Country Club Chicken

YUM.  THE. END. 

http://www.kayotic.nl/blog/country-club-chicken

February Eval

My goals for February were "start food storage" and "scrapbook 20 pages"
Ok, the scrapbooking.  I used to be so good at keeing up.  I was caught up for years and years.  But now I am almost 2 years behind.  I just have not been able to get back into it (even though it is one of my favorite things to do.)  I just DONT HAVE TIME!!  So with a few days left of the months I whipped out a ton of pages- exactly 20.  Hopefully doing some scrapbooking will get me back into enjoying it.  But I'll be honest, it is so hard to find the time.  I need another goal that I will do a few pages a month.

And....the food storage.  This is something I have NEVER done.  I mentioned it before, it is so intimidating to me.  Where to start?  How to do it?  Instead of focusing on having a 1 year supply, I shrunk that down to a 1 month supply of food and 3 day supply of water.  Only 3 days for water because that is still a lot of water.  Once I got over that first initial question "How the heck do I do this?" it became so much easier.  When I filled up the first 2 pop bottle with water, I felt so good.  It felt great to know that if worse comes to worst, my kids will have clean water to drink.  And that is why I am doing this.

Before and after pictures of my storage shelves.  Ok, I told you I was awful at this.  The before shelves are so bare.  The afters are not much better, but it's a start and that was my goal.

This website is awsome!  I filled out the excel sheet (under 10 baby steps) to figure out what food to buy for storage and it helped me out so much.
http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/

January Eval

At the beginning of the year I made 1 or 2 goals for each month.  My one and only goal for January was to read the Book of Mormon every single day.  And I did it.  I know how important it is to read from this book daily but for some reason it is hard.  This was a very important goal for me because it got me into the habit of daily reading.  It has allowed me to remember just why this book should be a part of my life.  My days go more smoothly, I am happier and it is a reminder that I have a loving Heavenly Father and that my Savior lives.


If you do not know what the Book of Mormon is:  Click on this link:
 http://mormon.org/book-of-mormon/

The rest of the Hunger Games

As I said before I was ONLY going to read book 1 again.  But as soon as I finished 1, I picked up 2 and 3 and read them both again.  This series is awesome.  I actually enjoyed them more the second time.  I was not racing through to figure out the ending.  I was more attached to the characters this time.  After the 3rd book, Mockinjay, I was actually sad for the characters.  I did not get that involved the first time.  These books are a must read!

Minnie the Mouse

I threw the kid her first friend birthday party.  It was So.Much.Fun!!!  I did a Minnie Mouse theme.  From the invitations to the treats to the games.  This is why I LOVE pinterest so much.  They had so many cute minnie ideas.  The party was a complete success!  You know how I know?  Because the kid was so happy!

Bathroom

My very least favorite, ok- hate is a better word- chore to do is clean the bathroom.  To make it worse, our shower has little rivets/grooves all over the floor that all the gross residue nestles into.  I have kneeled on my knees and scrubbed until my arms hurt, but I cannot get the shower floor all the way clean.  My husband actually found this idea and he went ahead and tried it.  He sprayed the shower walls down, left it for an hour and then rinsed it off.  He did not scrub.  Voila, the walls were sparking clean.  He did not even put any of this on the floor, but as the walls were rinsed off and this went down the drain, it cleaned the floor on its way. Cleaner than I can get by scrubbing my brains out.  I will be using this once a month for a good shower cleaning!

http://lifecraftsandwhatever.blogspot.com/2012/01/dawn-vinegar-soap-scum-killa.html

Minnie the Mouse

The kid had her first ever birthday party.  We did a Minnie Mouse theme. This is why I LOVE pinterest.  So many ideas came from there.

Balsamic Basil Mayo on Caprese Grilled Cheese

A big fancy name for a super easy meal.  This is definately a busy day dinner. 

