In loving memory...

A picture of YY and Glycerin

On Sunday, March 18, 2012 at 9:30 PM our loving Glycerin was layed to rest.  Our adoring kitty wasn't a year old yet, but what short of a life she had was great.  M and I both miss her.  Sometimes I catch myself about to call "Here kitty, kitty, kitty...," or trying to keep her from coming inside the house when I open the front door.  Then I remember, Glycerin is no longer here.  I miss her greeting me when I come home from work or anywhere else; she used to jump on the hood of my car as soon as I got parked.

Even Nitro misses her, which surprises me a bit.  He sniffs around the porch looking for her so that he can "attack" her, in a playful manner (Glycerin always just hissed at him and swiped his nose).  Since she died, he usually has a pan partially full of food when we feed him.

M and I decided to make a cross for where she is buried at.  The electric company recently sawed down part of a tree next to our property line, and all of the limbs are still lying in the ditch next to the field, so we used a couple of limbs and wire to make a cross.  I would like to make something to hang on the cross with her name on it.

New Discovery

Thanks to Pinterest, I just found My Fridge Food.  You can enter what food you have, and the website will give you recipe ideas that use the food you already have on had.  That's pretty cool!

Rice Exploration

I have a great cookbook (previously mentioned) full of low cost recipes.  I love it!  However, it doesn't have very many recipes that call for rice in it.  I've decided to use rice in my cooking as much as possible right now because well... lets face it, rice is cheap cheap cheap!  I'm going for what's cheap right now.  Rice can also be filling, and M of course made the mistake of telling me how much he likes rice! lol  I have had a bag of unopened rice in our cupboard since we got married; it is gone now, and I just bought a 10 pound bag of generic brand white rice for $6.09.  That is $.609 per pound of rice I use (cheap cheap cheap).  I also like to have leftovers.  We eat a lot of leftovers.  I take them to work a lot, which is great because eating PB&J and balogna with cheese sandwiches over and over and over again without any break gets old fast!  Here are the things that I've made so far with rice (and some without).

Rice casserole:  I actually haven't made this yet, but I had it a lot growing up.  It is just lasagna, but you replace the noodles with rice.  Also, my mom also used square cheese on top and parsley.  Good stuff!

Cheesey potato soup: I just kinda make it up as I go, so each time it is different.  In a nutshell it includes, potatoes cubed, chicken broth, cheddar cheese soup, cream of potato soup, American cheese cubed and melted, herbs and spices (oregano, basil, rosemary, or whatever else I decide to add), vegetables (this time I used sliced carrots and a little broccoli), and rice.  I sometimes add bacon (you could do ham too), but I don't like how the bacon tastes warmed back up in the microwave with this soup.  This was the first rice thing I made, and I forgot to follow all of the directions for cooking rice... it was interesting to say the least.  I made A LOT on purpose so that I could have some to take to work for my dinner, and I froze the rest for later.

Breakfast stovetop casserole: I usually make one package of frozen hasbrowns (cooked first), sausage (has to be J.D. brand, orginal, browned), 5 eggs (scrambled with some dry milk), cheedar cheese, and mozzerella cheese.  This time, I replaced the hashbrowns with rice, used bacon grease that we started saving to mix it all together in the skillet (usually I use margarine/butter), and for something a little different I cooked a few strips of bacon and crumbled them.  The result was tasty and filling.  We had plenty of leftovers for me to take to work for my dinner.

Rice and egg casserole: This is a layer of rice, with 6 eggs (scrambled without milk), a few potatoes cubed (cook on the stove in olive oil for a few minutes until they just start to soften before putting in the casserole), sausage (browned), cheddar cheese, and mozzerella cheese.  I had about 1/4 pound of already cooked sausage in the freezer that we have pulled out on occasion for pizza, so I just used that.  The results were tasty!  They only thing I would do differently is either use a smaller pan with a little less rice OR use more eggs.  [pictures]

Tacos: When I cook taco meat, I typcially cook two pounds at a time.  What is left gets stuck in the freezer, and we pull it out now and then for fast tacos (saves us lots of time so we can spend a little more time together that evening).  This time, I made two cupse of rice (with 4 cups of water) and mixed most of it into the meat.  That doubled the mount of meat I had.  As a note for us picky eaters that don't eat enough protein, I think I ended up eating more meat than I normally would without the rice mixed in because I put way more of the meat mixture on my taco than I do without the rice.

