11/17/12 - Spicy Chicken Rigatoni

Today was a pretty long day. The girls were SO crabby this morning. All they did was whine about everything, fight over everything and just bug each other nonstop. Luckily for me, Christian had to deal with most of it while I tackled cleaning the kitchen and dining room. Happy to have that task done and over well before Thanksgiving (for a change).

We finally got ready and took a trip to the grocery store to get out of the house for a little bit. We had to take advantage of the great turkey coupons – so we picked up our Turkey, some other miscellaneous Thanksgiving ingredients that I knew we needed off the top of my head, picked up some lunch and made our way home. We ate and the girls went down for their naps. THANK GOD, nice LONG naps.

I finished cleaning the kitchen while they napped and got in some R&R time. Christian did some cleaning out in the garage and then got ready to head out for the night before the girls got up. We had dinner and he was off to a going away party for a co-worker. The girls and I relaxed, watched a movie, and bedtime came up on us fast. I cuddled into bed with the computer and DVR and had a quiet night to myself. My little Saturday ritual really, LOL.

Tonight’s dinner was one I’ve been dying to make! It was a Spicy Chicken Rigatoni – basically a mock of our favorite Buca Di Beppo meal. SO GOOD!

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup oil
• ½ tbsp crushed red pepper
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp chopped garlic
• 6 oz chicken, sliced
• ¾ cup. Marinara sauce
• ½ cup Alfredo sauce
•             (or, like us, you can use 1½ cups of a Rosa Sauce)
• 2 tsp butter
• ¼ cup peas
• 1 lb Rigatoni pasta, cooked according to package directions

Sides:

• Garlic Bread
• Leftover Green Beans

Directions:

1. In a sauté pan, heat oil over medium heat. Add crushed red pepper, salt, black pepper and garlic and sauté just long enough for garlic to caramelize and red pepper to release flavor into the oil. Add sliced chicken and sauté briefly to coat in spices and garlic.
2. Add Marinara Sauce first and then Alfredo Sauce and bring to a simmer. Cook until sauce thickens slightly and chicken has reached an internal temperature of 165°. Turn off flame, add butter and peas and incorporate into sauce.
3. Drop cooked pasta in boiling water for 3 seconds. Let drain for 15 seconds. Toss with the sauce. Place pasta and sauce in pasta bowl, reserving the majority of the chicken to be placed on top of the pasta. Using a rubber spatula, scrape any remaining sauce from the pan to the pasta. Garnish with crushed red pepper and serve.

11/16/12

Well, I was all excited for my flex day. Especially after my late night at the movies. I was really holding out hope the girls would sleep in. But, no. Christian was SO noisy this morning getting ready for work, he woke all of us up. I was so upset. I mean, I know they weren’t going to sleep the day away, but still – we didn’t need to get up before the sun came up on our day off! We definitely need to talk about etiquette on my days off…

The day was pretty low key really. The girls and I just hung out, and didn’t do much of anything. Breakfast, play, lunch, naps. That about sums it up.

I did spend some time looking at places to have Olivia’s birthday party this year. We did the jump house place last year, so I think we’ll do an indoor playground this year for something a little different. I looked around at a few around the cities, and the best deal seems to be Edinborough, where we went to the Halloween party. So, I just need to put together our list, figure out a time and contact them. It may take a while though… I’m not super motivated quite yet.

Christian arrived home shortly after the girls woke up. He brought home take out for dinner – Happy Meals for the girls, Thai for us. YUM, YUM! We ate and did the usual evening routine.

Once the girls were in bed, Christian and I started watching the show “Dexter”. My dad has been giving us the seasons to watch, and I hear great things about it, but we’ve just never gotten around to starting it. So, tonight, we finally popped in the first season. So far, so good – I think we’ll really like it!

It got a little windy overnight, and must have woke Olivia up, because she came into the room and wanted to sleep in our bed. Sounds good to me, I like toddler cuddles all night long!

11/15/12

So, as I arrived to work today, I was very perplexed. I seriously get to work 15 minutes late EVERY day. It does not matter what time I get up, what time I leave, where I’m dropping the girls off for the day. I am ALWAYS 15 minutes late. Either I oversleep, the girls are putzy, I have to do something/fill something out at school, I need to put gas in the car, there’s an accident along the route, a trooper on the side of the road or just some slow moron in front of me in the left lane. It just never fails, I can leave on time, early, late – 7:15 is still the time I get to my desk. I don’t get it.

