Things About Me

Things I like to do:
(1) Quilt
(2) Organize
(3) Cook
(4) Sew
(5) Travel
(6) Tour wineries
(7) Clean artifacts
(8) Data Entry
(9) Routine



Things I'm good at
(1) Coming up with creative solutions
(2) Organizing
(3) Making people smile
(4) Making tomato sauce
(5) Sorting
(6) Following patterns
(7) Baking
(8) Traveling
(9) Shopping

Things I'm not good at
(1) Blogging... er...
(2) Taking pictures of things to sell at my Etsy shop
(3) Patience
(4) Sleeping
(5) Following recipes
(6) Math
(7) Packing light
(8) Handwriting
(9) Spelling

Chicken and Cookies Challenge - Week 5

Mr. Wonderful had to work late on Friday and early on Saturday morning. Chicken and cookies had to get pushed back, which turned out to be good... as I was sick on Friday and drained on Saturday from being sick all night on Friday.

Chicken: Bojangles chicken biscuits for breakfast followed by Cracker Barrel fried chicken for dinner (Agenta Great Grandmother's birthday dinner choice)

Cookies: A family friend brought over these cannoli like cookies that tasted like fortune cookies and of course birthday cake.

~Emme

Chicken and Cookies Challenge - Week 4

I was totally excited to try Rachael Ray's Paella Burgers this weekend... then I looked at the instructions and it included crustaceans... though I am usually really excited about partaking in cooked crustaceans prepared by a restaurant or by someone I know has experience making them, I am NOT excited about giving it a try... for I am a germ-a-phobe. I see these bottom feeders for what they really are and if they are not prepared right it could end really badly... REALLY BADLY. Perhaps one day some benevolent soul will teach me how to clean and cook them, but until then... it's not likely to happen.

So in exchange for the Paella Burgers I went to try and make a spicier, heartier burger. I went with turkey sausage, ground chicken and portobello mushrooms. The flavor was there, but the texture was like meatloaf... and I hate the texture of meatloaf. On Saturday I remixed it. I took the leftover uncooked meat mix and slow cooked a beautiful tomato sauce all day. It was incredible sauce.

The cookie: scones. The scones I make are pretty much butter and flour... and chocolate chips. They taste amazing, but the fat content is a bit high and never sits well with me. Everyone else loves them immensely so I had to make another two batches over the weekend and they were gone by Tuesday.

~Emme

Chicken and Cookies Challenge - Week 3

This week was an easy week for me (challenge wise). While going through my Google Reader's backlog of goodies I found out about this great website called No Take Out. Of course I jumped right in and I found Jamie Oliver's Perfect Roast Chicken. Which is supposed to look like this:










 

Of course if you know me I will look at the ingredient list... ignore the things that I know my family will not be too keen on and switch things around to make them more... Emme... dangerous, probably wrong, but super fun in the long run. Also there were 8 people to feed not 4... so this needed some work for us.

Feel free to follow Jamie Oliver's Recipe... it looks pretty good. Of course you could always go for my rendition:

(Mind you... I have no food photographers and used the Droid's camera.)

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs bag of red skinned potatoes (Sam's Club buy)
• 1 bag carrots (or you can realize when it is too late to run to the store that you only have half of a bag and then substitute the missing half with half a bag of baby carrots...)
• 4 onions
• 1 stalk of celery
• 1 bunch mint
• Rosemary, thyme, sage (from spice cabinet)
• 2 lemons
• 2 (4 1/2-5 lb) chickens
• Black pepper and salt (from spice cabinet)
• EVOO
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic from fridge
• I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (spread)

Preparation

1. Realize you have no idea how to roast chicken.
2. Tell everyone you are making roasted chicken so that you don't bail out.
3. Find the largest roasting pan you can... you're going to need it.
4. Preheat the oven to 475F.
5. Convince dog the meal is not for them.
6. Wish you had bought some wine.
7. Fill a large pot 2/3 full with water, add salt and put it over a high heat.
8. Scrub and carrots, celery, and onions (well... just peel the onions).
   
9. Chop vegetables and throw them into the big roasting pan. It's not rocket science just throw them in. Save the greens of the celery for step #12.
   
