Cooking funk

No, I don't mean the cooking OF funk, but rather the funk that I'm in regarding cooking. I'm just SO not in the mood. I don't know if it's the summer factor or the princess-going-through-an-incredibly-picky-mode factor, or Prince Charming being gone SO dang much factor or what, but I'm lucky to make chalupas or beans and rice these days. I need some new QUICK, EASY recipes for the summer. Maybe Crock-Pot ones! Then on days like today, when a phone call leads to a spur of the moment trip to the lake which turns into 8 hours out of the house (ultimately ending at Taco Bell... I know... I know.... TACO BELL! But we love it. Don't tell anyone), I can have supper waiting when I get home. Lately, my Crock-Pot cooking is stuck on pinto beans, a really good chicken recipe (I'll post below), or pork chops and apples (a la my friend Dianne. SO yummy). Anyone with good recipes or links or ideas is encouraged to leave a comment, please!!!

Italian Chicken with Mushrooms
from 101 Things to do with a Slow Cooker
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 envelope Italian salad dressing mix
1/4 c. water
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1 can (10 3/4 oz) condensed cream of chicken soup
2 bottles whole mushrooms (drained) (These are fairly small bottles, like 4 inches tall, I'd say)

Place chicken in greased slow cooker. Combine salad dressing mix and water, pour over chicken. Cover and cook on high heat for 3 hours. In a small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and soup until blended. Stir in mushrooms. Pour over chicken and cook 2 more hours on high.

Serve over egg noodles.

Two-berty

Could someone PLEASE explain to me why, when the Hurricane insists on doing everything for herself, she's happy with this scenario?

Hurricane: Mommy, I milk. (Mommy, I want milk)
Mommy: OK, I'll get you some. (Mommy walks to the fridge and grabs the sippy cup full of milk and hands to Hurricane)
Hurricane: NO! Mommy! I RED one!
Mommy: :::sigh::: OK, her you go (puts back the blue sippy and hands her the red sippy, while coming up with explanation for resident princess in her head as to why her milk cup magically changed colors mid-day. Maybe a unicorn did it? And yes, my 4 yr old still gets milk in a sippy, as long as her sister is awake anyway, b/c if HRH gets milk in a NONsippy, then the Hurricane must have milk in a non-sippy and that just spells disaster all around the castle. HRH understands she doesn't NEED a sippy, she's doing it to help Mommy out and Mommy is properly appreciative. )
Hurricane: NO! Mommy! I DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!! YUYU DO IT! I BIG GIRL! NO WANT-A MOMMY GET-A MILK!!! (side note - do all toddlers go through this Italian-speaking phase or is it just mine? I think it's darling :) ) MOMMY MOOSH OVER!(our house's way of saying "move and push together). YUYU ALL MYSELF.

At which time she opens the fridge door, puts the red cup back on the shelf. Closes the door, and gets the red cup, taking a big drink and looking supremely satisfied with herself.

HRH: Mommy, Lulu's crazy.

Upside down plants?

So, I got the super cool idea to plant some upside down tomato plants. SO cool, right? Especially since I have a tendency to cram WAY too many plants into my little garden patch and then nothing fruits @@. So, I used admirable restraint this year and only planted some grape tomatoes and rosemary in my little garden patch, there's also some spearmint, which jumped out of a pot last year evidently, and is popping back up. I truly believe that if a nuclear bomb went off, all you'd see surviving are cockroaches and spearmint, LOL!!! That stuff is insane! Anyway, I digress.