At least today is my Friday!

I spent my lunch break today putting together a nice long e-mail to our insurance agent. Our homeowners insurance is set to go up again this year (after I just got it down last year!), Christian doesn’t have a loan on his truck anymore so I want to adjust his coverage, and my life insurance policy is outrageous (because of my heart disease), so I’m putting him to work trying to figure out how to lower our premiums. Also, today was the last day of open enrollment for our insurance at work. My medical and dental stayed the same. I finally added Life Insurance on the kids (it just seems to morbid to think about...) and I’m good to go for the year!

I picked up the girls after work, gave them some leftovers for dinner and hung out for a while. Christian stopped to get a haircut on his way home and then we had dinner. Once Amelia was down for the night, I was off on a date night with the BFF. Tonight we were off to see the new (last) Twilight movie! They actually offered a 10:00 showing this year, which is much better than trying to stay up until midnight! And, it’s a good thing I ordered our tickets ahead of time, because we got there 2 hours early and it was already sold out! There was a line forming, but we were told that was for the midnight showing and could just head in. We thought it was strange, but we weren’t complaining. The ticket handler pointed us to our theater…which was dim and empty. We grabbed the best seats in the house, and chatted away. Eventually another employee came in and asked us to step into the hallway while he ran the film through to make sure everything was working. When he let us back in, we asked if we were actually supposed to be in there. He informed us that no, we WERE supposed to be in line, but he let us stay! So, instead of sitting in the loud, crowded, full, uncomfortable hallway with everybody else, we had our nice, quiet, plush seats to relax in! Seriously awesome!

The movie was SO GOOD! Kari read all the books and even she thought the movie was pretty amazing. It really had one of the best twists I’ve ever seen in a movie – even the people that read the books didn’t see it coming (but still thought it fit fine with the books). I can’t wait to see it again when it comes out on DVD!

I dropped Kari off after the movie, and watched a show to wind down for bed. I’m definitely going to be tired tomorrow! You only live once, right?!?

Here is a shot I got of Amelia before I left tonight. Again, no clothes. Do you see a pattern here?

11/13/12 & 11/14/12 - Roasted Potatoes & Lemon Green Beans / Taco Bake

Well, I’m way behind on my blog, and honestly have no idea what happened these days. There is nothing on my schedule at work, nothing on our home schedule. No pictures. No facebook updates. It’s like the world stopped turning for two days! Weird. I do know what we ate, because those are the only photos I took, but that’s about it. So, that’s all you get from me for these days.

On Tuesday, we had the breaded pork chops I’ve made a couple times, along with some roasted potatoes and lemon green beans. So, I’ll provide the potatoes and green bean recipes:

Ingredients:

• 4 Potatoes
• Olive Oil
• Salt, Pepper and Preferred Spices
•  
• Lemon Zest
• 1½ tbsp lemon juice
• Salt
• 1 lb Green Beans
• 1½ tbsp. Olive Oil

Directions:

Potatoes

1. Scrub the potatoes and poke holes all around them with a form. Microwave for 5 minutes on each side.
2. Cut into chunks, line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place potato chunks on top. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with your salt, pepper and spices.
3. Bake at 325 for 10 minutes.

Green Beans

1. Clean and trim green beans.
2. In a saucepan of boiling, salted water – boil beans for 10 minutes. Drain, and return to the pan, removed from the heat.
3. Toss with olive oil and lemon juice.
4. Serve, sprinkled with lemon zest.

On Wednesday we had a Taco Bake. By look and sound, it’s nothing spectacular. But, I’m telling you, this was delicious. Christian raved about it, the girls scarfed it down, and I loved it. Super easy, pretty quick and really good:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Ground Beef
• 1 packet Taco Seasoning
• 3 Large Flour Tortillas
• ½ cup Salsa Con Queso
• 1½  cups Shredded Mexican Cheese

Sides:

• Rice-a-Roni
• Pinto Beans, “refried” (mashed)

Directions:

1. Brown the ground beef, and mix in the taco seasoning
2. Once heated through, remove from heat and mix in the salsa con queso.
3. Spray an 8” round baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Layer the bottom of the pan with a tortilla. Add 1/3 of the meat mixture, then 1/3 of the cheese. Repeat layers two more times.
4. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.
5. Allow to cool for a few minutes, slice and serve. We dressed ours up with some sour cream, lettuce and tomatoes.

