A Brand New Blog!

I had a bit of inspiration tonight and decided to start a second blog. My plan is to make this blog about stretching your food dollar by creatively using up leftover food from other meals. I'm calling the new blog "Not Just Leftovers - Brand New Meals." You can check it out HERE if you're so inclined. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think of the idea. I am hoping it will be a useful blog over time, but I just started it tonight, so don't expect TOO much! :-)

Thanks for checking out my new blog - and for paying attention to my current one!

New Recipe #1.5 - Poppy Seed Biscuits

Well, today I got so occupied in trying to UNdecorate my house for Christmas (man, what an undertaking!!) that I completely forgot to make the dough for my rolls for dinner. So, I grabbed a Taste of Home cookbook and flipped through their quick breads. My 8-year-old daughter helped me, and we decided that the recipe for Poppy Seed Biscuits sounded very unique, so we tried it. These biscuits call for the strangest ingredients, but they turned out great! Everyone had more than one, and the kids asked me to make them again. Here's the recipe:

2 1/4 c. biscuit/baking mix
1 T. poppy seeds
1/2 c. cream-style cottage cheese
2 T. honey
1/4 c. milk

Combine mix and poppy seeds and set aside.
Combine cottage cheese, honey, and milk in blender. Pour over the dry ingredients and mix just until moistened. Knead gently on lightly floured surface 3-4 times, then pat out to 1/2" thick and cut with biscuit cutter.
Bake at 425° for 10-14 minutes or until golden brown.

So it looks like we'll be trying FOUR new recipes this week. I do love weeks like that! :-)

New Recipe #1 - Kraft Smarter Fettuccini Alfredo

Tonight I tried Kraft's recipe for Smarter Fettuccini Alfredo. As I wanted leftovers (and didn't want to waste cream cheese), I doubled the recipe, cutting the broth to 2 cups and the flour to 2 T. when doing so.

The verdict? Everyone in the family loved it! It was a little different, and I think next time I will add a little garlic and maybe some Italian seasoning, but it was definitely something we will have again. I might even try adding chicken to it sometime when I'm not going for a meatless meal alternative. The nutmeg gave it a similar flavor to the chicken tetrazzini that I make often, but it was a much thicker, stick-to-the-noodles sauce.

I'd recommend giving it a try. I don't think I'll be making the sauce for my alfredo pizzas anytime soon, but it's a good entree, and definitely healthier than standard alfredo sauce. Let me know what you think if you try the recipe!

Menu Plan Monday - week of 12/29/08

Wow...the last menu plan of 2008. Where did the year go? I'm hoping to be organized enough to have a menu plan for every week of 2009, but that's a pretty lofty goal! :-)

I've planned this week's menu around existing plans, which include the purchase of a half price Honey Baked Ham (see prior post for info on the 50% off coupon) for our New Year's family celebration, lots of leftovers from that ham (I'll get a big 'un), and an afternoon spent on Friday at the Harlem Globetrotter's game. I needed a quick and simple dinner idea for that evening, and will combine that with the urge to use my new panini grill I got for Christmas! I'm also trying three new recipes this week. All in all, it's not the most exciting menu plan ever, but I think it will be lots of fun! So without further ado, here's my plan:

Monday - Kraft Smarter Fettuccini Alfredo (the first of the new recipes), crescent rolls, celery and carrots with dip. I know that's a WEIRD combination, but the kids love raw veggies and dip and I have some to use up that are leftover from Christmas Eve, so I threw them into the menu plan.

Tuesday - Chicken breasts cooked in mushroom soup, mashed potatoes, corn, homemade rolls.

Wednesday - Honey Baked Ham (YUMMMM!!!), glazed carrots, rice pilaf (found a recipe in a blog comment HERE showing how to make rice pilaf with whole cardamom pods and I'm dying to try it! This is new recipe #2), homemade rolls. We will also be popping some popcorn to much on till midnight - this is the first year we've let the kids try to stay up to ring in the new year, and I'm looking forward to it!