So, my trusty sidekick neighbor and I and the girls planted one with cherry tomatoes and one with yellow crookneck squash (my girls and I could eat our weight in this stuff!) We sprinkled chives seeds in the top of the tomatoes and dill weed seeds in the top of the squash and hung both pails on an old laundry line that I have in my backyard. It's an eyesore and I keep meaning to plant some ivy at the base to let it at least be covered. I need to do that soon. But, still, it served its purpose well in this. This picture was taken through the screen on my breakfast room window, that's why it's a little fuzzy :



The tomato was a little damaged in the planting process (note to self..... letting a 2 yr old, 4 yr old, and 10 yr old do the actual PLANTING of the delicate tomato plant upside down? Probably not the best move). I had my doubts, but pressed on. The squash looked gorgeous! One week later, the tomato? No bueno. :( The stem had become all yellow and soggy and limp. Sad, sad, sad. I mourned the loss of potential perfect red juicy tomatoes that I was going to halve and skewer with mozzarella chunks and basil leaves and red onion and grill (IF they made it to the grill before I started snacking). A moment of silence, if you will..........




OK, pity party over. We still have our beloved squash! Right? Right! Right?!?!?!??! A week or so ago, we had some torrential downpours in the middle of the night. I was up at 2:00 AM, checking the Weather Channel and Fox News for reports of an ark being built and people sprouting webbed feet, but nothing yet. Anyway, about two days later, I noticed that my squash plant was starting to look soggy. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP!!!! What the heck is going on!?!?! I can't figure it out. I keep reading online about how people are having all sorts of success with these upside down plants, what am I doing wrong?!?!?!? My squash is dead, no hopes of revival! :*( Thankfully, the growing season is so long here that I'm going to grab a plant or two and put them in some large pots I have. We'll still get some squash, by golly. There is no chance of replanting in the upside down pots, either, b/c the chives and dill are growing like crazy, lol!! Oh well, maybe next year? For this year, we'll have to stick with downside-up, I guess.

On a brighter note, my grape tomato plant has two little green tomatoes and LOTS of blooms! Yippee! Now if I could only see some blooms on my strawberry plant!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr............

We spent yesterday evening at the lake. It was gorgeous, we took Papi and TiTi's boat over to a little island (and by little I seriously mean like as small as a football field, lol) and beached it and let the girls play in the sand. Then we motored around a bit, looking at the insanely huge houses that are going up. Evidently, Montgomery County, TX, hasn't heard about the housing bubble burst. Shhhhh....... we don't want them to, at least until we sell our current casa next year or so. After that, we motored over to Papa's. A huge hot pink and turquoise warehouse looking hangout with those big garage doors that they open so that the whole thing has an open air feel. SO much fun. We met Papi and some friends there for burgers. They have a nice pool, which is for adults only, which sucks for the lovebugs, but someone had the foresight to also build a really cool waterfall area for the kiddos to play in. My lovebugs and my friend's lovebugs were playing over there, as sweet as can be, when after about 15 minutes, HRH comes running and screaming and crying to our table, where said friend, Prince Charming, Papi and I were munching fried pickles and partaking of a nice cold Shiner Bock. I bolt out of my chair and run to her to find out that some snot-nosed punk of a 5 yr old (I'm taking liberty with the child's character, as he HAS just hurt my baby!) has blasted her in the face with sand and water via a water bazooka or whatever you call those. This is where the GRRRRRRRRRRR factor comes in. I am generally a very nice person. I love children, even bratty ones usually. However, if someone, ANYONE messes with my child and my child isn't asking for it (because let's face it, sometimes they do :X), WATCH OUT! I morphed into Mama Bear.

I imagine that, had one looked closely enough, they might have seen steam coming out of my ears and nostrils. HRH had sand in her eyes and was literally screaming because they hurt so bad, she couldn't even open them. Once I used the water from the waterfall to clean her eyes out and get her calmed down enough to put her down, I took a few deep breaths and turned my gaze upon little Punky McPunkface. I'm not sure if that's his real name, but I'm not ruling anything out. I'm ashamed to admit that I got all "Mama's shaking her finger" on him. You'd think I could be more original than that @@. Anyway, I told him, "That was NOT nice. You do NOT spray people in the face! You need to apologize to her, tell her you're sorry, do you understand me?!" In my world, that's pretty harsh talk. Imagine my pride when that lecture from me (who must have looked a LITTLE scary, this crazy storkish looking 6 foot tall lady to a 3 1/2 foot tall 5 yr old) made the little boy stop dead in his tracks, tell me "Sorry." and then have his face crumple up and he started crying and ran around to hide behind the waterfall. Oh, yeah. I'm SO proud. Good gravy, Juli. Way to go. You broke down a kindergartener. Woo hoo. Next let's go beat up a 90 yr old grandma over a parking space or something. I immediately feel like dog poop. I go find him and give him a hug and tell him that I'm sorry he got upset, but that it was not okay to throw sand in someone's face because it HURT her. He's fine, I'm fine (albeit still feeling like a heel), when we go back to play in the water, and I look up and see P. McP.'s father coming over to check on him. Eeek! Imagine if you will Andre the Giant crossed with that biker dude from Raising Arizona

