Yappy Scrappy Time!

I finally had some spare time to work on some scrapbook pages today.  These were mostly done before I sat down to add the finishing touches, but I was thrilled that I finally got them completed and into an album.

I've been mainly working on scrapping pics of our darling pup, Gracie, as those are the photos I actually have printed, and not sitting in digital form.  Plus, she's such a super-cute subject that it's a load of fun to scrap her pages.

Here's a page I did of 3 month old Gracie for a scrapbooking challenge.

Puppy Love!

For the challenge, I was required to use black cardstock for my base, punched shapes, a paper distressing technique of some nature, brads, Stickles and only two pictures.  Since I usually put several pics on a page, that last bit was quite a challenge for me.  I think it turned out really cute!

The next two pages were a layout I did for Gracie's 1st birthday including several pics of her "Yappy Birthday" pupcake. Don't worry; all of the ingredients were all-natural with no refined sugar, and we only gave it to her a little bit at a time since she is a tiny dog.

I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out.  I've been hoarding that wide cupcake ribbon for years with this exact layout in mind. I really like how the printed paper allowed the use of so many other colors for mats, stickers, letters, etc.

I've been in a huge scrapbooking block lately so it was good to get a few pages done.  I think I need to go back to scrapping my other love, Disney, as that topic tends to get the creative juices flowing a bit.  In the meantime, I'll probably continue working on some cards and things.  Of course, school starts in a couple of weeks so I'm not sure how much free time I'll have to do anything crafty.  I guess I'll just have to see where life takes me, as usual.  Wherever it is, it will have to be sufficient.

Keep it creative, y'all!

Our Easter Bunny was a wee bit late . . .

It has been a CRAZY week around here.  I started full-time training for a new job the Monday after Easter.  In addition to being exhausted by the time I get home every day, my allergies have been going insane since I'm outside way more than in the recent past.  As such, I came down with a wicked sinus/allergy attack on Wednesday that has just continued to worsen.  Finally, after multiple days of very nice allergy meds (yay, Sudafed!), I'm now finally starting to feel a bit better, and can swallow without the right side of my throat and my right ear throbbing every time.

Of course, since I've been feeling so yucky, there have been no extra-curriculars this week including no blog posts so I never got around to posting pics of the goodies I made for Easter dinner with my husband's family.  I enjoy making elaborate items for meals with Roger's family because they aren't big on cooking and baking from scratch so rarely have homemade desserts, breads, etc., at their meals.  I was raised that it was always better to prepare items from scratch so I make all of my baked goods such as pies, cakes, breads, etc., and there are always lots of oohs and aahs when I arrive with my latest creation.

This year, I agreed to bring dessert, so I decided to make a Strawberry Almond Trifle.  This consists of layers of cubed pound cake topped with sliced strawberries macerated with a bit of sugar and almond extract (I usually use Amaretto, but needed this to be kid friendly,) a layer of French Vanilla pudding mixed with Cool Whip, and some plain Cool Whip.  This is repeated until you run out of room in the trifle bowl.

Here's a pic of the final dessert:

It was quite tasty, and makes plenty for a crowd with leftovers of the individual layering ingredients for those that want to make their own desserts.

Even though I was only supposed to bring the dessert, I decided I wanted to try to make an Easter Egg Bread Braid.  Here's the final product:

This had a really great presentation and was pretty tasty to boot.  The bread itself had a lovely yeasty flavor with just a hint of sweetness, and was great with butter.  Everyone was amazed that the eggs actually bake with the bread in the oven, and just had to crack one open to see for themselves.

I dyed my eggs with regular food coloring, and there was a teeny bit of transfer from the dye to the bread, but it didn't affect the flavor any, and really didn't look that bad.  You can make the bread with plain eggs, or without any eggs at all.  Here's the link to the recipe: Braided Easter Egg Bread

I had to make a few changes when I made it; added 1/2 cup additional flour, and brushed with an egg wash instead of butter so that it would be glossy.  Next time I make it, I will reduce the oven temp to 325 degrees, and bake it for 35 to 40 minutes instead of 22 minutes at 350 degrees.  I also made the dough in my bread machine, punched it down, and let it do its second rise in the refrigerator overnight.  The next morning, I divided it into two parts, rolled them out, made the twist, added the eggs, and let the twist rise again for 40 minutes prior to baking.  You can also sprinkle on sesame or poppy seeds or colorful sprinkles to dress up your final product.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Spring holiday filled with love, laughter and tasty eats.  I'll be back soon with more recipes, and my most recent batch of freezer cooking. 

Cheers!

Menu Plan Monday: Week of April 9, 2012

Not So Successful Freezer Asset Week

One of the best reasons to participate in once a month cooking is to build up a plethora of freezer assets (prepared or ready to cook meals) to have available to make your daily meal prep easier.  The additional benefit is that you will have several meals stocked away in case of emergencies such as sickness, busy schedules or other unforeseen circumstances.  Unfortunately, building up freezer assets takes a while when one of these emergencies interrupts a once a month (or twice a month) cooking session, which is exactly what happened this month.

