Happy New Year!

I can’t believe tomorrow is the last day of 2011! Am I the only one who gets emotional at New Year’s? I always get teary.

Do you follow any sort of “good luck” thing on New Year’s? I started doing the cabbage and black eyed peas thing a couple of years ago. I had never heard of any sort of thing about eating certain things on New Year’s for luck in the year until my friend from Texas told me about cabbage and black eyed peas. So I decided what could it hurt right? For the past 3 years I have made cabbage(fried, mmm) and a black eyed pea dip every New Year’s. And since while we have a long way to go, the past few years have been the best years we’ve ever had financially(no, we don’t have money, but bills are paid and food is on the table with a little extra to actually buy other things once in a while…more than can be said for the rest of all the years we’ve been together). So while I’m not an uber superstitious person or anything like that, I’m willing to keep up this simple tradition.

I’m not a big pea/bean person but to eat the black eyed peas I found a recipe for a dip, I LOVE dips and this one is very tasty and very spicy! I make it up on New Year’s Eve and have it both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day….it makes a LOT, so unless you have lots of help eating it you will be eating for a few days, so you might want to cut the recipe in half.

I can’t remember where I saw the original recipe, but I had to make changes to it because some of the ingredients we don’t have here in Canada. I believe the original recipe had a can of Rotel instead of the diced tomatoes/chilies separate. Oh how I miss Rotel, sadly I’ve only seen it once in Calgary and that was in a little Mexican store that is no longer there, and it was pretty expensive(I remember with coupons in Texas I used to get it for soooo cheap). So if you’re in the US you can just use Rotel….and maybe send me a few or 12 cans .

Good Luck Black Eyed Pea Dip

• 2 (15 ounce) cans black-eyed peas, rinsed and drained
• 1 (4 ounce) can jalapenos
• 1 onion , diced
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1 (4 ounce) can chilies
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese(I usually use marble)

Mash the Black Eyed Peas with a fork, leave some of them whole. Add remaining ingredients and mix. Spread into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes at 300 degrees.

Eat with tortilla chips, crackers, and/or veggies.

Wishing you and yours a very Happy New Year!!

Jolene

A Homemade Christmas!

Well, it’s over for another year . I’m so sad how fast Christmas comes and goes again. My body is probably ok with it though, I’ve had so much on the go the past couple of weeks(and that is so not the usual for me, I gave up the crazy busy life years ago now), I guess it has all caught up with me. Even after almost 7 hours sleep(a lot for me!) I’m absolutely exhausted today and my back right from head to tailbone is in so much pain I likely won’t leave my heating pad all day.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Hubby and I didn’t get each other anything, we just bought for the kids. We’ll see if we can afford to take advantage of after Christmas sales and get each other something.

I’ve already been sharing some of the recipes that I made and used for gifts this Christmas(I have plenty more!), well now it’s time to share the non-food stuff!

I only have one little niece, I have 2 older nieces who are grown and married now, but they are the kids of my brother who lives in Arizona so I’ve only ever actually seen them a handful of times. My only sister has the only girl that I get to actually see as she’s growing up. So needless to say not having a girl of my own I have this extreme urge to spoil her! This year I did well not to struggle with the ease of going overboard and instead made her something that I think will look absolutely adorable on her.

This was the first thing I ever sewed(besides just mending) other than an apron I made my youngest several years ago, but I had my mother in laws help with that one. This one I did on my own just from looking around the internet at some tutorials on making similar dresses. I’m so thrilled with how it turned out, it will have to be worn more like a tunic though because it’s not quite long enough for her(I just used pre-cut pieces of fabric from Walmart).

The dress/tunic for my 4 year old niece:

Next is a toolbelt I made for my 2 year old nephew. It’s my sister’s boy and he’s the last “baby” in the family since we are all done having kids. I made this out of a placemat and got him a set of Home Depot play tools to go with it, definitely happy with how it turned out too!

The toolbelt:

And the last thing we made 2 of(hubby helped and actually did almost all of this one for me ). These were Magnetic boards for my nephews, 10 and 6.

