Light, easy dinner

Looks good, no?

I don't think my prep time every matches that on the recipe. I must be slow and/or not very efficient. I left out the following items ... I'm sure you aren't surprised: hot sauce (would have added, but didn't want to buy it just for this), cilantro, shallot. I also used a box of Garden Delight tomato, carrot & spinach pasta instead of the whole-wheat pasta. It came in a 12oz. box, so I added left over penne pasta in my cabinet to get the pound. You'd be fine with just the 12oz. box!

** UPDATE: Clearly my eyes only see what they want to when it comes to my favorite carbs. I honestly never saw that the recipe called for just 1/2 of a 1lb. box of pasta until Molly pointed it out to me. No wonder it made so much! Stick with just half the box, or the 12oz. box for more pasta in the gazpacho. **

Cooked pasta. So pretty looking!

Diced veggies. I used a whole cucumber. I also used an orange bell pepper instead of yellow because it looked better at the grocery store. I forgot to add the cherry tomatoes until after I mixed the pasta in this.

Easy dressing. I thought this wouldn't be enough, but it was plenty. The final (gazpacho) product is less soup-y & more pasta salad-y.

My portion for dinner. This made a HUGE amount! I ate this bowl, gave some to a neighbor, packed some for Mitzi & Brenda & me for lunch tomorrow, and have 2 more portions left for future meals.

Oh, and I dirtied up just about every utensil and bowl in my kitchen!

Enjoy!

You should make these cookies ASAP! You'll thank me!

Each month at school, a grade level is in charge of lounge duty (cleaning at the end of the day, starting the coffee, running & emptying the dishwasher). When it is your month for lounge duty, you are also in responsible for planning a treat day! Even though it's a bit of work, treat day is always fun and everyone enjoys it! We actually make the time to hang out in the lounge and enjoy each other's company and the good food, too.

Last Monday, I had to start looking for things to make. I made my famous Icing Rice Krispie Treats. I also made a 5-ish layer dip (beans, sour cream with taco seasoning, salsa, shredded cheddar, cherry tomatoes and olives). Then, I started flipping through our Oak Hill cookbook. It was published for the 20th anniversary of our school. Parents & staff donated their favorite recipes.

I found this recipe that needed just a few easy ingredients. We've had the children of this recipe donor bring these cookies for our 4th Grade Market ... and they are YUMMY! I didn't think they'd be as easy as they were!

I made a batch for our treat day. I saved a few to take to Mom & Dad. I also saved a few for me. Shhhhh ... don't tell! They were so good that I ran to the grocery store again Sunday to get another box of the lemon cake mix. I took them when I got together with friends Sunday afternoon. The recipe made between 20 and 25 cookies, depending on the size.

These might be my new go-to cookies. I usually have butter & eggs in the fridge. Cake mix and rice cereal is easy enough to get. You should make them. Seriously. Now. You won't regret it!

Easy snack/dessert recipe

We have treat day at school once a month and our lovely PTO provides lunch once a month & meals during both Fall & Spring conference week. Several times a year, someone brings in a yummy matzo chocolate treat. I've always known it was easy to make, but never tried it. Until this week ...

Matzo Toffee:

* 2 cups coarsely crumbled matzos {I used more like 3.5 cups, I'll explain further down}

* 1 1/2 cups sliced almonds {the bag I bought was 1 2/3 cups, so I just used all of that}

* 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

* 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar

* 1/2 teaspoon salt

* 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Step 1:

Preheat oven to 325. Line a large rimmed backing sheet with parchment {I had to use Pam'd foil, because I'm not the kind of girl that has parchment in my kitchen}. In a bowl, toss matzo pieces with almonds.

{I knew I wanted to take this snack to my condo's 4th of July BBQ, so I wanted to make extra. I didn't have enough ingredients to double my recipe, so I just increased the recipe by 50%. So in this bowl, you see about 3 cups of matzo and all the almonds I had.}

Step 2:

In a saucepan, bring butter, brown sugar, salt, and 2 tablespoons of water to a boil over medium, stirring constantly. {While this started boiling almost immediately, it didn't get to the toffee consistency for a few minutes.}

Step 3:

Working quickly, drizzle matzo mixture with syrup and toss. {I did increase all these ingredients, but didn't realize until this step that I didn't really need to increase the syrup mixture. It was WAY TOO MUCH syrup, even when I added more matzo at the last minute.}