Meatloaf: A single friend of ours who, I guess you could say, works "over the road" eats at our house a lot rather than going to the grocery store; with one person in the house and him being gone so much the food spoils quickly.  Anyways, one night I made meatloaf for the three of us.  I decided to use the recipe in the Dining on a Dime cookbook, but I made it my own a little bit.  I have to put sausage (J.D. brand) in my meatloaf because meatloaf without sausage just doesn't taste as good.  I ended up putting 2 lbs. of hamburger, 1 lb. of sausage, and about 2 cups (before cooking) of rice in my meatloaf.  I still used a little oatmeal to hold it together.  I had never used oatmeal in meatloaf before; I usually use bread crumbs or cracker crumbs.  Needless to say, it was tasty.  Technically, I made meatballs, and I ended up with 12 very large ones.



Wondering what to do with leftover rice?  Put a little milk, butter, cinnamon, and sugar in with it and warm it up.  I've had that for dinner at work a couple times too.

I've also been looking for new grilled cheese ideas on Pinterest and AllRecipes.com.  Thanks to this website I the idea to do a breakfast grilled cheese sandwich.  I scrambled some eggs and cooked some bacon first.  For the sandwiches, I used a square slice of cheese for each slice of bread and squeezed the eggs and crumbled bacon between the bread and cheese.  YUM!

When all else fails though and we don't know what to make, we made fried egg sandwiches, egg hole in the bread fried, or pizza.  We've started to make homemade crust using the recipe in the "Cooking on a Dime" cookbook.

Feel free to share your rice recipes or frugal recipes!

It's a Keeper

M saw a picture of the Chocolate Chip Swirl Cake on the boxes of cake mixes, and said, "I want you to make this for me sometime."  One thing you have to understand about M, he doesn't eat sweet stuff very often.  When I make cake or something, if he eats any of it he only eats one piece.  Moving on... I recently made his Chocolate Chip Swirl Cake (www.bettycrocker.com), but I of course had to put my own spin on it for a few reasons 1) it's what I do and 2) lack of resources.  Below is what I did different than the recipe as well as a picture of the cake, not the one I made though because well... just keep reading and you'll find out why.

1. I had an open bag of generic chocolate chips with just a few left.  I have no idea how much was left, but I just dumped all of it into the batter.
2. I used vanilla cake mix rather than white, and I added my special ingredients that I always use when baking from a mix.
3. Rather than reserving some batter and mixing the chocolate ice cream syrup into that, I just drizzled the syrup on top and swirled it in with a butter knife.
4. I got the GENIUS idea to swirl caramel syrup into the batter as well.  I'm not a big chocolate fan, but if I am going to eatch chocolate I love love love to have caramel with it.
5. That gave me another idea... why not make caramel frosting to put on top?  I was going to do buttercream because lets face it, in my world can frosting isn't real frosting; the only time I use it is when I make my Oreo cake (maybe I'll tell you about that sometime).  So I make caramel buttercream frosting (http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/butterscotch-caramel-buttercream-frosting-10000001879940/ - thanks Pinterest!)
6. For the frosting, I learned to ignore the recipe a little and cream the butter by itself first so that it wouldn't be chunky.
7. I love love love caramel, so I just poured in the caramel syrup until I reached the desired caramel flavor I was looking for.
8. To top off the frosting, after I spread the frosting on I drizzled chocolate syrup on top (as previously mentioned I didn't have chocolate chips left for the frosting).  I then proceded to swirl the syrup in with a knife (don't do that, just leave it as it is).

The results were yummy, yummy, yummy!  It was moist, not too much chocolate (my opinion), and the frosting was perfect.  The chocolate chips all settled to the bottom, so I think I will try mini chocolate chips next time; I may even try chocolate sprinkles.

Why didn't I post the picture of my own cake?  Well you see... we shared our cake with some friends.  As we left their house, M was caring the cake pan by the handle on the top of the lid.  For some reason, the handle decided to pop out, which make the pan land lid side down one the floor.  (CAKE DOWN!!!)  No worries though, the cake was not wasted.  It was actually devoured!

Johnny Cash and the Power Rangers

Have you ever played Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" and do "sign language" to the song?  I recently experienced, twice in the same day.  It is a BLAST!  It's not real sign language, you just make up your own movements through the song.  It reminds me of what the Happy Hands Club does in the movie "Napolean Dynamite."  I had fun doing it with a group of people, or maybe I'm just crazy.  Of course, I am easily amused!  Give it a try some time and make a comment about it.