The magnetic board:

There you have it, my partially homemade Christmas! I gave each of them a non-homemade gift as well to go with it and tins of homemade fudge and cookies.

Even though I started planning these gifts early this year I want to plan even earlier for next year. I just don’t know what my family is planning on for gift giving. They tried to change it on me this year and I am still quite pissed off about it, I have no interest in changing how we give gifts. We buy for only the kids and my parents and I like it that way. So now I’m afraid if I start too early they will pull the same thing and try to change it again after I’ve already done most of my Christmas shopping.

Have you done some homemade Christmas gifts this year or in years past?

Jolene

Are You Excited?

Can you believe it’s almost Christmas!?! I say this every year, but it’s so true, where has the time gone? Crazy how fast a year goes by!

I finished my Christmas shopping a few weeks ago with the exception of stocking stuffers. Yesterday hubby and I went out to get some groceries and the stocking stuffers and ended up picking up one more gift for our youngest. Now we need to get one more for our oldest to keep it even. We spent like 3 or 4 hours searching for something for him and ended up with nothing! I can’t believe how hard boys are to buy for once they hit a certain age. I can think of all sorts of things for a 14 year old girl, but for a 14 year old boy the options seem so limited. I’ve searched for ideas online and all suggestions are electronics(what he doesn’t already have we have already bought for him), books(already bought), sports stuff(not overly into sports) or gift cards/cash(for my own kid I really don’t want to resort to that for Christmas). I thought about something to do with cooking because he likes to cook, but there’s really not much to choose from for him that I don’t already have in my kitchen for him to use and the couple of things that I could think of I couldn’t find anywhere.

Shopping for  him in about 3 years will be easier because he will be getting old enough that we can start helping him make sure he starts building up the things he will need when he moves out on his own(don’t even want to think of that yet!). I need to figure something out by tomorrow and I still have no clue what to get him. So, if you have any ideas for a 14 year old boy that are not what I already mentioned above please tell me! I need to spend around $25 to keep it even. It’s looking like it might end up having to be more books or a board game or something(which they have TONS of board games too).

What do you have planned for your Christmas menu? We are going to do Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve this year. My brother in law always comes over on Saturday nights for dinner, so we figured we would do Christmas Dinner then so we can have it with him. He’ll be having Christmas with his ex and his 5 kids on Christmas Day(who we’re not allowed to see…his ex is one of the most psycho people I’ve ever met). My inlaws won’t be here for Christmas(they’re trying to sell their house in Mexico), so at least this way we get to celebrate it with someone from his family.

My Christmas meal plan is:

Turkey of course! I can’t do Christmas without Turkey. I’ve been using Uncle Bill's Method for Cooking Turkey for a few years now and it results in an absolutely perfect moist turkey every time without fail! I highly recommend it!

Mashed Potatoes of course! Another thing that I can’t do a Christmas meal without! I don’t follow a recipe but I whip my potatoes with a hand mixer and add butter, milk, cream cheese, salt, pepper, onion powder and parsley flakes……absolutely delicious potatoes I tell ya!

Gravy, I don’t normally do gravy for potatoes, except when I make a full turkey meal. I make  Kittencals Easy No Fail Make Anytime Turkey Gravy, heavy on the pepper and it’s a quick and easy absolutely fantastic gravy!

Stuffing. I don’t stuff the turkey, but I do make stuffing on the side. I haven’t found or come up with a stuffing recipe that I absolutely love yet. My Mom makes a really good stuffing so I should really get her recipe one of these days. I did make this Crock Pot Stuffing recipe for Thanksgiving and it was really good, even my husband who doesn’t like stuffing enjoyed it. I skipped the apple and celery in the recipe and used French bread, this time I’m going to use Sourdough bread.

Corn. Simple, hubby doesn’t eat much veggies so I have to put out what he will eat.

Broccoli Salad. My sister usually makes a Broccoli Salad when we have family meals, and I LOVE it! I’ve never made one myself but I couldn’t get enough of it last weekend during our Christmas dinner and I need more! There are so many recipes for Broccoli Salad, all just very slightly different. I’ll probably use parts from several recipes.