Thursday - Ham and pineapple pizza on a sourdough crust.

Friday - After the Globetrotter's game, we'll use more leftover ham for some delicious ham and cheese paninis. Along with them, we'll have any leftover sides from the rest of the week, as I anticipate some mashed potatoes, carrots, and rice pilaf will be waiting in the fridge.

Saturday - New recipe #3, Bourbon Chicken, baked potatoes (haven't had these in forever!), fried apples, yogurt cornbread (or regular cornbread if I don't make time to make yogurt this week!) .

Sunday - Meatloaf (already in the freezer, ready to go), steamed rice, corn, biscuits.

For more great menu ideas, recipes, etc., be sure to visit OrgJunkie!

Been awhile....

In reviewing my blog postings, I see that it's been awhile since I actually posted anything to entertain my whopping TEN readers!!! ;-) So, since I'm sitting here wide awake listening to the wind swirling and rain periodically coming down in a torrential downpour, I thought I might as well actually say something!

It was a good Christmas at my house and the kids had a fabulous time! Everyone was giddily happy except the miserable and pathetic sister-in-law, but we will just ignore her as always. :) My mom got me a very nice skillet set and a panini grill, both of which were on my wishlist, and we have several new DVDs to watch. I'm not particularly fond of Ironman, and can only watch Tinkerbell so many times, but the kids are loving the new shows!

I way over-baked as always, and ended up sending a huge box of candy with hubby to work for him to share with the staff. I didn't need all those cookies and fudge and other candies sitting here tempting me! Of course, I froze some for later, and realized yesterday that I forgot to send any peanut butter balls, so I'm still surrounded by temptation! And that doesn't even take into consideration the pumpkin cheesecake and homemade apple pie that still inhabit my refrigerator. I've definitely got to start behaving in the new year, but don't we all?? :)

Oh, and speaking of the new year, I found an AWESOME coupon if you have Honey Baked Ham Company in your area! And I found it legitimately, so I'm certain it isn't a fake! My local news channel (kmbc.com) had a posting with some recipes from Honey Baked Ham. There was a link to their site on that posting, and when I went to the site, I found a button for signing up for email and receiving a coupon. Upon signing up, it gave me a coupon to print for 50% off a half-ham!! HALF PRICE!!! I can't resist that one! I hate paying $60 for a ham, but they are soooooo good! I'll definitely pay $30! :-) Here's a link to the sign-up page for the coupon and HERE is a direct link to the coupon itself. I hope they don't pull it anytime soon - it expires on 1/10/09! What a great dinner to celebrate New Year's!

The rain is really coming down now. Yuck. Did I mention that I HATE storms???? On the other hand, I LIKE sleep. I rather am missing it right now, but I just can't sleep when it's thundering and blowing outside.

So, onto another topic. Anyone have any knowledge of the habits of bettas? My daughter absolutely adores her betta fish, and Santa brought him a new tank for Christmas. Unfortunately, said fish doesn't seem to care for the new tank. That or I put him into shock by accident. I moved him into the new tank on Christmas Day, doing everything I was supposed to do - declorinating the water, floating him for over half an hour, slowly allowing water into his bag, etc. However, he's been sitting on the bottom of the tank ever since, barely swimming. Is it possible he is mad or depressed, or did I injure my daughter's fish?? I've been quite stressed about the situation. I actually thought he was gone yesterday, as he hadn't moved in some time, but then when I went to catch him in the net, he swam a bit, getting away from it. I just don't know what to do about this fish! He isn't eating, isn't active, but doesn't look like he has any of the common betta disorders that I looked up online. It's very depressing! I got him some "Betta Fix" last night and put a bit of aquarium salt in his water, but it isn't helping yet. I'm hoping we have a good day and he starts showing signs of life. My daughter (she's 6) is very deeply concerned, as she just LOVES Panther! :(

Well, I guess that's all the blabbing I should do for now. I'll just sit here and listening to my "popping" window that is making me crazy. I have no idea if it's done that before, as this is our first big thunderstorm living in this house. It just sounds terrible!! Why must replacement windows be so darn expensive?