I was asked to make a birthday cake for a 6 year old.  He requested a rainbow cake with something Power Rangers on top.  Well, as fascinated as I am with cake decorating (I hope to get much better), I still have a lot to learn about it, so my skills are very basic.  When it comes to rainbow cake, I LOVE making them!  I have the technique down pretty well; I just need to work on the pop recipe more.  (The pop recipe makes tends to make the cake fall apart easily)  Anyways, the little man got a rainbow cake and cupcakes.  I did the lightning bolt from the logo and surrounded it with "Happy Birthday" like the logo.  His favorite Power Ranger is red, hence the reason the cake is red.  The cupcakes I frosted with the colors of the Power Rangers (NOTE: PRs have changed so much since I was a child, gold is currently one of them not black).  Since I didn't have anything edible that is gold, they told me I could just use black.  The cupcakes dont' have all six colors in the batter, they have two to three colors.  It is hard enough to get three colors in without using too much batter.  FYI the black scribble is the birthday boy's name scratched out.  Happy baking!

Blue, Red, Pink, Black, Yellow, Green Power Rangers cupcakes

A Room With A View

Pantry cupboad to hold YY's books.

This little lamb is great!  It makes four different noises: heart beat, rain, ocean, and whale, and it has a timer.  We use the heart beat at bedtime.

I am apparently on a roll today (as far as posting goes)!  I thought I would share some pictures of YY's room.  We didn't know if we were having a boy or girl, so we wanted a theme that was gender neutral (#1- didn't know the gender, #2- we will eventually have one or two other children sharing that room with YY), fun, and something that would grow with our children.  We went with outerspace!  You will notice a spaceship with a tiny blurred Cat in the Hat.  The planets (which includes Pluto), constellations (labeled until we have them memorized), stars on the dresser, and moons and stars on the ceiling all glow in the dark.

Man on the moon.  I thought about Americana theme as well, so I combined the two themes.

Outerspace just isn't complete without aliens.

Most of the murial.  Yes, until mid-September we had concrete floors in our house.

We changed the color.  In the book it is red and white.

The rest of the murial.

You will see a desk lamp that we use at night if we have to get up with YY.   We make homemade baby wipes.  There are toys, clothes, lotion, soap, etc. in the containers and baskets.  Some are still empty, but I'm sure we will fill them as time goes on.  Since we have a huge shop connected to our house, we move clothes, diapers, etc. into storage in the shop as he grows out of things; I'm currently in process of doing this which is why some things are just out of place.  I still have the baby shower guest book (an outerspace scrapbook page), picture frame, and shadow box to hang.  The piggy bank came from a craft store.  I bought scrapbooking stickers to put YY's name on it, as well as some star stickers.  I use the space under the crib for storing things like current diapers, etc.  Since I had no idea what brand to buy for diapers, I started buying different brands with coupons while I was still pregnant.

FYI I am having issues getting the pictures to format how I want them to and put them where I want to, which is why they aren't in a very organized manner.  Maybe it's just the blogger rather than the blog.  I just thought I would share.  :)

Update

Obviously, a MAJOR update is needed.

First, Gossamer/Cousin It now has a gender and a name.  We were blessed with a wonderful baby boy at the beginning of 2012, YY.  I dreamed I would have a big, hairy, chunky baby, and that is exactly what I got; I just didn't imagine a baby as big as he was.  He has his daddy's handsome (that's not a biased opinion) looks, and the only two things YY has that I had as a baby was a full head of dark hair and chunky cheeks.  Oh, let us not forget that I was a 9 lb. 4 oz. baby with a 15.75 in. head, and YY was 10 lb. 4 oz. with a 15 in. head.  He was born after my due date 21 lbs. with him, if you can believe it, but when we finally got home from the hospital I was actually 10 lbs. less then than what I weighed right before I got pregnant.  And like the other times I have lost weight in the passed, I gained it all back, and I've always gained the lost weight plus more; hopefully that doesn't happen this time, but if it does, it won't be the end of the world because I'm happy just the way that I am.  That's all that matters.

The back of YY's head.  Look at all that hair!  He was a little stuck, so he had to be vacuumed out in a hurry, hence the sore.



Look at his adorable little big footies with our wedding rings.  His feet were so big that they barely fit on the stickers that the hospital put his footprints on.