Watergate Salad. I first made this about 5 or 6 years ago. My youngest was born on St. Patrick’s Day and I made everything green for his Birthday. He fell in love with it and since we don’t do parties for him anymore I make it for occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving. It’s more like a dessert but is considered a salad. It’s awesome, just awesome! I think most recipes for this are pretty much the same, I use the Kraft recipe, Watergate Salad. I skip the nuts and double the recipe.

Buns, homemade dinner buns. The recipe I use for so many types of buns is Bread Maker Hamburger Buns. It’s a great base recipe that you can use for dinner rolls, hamburger buns, hot dog buns, I even use it to make cheese buns and cinnamon rolls.

Carrot Cake. For dessert I’ll be making the Carrot Cake recipe that I posted the other day. It’s so good we just have to have it again!

I might make another salad or veggie dish of some sort, sort of craving Brussel Sprouts lately, might have to satisfy that craving. I like to make a lot because we then get so many yummy leftovers for the next couple of days and I don’t have to cook .

How’s your Christmas planning coming? Done shopping, or going to be out there Saturday finishing up? What’s your Christmas meal like? For us a Christmas meal is about the same as Thanksgiving and Easter….and every once in a while I’ll make it just because it’s such a big delicious meal.

 

Jolene

What I’m Wearing

I’ve always had a thing for the look of shawls, I don’t know why but I love them! I’ve never owned one though, until now! And this one is even better than a regular shawl, it’s a “cardishawl” and it is so incredibly comfortable! It made this whole outfit perfect for a day of shopping and running errands. I felt great, felt like I looked good(which is always a bonus! LOL), and loved how comfortable the whole outfit was. I know I should add some more color to my wardrobe, I wear an awful lot of black, but I love it and think I usually manage to wear it well, or at least fooling myself enough into thinking sticking with black is a good thing for me lol.

Shawl: Addition-Elle, $15ish(2011)

Top: Reitmans, $10ish(2010)

Jeans: Forever 21+, $15(2011)

Belt: City Chic, $12(2011)

Boots: Sears, $40(2011)

Necklace: Addition-Elle, $10(2011)

Earrings: Avon, gift from my Mom

Am I alone in my love for black and shawls?

Jolene

MUST Try Carrot Cake

Think you don’t like Carrot Cake? Think again!

My husband hates Carrot Cake so I haven’t had it in years. I decided I wanted to make some as part of my desserts for my family Christmas on the weekend. As I was making it on Friday I asked hubby why exactly he doesn’t like Carrot Cake. The reason I asked is because there are many things that he doesn’t like, but a lot of those things he doesn’t like because either his Mom made them or bought them often when he was a kid. So his answer for why he doesn’t like Carrot Cake? His Mom used to buy it when he was a kid. I said then he hasn’t had GOOD Carrot Cake, he’s had store-bought overly sweetened and dry Carrot Cake.

As with most things he said if I make it he will try it. Yes, my hubby absolutely loves my cooking and baking and there’s more than a few things that he wouldn’t touch before that he will now, as long as I make it LOL. So I found a great recipe for Carrot Cake, made my own little tweaks to it as usual. As soon as I had it iced I took a bite and I think I swooned just a bit at the awesomeness. I took him a bite, gave it to him and told him I had 3 extra pieces that wouldn’t fit in the container I was putting it in. After his bite his response was, “I’ll have them!”. He had another piece at dinner Saturday night, then another 2 pieces late Saturday night/Sunday morning before we went to bed. Then another 2 pieces last night. There’s no more Carrot Cake. We’re all very sad. We want more, the kids want more.

Not only did he “hate” Carrot Cake, but he hates Pineapples and this cake has crushed pineapples in it. Sometimes all it takes to make someone love something they thought they hated is to make it right! LOL! You just can’t compare store-bought to homemade. Yeah, store-bought is good if you’re in a pinch, but this cake didn’t take much more time than it would have to bundle up, warm up the car, drive to the store, pick out a cake, stand in line to pay for the cake, get back to the car, drive back home……all for something that might make do, but will not be absolutely fantastic like homemade!