11/12/12

Today I was off for Veteran’s Day. Unlike most Holiday’s, my mother in law actually still planned on watching the girls…it was very unexpected. Instead, I sent Amelia over to her house, and kept Olivia home with me. I thought they could use some time apart, and Olivia and I could use some time together.

We spent the morning in bed…her watching videos on the iPad, me watching some shows on the DVR (while planning our weekly menu and writing out the grocery list). We finally rolled out of bed, had some breakfast and started our day. We stopped into Walmart to FINALLY pick up some prints from our our family photos that were taken a few months ago. Then, off to Target to do some grocery shopping. We also picked up some snow boots for Olivia – they were on sale, and since they both fit in their snow pants and coats from last year, and Amelia can wear Olivia’s old boots, that’s all we needed! YES!

Today, Olivia wanted to have hair like mommy, so I braided it just like mine…

Olivia went down for a nap when we arrived home, and I had grand plans. Finish cleaning the basement and get back on the workout train. Well…my warm bed and tired body won out, and I skipped those plans all together. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow!

I did finally drag myself out of bed and made dinner – meatloaf, stuffing and broccoli – YUMMO! I also made my first ever Banana Chocolate Chip Bread! I actually had all of the ingredients, and some bananas that needed to be used, so I took a shot. It was SUPER tasty, not bad for my first try! Christian and Amelia arrived home just in time for dinner, and we sliced up the bread for dessert. In the end, it was a pretty perfect day. Definitely not ready to head back to work tomorrow. At least it’s only for 3 days – I think I can handle that…

One last update - Rico goes in for his one month follow up this weekend. I'm nervous, but I think we’re going to get great news. He's up to 1.5 (of 2) cans of wet food a day, he appears to be going to the bathroom, he's back to his crazy antics, driving us nuts and he's just as playful as ever (seen in the picture below, attacking the evil string that hangs from the ironing board). He's SUPER attached to me, and LOVES his kennel now, which is cute. Hopefully his test results come back positive this weekend, and we can put it behind us!

11/11/12 - Chicken Noodle Soup

Sunday. Lovely Sunday. Even better since tomorrow is a work holiday! I love it when Sunday is not really Sunday!

We spent the morning cleaning, doing laundry – the usual Sunday chores. The girls spent the morning chasing each other around and driving each other crazy – again, the usual. Christian and I settled in to watch the Vikings beat the Lions – YAHOO – while the girls napped. A fairly relaxing Saturday all around.

After naps, Olivia’s BFF Bella and her family came over for a play date and dinner. We used some leftover carnitas from earlier this week to make some taquitos. YUM, YUM, YUM. I also spent the day making Chicken Noodle Soup in the crockpot – the kids ate that. Also very YUM.

Once our friends went home, we just spent the evening relaxing. Christian has to work tomorrow, so it was a pretty early night for us. A good “end” to the weekend – for some of us anyway!

Here is a shot I got of the girls today - they crack me up. Seriously, I'm not sure why we even buy them clothes...

I didn’t get a picture of the end product, but here are the chicken noodle soup ingredients and directions. I didn’t even think to document the taquitos. This is actually a freezer meal (which, I didn’t do), so I’ll provide those instructions.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb cooked chicken, cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 cups sliced Carrots
• 2 ribs chopped Celery
• 2-3 minced Garlic Cloves
• 1 Bay Leaf
• 1 handful of chopped Fresh Parsley
• ½ tsp Basil
• 6 cups water
• 6 chicken bouillon cubes
• 1 14oz can of Evaporated Milk
• 1 small package of Kluski Noodles (I used egg noodles)

Directions:

1. Combine ingredients through the basil in a freezer-safe container or gallon-sized Ziploc bag. Add chicken bouillon cubes and 2 cups of water, and freeze.
2. When ready to cook, place the contents of the bag in a slow cooker. Add remaining 4 cups of water and cook on high for 6-7 hours, or low for 8-10 hours, until the carrots are tender.
3. Add the evaporated milk and turn the slow cooker to high. Add the noodles and cook for an additional 30-60 minutes, until the noodles are tender.