The evening after his birth, YY was diagnosed with sepsis and took a helicopter ride to a WONDERFUL hospital.  All I will say about that who scary experience is that we spent a week with a group of wonderful doctors and nurses; we are so grateful to them all.  We thank God that he is now healthy and weighs over 14 lbs. now.  Apparently it is common for babies to get sepsis (infection in the blood that can lead to many other problems if not caught in time), but it was something I've never heard of until he was diagnosed.  Anyways, we are VERY happy to have him home; it was hard to leave his side in the hospital when we went out for food or to go to sleep.

It's amazing, being a parent.  All I think about is YY, and what I feel is best for him.  I love him so much, and I can't help but kiss his chunky little cheekies all the time.  Right now, he LOVES to snuggle with his mommy.  I wish that he will always want to snuggle with me.  I don't want him snuggling with any other girls (exceptions to the rule: grandmas, aunts, older and new baby cousins), which is why he's not allowed to date until he's at least 50 years old.  I know... that's not going to happen.  A mommy can dream though, can't she?

I bought him to little outfits last week, the first clothes I've even bought for him.  He is already wearing 6 month clothes!  Anyways, one of the outfits I bought him was a red onesie with a pair of blue and white striped overalls.  If you grew up in a rural community, you know exactly what I'm talking about, but if you didn't, below you will find a picture.  They are the cutest things ever.  I told my dad that he needs to take YY and me to the sale barn with him.  The sale barn is full of old farmers with blue and white striped overalls, not to mention they make very tasty food!

YY in his overalls.  Yes, I cropped out his face.

Moving on to non-baby related stuff....

I believe I have not told you about our cat, our outdoor only cat.  We brought home a four week old male kitten ("my cat") in June.  He came from a farm; the farm that had the chickens we bought (Yes, we have chickens, but that is a whole post in itself that will have to be disussed later).  I wanted a name that went with the dogs name (in case you've forgotten, his name is Nitro).  After some thinking, we decided to name him Glycerin.  Very fitting, right?  Glycerin is an all black cat with just a few (we're talking 5 or 6) white hair on his neck, head, and belly.  He is a beautiful cat.  I have to tell you this, M hates cats.  However, he loves Glycerin, even though M will never admit it.  Glycerin is part parrot, dog, cat, and lion.  As a kitten, anytime somebody pulled into the driveway he would hunch down in the grass to hide and pounce out at your toes like a lion.  He sits on M's shoulder while he walks around outside or in the shop to do stuff, just like a parrot.  He is a great mouser, like every cat should be.  He always loves to ride in the vehicle, like a dog.  We like to take little drives together as a family when it is nice outside.  Nitro will ride in the back of the pick up, and Glycerin will ride on the dashboard; that his his preferred spot.  M won't admit it, but when Glycerin does die some day he will cry like a little baby, just as much as me.  This is the kicker... In January we took Glycerin to the vet to be neutered; I believe it was a Wednesday.  Thursday morning, I got a phone call from one of the gals that works there (my former 4-H leader).  She asked me if anybody had called me the afternoon before.  I told her they had not.  She replied, "Well, Glycerin is a girl.  The vet opened her up and said, 'This cat has ovaries!'"  Moral of the story: even though you have checked the gender of cat's a million times, you could be wrong.  In my defense, we got her at about four weeks of age, M thought she was a boy too, and neither of us payed any attention after that. 
My oldest sister got a new cookbook a while back, and recently, I spent a brief amount of time looking through it.  Well, I fell in love with it and had to find one for myself.  The cookbook is called Dining on a Dime by Tawra Kellam and Jill Cooper.  They have a website called Living on a Dime.  The cookbook can be ordered there, or you can buy a used one cheaper somewhere else like I did.  If you are trying to save money, this is the book for you!  It doesn't have just recipes in it.  There are things like homemade baby wipes, homemade laundry detergant, mixes that can go in a jar, cleaning tips and strategies, and so much more.

Speaking of cleaning, baking soda rocks my world!  (Something else my big sis showed me.)  So far I have used it to clean my really dirty pans while doing the dishes, and it is great for cleaning on the stove top.  I love to cook and bake, but I tend to make a VERY big mess on the stove when I do; M is good at that too. The baking soda does wonders for cleaning the grease and goop that is stuck to the stove off.  What other uses have you found for baking soda, besides baking?