I think I will be finding myself in the kitchen making Carrot Cake again for our Christmas Dinner that I’m going to do Saturday. If you need a fantastic dessert recipe for Christmas dinner and want something different than traditional Pumpkin recipes or Cheesecakes, this is the one!! It is so incredibly moist and not overly sweet. I reduced the sugar from the original recipe and used Applesauce instead of Oil, so it’s better for you too .

 

Carrot Cake

Inspired by Carrot Cake by Lennie

2 cups All Purpose Flour

2 teaspoons Baking Soda

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Salt

2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon

1 cup Brown Sugar

1 cup Apple Sauce

3 eggs

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

2 cups Shredded Carrots

1 8oz Can Crushed Pineapple, drained

Frosting

1 8oz Package Cream Cheese, softened

¼ cup Butter, softened

1 to 1 ½ cups Icing Sugar

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Sift together and mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Make a well in the center and add sugar, apple sauce, eggs and vanilla extract. Mix with a wooden spoon until smooth. Stir in carrots and pineapple. Pour into a well greased 9x13 pan. Bake for about 45 minutes at 350 F.

For frosting cream together cream cheese, butter and vanilla extract, Sift and add icing sugar and beat until smooth and creamy. Frost cake.

Jolene

What I’m Wearing

I absolutely love what I wore to my family Christmas yesterday! I’ve had this dress for a while, it was supposed to be a goal dress when I lost a bit of weight last year. Strange thing is that I actually gained back the weight that I had lost, but it fits me anyway. Not sure how that makes sense, but I’m glad it fits because I love the way it looked!

I wish we lived somewhere that I could dress like this more often. It was a gorgeous day yesterday so I was able to wear something nice. Unfortunately during Winter here I usually have to wear something warm because it’s freezing and shoes that have grip so I don’t fall on my ass on the ice and snow(which anything with a heel obviously does not!). It’s so hard to dress nice in that kind of weather and here we get many months of it. But occasionally we get what are called Chinooks and the weather can change dramatically for a day or two. Yesterday was one of those days.

Please excuse the mess on the floor, that is “snow” from my husband’s Christmas Village that blows onto the floor every time someone walks by LOL.

Dress: Walmart, $14(2010)

Blazer: City Chic, $26(2011)

Belt: City Chic, $12(2011)

Boots: Payless, $40(2011, leftover style from 2010)

Necklace: Addition-Elle, $10(2011)

Jolene

Pumpkin Loaf

Today we celebrated Christmas with my side of the family. To say I’m exhausted would be an understatement. I spent all week doing cooking and baking for my Mom and Dad’s Christmas gift as well as tins of cookies and fudge to go with my niece and nephews gifts, plus I did dessert for our Christmas. I’m not one to do things small when it comes to cooking or baking. In fact when I make a Christmas meal just for the 4 of us I make more than what there was today for 17 people. I like variety for everyone and I like to have lots of leftovers(with boys in the house they don’t last long!). I baked 6 different things for dessert alone. So my busy week has sort of caught up with me, add to that one of my headaches which hit tonight, probably related to weather change and being in a house full of people didn’t help.

I have so much to share, recipes, outfits, and pics of the gifts I made for my niece and nephews. This week should be calmer so hopefully I will get to lots of posting! For now here is a recipe for Pumpkin Loaf. I made one for my Mom and Dad and one for us. I’ve been using this recipe for a couple of years now and it is absolutely delicious! I like it even better than Banana Bread! Most recipes I change a bit from the original I find, this one I didn’t change, it’s fantastic as is.

Pumpkin Spice Bread by jmelyn

2 cups Canned Pumpkin

3 cups Sugar

1 cup Water

1 cup Vegetable Oil(I use Canola, much better for you)

4 Eggs

3 1/3 cup All Purpose Flour

2 teaspoons Baking Soda

2 teaspoons Cinnamon

1 teaspoon Salt

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg

3/4 teaspoon Ground Cloves

Heat oven to 350.