Step 4:

Using a heatproof spatula, spread mixture onto a prepared sheet. Bake until golden, about 30 minutes. {This is where I really noticed I had too much syrup. I should have put the mixture on 2 cookie sheets, but didn't have 2 with rims. It had a hard time setting up.}

Step 5:

Remove from oven; sprinkle with chocolate chips. Let chocolate melt five minutes. {You do NOT need to increase the amount of chocolate chips. The original amount would have been plenty.}

Step 6:

Spread chocolate over matzo toffee after the 5 minutes have passed. {I ended up scraping a lot of the chocolate off & storing in a small bowl for some other something. It would be nice to have some of the toffee showing through.}

Step 7:

Refrigerate until chocolate has set. Break into pieces and serve. To store, refrigerate in an airtight container, up to 5 days.)

Great (and fairly easy) snack. I would either stick to the original recipe, minimize the amount of syrup anyway, or use my tips for increasing the amount. Would make a great house-warming or holiday party gift.

Yummy lunch or snack!

I actually planned on making certain recipes when I went to the grocery store last week. It makes my shopping so much easier, but when I get home, I actually have to set aside time to make said recipes.

This time it was Tiny Tuna Melts. I LOVE a good tuna melt, and love tiny foods ... so what's not to like? These were so easy, those of you with kids could have them help!

Gather the following ingredients:

* 1 can (3 ounces) of tuna, drained

* 1 tablespoon mayonnaise

* 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice (I only had the fake stuff)

* coarse salt & ground pepper

* small crackers (melba toast, wheat thins, etc.)

* 1/4 cup shredded cheddar

Step 1:

Stir together can of tuna, mayo, lemon juice. Season with salt & pepper.

Step 2:

Heat broiler of toaster oven (or oven). On a foil-lined baking sheet, arrange 16 small crackers. Top with tuna mixture and cheese.

Step 3:

Broil until cheese has melted, 2-3 minutes. Serves 2.

YUMMY! Enjoy!

Yes, I realize it's almost summer ...

... and I realize people don't really eat chili in the summertime, but I still wanted to share this recipe!

It's one of my favorites and it's super healthy, too! Chili Mac. I found it on the Weight Watchers recipe share page years ago, and I always come back to it. I've changed a few things from the original recipe, so I'll make those notes, too.

Ingredients:

* 12 oz ground beef. {I use ground turkey and whatever amount comes in the tray in the meat section. I don't worry about the ounces too much.}

* 1 medium onion chopped {For some reason, I've been buying a red onion all this time. Don't know if it makes a difference.}

* 14.5 oz can of stewed tomatoes, Mexican style, undrained.

* 2 Tbsp canned green chili peppers, diced & undrained. {These come in a small can & I usually just pour the whole can in.}

* 2 tsp chili powder.

* 1 tsp ground cumin {I add more for extra flavor.}

* 1 cup dry wheat elbow pasta. {I use regular Radiatore pasta because I think it adds some extra weight to the chili.}

* 15 oz can of kidney beans, rinsed & drained.

* 1 1/4 cup canned tomato sauce. {You have to buy 2 small cans and I put both in.}

In a skillet, cook meat & onions until they are browned (about 10 minutes). {I use my large "pasta" pot since I don't have a skillet large enough for all of this.}

Then, stir in stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, chili peppers, chili powder and cumin. Bring to a boil.

The stir in your pasta and kidney beans. Return to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

I can normally portion this out into 5 or 6 servings and the little servings fill you up for a long time. Weight Watchers says that a 1 1/4 cup serving is 4 WW points. That might be a bit off since I don't use wheat pasta, but I do use ground turkey, which should help that.
Enjoy! I'm sure this all freezes well, too if you wanted to cook in advance. Let me know what you think about it if you do decide to make this yummy Chili Mac! :)

Delayed Picture Post - Bonfire Buddies!

At some point over the Spring Break, the Chittums decided to whip out the fire pit and let us have a hot dog roast! It was perfect. We showed up in flip-flops and t-shirts and ended the night all bundled up, sitting as close the fire as possible!

Without much explanation, here are my favorite pics from the evening!

Fire in front of a great sun reflection on the window.

Mitzi, frustrated with her not-knife that wasn't very helpful for making marshmallow roasting sticks!

Miss Minnie, of course, being a good girl & enjoying all the excitement!

