For the love of cooking...

I've been doing lots of cooking over the last few weeks, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite dishes/recipes that I've tried out recently...

First of all, I have a new favorite cookbook and many of my new recipes have come from that.  It's "My Mama Made That"...if you don't have it and enjoy cooking, I'd highly recommend it.  In fact, its so great I ended up getting it for my mom for Christmas.  So here we go...

First up, I made "Sunday Soup" and a BLT salad wedge (both out of the cookbook)...

 BLT Salad: 2 Tbsp mustard, 2 Tbsp honey, 1 Tbsp white vinegar, 1/4c mayo, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2c EVOO, pepper to taste, head of iceberg lettuce, 6 slices (crisp-cooked and crumbled) bacon, 2 tomatoes (chopped)
Whisk the mustard, honey, vinegar, mayo, and nutmeg together; add EVOO in a fine stream, whisking constantly. Season with pepper. Cut lettuce in wedges, top with bacon and tomatoes (we added onions b/c we love onions). Drizzle with generous amt of dressing.  Delicious!

Sunday Soup: 1-2 lbs boneless chicken breasts, 4 or 5 russet potatoes (diced), 1 can ch. broth, 1/4tsp basil, 2 Tbsp butter, 1/4 tsp thyme, 1 bay leaf, 2 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, tabasco sauce to taste (we use texas pete), 1 1/2 lb gr. beef (cooked and drained), 6 slices bacon (crisp-cooked and crumbled), 1 lg onion (chopped), 2 Tbsp EVOO, 2 c frozen shoe peg corn, 2 c frozen butter beans, 2 cans diced tomatoes, 1 can cut gr. beans, 3/4 c ketchup
Place chicken in stockpot, boil until cooked through; remove chicken and shred (reserve stock for soup). Add potatoes and ch. broth.  Add additional water if needed to cover.  Cook for about 10 min. Add butter, seasonings, and hot sauce.  Reduce heat to a simmer; add gr. beef, chicken and bacon. Saute the onion in EVOO; stir into soup.  Add veggies and ketchup.  Return to boil and reduce heat.  Simmer until serving, stir frequently.
We also added some chili powder because we like spicy.  It's a very delicious and hearty soup!

Next up, Paula Deen's Lava Cake:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/paulas-volcano-cake-recipe/index.html

 Also, made this delicious Sticky Bun, as a gift to some friends over the holidays:

Oh yeah, and can't forget:

Yummy...pureed peas!  Haha...Ali has moved onto some solids and I'm making her food.  It's fun to make and REALLY fun to watch her try new things!  In addition to peas, I've made carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and zucchini!  So far, the only thing she doesn't like is peas...and she hates them!

Christmas 2011

Another Christmas post...this is what happens when you're a month behind on blogging!  :)

It really crept up on us!  Maybe it's because we have a baby and things are always crazy around here, but before we knew it, Thanksgiving was here and gone and it was time to prepare for the next holiday! Although it crept on us, it was still a wonderful Christmas, with lots of time spent with family and friends.  So here's a quick recap...

We kick-started the Christmas festivities with our annual Christmas dinner with the Ramsey family. Always a fun tradition and we did an Italian themed meal...yummy!

We did Christmas early with Brandon's mom's side of the family and instead of gifts this year we did a treat exchange.  It was really fun...we all baked things and did a dirty santa with the delicious goodies.  We ended up with some chocolates and mint brownies...yum.  We also did an early Christmas gathering with the Whitehearts and the Suttons.  This was the first annual and the 3 little girls exchanged gifts and for the adults, we did an ornament exchange.  It was so fun to see the little girls interact and "play" with one another and I know as years go on, it'll be more fun, as they really start "playing".

Now finally onto Christmas Eve...we went to my grandma's house to celebrate with my dad's whole side of the family for a late lunch.  We had a taste of some separation anxiety with Ali...she only wanted me or Brandon, which is difficult considering everyone wanted to be able to hold her.  We gave people as much of a chance as possible, but it wasn't as much as normal.  After that, we ran home to let the pups out and then headed to Brandon's parent's house.  This is a tradition that we started a few years ago...we always go over there for dinner and drinks and a nice quiet evening.  Its just the 4 of us (well 5 now), but it's always lots of fun.

On Christmas morning, we got up early that morning and did gifts with Ali and the two of us and the pups.  We definitely had way more fun than Ali did...she would have been just as happy with us handing her wrapping paper and tissue paper.  Haha.  After enjoying our morning at home, we went back to Brandon's parent's to do Christmas with the whole family.  We had a delicious brunch and did gifts and were entertained by miss Emma...soooo adorable!

Opening gifts Christmas morning with Miss Ali!

Emma was soooo entertained by Ali's new toy!

Christmas dinner is always spent at my parent's house with my family and the Eskews.  We do gifts and then a traditional Christmas dinner meal.  This year things were a little tough, because by the time we got to mom and dad's, Ali was OVER all the Christmas stuff.  She pretty much cried and only let Brandon and I hold her (more separation anxiety) until we just finally laid her down to go to sleep early.  After that, it was onto fun and excitement and that's really all I can say the rest of that evening.  Haha!  The best way to describe it is "my family is CRAZY". 