I must add one more update to my update.  I have apprently been hiding in a hole; I guess that's what happens when you are on maternity leave and hardly go anywhere.  Until my oldest sister told me about Pinterest a couple weeks ago, I had never even heard of it.  Well, now I am on it all the time.  I love all the ideas I find, especially the ideas for cakes and saving space.  I find it way more interesting and useful than Facebook, with the exception of the Facebook page for my lil home baking business.  Needless to say, I am in love with Pinterest, and M can blame my sig bister (my family's weird way of saying "big sister") for that.

8 1/2 Weeks and Counting

Well, there are 8 1/2 weeks until Christmas, which means there are 8 1/2 weeks until our little bundle of joy (our nicknames: Gossamer and Cousin It) is scheduled to arrive.  My oldest sister doesn't like to be reminded of how much time she has to get ready for Christmas.  I find that amusing, so being the ornery little sister that I am I never let her forget how much time is left.

Between my job, becoming a mommy, and publishing my in home baking business that I sort of started last winter (before I found a job), I will always have something to keep me on my toes.  That's okay though because I am up for the challenge!  I like my job (it seems that not everybody can say that about their job), I love my unborn baby, and I love baking!

Speaking of Christmas... have you started with your gift list yet?  I started months ago.  I am feeling very challenged because we are trying to make all of our gifts or give people something we already have that we no longer want/need.  We're poor, homemade gifts are more personable, and well... I just love making stuff.  I am even making a Christmas present for Gossamer, just in case he/she (we aren't finding out the gender) arrives by Christmas.  I sure hope Santa has something planned, just in case.  I made Gossamer a book; I made one for a niece a couple years ago on the computer, but by the time I figured up all my costs in the end it was $60.  This time, I am hand drawing everything myself, which is something I'm not very good at.  This book has the alphabet, colors, numbers, and a few of the basic shapes.  I put them in plastic sheet covers, which I already had from college, and put them in a three-ring binder, which I also already had from college.  I even colored in all of the pictures with crayons.  You can see pictures of a few pages below (notice that they aren't just any kind of mice, they're blind ones).  I thought it was important to have things that our child would be able to relate to, such as fairytales, things they'll see on the farm, songs we'll listen to, etc.

The Bun In Our Oven

Yep, we got a bun in the oven!  We found out on one holiday (Easter) and it's due on another holiday (Christmas Eve).  Interesting... we found out on the day Christ rose and we're due almost on the day Christ was born.

Rainbow Cake

Last Friday I (none other than A) made a VERY yummy (and pretty) cake to share with my family during our Memorial Day weekend camping extravaganda down by the farm pond.  I just HAD TO share it with you all.  I used a blog (http://www.omnomicon.com/rainbowcake) and a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgGqPg4Ca4w) to make my first ever rainbow cake.  I used the recipe on the blog and the pouring technique in the video.


Picture Descriptions:
Picture #1  The only two ingrediants (2 boxes of cake mix and 24 oz. of clear pop) in the cake PLUS my two special ingredients (vanilla extract and a little applesauce).  You can do the pop thing with any white cake recipe, apparently, and just bake it according to the directions on the box/recipe
#2 What happens when you put pop and cake mix together.
#3 The six pretty colors
#4 Just before going into the oven
#5 Halfway baked
#6 Done baking and cooling down
#7 My hideous frosted cake (24 oz. generic Cool Whip and two small boxes of vanilla pudding, with a little milk).  I was worried that I wasn't going to have enough (I used a lot to hold the brittle cake together) so I mixed more in that I had on hand.
#8 After the cake had been cut into

Just some notes

This was a YUMMY cake!  It had FANTASTIC flavor; it just didn't turn out very pretty is all.  I think this recipe (the pop thing) would work better as a single layer cake.  I have made several layered cakes, but I have never had so much trouble before.  I had a request from our 4 1/2 year old nephew (who doesn't really care for sweet stuff) and our 2 1/2 year old neice for a rainbow cake.  My oldest sister is even trying to think of an excuse to have one.  My entire family loved it, despite how bad it went together.  M isn't big on sweet stuff, although he eats them now and then, but even he loved it too.  Needless to say it was a big Memorial Day weekend campout hit!

I must say this.  I have been looking for a good homemade white cake recipe for a long time and haven't found one.  I take that back... I found a good one once, but the recipe got lost.  This is really good though!

Although it got put together really badly, my dear friend C told me something very improtant once, "Never apologize for anything that comes out of your kitchen."  I live by that now.