Adam, making some sort of a NASA satellite with the LARGEST roll of foil I've ever seen! It weighed about 40 pounds!

Our handy grilling invention once we realized the dogs wouldn't stay on the sticks we had from the yard.

Cool pic!

Sunset over the neighbor's house.

My yummy meal. No pics of the S'mores from later ... it was too dark out.

Great fun & great conversation over the fire.

We did LOTS of stick gathering to keep the fire going for about 4 hours.

Minnie sitting on one of her favorite laps. Mitzi loves to cuddle up with her!

What I'm capable of ...

... when I leave work when my contract hours end at 4:00! Apparently, a lot! I was feeling bad about working until at least 6:30 the majority of the work days last month. I wasn't getting anything done at home, I was super stressed, and Minnie was taking it the worst! She started this new obsession with licking her paws CONSTANTLY. Seriously, it would wake her (and me) up in the middle of the night. Well, I did some online research and most people said it was a coping mechanism when dogs are depressed or have separation anxiety. Great. I broke my dog!

So ... I've been trying really hard to be productive with my day and leave as soon as possible, or at least by 5:00. Every night this week I've left early, and last night when I went to grade another stack of papers, I saw the clock had just reached 5:00, so I put them away and came home. It feels really nice. I can get more done at home at night and I don't feel stressed from working 11-hour days.

We'll see if it lasts, but I hope it does. I know a lot of it was due to Mom helping me grade a GIANT stack of papers last weekend. That helped me to be caught up with my grading for the week. Thanks!

Anyhoo ... this is the list of things I accomplished this afternoon/evening, and the night isn't even over yet!

• Came straight home from school to let Minnie out and change into cooler clothes since it was 79 (!) degrees out this afternoon.
• Go to the grocery store for the first time in weeks. I was down to canned veggies & hot cocoa in my pantry.
• Carry my groceries up the stairs (in one trip) and unload them.
• Unload the clean dishes from the dishwasher and reload all the dirty ones from the sink.
• Peel all the chicken off a rotisserie chicken & put away for meals this week.
• Collect all the trash from the whole condo & take it out to the dumpsters.
• Organize & add to my stash in my recycling bins.
• Make & put away lunch for tomorrow. This is HUGE since I'm always rushing to get it made before I run out the door.
• Take Minnie for a 45-minute walk.
• Make & eat dinner.
• Fed Minnie dinner, maybe even twice. At 7:45, I looked at her and honestly couldn't remember if I fed her earlier. I put food in the bowl & she scarfed it down. That doesn't mean much since she would eat the entire 20-pound bag if I let her.
  
• Relax to watch some great shows on TV.

Not too bad, huh? Now I just need to be this productive on all the days that I allow myself to leave work early!

P.S. I can't tell if I lost some of my regular readers. I know I wasn't posting every day, but I'm trying to get back in the habit of doing it. Are you all still out there?

I've been (self-)diagnosed with Grocery Store Sensory Overload

It's true! I read about this disease in a book.

Okay, it was less of an informative medical book, and more of a fun, girlie novel. :)

I started reading "Drunk, Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair" thanks to Mitzi & Jill passing it along my way. While I am not any of the things listed in the title, it's a pretty good book so far. I'm only 70 pages & 18 chapters in, and it's going so quickly, that I can pick it up when I have a few minutes here or there which is nice.

In the book, Laurie talks about how she has Cooking ADD (will start to cook something on the stove and completely forget about it until the smoke alarm is going off) and she has Grocery Store Sensory Overload.

I laughed out-loud at this part, because it is totally me! Here's what she has to say about her trips to the grocery store:

"I know I should go to the grocery store instead of the 7-Eleven, but I can't be trusted in that place. Left to my own devices I will spend a hundred dollars and arrive home with items that when placed together do not even make one complete meal. I'll buy Shake 'n Bake but forget chicken, buy milk but forget cereal, buy lunch meat and no bread. It just happens. The grocery store is big and the selection is vast and I come down with a case of vertigo every time I walk through the perfectly oiled sliding glass door.