10. Sprinkle garlic on top.
11.  Have Agent Papa clean the chicken (you're still peeling and chopping). Save the necks and livers and shove them back into the chickens after removing the plastic bags food lion put them into. 
12. Shove in the greens part of the celery you saved.
13. Stab the lemons all over with a fork or a knife and shove them in to plug the holes.
14. Drizzle veggies with EVOO.
15. Place chicken on top of veggies.
16. Drizzle with some more EVOO.
17. Realize you did not put the spices into the chicken... *whoops*
18. Sprinkle sage, rosemary, and thyme on top of chicken.
19. Wonder what you're supposed to do with the mint and why you have a pot of boiling water...
20. Place some mint springs on top of the chicken... make sure everyone notices how you used the mint.
21. Have Mr. Wonderful put the roasting pan into the oven... it's dangerous and heavy... 
22. Take care of burns.
23. Turn heat of oven down to 400F immediately after putting it in because Jamie Oliver said to.
24. He says it's going to be 1 hour and 20 minutes... get ready for at least 4 hours.
25. Realize the water is for the potatoes... turn off the heat.
26. Clean potatoes and cut into small chunks for quicker cooking... you have the time... but... meh... place the potatoes off to the side in a bowl of cold water.
27. Remember you have a huge bunch of mint and no wine... make mint tea.
28. About 2 hours in check the chicken. Notice how it is still not done but the veggies are starting to stick to the bottom... picky eaters don't like burned in this house so I threw in a can of chicken stock. Put chicken back in oven.
29. Set table.
30. Boil the potatoes, drain when tender and place butter on top followed by pepper and salt.
31. Realize the mint was supposed to go on the potatoes.
32. Try to figure out why you would want mint on potatoes.
33. Take chicken out and check to see if it is done. If it is... it might just fall off of the bones (see picture):
34. Make a simple pan gravy with drippings, flour and water. Blend with the immersion blender. Add the livers if you would like to the gravy for some extra flavor and vitamins.

The cookies are from one of my favorite blogs: Cupcake Rehab


BISCOTTI DI NATALE AL CIOCCOLATO (Chocolate biscotti)

Feel free to go check out her website for the instructions. I followed them about perfectly... but I did double the recipe and add 1 1/2 cups of crushed almonds (omega 3's).

They came out wonderful... but they needed a little something something to make them Mr. Wonderful approved:

Mr. Wonderful loves chocolate pudding and he loves cookies. His favorite kind of cookies are the kinds that can be made into bunnies... Here is Cupcake Rehab's Biscotti as a bunny!

~Emme

Chicken and Cookies Challenge - Week 2

Friday was Christmas! You should know this unless you were living under a rock for the last few months... or well... for awhile at least. So I needed to do something special for Mr. Wonderful this week.

Chicken: Dad Wonderful made an enormous free-range turkey (a chicken like bird) and I could not upstage the turkey with a chicken... because it would then have to be a VERY large chicken... and that would probably not be worth our while.

Cookies: Chocolate Covered Honeycomb from the Candy Addict

I had pictures to send... but apparently when I send pictures from my Droid to my email... if I delete the picture before I check the email it gets lost somewhere in cyberspace... Mr. Wonderful is totally going to have to fix that...

I could not find honey for the honeycomb so I substituted with 100% maple syrup from that farm by my uncle up in Maine. No one complained...

They did not end up looking like the Candy Addict's pictures:









In fact mine resembled turtles more and people compared them to chocolate covered caramels... where did my bubbles go?


~Emme

Chicken and Cookies Challenge

Last week Mr. Wonderful and I took a wonderful journey in slightly-above to slightly below freezing temperatures to Northern Virginia (NOVA) to house sit and tour DC. On Tuesday, December 8, we toured the American History Museum to visit Julia Child's kitchen. Okay... so we were there because we LOVE museums, tours, history... and I have a secret obsession (okay... not so secret) with cooks and crafters I remember seeing on television when I was growing up. Julia Child, Carol Duval, and Martha Stewart... gave me the inspiration and training to do so many wonderful creative things that my family simply lacked the know-how and will power to do. After visiting her kitchen I amazingly talked Bee into renting Julie Julia from a RedBox and Mr. Wonderful into watching it with me! Then he had a challenge for me...