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, free of thunderstorms....... :-)

Cold enough to freeze the pipes!

Well, what a night this has been!! I remember being in the kitchen this morning and washing my hands at the sink, realizing I had the cold water on - which was VERY cold, by the way! After that, I can't remember when I used the sink again. I was busy cleaning the living room, kids' rooms, and bathroom. It was so terribly, bitterly cold today that I never even cracked the door. I think 8° was our high - yuck!!!

Late this afternoon, I decided to get the dishes into the dishwasher. I had to rinse several that had been sitting awhile. As I was rinsing, I realized that there was a LOT of steam rising out of the sink. The water seemed to get hotter and hotter. I turned the handle toward the cooler side, but no change. Hmmm. So I turned it completely to cold - not a drop came out! I called my brother, who insisted it couldn't be frozen pipes - must be a clog in the supply line. So he had me disconnect the water supply from the main line under the sink. No luck. I looked at it, and asked him how it was going to bring out cold water turning on the faucet when it wasn't hooked up. Not understanding me, he had me explain what I meant by that. Well, apparently I was supposed to SHUT OFF the cold water before disconnecting the supply line. Whoops. What sucks is that there is NOT a cold water shut off valve on that sink!! Not only that, but the pipes are inside the OUTSIDE wall! Grrrrr....why do many builders not THINK when they build?????

Anyway....I just knew it was frozen, and set about trying to figure out what to do. I called a plumber, who actually told me that my copper pipes were already cracked from freezing, and there was nothing we could do. He told me to call him tomorrow after it broke and I had water everywhere and he would help me then. Hmmmmmph!! Well, I figured I had to TRY and save myself the nightmare of a broken water pipe. So I got under the sink with my little hair dryer, and put a space heater downstairs against the offending wall, moving ceiling tiles to allow warm air to float upwards. I also turned on the hot water at the sink full blast, hoping the hot water was close to the cold water pipe. I used my dryer for over an hour when my husband offered to take over so I could actually fix dinner. He managed to set the dryer so that it was propped up on a dishsoap bottle, aimed straight downward as much as we could get it. He agreed with my theory that copper/metal conducts heat, so maybe we would eventually reach the frozen part. And a different plumber told me that if I got it thawed out, I might have a chance at avoiding a bursting pipe. I HAD to try!!

About an hour later, we got a drip out of the faucet. Then another. And another. I got excited. We kept blowing the dryer and watching the faucet. It dripped faster....and then out came a stream. I ran downstairs to check for leaks and DH yelled out that we had full water pressure. I checked every wall and every ceiling tile - NO LEAKS!! We checked outside - nothing there, either. We did it!!!! We thawed the pipe and it did not break! I can't even explain the degree of my relief when the water started working again. I had been soooooo stressed out, trying to figure out where to move all our stuff, just in case, and where to get the $1,000 insurance deductible, and how we were going to live without water for however long until we could get a plumber out to repair, etc, etc, etc.

So now I have all the sink cabinets open and water running in a small stream from every sink in the house. It's going to be below zero tonight and I do NOT want to go through this again. Frozen pipes are NEVER a good thing, and I am so very thankful that we solved the problem with no major problems or expenses. I firmly believe that God knew I couldn't handle another crisis this week, so He let me avoid this one. I have been thanking Him all night!!!

So, my advice to anyone reading this? When the weather is frigidly cold, open your cabinet doors to let heat under the sink, and run a trickle of water at all times. It could save you a LOT of stress!!!!

Twitter?

Okay, one of my favorite singers opened a Twitter account and I followed her link and signed up. So now I have a very vague idea of what Twitter is - it's a site where you type a status and follow people?? So, what does that mean?? What do I actually DO with Twitter? I see so many people blog about Twitter, but I truly don't know how to go about doing anything further than signing up. If you twitter (do I call you a twit?? LOL!), feel free to tell me what the heck I should be doing on that site! :-)

Thanks a bunch!!!!