Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts

Cable Guys

Posted by jablocker , Labels: , , , , , , , , , , Thursday, October 13, 2011 6:30 AM

     Now don't get me wrong I love the cable guys.  Obviously I have an addiction to cable internet.  I however do not like seeing them at my neighbors house.  They were there all day fixing something.  No matter how bad I felt for my neighbor having some kind of technical difficulty in their home. I was totally irked when fixing it involved turning off the internet to my house.

     Yesterday I spent numerous hours resetting my router, and unplugging the cable modem.  I even took the time to ask the toddler if he had touched anything in the area of the modem and router.  Lets just say I thought I was loosing my mind, and would need to call the cable company.  Yet another thing I dislike sitting on hold for people to answer my question. Calling when the kids are awake is pointless so I waited.

     There is one point in the day where I get both kids napping at the same time for a few hours. In this short window I prefer to take a little me time I shoot for 30-45 minutes of what I want to do.  My time is usually used to play on the internet or read a book.  Yesterday I spent the entire time working on the internet.

     Then nap time was over, and I realized I did nothing else.  Now I have to begin dinner preps while the kids are both awake.  I was working at the sink when I hear "Mommy look a big truck."  So I meander on over to the window which my toddler is now occupying.  Sure enough there sits the cable truck.  Why did I not look outside all day?  I was certain we were having an equipment malfunction, and I was determined to fix it.  I watched for a while, and they made several trips up and down the poles.  Every time they went up I check my cable modem sure enough it went dead.  Now why did I not notice a dead modem all day?  They only flick it off for about a minute and then they turn it back on.  So all day by the time I would reach the modem after noticing a loss of connection to the computer, and it would be back on.

     To ensure my sanity I wandered down to ask the cable guy how long they had been working here.  The guy told me they had been there most of the day. Conclusion I am not crazy, and the modem and router work just fine.

     Here is to hoping for a cable guy free day.  So in those brief times where both kids are sleeping or occupied I can sneak on the internet.  I know all my mom readers out there appreciate their mom time during nap time.  So here is to nap time!!! The only quiet part of my day.

     I hope everyone's quiet down time goes smoothly today!

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The Wheels Are Spinning!!

Posted by jablocker , Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Thursday, September 29, 2011 7:12 PM

     So busy day around these parts.  Hubby is on duty so no break from the kiddos in sight until some time on Friday.  We made it through are day safely, and with only minor potty train accidents.  That screams victory at our house.  Dinner was left overs because Daddy was on the ship, so no reason for me to cook myself a meal.  The kids still really do not eat enough for me to justify cooking a meal with no other adults at the house.

    Then my friends tells me I should market one of my skills.  She may be right on with that thought.  So my brain is spinning 90 miles an hour with questions.

  1. What would I call my business?
  2. Is that name already taken on the web?
  3. Would people really want to buy that from me?
  4. How would I start it off?
  5. Do I build a client list first, or start on the product?
  6. When is a realistic goal to launch my product?
  7. Will my husband think I am insane?
  8. Will this benefit my family in the long run?
  9. Why did I never think of this my self?
  10. Then just a general AHHHHHH??? As I sit here pondering all of the above.
I am a total "A" personality.  I love to make list, and I have notebooks all over my house.  The good news is with the hubby on duty I can stay up making list about this pending venture, and not feel guilty.  I tend to feel guilty when I don't make some time every night for the hubby.  I think that having spouse time every night is important.  Ecspecially when the military makes sure he has duty every four days.    

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Pesto

Posted by jablocker , Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , Sunday, September 25, 2011 8:11 PM

Garden pickings
     Well here is a picture of all the things that the garden had to offer last night. We had basil, rosemary, savory, tomatoes, jalapenos, and birds eye peppers.  Basil is overly abundant right now but I know it will not be in the coming months.  So I made a batch of pesto to put in the refrigerator for later. First I pulled all the leaves off of the stems.  I let them soak in a sink of cool salt water for about 30 minutes.  This gets all the bugs and dirt off of the leaves.

Freshly washed basil
     After it is done soaking I placed it in a colander, and let it drip dry.  While it was drying I peeled four entire cloves of garlic.  The garlic peeling probably took about 45 minutes. That meant that there was plenty of time for the basil to dry off a bit.

     Now I went about putting all of the garlic in my food processor. I also put in a dash of white wine. Next, I piled basil leaves in to the top, and put the lid on only to add more basil until the shoot was full too.  I turned the food processor on and let it begin breaking everything down.  Once most of the leaves were down into the bowl I commenced adding in the olive oil.  I opened it to scrape the sides down one time, and then blended it for a few more seconds. 
pesto in the ice tray

Now I wanted to save the pesto for a later date so I decided on freezing it.  I did not want to freezer the entire batch together so I divded it in to and ice cube tray.  Most trays will hold about two tablespoonfuls in each section.  This way it will know how much pesto I am grabbing out of the freezer at a time. 

After it was completely frozen I popped the cubes into a ziploc bag, and squeezed the air out. As a note pesto typically has pine nuts in it, bution was out and they are expensive.  I also have a difficult time finding them at the local stores. 

Now if only my tomatoes produced as well as my jalapenos I would be set.  As for right now I have way more peppers than tomatoes.  I will make as much salsa as I can with the tomatoes that I have.  I guess I will have to try making pepper jelly for the first time with all these extra peppers.







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Chocolate covered peanut butter balls!!