Our favorite thing to eat in the summer are what we call "good tomatoes."  Sliced fresh garden tomatoes, topped with mozerella cheese, balsamic vinegar, basil and italian dressing.  Broil until cheese is melted and golden brown.  We will eat just like this, or broil on top of thick french bread.  This recipe is just like these good tomotoes, just grilled.  So of course it was yummy to us.

http://www.sweettreatsmore.com/2012/01/caprese-grilled.html

Cordon Bleu

Since I have started to cook more new recipes I have found myself becoming a little more easy going about it, and I have learned to improvise.  We still had a tiny bit of ham left over from our Sunday dinner so I threw this recipe together; Crock Pot Chicken Cordon Blue.  I didnt have swiss cheese on hand, so I used mozerella cheese that we did have.  Since we only had a little bit of ham, the servings were small.  So I cooked up some rice to pour this over, and it turned into a hearty meal. It all worked out well.

http://www.chef-in-training.com/2012/02/slow-cooker-chicken-cordon-bleu.html

The hunger games

I read the Hunger Games series last year.  Since the movie is coming out next month (YESSSS!)  I decided to re-read only the 1st book for a refresher.  Well, I finished the 1st book and I got sucked right back in. I just picked up 2 and 3 to read again. I can't wait to read the next two and I am so excited for the movie!

http://www.thehungergames.co.uk/

Pizzie PIe

I made homeade pizza last night.  I made 1/2 the pizza; pepporoni, pepper, ham and olives for my husband, and the other 1/2 shredded ham and pineapple for me and the kid.  (we had a huge ham for Sunday dinner so I used that left over meat) Ended up pretty dang good.

http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2011/10/homemade-pan-pizza-crust-pizza-night.html

Kitchen

A pinterest idea that was easy, fast and cheap to make. 

Here are mine in my kitchen colors:

Food storage

One of my goals I set for February was to start food storage.  We have been told over and over to have a good supply of food and water in case of an emergency, but the idea of food storage completely overwhelms me.  That is why I made it a goal, so that I would have to figure it out. 
So, I started looking around the internet to know where to start.  I found the below link that has a lot of good ideas on how to start a food storage as well as other items needed in an emergency. 
So the first thing you need is water.  And lots of it.  1 gallon per person per day.  I though that was crazy to have a whole gallon a day, but what I was not taking into account was that you need water for more than just drinking.  You need it for cooking and cleaning.  Ok, so 1 gallon per person per day for 2 weeks....when you put that into 2 liter pop bottles to store, that is 112 bottles for our family!!!  That is still so overwhemling to me.  So, I decided my first goal is to have a 3 day reserve of water.  That is still 24- 2 liter pop bottles, but much for realistic to me.  We usually have pop around the house, so I will fill one up everytime we finish a bottle.  It's a start.  And if I can start, maybe I can finish.  My next goal is a 2 week supply of food and water....then the next goal is a 3 month supply....and we'll see after that.

But for now, lets start at a 3 day supply.

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/getting-started/

S'mores in the winter

One of our favorite summertime enjoyments is roasting marshmallows over Grandma's fire pit and making a big, choclatey, gooey, messy s'more.  Oh....I miss summer.  Anyway, these little treats were easy to make and taste like real s'mores.  This recipe has you make them in a mini-muffin tin, which I dont have.  So i doubled the batch and made them in a regular 12 spot muffin tin.
(don't use as much butter as the recipe calls for.)

http://texascottage.blogspot.com/2011/08/smore-cups.html

Chinese

A few things:

-  We really enjoy chinese food!
-  This was pretty time consuming.  Both my husband and I worked on this together and it still took time.  And made a mess.  We did the beef, egg rolls and rice.
-  The recipe for the beef says that PF Changs will serve the beef without the excess sauce but that you should put the excess sauce over the rice.  Do NOT do that.  The sauce is so salty.  We put it over our rice and I could not finish it due to the saltiness.  You should discard the excess sauce and only serve the beef with what sauce comes on it.  (or put the sauce to the side to dip your eggrolls in)
- The eggrolls were yummy.  This one recipe made 14 rolls.  I dont know what we are going to do with that many!
-  Next time we do chinese, I will stick to my moms Sweet -n- Sour chicken recipe....and make the eggrolls as well.

http://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/2008/01/mongolian-beef.html

 http://www.plannerperfectmeals.com/2011/03/amazing-egg-rolls.html