In a large mixing bowl, combine pumpkin, sugar, water, vegetable oil and eggs. Beat until well mixed.

Measure the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, nutmeg and cloves into a separate bowl and stir until combined.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture, beating until smooth.

Grease two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans and dust with flour. Evenly divide the batter between the two pans. Bake for 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 10-15 minutes, then remove from pans by inverting onto a rack and tapping the bottoms. Slice and serve plain, buttered, or with cream cheese.

Jolene

A Tale of Two Lasagnas

I really should be sleeping but I’m feeling guilty over lack of posts and I have so many recipes to share that I thought I would squeeze in a post before I nap for a bit. I still have some laundry to put away, cookies to put in the freezer after they’re done cooling and raisin bread to bake after they rise. Hubby isn’t off work for another 3 hours though so I think I’ll give my tired body a nap before I finish up for the night.

As I said in my last post, I’m making food for my Mom and Dad for Christmas. Since I have stuff to make for that, cookies for tins for my niece and nephews, and dessert for my family Christmas on Saturday, I’ve divided up everything I have to make throughout the week so I make 2 or 3 things each day. Yesterday I made Lasagnas for my Mom and Dad. If they taste even half as good as they smell they are going to be amazing!

My Mom is a diabetic, my Dad doesn’t eat any meat except poultry, neither of them eat spicy foods, my Dad won’t go anywhere near anything with garlic in it. All that makes most of the dishes I usually make for us no good for my Mom and Dad since we eat a lot of beef and pork, and we also love foods with a kick. So I made them a Chicken Lasagna and an Eggplant Lasagna. Both which I think they will love, especially the Chicken Lasagna, it was serious torture making that and not eating any! I didn’t actually bake them, but I put them together in little aluminum pans to freeze them, they are a perfect size so each pan is enough for one meal if they add some salad or something to go with it.

My pictures are even worse than usual because I forgot to take pics yesterday before I froze the lasagnas, so had to pull them out today frozen to get pics. I really need to get better at this picture taking stuff. I can take pics just fine of scenery, but food pics I’m no good at. Because they aren’t baked, they’re just put together to be frozen and baked later, they don’t look as good as they would look baked.

Chicken Lasagna

Inspired by White Cheese Chicken Lasagna by HDMac

½ cup Butter

1 Onion , chopped

½ cup All-Purpose Flour

1 teaspoon Salt

2 cups Chicken Broth

1 ½ cups Milk

4 cups Shredded Mozzarella Cheese , divided

1 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese , divided

1 teaspoon Dried Basil

1 teaspoon Dried Oregano

½ teaspoon Ground Black Pepper

9 Lasagna Noodles (I used about 12 for 3 small aluminum pans)

2 cups Cottage Cheese(or Ricotta)

2 cups Cubed Cooked Chicken Meat

2 (10 ounce) packages Frozen Chopped Spinach , thawed and drained

2 cups Mushrooms, sliced and cooked until water is released

1 tablespoon Chopped Fresh Parsley

¼ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese , for topping

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan over medium heat, and saute the onion until tender. Stir in the flour and salt, and simmer until bubbly. Mix in the broth and milk, and boil, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Stir in 1/2 of the mozzarella cheese and 1/2 the Parmesan cheese. Season with the basil, oregano, and ground black pepper. Remove from heat and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350F/175C.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add lasagna noodles. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until al dente, and drain.

Spread 1/3 of the sauce mixture in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Cover with 1/3 of the noodles, cottage cheese, and chicken. Layer with 1/3 of the noodles, 1/3 of the sauce mixture, spinach, mushrooms and the remaining mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese. Top with remaining noodles and sauce mixture, and sprinkle with parsley and Parmesan cheese.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes.