Throw in a dash of Larry the Cable Guy and you get what I was seeing :X Ruh Roh. Where the heck is PAPA BEAR?!?!?!? I steel myself for a confrontation (which I HATE). McP Sr. comes up to me and says "Is everything okay here? I saw him shoot her in the face.... is she okay? He's really sensitive, so don't worry about his crying, he has to know he can't do that". :X Wow. Judge a book by the cover much, Juli? That'll learn ME. He was really nice, Punky McP DID apologize after all, so the kids started playing together again and all was right with the world. ::::Sigh:::: I love summer :)

Hear that little birdie?!

The one that's following me around saying "Cheap! Cheap!" Yes, it's true, I am a notorious cheapskate. I prefer the term "thrift shopper", though, so since this is MY blog, I decree you must refer to me as that, OK? OK! Anyway, here's my thing...... I have one of those what SHOULD be super nifty Swiffer things. I love it, in theory. In reality? It takes THREE of those little swiffer wet pads to clean my kitchen and office area. Ick. What a pain, not only to have to use up three every time, but also to have to stop midway and change them out. So I decided to research a way to use something else. Preferably something non-disposable, as I do try to live a little greener than I used to. I found tutorials to knit covers (I don't knit, but my dear sister Lara does, and she's the smartest, prettiest, nicest knitter I know!! Think that will score me a cover or two? :) ), crochet covers (this I CAN do, in theory, but isn't always easy when you have HRH demanding to be taught to crochet when she sees me do it, then having to deal with the whole royal indignation "We are not amused" bit when she doesn't pick it up immediately), etc., etc., etc. SO, the thought came to me..... why can't I just use the Hurricane's old prefolds that she's grown out of, soaked in a vinegar and water solution? I also have several old flannel receiving blankets that may fall victim to my experimenting. Right now they're happily residing in the Rose Petal Cottage, so let's not tip them off, the carnage MAY be unnecessary if the prefolds work out. I'll keep you posted.

It's not 100% about the money on the Swiffer brand ones, let's call 40% for the environment, ok? 20% for the inconvenience of having to go to the store to actually get them, and the last 40% for the fact that as I fork over the $3-5 for them, my mind is saying, "this could buy me a yard of Tutti Frutti plisse that's on 50% off right now at Hancocks!!!!!!!!". Fabric.... it's a disease. An addiction. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Juli and I'm a Fabriholic. And I have no desire to be rehabilitated..... Prince Charming, on the other hand, might like to get the stash reduced a bit, or at least not INCREASE it any more, as it now occupies a chest of drawers in the garage, half of his storage closet in the garage, and the majority of open spaces in my dining room :X

On an unrelated note, the Hurricane has fully grasped the concept that I have a name other than Mommy now. We are thrilled, as this would have come in handy during the Great KidzFest Disappearance and subsequent Taking 30 Years Off of Mommy's Life..... but her walking up to me and saying "Juli, I like-a Goldfish peese" isn't quite as endearing as the "Mommy, I weally hungwy" :*)

Yummy!