And only two more Christmas gatherings to go...on the day after Christmas, we did Christmas with all the James' over at the Claytor's house.  This was a yummy meal complete with a turducken and delicious sides, followed by gifts.  We made this an early evening, because quite frankly, the whole family (especially poor, little Ali) was exhausted.  And once things settled down, later in the week, we had the Whitehearts over for dinner to start our annual James-Whiteheart Christmas.  We want our kids to grow up knowing this tradition with some of our best friends.  I've grown up doing Christmas with the Ramseys and its one of my favorite traditions and we want that for Ali and Tinsley and future children! 

Christmas Cheer

Holy cow, I can't even believe that Christmas has already come and gone!  To look in my house right now, you'd never know that Christmas has even come yet...well with the exception of all of Ali's new toys ALL over the living room!  But since I haven't written a post in quite some time, let me go back and recap decorations and prepping for Christmas...so here we go!

So last time I wrote about Christmas, I shared that I had been decorating for a week and still wasn't done and that I had received a dark angel stocking for Ali...update: I finally finished decorating and Ali's correct stocking finally arrived!  :)

We also have had several special ornaments this year...all of them for Ali (shocking)!  :)  Here's our collection of first Christmas ornaments:

This is the ornament that Brandon and I got her.

This one is special because it's Ali's first craft...my mom assisted Ali in using her fingerprints to decorate it and wrote what she wanted to say.  Haha!

back side of the homemade ornament

 Wrapping gifts is always interesting, because we very frequently have to wrap and re-wrap gifts thanks to our 4 animals that feel that every gift is for them...this year Ali helped me to wrap gifts/made a bigger mess of wrapping stuff by throwing it everywhere and trying to eat paper...and I only had to re-wrap 3 gifts, which is pretty good compared to past years.  At one point, Fonzie was walking through the house with a Dicks Sporting Goods gift card...so my Uncle David got a gift card with teeth marks!  Here's my little lovebug helping me "wrap gifts":

And lastly, a true story of Christmas cheer...
As you all know, I'm a school social worker and one of the hardest parts of my job occurs right before Thanksgiving when families start calling asking for resources that can help provide Christmas for their children.  There are very few resources out there and the ones that are available typically have deadlines.  Well I thought that I had all my families taken care of, but the week before Thanksgiving I got a phone call from a single mother of several children who had moved in with her cousin (a single mother of 1).  Due to circumstances out of their control, they had missed all the deadlines, so I unfortunately had to tell them that there was nothing left that I could do...which completely bothered me for days...
One afternoon (after I had to make that phone call to that mother) I was out walking Ali on my street, my neighbor walked down to the edge of her driveway and in our conversation she stated: "you're a social worker, right?...well my business would really like to sponsor a family for Christmas...do you think you could find us a family?"  Seriously?!?  I was soooo excited and I got to make the phone call to this mother to get all of the children's sizes and wish lists, etc...
The Thursday before Christmas, I got the joy of delivering this huge car load of stuff to this family...you should have seen their faces and the tears from the mother's eyes!  That was my true Christmas cheer this year!

The majority of the gifts for the family. In addition to that, I was able to deliver a Christmas dinner that had been donated to them!

Mistletoe 5K

Well, I did it!  I successfully completed my first 5K!  I've been anxious about this race for months now and I've been training for it the last few months, minus my few weeks off due to the toe mishap.  Brandon, Diane, Josh, and myself all decided to sign up for this back in September.  Well let me rephrase that, Diane and I decided to sign-up and we talked the guys into doing it with us.  This was the first 5K for all 4 of us.  Diane and I have been training, but Brandon had only run two training runs and Josh none!  However, all 4 of us did great!  None of us have ever really been runners and I had a goal time in my mind and beat it!  Yay!  Diane and I are currently searching for our next 5K to run...I'm not sure if we'll be able to talk the boys into doing it again.  Here's some pictures from that day:

Diane doing some warm-up stretches, Josh just standing.

Pre-race!

The four of us about to go get ready to run!

Diane and I coming into the finish line together.

Josh making his entrance.  (mom missed Brandon coming into the finish line)

We did it!  Our post-race picture.

My running inspiration!  She's the one that put this crazy idea in my head!

Lessons Learned

Well, the last 6 months have been a learning experience in and of itself...having a baby is nothing but one big learning experience!  Ali has brought about lots of lessons learned, such as don't change her until there is a clean diaper open and ready or else you could have a mess.  Or learning to do pretty much everything one handed, because she is taking up the other hand.  Or dog hair is just going to have to be a part of her life...I could vacuum 5 times a day and it is still going to end up on her or in her mouth.  Or she will be OK sleeping on her tummy, because I can't get up 20 times a night and flip her over, now that she has figured out how to flip herself onto her tummy.  But most of all, she has really emphasized the fact that happiness does not come in material form...it's the people in your life.  That little girl is my heart and soul, but so is her daddy and our wonderful family and friends...and furbabies! 

Now onto some other random lessons learned...