 

Eggplant Lasagna

Inspired by I Lost My Noodles! Low Carb/South Beach Eggplant Lasagna by PattiCakeB

2 large Eggplants, peeled, sliced lengthwise into ¼ inch like “noodles”

Cooking Spray

Salt and Pepper

Meat Sauce

1 ½ lbs Ground Chicken

2 tbsp Olive Oil

2 Onions, chopped

1 16oz package Sliced Mushrooms

2 tablespoons Italian Seasoning

Salt and Pepper

1 10oz Package Frozen Chopped Spinach

1 28oz can Tomato Sauce

1 15oz can Diced Tomatoes(or 3 chopped Roma tomatoes)

Cheese Mixture

2 cups Cottage Cheese(or Ricotta)

2 Eggs

3 Green Onions, chopped

3 cups Shredded Mozzarella

½ cup Parmesan

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray cookie sheet, arrange eggplant slices and season with salt and pepper. Cook eggplant slices 5 minutes on each side.

Lower oven temp to 375.

Brown meat and onion in olive oil for 5 minutes. Add mushrooms, and cook 5 minutes. Add spinach, tomatoes and spices and simmer for 5-10 minutes.

Blend ricotta, egg and onion together in separate bowl.

Spread 1/3 of meat sauce in bottom of 9” x 13” glass pan. Layer ½ eggplant slices, ½ ricotta, 1/3 mozzarella and parmesan.

Repeat.

Add last layer of sauce, then mozzarella and parmesan on top. Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour. Remove foil and bake or broil another 5-10 minutes until cheese is browned.

 

So that was part 1 of my parents gift, enough for  6 meals for the two of them.

 

Jolene

A Lame Post

Ever feel guilty about a purchase as soon as you’ve done it? I did that yesterday . I already have some stuff on the way from City Chic from their big Black Friday sale and then yesterday I just couldn’t help myself and ordered some stuff from Addition-Elle and Pennington’s. I got a great deal on everything, it was all 50% off the sale price and then I also had a coupon code they sent me for 30% of my total order…..I don’t think I have EVER got such a good deal from them! It’s a bad time to be spending the money though. I’m trying so hard to track our spending and find a way to pay down the credit card, it got built up a few years ago when hubby was out of work(was the only way to pay for groceries unfortunately, wasn’t frivolous spending) and even though he was only out of work for about 6 months living off just one income it has been impossible to get it paid down. And of course being Christmas there’s so much extra being spent anyway, and being winter bills are so much higher.

I’m not usually a big shopper, but reading all these blogs and seeing everyone’s great outfits has made me a little jealous and desperate for nice clothes and wanting to feel good. I’ve bought more clothes for myself in the past year than I probably have in the past 15 years combined LOL. No, that’s not saying I’ve spent THAT much on clothes this year, that’s saying I spent next to nothing on myself for the past 15 years! LOL. I have to put myself on a spending ban now, only essential items. I’m usually so good….not called a cheapskate for nothing lol. But I seem to have got the spending bug this year! Time to squash it. If I could get these boys of mine to behave a little better and be more responsible so I could focus on trying to do some work from home for extra money things would be a little different. Trying to focus on anything with these 2 seems impossible still though lol.

I’m feeling a little bad that it has been a week since I posted. Lots of posting ideas swirling around, but it seems the only time I have time to sit and put those ideas down are when I’m struck with one of my headaches. And well, once the headaches hit there’s no way putting thoughts together is going to work out all that well LOL.

I have just a week and a half until my family is getting together for our Christmas so I’ve been busy finishing the homemade gifts for my nephews and niece. Now I’m planning out my cooking and baking for next week and having problems focusing. I need it planned out so Friday I can do the grocery shopping for everything I need. I’m doing dessert for our Christmas(and I can’t possibly do only one thing, can I?), plus I’m adding tins of baked goodies to my nephews and nieces gifts.

I also have to do my Mom and Dad’s gift. It’s always hard to figure out what to get them. They don’t need “stuff”, they have no room for “stuff” and I don’t want to contribute to an already big problem at their place. I’m tired of doing gift cards, it’s a great back-up, but I really didn’t want to have to resort to that. So instead this year they are getting baking and cooking from me! I’m going to make and freeze some meals for them, plus some baked stuff that can be frozen and give them some of my Apple Butter I canned a couple of months ago.

So if I don’t get to blogging much for the next couple of weeks it’s probably because I’m baking up a storm!

Jolene