I've been struggling with a kidney stone which means a lot of pain, and a lot of sleep due to the pain medication.  Given this, almost none of my cooking session went as planned, and instead of two weeks of freezer meals that are quick and easy to prepare, I have a few parts of some meals that will help with nightly dinners, but not really fill the plate for a whole week, especially because it's a lot of big batch cooking which means we'd have to eat the same thing every day that week.

So, we're now stuck having to cook every day this week, which is not terribly desirable considering that I started full-time training for a new job today so I'm completely exhausted by the time I get home.  I'm trying to double up on prep to get a head start on some of these meals, but most of them will be prepared daily.

Monday: Cheddar Burgers, green beans, starch side
Tuesday: Bruschetta Chicken Bake, broccoli
Wednesday: Cheesy Beef Stuffed Shells, salad, breadsticks
Thursday: Ten-Spice Chicken, couscous, peas
Friday: Shredded Pork Taquitos, black beans and rice
Saturday: Take Out (Bi-weekly shopping day and cooking session prep)
Sunday: Slow-Cooker Beef Stew, home-baked French bread

I'm still working on getting the links for all the recipes added.  They'll be up by next week's post.  For more menu plans and recipes, visit Menu Plan Monday @ www.orgjunkie.com.

Have a great week, everyone!

Feed the Freezer: Homemade Burritos

Roger loves what he calls "crap" burritos.  Basically, these are those awful, nasty frozen burritos you can buy individually or in multi-packs at grocery stores.  Every time I eat one, I feel like I'm punishing myself because they taste so awful, and look gross.  Besides their distinct lack of flavor, they aren't terribly cheap, and they are absolutely not healthy in the slightest.  He pretty much eats them because they are fast, convenient, and easy to grab out of the freezer.

Since I do like the flexibility and convenience of having frozen burritos to grab for a quick lunch, I decided to assemble my own.  They are primarily rice, bean, beef and cheese, but a few are just cheesy beef and bean. I made all of the ingredients from scratch; the beef was a crock pot chuck roast seasoned for shredded tacos, the beans are spicy jalapeno pinto beans also made in the crock pot, and the rice was a quick seasoned rice I threw together on the stove.  I'll be happy to share recipes for all of the individual components in a future post, but am focusing only on the burrito creation in this post.

First, I assembled all the ingredients.

Burrito Fixin's

Next, I warmed some burrito sized flour tortillas for a few seconds in the microwave; just enough that they would be pliable.  I started the filling by laying down a small strip of rice in the center.

Just Rice

On top of this went a layer of beans.

Rice & Beans

This was followed by a layer of spicy shredded beef.

Rice, Beans & Beef

The final layer was a sprinkling of mexican-style cheese.

Fully Loaded!

I then rolled the burritos.  This process starts by rolling the near side over the filling to make a tube.

First Fold

Next, fold in both ends.  This pic only shows one end tucked, but they both end up that way.

Fold in both ends.

The final step is rolling the folded burrito over onto the remaining flap of tortilla.

Rolled

I wrapped these in foil that I labeled with today's date.  I also labeled the cheesy bean and beef burritos with their ingredients since they are different.  This batch of ingredients made 12 sizable burritos that are approximately a half pound each.  The best part is we now have a freezer full of tasty, homemade burritos perfect for a quick lunch or dinner.

Jackpot! Frozen assets, baby!

These can be microwaved or baked depending on your patience level.  To microwave, remove the foil, wrap in a damp dish towel, and microwave on high for 3 minutes.  To bake in the oven, bake in the foil for 40 minutes at 450 degrees, then remove the foil and return to the oven for 5 to 10 minutes to crisp up the exterior.  The frozen burritos should be consumed within 3 months of assembly.

Obviously, I filled our burritos with things we like, and all of the ingredients except for the cheese are SPICY.  We chose not to include things like sour cream or pico de gallo, but you could certainly add them to your own.  Keep in mind that sour cream separates and become runny after freezing, and the pico de gallo will wilt significantly during the warming process.  If you really want these items on your burritos, I would probably recommend adding them AFTER warming so as to maintain the quality.  Plus, the thought of warm sour cream is kind of gross to me anyway.

So, I hope this inspires you to make your own homemade burritos for the freezer instead of buying more of the cardboard and mush kind from the store.  I'll be sure to post the recipes for the shredded beef, refried beans and rice in case anyone wants them.  When I get them added, I'll link them back to this post for ease in navigation.

Thanks for checking out the results of today's freezer feeding session.  Have an awesome day!

The Whole Enchilada

Roger and I started going to Dream Dinners in 2005.  For the next five years, we showed up to their meal prep kitchen once a month to assemble anywhere from 15 to 30 meals to feed our freezer, and later ourselves.  When we moved cross country from California to Florida, we moved several of our frozen meals with us, but had to find a local meal prep facility that captured some of the convenience, but none of the flavor or fun of Dream Dinners since they don't have a franchise north of Miami.  Now that we've moved to Orlando, there are no meal prep businesses at all so we've had to go back to our pre-Dream Dinners process of weekly menu planning and cooking from scratch.  Of course, after five plus years of once a month cooking, I especially am not thrilled to go back to the daily dance of preparing a meal.