You see, Mr. Wonderful and I have a Friday tradition that started our first Friday night together over two years ago: Chicken and Cookies. Now the chicken could be substitute for chicken. Cookies could be brownies, cakes, or bars. Friday night could fall on a Saturday or Sunday if we were traveling and there was no way we had access to either chicken or cookies. I can only recall a few times when we were traveling overseas and when he was off on a boys weekend.

Now we have a few go-to recipes that we enjoy to no end, but we're ready to try something new. So here is the challenge: 101 different ways to cook chicken and cookies. I am not bound to any book, any genre, any chef. 202 recipes total... 2 new recipes each week... not repeating.

Week One

Chicken:
Crock-pot Taco Chicken
(Given to me by the receptionist at the agency)

4 chicken breasts
1 cup salsa
1/2 cup sour cream
1 package taco seasoning
1 can cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup
*Note: I substituted for low sodium and low fat options for all ingredients where possible

Her Instructions:
Place all ingredients except for sour cream in crock-pot for 6-8 hours and then add sour cream. Serve over tacos, straight up, or on nachos.

What happened:
Place chicken (still frozen because it refused to thaw), salsa, taco seasoning, and soup into crock-pot. (Throw in can of chicken stock because it looks like there is not enough liquid and that makes you nervous...) Cook on low all night (the chicken was frozen remember... and slightly freezer burned). Be amazed the chicken smells good in the morning... though disappointed it looks terrible. Stir, turn on high and go shopping for the next 6 hours. Return home and remove incredible smelling chicken from salsa/soup mixture. Be shocked when the previously frozen, freezer burned chicken flakes apart and is super moist and fabulous looking. Shred chicken and place it back into the crock-pot. Wait until Mr. Wonderful calls and says he is close by (long commute) and add sour cream. Die over how incredible it tastes. Revive yourself and serve family of 8 (4 choose beef option instead) with tacos topped with delicious chicken stuff. Wonder what to call the chicken stuff and how to use leftovers...

Leftover options:

• More tacos
• Nachos
• Straight up
• Sandwiches.... Mr. Wonderful said it is a great faux BBQ and we are all excited to try it.

 Cookies:
Alton Brown's Sugar Cookies (From Food Network website)

I have never made sugar cookies (that I can remember at least) as I cannot really tolerate sugar and they seemed so boring I never really put up the effort. A cookie when removing them from the oven so I tried a bite... meh... I wasn't too impressed. They needed something in the line of flavor... other than: "There's butter, sugar, and flour in me..." and I added some vanilla to it as well...

My grammie said they were bland, though everyone else seemed to enjoy them. After our chicken dinner Papa, Mr. Wonderful and I decorated the cookies here is Mr. Wonderful's present to The Bloggess for sending him a holiday card:

Till next time,
Emme

No Spending Month - Week #4

Sunday 11/8

Papa, Mr. Wonderful and I took a trip to the Dollar Tree to show Papa the new Home Goods section. Also, I had to get dog biscuits as bribes for our friends' dogs as we are taking a trip up to their neck of the woods and I would prefer to have happy chewing dogs than dogs slobbering all over me. :) Though they are some of the greatest dogs out there... I'll be sure to take some pictures.

Monday 11/9

After a rather fruit-less interview (I swear... no fruit of any kind) I went on a journey to check off some things on my to do list.

I was successful in spending less than $15 on a present my mother would love... $14.69 on a kittens and friends calender. She liked the kittens... and their friends.

Picked up the dry cleaning. For some reason my office prefers me to wear clothes.

Picked up a new dog collar. For some reason the city likes it when my dog wears a collar.

Fresh Market for lunch and blogging...

$8.28

Thursday 11/12

I had to order some screen protectors to cover the face of my Droid (birthday present) as they (the Droid makers) did not provide a good enough original cover to last awhile. Used some pumpkin K-cups for my filler:

$6.07 (S/H I would have paid otherwise subtracted)

Saturday 11/14

Walmart: Shampoo and car air fresheners (seriously needed and the cheapest available). Then I bought bananas and liners for the slow cooker.

$4.82

Bojangles for lunch for Papa, Alex and I... it makes all of us equally happy.

$16.93

Total Spent this week: $36.10

That means $12.20 will be sent to debt pay offs.

~Emme