And I love lists. I am a list-making fool. So I make lists for the grocery store on Post-it Notes, and on the back of the light bill, and even in a notebook bought solely for the purpose of holding my many lists. But even if the list makes it to the store (shocking rare incident, but it has happened), the list is not in the same order as the aisles, and I still have to walk around and everything is so pretty and appetizing and ... look! Lucky Charms cereal! Lunchables with mini tacos! Oreos with chocolate filling! Hey, I'm an adult and what fun is it to be on your own and paying bills and doing things like wearing panty hose if you can't buy Oreos? I would be denying my power as an adult if I didn't buy these! It would be a travesty! In fact, by purchasing Double Stuf Oreos, I am declaring my independence!

And dammit if an hour later I'm not standing at the check-out with coffee filters, beer, four frozen Lean Cuisines, a big packet of Oreos, and seventeen other items that make no sense."

Just this week I was at my neighborhood grocery store and ran into some of these same issues! I had a list, but of course, things weren't written down by the store layout. I had to make my way back to the first aisle 3 or 4 times for things I forgot to get while I was there. I've been shopping there for 7 months, you'd think I'd have this figured out! I was good, and I bought things specifically for recipes I wanted to make, but when I got home I wasn't in the mood to cook, so I felt like I had nothing to eat.

I think this means that we need to start up with our food swap again. Too much to do during the week to take time to cook a real meal for myself. Blech!

Santa came early ...

And he delivered a new dishwasher for me! Yippee! Who knew I could get so excited over appliances?

Here is a sequence of pictures from old to NEW!

Here is my old dinosaur of a dishwasher. It didn't actually clean dishes, which was a tiny problem. I had to wash the dishes first in the sink before I could put them in there. What a waste of time & effort.


Waiting in the hallway to be taken away!


Yikes! It's a good thing that the owners before me put in these nice hardwoods in the kitchen. Can you see the water-stained linoleum under there? I'm just happy I didn't see any little animal friends hiding under there, too!


Ahhhhh! So pretty, huh? This new dishwasher even fits better in the space than the old one did!


Dishwasher racks that actually hold more than 10 plates. The delivery man (okay, he worked for the appliance store, it wasn't really Santa) started a cycle to make sure everything worked. It was nice and quiet. When Kristin came by to visit today, I accidentally started it again, and it took some reading in the manual to figure out how to get it to stop! :)


Thanks, Mom & Dad for my early Christmas present! I can't wait to fill it all up and run it for the first time! No more doing-the-dishes whining from me! :)

Should I be embarrassed?

I finally unpacked the last 2 moving boxes that were laying about in my loft.

Yes, I closed on my condo on July 21st.

Yes, today is November 16th.

A 4-month time frame for unpacking isn't bad ... right? Don't get me wrong, I still have PLENTY that needs to be done in the condo before I'm a happy home-owner, but I would say that I've accomplished a lot in 4 months. Unpacking just seemed to be on the bottom of my To Do list!

These are just a few of the projects I got done today!

I emptied out these sets of drawers that used to have desk supplies in them and they now hold all my wrapping presents supplies (bags, ribbon, boxes, gift tags, tissue paper, ribbon). Little known fact about me: if I could make money doing it, I would wrap presents for a career. Anyone want to pay me to wrap all their holiday presents? :)

Yes, the office still looks like a giant mess, but I promise progress has been made. I took all the supplies from the drawers above and organized them in the file cabinet drawers. I still have some piles of things to be filed, but since I don't actually use my laptop at the desk, it doesn't have to be perfect quite yet.

These two 8x10 framed pics of Minnie represent the 400+ photos that I organized and FINALLY put in albums last night. I had them sorted out into events by date (going all the way back to 2006) and they covered the entire floor. I still haven't put the Minnie pictures into albums. I have a puppy "baby book" that I bought a long time ago, but I'm not sure how much effort I want to put into it. That might have to be winter/spring/summer break project. Getting the other pics organized was good enough for now. These two framed pics are hung on the wall right next to Minnie's hall closet that houses all her food, toys, treats, meds, etc.

And the kitchen! I had a giant batch of dirty dishes in the sink that were screaming at me to be washed. I am basically hand-washing most of my dishes since my current DW is worthless. Mom & Dad took me early Christmas shopping yesterday for a new DW that will be delivered after Thanksgiving. Yippee! I also cleaned off all the counters that were covered in crap since before I babysat last week. In the back right corner, I also pulled all my cookbooks down from the cabinet above the micro. I thought that if they were up there, I would never look at them. Maybe if they are out, it will encourage me to do more cooking!