1.  Pampers are not our favorite diapers...we're a huggies family...but here's an example of why.  The other night the three of us were at the mexican restaurant and we were almost done eating.  While we were finishing up dinner, Ali went #2 in the diaper, but since we were only 5 minutes from the house we made the decision that she would be OK until we got home.  So I picked her up and sat her in my lap while we waited on the check and all of the sudden, I feel warm wetness soaking through on my pants.  My face must have changed into a look of horror because Brandon instantly was asking "what's wrong", "whats happening", etc.  I quickly and tearfully (because I'm laughing so hard) explain that I think she just peed on me because the pampers are no longer absorbent!  So Ali and I (with my soaking wet pants) calmly get up and leave to wait on Brandon.  When this pack of pampers is used up, we'll be buying only huggies!  :)

2.  Healthy meals can be just as flavorful as the unhealthy meals!  I've recently been on a cooking healthy kick and been trying out new recipes out of my "Cooking Light" magazine and cookbooks.

My favorite of the healthy meals so far:

Pan-Seared Chicken with Tomato-Olive Relish
I fixed steamed veggies with this and it was delish!

And this one was pretty tasty too!  Pork tenderloin and roasted root vegetables.  Yummy!

3.  And finally...the days of putting up Christmas decorations in one day are over!  Having an amost 6 month old makes it a bit more difficult to get things done.  I've currently been decorating for over a week, but I'm almost done!   Here's a few pictures so far:

 Kitchen coming along...with my favorite decoration...snowflakes hanging from the ceiling!

Little tree in the dining room.

Banister with the homemade bow!  I made that bow after lessons on bow-making from Diane and her mom....pretty proud of myself.

The stockings, minus Ali's.  Funny story...we had to send Ali's first stocking back to Pottery Barn Kids because they sent us the wrong one.  The stockings that we had to pick from were the "snowman", the "reindeer", the "light skin angel", the "dark skin angel", and the "santa".  We picked out a snowman stocking and had it personalized like the rest of the family's, but when it arrived we received the "dark skin angel" stocking!  Hahahaha. And her name was not even right.  They wrote "ALJ", not "Ali" like what we wanted.  So needless to say, the "dark skin angel" has been sent back and the "snowman" is on the way.

 This is the little lovebug that causes me to take over a week to decorate!  But its OK, because she's soooo adorable!  Here she is playing with some of the decorations.

Productivity...What's That???

In the title of my blog, I say "wonderfully blessed by chaos"; here's an example of chaos in our house...

While I was in my staff meeting this morning, I made a mental list of what all I'm going to accomplish today (yeah, I know, I should have been focusing on work, not my list of things to do):
-go for a run
-go to the grocery store
-bake cookies
-decorate the house for Christmas
-do 2 loads of laundry
-start wrapping some gifts
-and play with my little munchkin

After I got home from work this morning (Monday's are my 1/2 day), I did get my run in...3 miles...gearing up for the Mistletoe 5K this weekend (yikes).  And I made it to the grocery store, but after that things sorta fell apart.  I walk into my house and get to deal with this:

And this was only one area of food...it went from one end of the kitchen to the other.  Apparently, the dogs decided they prefer their food all over the floor!

And while I cleaned up dog food, my sweet little munchkin had gone from a happy baby to something like this:

Now, is that a face or what?!?  So in about 2 minutes time, productivity was out the window and chaos had taken over.  Much later in the day I was able to do 1 load of laundry and bake some cookies...and of course, I got in some playtime with little one!  :)  I also got to wrap up my day, listening to my husband tickling Ali and listening to her giggle and squeal in delight...melts my heart!  I'll get to the rest of my "to-do" list when I have another free day (if that ever occurs)...until then I'll just enjoy the chaos, laughter, and love.

Ali's First Thanksgiving!

Yesterday was a busy day in the James house.  We did enjoy a little "downtime" yesterday morning before chaos ensued.  :)  We headed to Brandon's aunt's house for Thanksgiving lunch with his whole side of the family.  There were about 22 of us there...big crowd.  It was lots of fun to see our precious little niece running around playing.  She is getting soooo big!  And fun to see Emma and Ali "playing" together.  I think Emma was doing more playing and Ali watching, but it won't be too long before they can actually play together.  And of course, we ate lots of yummy food and enjoyed some great time with family.  Here's some pictures from the James' side Thanksgiving:

After that meal, we headed off for another meal...yep, 2 huge meals in one day!  We went to my parent's house for dinner with my family and the Eskew family and my Nana.  I was wondering how Ali would do since we were gone all day and there would be no downtime once we left our house that morning, but she was great.  Took a little catnap in the car on the way and was fine until we laid her down at my parent's house for bed.  Such a trooper.  Now, all I'm gonna say about this meal is it was fun and interesting!  My family is legitimately crazy (a fun crazy, but still crazy) and I'm not even gonna expand any further than that, but I have decided that I'm going to have to buy this bib that I saw one day, for Ali...it reads "seriously, are these people really my relatives?".  Perfect for the next family gathering!  But it was a fun, delicious meal with lots of fun family time.  Here's some pics from dinner with Collins' and Eskew's:

Overall, we had a pretty wonderful Thanksgiving and were very thankful to be able to spend it with all of our families!