snack foods on the go-
Do you ever think about taking a snack with you when you go out of the house? I mean I will grab something for the kids but usually don't take something for myself unless I am starving. So if I take something to munch on in the car it is usually pretzels, low fat cheeze its (yummo), or crackers. Something neat and easy to put in a ziplock bag and take with you. There is a point...

Last night I am driving to Lucy's school and I am at a stop light and the woman in the car next to me is eating chicken wings. Not just eating them she is eating them and then sucking on the bones! I have never seen such a thing! And in a car! I don't know how you eat them as they are so messy. But I glanced over and saw her taking something out of her mouth and thought "gee that looks strange" and then I look again and she has a chicken wing, well the drummette part that looks like a little leg (because you know I had to check it out thoroughly) and is chomping off the chicken and then she sticks the entire bone in her mouth and sucks on it and then puts it down and brings up another bone (or the same one not sure since I couldn't see what was in her lap) and starts sucking on it. But not like a lollipop. I mean the whole thing in her mouth and then pulls it out!

What is up with that? Do you eat strange food in the car? Am I just crazy thinking this is bizarre? I mean I am in the south but come on. Can't you wait until you get home? Just doesn't seem like a car snack food. Anyway other than being a strange choice it grossed me out.
Is there anything that grosses you out that other drivers do? Have you seen any drivers do something so stupid or funny that you laughed out loud? I want to know.

In the mean time don't be looking for me eating any kind of chicken with a bone in it in the car.

Have a great day and Lif is Good!

What a beautiful day!

Today is a great day. The sun is shining (although the mosquitoes are awful after the rains of Fay and you can't go outside without being bombarded by them - think horror movie), the grass is green, I had a Starbucks Coffee with a good friend and no kids in tow. I called a friend yesterday to see if I could take her son today for Cambridge to play with. The mom is a teacher at C's school. I told her I was meeting (another teacher from the school) for coffee at 7:45 and maybe I could pick him up after. She said "I will be at school so why don't you drop C off and they can play in my classroom until you get back." Umm no hesitation on my part...YES!!! (She is setting her classroom up for school to start next week.)

So I went to Starbucks and had a nice relaxing time and while we were there the person sitting next to us was taken out by EMS and we never even noticed anything was wrong. We saw 2 EMTs and 2 Firemen come in and I thought they were sitting next to us and then they started bringing in oxygen and I looked over (literally at the small round table next to me!) and the lady is slumped over and slurring and one of the EMTs is talking to her. Now 2 more EMTs come in with a gurney and at this point I moved my table out of the way and left. Seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

I picked up the boys and we came home and they made homemade chocolate chip cookies (I can't remember the last time I did this !) and then we put the ingredients for dough into the bread machine so the kids and Dan can make pizzas for dinner (of course I have to go to Lucy's school for a new parent meeting and while I am no longer a "new" parent I am the chair of the new parent committee). The cookies look awesome. Crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Each of the boys ate 2 (but they also had half and apple to round it out!).

Now I am getting the ingredients ready to make cranberry bread (with craisins since they were on clearance at Target (only $1.77 for a large package that costs $3.99 at grocery store - can you say bargain?).

I picked some limes and gave them to my friend and now have found a yummy recipe online for which I have all the ingredients in the house (it doesn't get any better than that. See I told you life is good). We will have that tomorrow night.

Here are some pictures of my abundance of what is outside. I have basil, parsley, more rosemary than I know what to do with (this is one plant and I have 3 more in the front that are now part of the landscaping because you can't kill them and they smell so good!), limes, chives, the yummy cookies the boys made and whatever else I took photos of today. Oh and a picture of my 2 helpers. I think you can figure out which one is mine (Tony Stewart).

Speaking of bargains and Tony Stewart, all his stuff is on sale at racingusa.com. 75% off! I got Cambridge a new costume since he wants to be Tony Stewart (again) for Halloween and the one we have is getting small. Normally it is $30 and I got it for $5. How great is that and they had his size. Again, life is good.

Joseph and Cambridge (Buzz and Tony!)

The yummy cookies Buzz and Tony made!

2 limes on the tree waiting to be picked

Chives

One of my basil plants

One of my rosemary plants - this one is in a planter the rest are in the ground

Have a beautiful day and I will let you know how the recipe turns out (if you want it just click on the words yummy recipe and it will bring you to the link.

Who knew?

Who knew there was so much to setting up a blog? Getting the right colors. picking the right name and url. Choosing photographs. Coming up with subjects to talk about. I never would have thought it would take up so much time. Although I guess some of that time was eaten up reading other people's blogs. As I have written before they are fascinating.

I am trying to put ads on here. There is a program where the advertisers will pay me. I figure why not. So that is taking time for me to be approved. Also, since I set up my last blog the customize template and stuff has changed and I am sure it is for the better it is a harder learning curve since I had done it the other way previously.

I am still in my pjs (well I have shorts and sports bra on with the long tshirt since I had to walk Lucy to the end of the driveway for car pool pickup) and so is Cambridge. It s 11:47 am. He does not want to get dressed! He does not want to go do anything. YIKES. I am not sure who is going to be in bigger trouble next week when he goes back to school, me or him! He wants to watch Blues Clues. That is all he wants to do. We got a Blues Clues video from the library the other day and that is what he is content watching. So I let him watch all the episodes on it and then he has to play with no tv on for at least an hour and then he can watch something again. Oh I am a bad mommy. I am trying to get him to go to the park but unless I can get a friend to go along with him he is content to play in the house. We have set up a Monster Truck rally track where his monster trucks (sligthly bigger than a matchbox) can drive over the other cars and feel like Monster Jam on Speed Tv! This boy stuff is way easier than girl toys and stuff. Just a lot of vroom noises and grunting as opposed to making play conversation with a mommy and her baby. Lucy always wanted to be the mommy!!!

So here I sit. At the computer. Doing each of the kids school calendars. And you would think that since Lucy's k-12 school bought Cambridge's 2yo-K school that all the vacation days would be the same! NOT! So there are several days off when it is one or the other. The spring break is the same and winter break but Lucy has 2 extra days at the end of her winter break. Then in October Lucy has a Thursday and Friday off and then Cambridge gets the Monday off for Columbus day! Go figure.

ok back from a quick break. Got Cambridge dressed and took a video of him while I was at it. You can see what a NASCAR and Tony Stewart fan he truly is (hat, pillow, #20 on his cast).





Gotta decide what to make for dinner. I know the kids would like tacos but Lucy requested garlic bread and pasta (can you say carb loading?) and I have some ribs, chicken breasts and lean ground beef. My garden is full of basil but we ate all the red tomatoes and I have an over abundance of limes. Is there such a thing as lime chicken????hmmmm.

Off to check out the freezer and my garden to see what I can make this evening. Have a great day and thanks for reading.