Just call me Betty Crocker

Today I went to the grocery store for the first time in FOR-EV-ER and got all the ingredients for the big recipe exchange between friends. Mitzi, Adam & Jill, Amy, Rachel, Brenda and I have talked about a meal swap in the past. This weekend, it seemed that Mitz, Adam & I all had some time on our hands and grocery lists to purchase, so we decided to test out the logistics of it.

Basically, the main idea is to make a big batch of something and then split it into servings for one or two people and then trade. Being a single person who lives on her own ... I loathe cooking for myself because it takes me forever to make something and then I'm eating it for the next 5 meals. No fun.

If it works after this first swap, we'll have the add the others to the exchange and get a calendar set up. Jill said she'd try to do one on google so we all didn't end up making and swapping the same type of pasta dish on one day! The keys to the swap are price, taste, how easy it is to make, and I think now that we are going into the winter ... making things that can be frozen would be ideal! That way you don't have to rush home to eat it that night.

Now that I've gotten excited for this, I found a few great recipes that seem easy to make and easy on the wallet. I got all the ingredients today at the grocery store thinking that I would make all 3 dishes tonight. WHAT WAS I THINKING? The others will have to wait a few days. Tonight's first trial was chicken enchiladas that I saw Cristina Ferrare make on Oprah this week. Sure wish the people I talked to about this dish would have told me that things seem MUCH easier when they are doing it in 7 minutes on TV.

1 1/2 hours later, I just finished my yummy dinner with part of my portion! I poached my own chicken, then made 3 separate containers of the enchiladas and froze 2 and heated up one for myself! I was a bit worried that they wouldn't turn out ... but they were damn good!

I should have taken a picture, but by the time I finished, I was so hungry and dove in immediately. I'll be sure to keep you all posted on how well the swap is going! Anyone else in town want to join in?? The more the merrier! =)

The best kind of dinner plans:

Involve friends, food, laughter, games and good times!

Tonight I had my first get together at my new place. I had my teacher friends (and spouses) over after a L O N G week! When we get together, we try to each bring something for the meal, which is really nice for me since I don't cook. I, of course, left work late, so Adam & Jill basically beat me to my house while I was going to the grocery store to get stuff for dinner.

Right when I got home, a very scary thought crossed my mind: I don't think I have enough dishes and silverware for this many people, and I definitely don't have enough seats for everyone! It's a good thing they all love me regardless, because we had a great time anyway! All the changes I've made around here that I got to show off made up for the lack of seating! I LOVE IT HERE and I love that I get to share it with the people I love.

Here's the view of the living room from the loft upstairs. You can tell that we had to do some furniture rearranging. Elizabeth & Mitzi are sitting on the loveseat we brought in from the dining room. The TV trays Mom thought I was crazy for buying helped so not everyone had to eat on their laps. I also just realized that noone even thought about eating at the table. What were we thinking? Somehow, there will still room for everyone to play Guitar Hero!


Adam & Jill rocking out. Minnie on the couch on the right-hand side. She found lots of new friends tonight.


Self portrait. Adam & I ... I love that Minnie is licking his face in this one. She LOVES Adam, so this picture pretty much sums up their relationship.


The newlyweds, TJ (we like to call him T Pain) and Amy playing their first song on GH.


Mitzi and Rachel. Can you see Mitzi's kick-ass Guitar Hero T-shirt?

So serious!


Here's another group shot. The seating was limited and if you were interested in actually watching the TV, it was very limited! Brenda & Mike came over after they went to dinner. Good thing they ate elsewhere ... they might have had to eat in the laundry room! :)


When you get married, you are forced to sit on the floor and share the tiniest TV tray ever made! :)


The pictures are out of order ... here we are all getting settled with our plates.


Since my kitchen's so tiny, we had to make a buffet line. Start on the left with plates and bowls, curve around and pick up food and lastly, get your silverware on the right. Then, quick run to find somewhere to sit!


Elizabeth & Mitzi. Thanks for coming, girls! I know you both had rough weeks.


Jilly & Rachel. You two look like you match in your hoodies!


Everyone left a little over an hour ago. The dishwasher was already filled and just finished running. Now I should be in bed since Mom and I are doing the American Stroke Foundation 5K walk in the morning at Shawnee Mission Park. Did I mention that Minnie is joining us?? Who wants to place bets on how far into the walk she lasts? I think I'll be carrying her across the finish line!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!