Posted by jablocker , Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Saturday, September 24, 2011 10:16 PM



Well we started off this morning making our oatmeal peanut butter balls.  Korvin helped by dumping ingredients in to the mixer for me. I will post the recipe at the bottom do not worry. Then we moved our work station over to the island to start making the balls.



When I turned around to get a sheet of wax paper some one took a taste.  The product was approved before we even got to our experimental chocolate coating.

Sneaking a taste
All mixed up







After we got all the balls made we placed them into the refrigerator so the balls would firm up.  Fast forward several hours, and the boys finally got put down to bed.  At around this point I started preparing the chocolate for melting.  My beautiful white chocolate chips were starting to melt.... Mom moment my oldest comes out to say he needs to potty.  I assign my husband to potty assist because chocolate is tricky stuff some times.  Sure enough there is a parental assist needed because my youngest needs a number 2 change.  (My husband does not do number 2's unless it is a dire emergency.  That however is a totally different post.)

To make a long story short my white chocolate burned to a lovely brown color.  Parenting moment over I start over with the half bag of  milk chocolate that I have left.  It must not be my night because I have trouble getting it to melt smoothly.  I did eventually get it melted, and begin coating my oatmeal PB balls in chocolate.
The chocolate
Note how nice they look with the chocolate pooling around the bottoms.  Now imagine them all neatly sitting on the cookie sheet being transferred to the refrigerator so that the chocolate will cool faster.
MMMM pooling chocolate


Disaster strikes!! That is right folks got them all the way to the refrigerator and dropped the pan.  Chocolate was everywhere.  So I scooped them all up and dumped them onto the cookie sheet.

Disaster zone

They were laid back out neatly and sent to the refrigerator.  They do taste good as samples were in order after I cleaned all the chocolate out of the refrigerator.



Oatmeal Peanut Butter Balls:

3 cups oats
2 cups raw peanut butter
1 cup local honey
3/4 cup flax seed meal
1/2 cup unsalted sunflower seeds
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup craisans

Mix all the ingredients together.  Then roll into cookie size balls. Store in the refrigerator between wax paper sheets in a sealed container.

For the chocolate I just melted down Toll House chocolate chips.




On a fun note I picked a huge load of stuff from our garden so next I will be making some pesto in the near future to freeze up for the winter months.  Look for that soon.







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Cooking experiment

Posted by jablocker , Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 11:33 AM

I love to experiment in my kitchen with everything. I will take a new recipe and twist around to make a new dish. I take my old recipes and twist them around for a new taste. Today I am going to attempt the latter. I am going to take my classic oatmeal peanut butter balls and coat them in white chocolate. I will post the recipe for ever one tonight if it works out to my liking. Really what could go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate. Well I am off to experiment with my two year old in tow. I hope you all have a great day with the weekend blog hops.

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Love conquers all!

Posted by jablocker , Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Thursday, September 22, 2011 9:50 PM


     I fully believe that God, and love for my kids got us to the end of the day.

     We started our morning with diaper leak on my Ken man.  Later Korvin, my potty trainer had a poop disaster. I will simply leave it at the description of muddy foot prints around my kitchen.  We made it past dinner.  Then not 30 minutes after they are tucked in bed both boys fill their pants.


     So after multiple loads of laundry, and general clean up the day is ending.  We all survived, and I did not lose my mind.  I am certain God kept my on the right path today.  The love for my children only made the clean up process a little better.  Korvin dearly loves depositing things in the washing machine which helps too.





















Now off to a little adult time before bed! Going to start fresh in the morning, and see what the day brings.

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And All That Jazz...

Posted by jablocker , Labels: , , , , , , , , , Monday, February 7, 2011 8:09 PM

We went and got our taxes done the other day, and I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of the return.  We will be out of debt completely  by the time we move.  Hopefully we will remain debt free since we will only have one house payment when we move back to our house.

However in preparation for our move all the animals went to the vet today.  Toulouse the cat has a UTI, but no big deal just a few antibiotics.  Maddie on the other hand has two teeth that need to be pulled.  That will be quite expensive I am sure.  So I have scheduled her last trip to the vet in NC for the end of February.

Due to our trip to the vet to pick up all the animals, we returned home about the same time as B.  This resulted in him helping cook dinner which was rather enjoyable.  We made a quick and easy Alfredo sauce that taste pretty much like the stuff from the jar.  Added a little chicken and we were good to go.  As per usual K1 refused to eat poultry.  I will never figure him out.  Chicken nuggets are ok, but no other poultry.


Quick Alfredo

4oz (half block of nuetcehfal also called 1/3 fat cream cheese)
1 can 15oz chicken broth
4 Tbs flour
1/4 Cup Parmesan cheese
1Tbs garlic powder
pepper to taste

This is enough sauce for about a half pound of pasta.  Add all ingredients to a sauce pan and stir continuously until all the cheeses melt.  Continue cooking until the consistency is what you like.  It should reach an Alfredo consistency rather quickly once the cheeses melt.

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Cheesy Rice and Brats

Posted by jablocker , Labels: , , , , , , , Monday, January 31, 2011 9:37 PM

Just wanted to share one of our quick go to meals that I keep handy for emergencies.


Cheesy rice and brats

2 boxes rice a roni naturals Parmesan and Romano
1 pack johnsonville mild Italian bratwurst

First cut the skin off of the brats.  Brown meat until mostly cooked. Then add  rice and follow the rice cooking directions.  It is fast and easy.  I usually serve it with green beans or cheesy broccoli.

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