The perfect ending to a great Sunday :)

Ingredients:

Two enthusiastic sous chefs:

One Mommy rocking her new apron that the resident princess made at preschool:

1/2 c. Crisco

1/2 c. butter, room temperature

1 c. brown sugar

1 c. sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

2 c. rolled oats

1 bag milk chocolate chips

Mix first 6 ingredients in large bowl until well blended. In another bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking soda:

Then add to first mixture. Add oats, then either switch to dough hook on mixer or begin mixing by hand, as dough will become VERY thick. Add chocolate chips and blend well. Drop onto ungreased cookie sheets and bake at 375 for 8 to 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Guilty Pleasures

Not much happening in our world this morning (thank GOODNESS!!!!), so I thought I'd do a little post, revealing my favorite guilty pleasures, and challenge anyone who reads and blogs to do the same. No fibbing, no hiding things, and no shame, LMAO!!!!!!

~Perez Hilton. He's tacky, crass, and unabashedly rude. And I can't stop checking out his page. :X

~The GFY girls. (www.gofugyourself.com) It's a totally safe link, sounds bad, but it's fashion criticism done in a wicked funny way.

~McDonald's cheeseburgers. I don't eat them often, and they're barely a recognizable food group, but they are SO yummy to me!

~Hell's Kitchen. The contestants are idiots. I don't understand how they can work with knives and not cut their own fingers off or something of the sort, but I just LURVE Gordon Ramsay. Even when he's screaming and yelling at them, I swear I'd die if I ever saw him in real life, I'd have to make an idiot of myself in front of him and be all superfan-y.

~M&Ms. I make no secret of the fact that I have a little helping of them every single night in my bubble bath. I have been known to go to the grocery store specifically for them if we're running low. We can do without milk, eggs, cereal, bananas..... but M&Ms? Perish the thought!

~Disney shows. I admit it. I sit with my girls (who happen to be preteens stuck in toddler bodies) and watch Suite Life, Hannah Montana, and life with Derek. And I LOVE it. I love Disney movies, too. I can't wait for Camp Rock to come out. I think Nick Jonas is an absolute doll!

~Reality cooking shows. Like the aforementioned HK, they don't even have to be GOOD shows. I just love them. HK, Top Chef, The Next Food Network Star, and Iron Chef. Although, I admit that I'm not as into the American version of Iron Chef as the REAL one. There's just no comparison, and I miss the real one. It used to come on at 10:00 and I would watch at least until they unveiled the secret ingredient every night. I'd feel a little thrill when they'd have something icky like squid that they had to catch themselves in the giant aquarium. THAT's good tv, lol!!!

~Rush Limbaugh. I know, I know, I know. You either love him or you hate him. He cracks me up. And in high school, I DESPISED him. There was a guy I went to school with, Darren, who read his book and would share snippets of wisdom with me just to irritate the hell out of me, lol. I should track him down and email him to let him know I'm a fan now, lol. Case in point, (if you're not a Rush fan, or you ARE a Hillary supporter, just skip to the next one now, you'll thank me later).....

Every Little Thing She Does is Tragic

~People magazine. Complete waste of my time to read it, when I could SO be doing something a little more productive, but I just love it!

~90s hair bands. Guns & Roses, Poison, Extreme (Nuno..... :::::Sigh::::), Bon Jovi, Skid Row (I was beyond thrilled when Sebastian Bach turned up on the Gilmore Girls, lol!!!), Motley Crue, Warrant, Def Leppard. I'd still rather listen to them than the stuff coming out today. Much to the chagrin of my very music-forward sister, Lara, but she still loves me anyway.

~My little email loopie friends. I've only ever met one of these ladies in real life, but I talk to them on a constant basis. Sometimes upwards of 100 emails a day. Before you gasp, keep in mind that these are conversations akin to girlfriends chatting over coffee. So each email is one little snippet from a conversation. Sometimes it's just a "LOL!" or an "I couldn't agree more". But I love these ladies and would be lost without them. When I go on vacation and don't have access to email, I miss them. Prince Charming can't quite believe it when I get a text message from one that my email inbox is full (meaning I have 1000 emails). I think he sometimes thinks I spend too much time on the computer, but some days, this is the only adult conversation I get and therefore what keeps me sane!

Your turn!