Since our budget won't allow us to eat out or get take out every day, (You mean we're not millionaires? Who knew?), we've decided to try to do once a month cooking on our own.  Unfortunately, going from zero meals to 30 days worth can be an expensive prospect so we're working in stages.  Last week, we purchased a huge pork shoulder roast, cooked it in the slow cooker for 20 or so hours, shredded it and now have two BBQ pork meals in the freezer, plus two pounds of chile verde shredded pork ready to make into taquitos.  I also slow cooked a two pound beef chuck roast to make shredded taco meat, and made a slow cooker full of spicy refried beans. 

The shredded beef and beans are destined for homemade beef, bean and cheese burritos which will be individually wrapped and frozen for later use as lunches or quick dinners. Most of the pork taquitos will be flash frozen, then bagged for later quick meals, but a few are scheduled to be dinner on Saturday.  Photos of both will be coming in a future post.

Of course, one of the easiest ways to build up a freezer full of meals is to double or triple dinners.  Tonight, I made a pan of my favorite Tex-Mex Enchiladas, so I just went ahead and made a second pan.  These freeze beautifully before adding the chili sauce mixture, so these are currently chilling in the freezer as I write this.

Sauce-free Tex-Mex Enchiladas

The other pan received a coating of chili sauce, a sprinkle of cheese and 30 minutes in the oven.  Here's a shot of the ooey, gooey, cheesy goodness.

Cheesy Tex-Mex Enchiladas

This is a very tasty, but not at all low-calorie meal.  Fortunately, we don't eat it very often so we really get to enjoy it when we do.  It also provides a ton of leftovers that can be frozen for future consumption, or simply refrigerated for lunch the next day.  In case anyone is interested, here is the recipe:

Tex-Mex Enchiladas

Prep Time: 15 Min          Cook Time: 30 Min          Ready In: 45 Min

Servings: 5 (3 Enchiladas each)

Ingredients

• 2 (11.25 ounce) cans chili without beans
• 1 cup enchilada sauce
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 15 corn tortillas
• 1 pound shredded Cheddar or Mexican-blend cheese
• 1 onion, chopped

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Mix the chili and enchilada sauce together in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally as it simmers.
3. Heat the vegetable oil and chili powder together in a small skillet over medium heat. Gently lay a tortilla in the hot oil and cook until the tortilla starts to puff. Remove with a spatula and place on a plate. Immediately sprinkle about 1/4 cup Cheddar cheese and 1 tablespoon chopped onion down the center of the tortilla; roll the tortilla tightly around the mixture and place, seam-side down, into the bottom of a 9x13-inch baking dish. Repeat this process until all the tortillas are used.
4. Sprinkle about 2/3 of the remaining Cheddar cheese over the rolled enchiladas. Pour the warm chili mixture evenly over the enchiladas. Scatter the remaining Cheddar cheese over the layer of the chili mixture.
5. Bake in the preheated oven until the top is bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes.

Enjoy!

Birthday Musings

Today was my birthday, and it was kind of a milestone one at that. I have officially been on this earth for three and a half decades. I prefer three and a half to thirty five because it makes me sound younger. Right? Yes, I thought so.

I celebrated my big day by taking a great big long nap, banishing my early gray hairs and having a fabulous dinner with Roger at California Grill atop the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World. Our reservation was timed perfectly to enjoy the nightly fireworks show which is all about making wishes so it seemed especially appropriate for a birthday celebration. The food and wine were spectacular, and the service was entertaining if not particularly unobtrusive. All in all, it was a good day to start another trip around the sun. Besides, it was fun to get all dressed up and head out for an evening of fine dining.

You'll notice that I casually slipped in the mention of Walt Disney World. It's only fair to warn you that I'm an insane Disney fan. We have annual passes and are in the parks at least once every two weeks if not more often. One of my favorite things about WDW is the dining, and one of our goals is to eat at every restaurant on property. Since I'm a scrapbooker, we take pics of every meal we have so I'll be sharing those pictures and reviews here on my blog. If nothing else, it should make you hungry.

So now that I've rambled about aging, eating and my obsessive love of all things Disney, it's time to head to bed. In closing, I'd just like to add that I hope everyone has as great a birthday on their special day as I had on mine. It's an amazing thing to feel loved, and I hope everyone has the chance to experience that in their lives. A very merry un-birthday to you all!

Why yes, I DID crumble like a wet cookie.

So it's finally come to this. Despite my protestations that I would never succumb to the pressure to create my own blog, I've finally decided to bite the bullet and go for it. I'm looking forward to having one spot to add all of my recipes, meal plans, crafty creations and other assorted digital ephemera. Hopefully the information will be useful to someone other than just me. If not, however, I'll at least have an outlet to release my inner snark. After all, it's not healthy to bottle up natural sarcasm as doing so can cause inappropriate outbursts at awkward moments. So yes, you are witnessing one of my convictions crumble like a wet cookie. I trust you'll refrain from pointing it out and laughing.